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Chapter Eight

T he excitement in the huge hall was infectious. Erika stood near the front of the Queen’s dais, as giddy with the mood as the rest of them. She stared around, marveling at all the beautiful figures that filled up the tiers that surrounded them.

“Geva, I had no idea there were so many of you!”

Her lover wrapped his arms around her waist and brushed his lips against her ear. “We are all here, thanks to you and your friends. I will spend the rest of my life thanking you for your sacrifice.”

She snorted out a laugh. “Sacrifice? With that tongue of yours, I promise, the pleasure was all mine.”

The other members of her team had gathered around, standing before the dais that held the throne. Waiting.

“What do you think is taking them so long?” Hallie whispered.

“I bet they fell in love like I did,” Camille said, eyes twinkling.

Erika eyed the pretty blonde where she stood flanked by the two beautiful men who couldn’t take their hands off her.

Even now, Eben was stroking her back and Roka held her hand, pulling it up to his lips and kissing it periodically.

All the dragons had foregone their preferred nudity in favor of garments in every color.

Erika admired the man at her side. How sexy would he look in modern clothes, if he cleaned up this nice?

What he wore now mimicked her own attire of loose-fitting shirt and drawstring linen pants—the cleanest things she had packed for the expedition.

Geva had admitted that he could clothe her with his magic, but refused to because he’d rather keep her naked.

Kris and Issa stood off to the side, sharing private whispers. Erika nudged Geva in the ribs with her elbow. “Use your fancy mental skills to ask what’s taking them so long.”

Geva let out a long-suffering sigh that would normally have provoked her to dig deeper into a man’s ribs, but the smile on his face let Erika know he enjoyed it. He grew quiet for a moment.

“Kris says they’re on their way. And … No, I shouldn’t say.”

“The hell you say. Tell me!”

Geva grinned. “And he says the Queen sounds very happy and satisfied. Your friend Corey performed wonders, it sounds like.”

Erika was on the verge of retorting when the doors behind the dais opened, and the pair emerged.

Corey looked tired but radiantly happy …

happier than she’d ever seen the broody tech.

On his arm was the loveliest woman Erika had ever seen.

Erika gaped for a second before realizing that everyone around her had fallen to their knees and bowed their heads.

Holy shit! Right. I’m in the presence of royalty.

“What the hell?” Corey whispered, the words just barely audible to Erika’s ears when they all knelt.

“Everyone, please stand.”

The Queen’s voice was strong and light and carried audibly through the room. Erika liked her already.

When all were standing again, the Queen introduced herself.

“I am Rachasara, your Queen, whom most of you already know. This is Corey.” She paused to grasp Corey’s hand and gaze up at him admiringly. Erika raised an eyebrow. The man did have skills if he’d made her that happy.

The Queen continued. “He tells me the changes between our birth time and this time are very drastic. Our transition may take more time than past generations experienced, but our awakening decree remains unchanged.”

Erika heard murmurs of surprise and excitement and turned to look behind her.

The Queen continued talking, but Erika was too fascinated—and possibly too exhausted—to focus on her words, instead becoming distracted by the activity of the other dragons.

Corey had his camera on, at least, though she expected none of their footage from the last twenty-four hours would ever be viewed by the public eye.

Geva clutched her hip, urging her attention back to the front.

The Queen stood before her, arms outstretched. Corey was behind her, rubbing his neck in embarrassment.

“She wanted to meet you first,” he said apologetically.

“Of course!” Erika grasped the outstretched hands affectionately. The woman had startling, slanted green eyes and a sweet, heart-shaped face.

“Corey says you are the one to thank for the awakening. I am eternally grateful to you.” The Queen cast a sidelong look at Geva, who had seemed to recede a bit behind Erika. “Any favor you ask, I will be happy to fulfill. Even for him.”

“Um, thank you so much, Your Highness. I hope we can talk a bit less … formally soon. I have a lot to ask you.”

The Queen smiled. “Call me Racha, and I would very much like to talk.” She gave Erika’s hands another squeeze with her tiny, delicate fingers before moving on to speak affectionately to Kris.

“What the hell was that about?” she asked Geva who had moved back to her side.

“I told you I was a bad boy. She only knows me by reputation, so I didn’t take it personally.”

“Well, good to know she’s forgiven you, I guess.”

Geva shrugged, the overtly careless, nonchalant gesture more of an indication of his self-consciousness in the presence of his liege than any words could be.

“You feel bad about what you did, don’t you?” Erika asked.

“Yes,” he said, meeting her eyes squarely. “I would give anything to redeem myself. I don’t feel worthy of you with that hanging on my past.”

“Jesus, you fool. That was centuries ago! I don’t care! And I get the feeling she’s giving you a clean slate too. So take advantage of it. Be better. Or just be very, very bad with me and me alone.” She flashed him a wicked grin, enjoying the growl and hungry kiss she received in return.

His erection was pure and present against her hip, but Erika got the sense that right here and now, amid the entire congregation, as it were, was not the place for them to indulge themselves.

And the truth was, she very much looked forward to having Geva in her own domain for a change.

Maybe tied to her bed in her apartment in Boston.

She wondered how well her old bed could withstand the weight of a dragon.

Or maybe she’d open up her family’s estate again to give them more room and sturdier furnishings.

Her pulse picked up thinking about revisiting the place where she’d grown up. Particularly her father’s study, where she had first found the glimmer of a clue that a race like Geva’s might even exist, or the bedroom where she’d had her first dreams of the man who now stood by her side.

It was done, she realized. The last twenty-four hours had been a whirlwind.

Had it really only been that long? Her watch, which she’d recovered from the pile of clothing in the first chamber when she dressed, told her that it was barely even dawn, and they’d arrived just after sunrise the day before.

Now there was a multitude of very much living and breathing dragons milling around the room. The excitement was infectious.

“What happens now?” she asked Geva, but he’d left her side again. She looked around and found him and the other Court dragons standing in the center of the room.

The eight beautiful figures joined hands in a circle and raised their arms above their heads. The air above them began to shimmer. All heads in the room tilted back to observe.

Erika felt hands grip her own from either side, but her companions remained silent, as awed as she was at what was transpiring.

Before their eyes, the huge, round dome of the ceiling glowed orange as though with the breaking dawn. Waves of light hit it from beneath.

In unison, the eight figures walked backward, drawing the circle of light wider and wider until it encompassed the entire ceiling.

Then they began to shift. Their clothing disappeared and their bodies grew.

Colored scales replaced human skin. Horns coiled from graceful, elongated heads.

Thick tails extended from the ends of their spines.

A moment later, eight horned heads craned up, breaths swirling together in a twisting cyclone of colorful fog.

Erika’s skin tingled, whether from the crackling magic in the air or simple exhilaration, she couldn’t be sure.

Either way, it was a spectacular sight, particularly seeing Geva’s breathtaking true shape at full size.

The column of variegated smoke reached the dome and exploded in a burst of light.

When the spots receded from Erika’s vision, the view above was of a clear morning sunrise, wisps of clouds still tinged pink but beginning to glow brighter each second.

The entire hall erupted in a flurry of roars and beating wings as the dragons that filled it shifted and ascended. Free for the first time in centuries.

Erika’s hands were numb from Hallie’s and Camille’s tight grips, her vision blurry from the tears that streamed down her face.

“Beautiful,” someone murmured, and she was dimly aware it was her own voice.

The others moved away while Erika still gazed up, enraptured at the sight of all those majestic creatures taking flight.

“It is time, my love,” a deep, resonant voice said.

A gust of warm breath against her neck brought her back to the present. Geva’s massive, horned head took up her entire field of vision. He cocked sideways to gaze at her through one eye.

“Time for what?”

“Time to fly. Climb on.”

Fate. It had never meant anything to Erika even though it had drawn her to this expedition from the very beginning.

That first day in her father’s study, finding his sketches of the creatures he was sure existed but none of his colleagues would believe in.

Then the recurring dreams she’d had over the years that followed.

It all made sense now. This was where she belonged.