Page 49 of Feeding Beauty (The Lost Girls #5)

Mated to the Dragon

AURORA

M y lips press to his, burning, blistered, ruined, but I don’t care. I want him to be the last thing I taste. His mouth. His pain. His love. All of it. If I’m going to die, let it be like this—devoured and devouring. Together.

He kisses me back.

Gods, he kisses me back.

Not weak. Not fading.

Fierce. Feral. Like he’s choosing me, even as everything unravels.

Our mouths slide, clash, part—nothing soft, nothing delicate. It’s grief and surrender and love, all crushed between our teeth. His hands tighten at my waist, as if the fire won’t take me if he holds me close enough. Maybe the hunger will stop.

But it doesn’t.

My body is still starving. My skin still smokes. I can feel the last threads of my soul fraying.

And then…

Deep inside, where the curse coils like a second spine, something cracks . A flash. A break. A spark.

His fire flares, bright and wild. Not recoiling from me this time.

Reaching .

The heat that should sear me now recognizes me. It curls around my bones like silk. Slides across my skin like breath. I feel it rise through him—an ancient, unstoppable tide—and instead of burning me away…

…it sears ito me .

Like it’s always belonged there.

Something threads between us. Not magic. Not hunger. Something older. Truer. A tether of fire and soul that latches on and roots .

I gasp into his mouth as the connection coils tight inside me. A low hum starts in my belly, then pulses outward, curling around my spine, my ribs, my throat. I feel his power, wild and molten and endless , not filling me, but fusing with mine. Melding. Matching.

My body’s still begging, but not from emptiness.

From completion .

My curse buckles. Then it breaks.

The hunger implodes in on itself, folding around his fire like a lock finally finding its key. I’m not draining him anymore. I’m holding him. Taking with him.

And gods—it’s too much. It’s perfect.

Talon jerks, a raw cry ripping from his throat as his back arches. Orange light erupts from the fissures across his skin, his power reborn in real time. His Dragon reignites.

And this time…

I don’t burn.

I rise .

I clutch his jaw tighter, tears slipping past my lashes. His scales flare against my arms, but they don’t hurt. They sing . My body hums in sync with his. My magic wraps around him like a second skin.

We are one force.

One breathless, bound thing, stitched together by love and fire and the gods-damned pain of it all.Bare flesh against flesh draws us only closer together.

He blinks at me, his eyes dark and shocked. “Aura?” he whispers.

“I’m still here,” I breathe. “You are too.”

Talon shudders. A sound leaves him—part sob, part growl—as if his very soul is breaking open under the weight of what we’ve become.

Then the light inside him erupts .

His breath catches. His spine arcs beneath my hands. Fire pulses beneath his skin, then pushes outward , blazing brighter with every heartbeat. Magic snarls to life, ancient and untamed, and it no longer fights me. It lifts me.

His eyes snap open, molten gold and wild wonder. “I can feel you,” he rasps, voice barely human. “Everywhere.”

“I know,” I whisper, stunned. “Me too.”

His scales bloom back to life—not in patches, but in a radiant, unstoppable wave. Fissures blaze along his skin like magma veins, lighting up the dusk. The earth seems to tremble beneath him as his body begins to change.

I don’t let go.

For the first time, I don’t have to .

Bones stretch. Wings unfurl. A tail arcs behind him, carving wind. Fire roars through the grass as his true form rises. Not a man, not a monster, a god on wings .

And I’m still touching him . Arms around his neck, cheek pressed to scales that once would have seared me into ash. Now they hum with power—but they are mine to hold .

His Dragon is massive, obsidian and flame, crowned in horn and fury, but none of it frightens me. I see him . My Talon. Lit from within. Alive. Whole. Mine .

He roars once, an echo that cleaves the sky.

We launch.

The world drops away.

Wind lashes my face. Fire curls around his wings. The night swallows us whole as Talon surges upward, higher, faster, free , and I ride him without fear.

My thighs grip him. My fingers curl into his neck. The heat of him sears through my clothes, but not my skin. I feel it all, every beat of his massive heart, every rise and fall of his wings, every gust of air that breaks against my body as we climb past the treetops and into the stars.

We don’t speak.

We burn .

Together.

Bound by something deeper than magic. Fated . Made. Claimed.

And for the first time in our cursed, star-crossed, barely-lived lives…

We fly.