Page 25 of Tempest Blazing (The Dragonne Library #3)

Tess

The kitchen in Ciaran's hidden sanctuary felt warmer than it should have, considering the weight of everything we'd just survived.

Mason sat beside me, close enough that our knees brushed under the table. The mate bond hummed between us, steady and reassuring, but I could feel something else underneath it—a coiled tension he was trying to hide.

Kane sat across from us, his usual sharp composure dulled by exhaustion, while Draven lounged in his chair with deceptive casualness. Ciaran moved between the stove and counter, somehow managing to look both domestic and dangerous as he plated what smelled like the best breakfast I'd had in weeks.

"So," Kane said, cutting into his eggs with surgical precision, "the fighting ring is gone. Completely destroyed."

Mason's fork clattered against his plate. Every muscle in his body went rigid, the mate bond suddenly crackling with shock and fury.

"What fighting ring?" His voice was deadly quiet, the kind of calm that preceded violence. "What the hell were you doing at a fighting ring?"

The blood drained from my face so fast I felt dizzy.

In all the chaos, the relief of being safe, I'd forgotten that Mason didn't know the details of what had happened.

More than that—I'd forgotten how those places haunted him.

The scars they'd left on his soul from his own brutal past trapped in the underground circuits.

"Mason, I—"

"Answer me." His dark eyes were blazing now, fixed on Kane with an intensity that made the air feel electric. The temperature in the room seemed to drop as old demons clawed their way to the surface. "Why was my mate anywhere near that place?"

Kane held up a hand, his voice carefully measured. "She didn't go there willingly. She was taken."

The words hit Mason like a physical blow. His grip on my hand tightened almost painfully, the mate bond flooding with a mixture of rage and terror so intense it made me dizzy.

"Taken," he repeated, his voice cracking. "Someone took you there. To fight."

"Hey," I said quickly, turning to face him fully. "Mason, I'm okay. I was captured, but Kane and the others came for me. That's how the ring got destroyed—in the rescue."

I watched him process this, saw the exact moment understanding dawned. The fury shifted, transforming into something deeper. More complex. Relief mixed with residual anger, with the bone-deep fear of what could have happened.

The words hung in the air between us. I watched the last of the tension leave his shoulders as the full picture finally clicked into place.

"Gone," he repeated, voice rough. "Actually gone."

The composure I'd grown so used to cracked. Just for a second, but I saw it. The way his shoulders dropped, the relief so profound it was almost painful.

"Mason." I reached for his other hand, needing the contact after seeing him so shaken, lacing our fingers together. The mate bond flared warm and electric, and I felt the depth of what he was processing.

"Kali's free," he said, voice barely above a whisper. "Really free."

"She's safe," I said firmly, squeezing his hand. "You both are. That's over now."

Ciaran set a plate in front of me, the simple gesture somehow weighted with care. "The building's nothing but ash and rubble. Even the underground levels collapsed. There's nothing left to rebuild."

Kane nodded, but his expression remained troubled. "Which brings us to the bigger question—what comes next? Organizations like that don't just disappear without consequences."

The reminder of Dominick's words hit me like cold water. I'd been so focused on Mason's healing, on the relief of survival, that I'd almost forgotten the larger implications. Almost.

"Actually," I said, my voice coming out smaller than I intended, "there's something else. Something Dominick told me before... before everything went to hell."

All eyes turned to me, and I had to fight the urge to shrink back into my chair. The mate bond pulsed with Mason's steady support, but my throat still felt tight as I forced the words out.

"The fighting ring—it wasn't just about money." I took a shaky breath. "It was a recruitment funnel. Dominick said they were looking for specific types of fighters, people with particular... qualities. And they were feeding information up to someone else. Someone bigger."

The silence that followed was deafening. Kane's fork clattered against his plate as he set it down hard.

"Harbingers," he said, voice flat with certainty. "It has to be. The timing, the targeting..." His blue-violet eyes sharpened with the kind of analytical intensity that made me understand why he was so good at strategy. "They're mobilizing. Building an army."

"An army for what?" Draven asked, though his tone suggested he already suspected the answer.

Kane's gaze found mine across the table. "For her. For what she represents. The first human Dragon Rider—that's not just a novelty. That's a symbol. A threat to their entire worldview."

The weight of it settled over me like a lead blanket. I'd known, intellectually, that being the first human Dragon Rider made me a target. But hearing it laid out so starkly, understanding that an entire organization had been building toward... what? Capturing me? Killing me? Using me?

"So what do we do?" I asked, surprised by how steady my voice sounded. "I can't exactly go into hiding forever. And I won't let fear control my life again."

The determination in my own words surprised me. Yesterday, I'd been broken and afraid, convinced I was powerless. But sitting here, surrounded by people who'd fought for me, who'd literally brought down a building to keep me safe—I felt different. Still scared, but not helpless.

Mason's hand tightened around mine, approval and pride flowing through the bond. "We protect you," he said simply. "Whatever it takes."

"In the meantime," Ciaran said, his voice carrying that dangerous edge I was learning to recognize, "we keep you close. No unnecessary risks."

The protective intensity radiating from all of them should have felt suffocating. A week ago, it would have. But now, after yesterday, it felt like safety. Like home.

The silence that followed was comfortable, weighted with shared resolve. We had a plan, or at least the beginning of one. I was reaching for my coffee when Draven spoke again, his voice carrying a razor-edged calm that made the hair on my arms stand up.

"Well, in that case... maybe it's time we stop pretending we don't know who Ciaran really is."

The temperature in the room seemed to drop ten degrees. Mason's head snapped up, his coffee mug freezing halfway to his lips.

"What the hell are you talking about?" Mason asked, looking between Draven and Kane with growing alarm.

Kane and Draven exchanged a meaningful glance—the kind that said they'd already discussed this.

"You weren't there," Kane said quietly to Mason. "Last night, when we got Tess back... we saw something."

"The dragon shifter," Draven said, his usual smooth composure cracking slightly. "The one from the legends. The only one who ever existed."

Mason's mug hit the counter with a sharp crack. "That's impossible. He's a myth. The Reaper is just a story parents tell—" He stopped, staring at Ciaran with dawning horror. "Holy shit."

"The Reaper," Kane added, his analytical mind clearly racing. "The shadow dragon who could become fae, who disappeared into legend centuries ago."

I felt my stomach drop as understanding dawned. We'd seen him transform. I'd been too overwhelmed to fully process it—that Ciaran hadn't just called a dragon to help us. He was the dragon.

I turned to Ciaran, my heart pounding. He hadn't moved, hadn't flinched. Just stood there watching me with those silver eyes, waiting.

"Is it true?"

For a long moment, he just stood there, shadows seeming to writhe around him even in the bright kitchen light. Then he nodded once, sharp and decisive.

"Long ago," he said, his voice carrying the weight of centuries, "my dragon and I performed a forbidden spell. We became one being instead of two. Veldor and I—we're not bonded. We're the same person."

The implications hit me like a physical blow. A dragon shifter. Not someone who rode dragons or was bonded to one, but someone who was a dragon. The only one in existence.

"The legends say you disappeared," Mason said, still sounding stunned. "That you went mad from the isolation."

Something dark and painful flickered across Ciaran's face. "I didn't go mad. But I did disappear. Had to. The spell we performed—it changed everything. Made me something that didn't fit in either world."

"Until now," Draven said quietly, understanding dawning in his voice. "Until Tess."

Before I could ask what he meant, Ciaran's eyes changed. The silver deepened, became more metallic, more alien. When he spoke again, the voice that came out wasn't quite his—deeper, older, carrying an authority that made my dragon sense sit up and take notice.

"Hello, little rider."

The words didn't just form in my mind—they crashed through it like a tidal wave of ice and starlight.

My breath caught as pressure built behind my temples, not painful but overwhelming, like standing too close to a waterfall.

The air itself seemed to thicken, charged with an electric tension that made my skin prickle and my magic stir restlessly.

This wasn't telepathy like Thalon's warm, familiar presence. This was something ancient and vast pressing against the edges of my consciousness, carefully controlled but so powerful I could taste copper on my tongue.

"I am Veldorionth. Veldor, if you prefer. I have wanted to meet you since the moment you bonded with Thalasiandor."

"Veldor," I whispered, and saw Ciaran's—Veldor's—lips curve in a smile that was both familiar and completely alien.

"You are everything I hoped for, and nothing like I expected. Your dragon chose well."

The presence in my mind was like standing at the edge of an infinite cavern, the darkness so deep it had weight. This was what a dragon felt like when they weren't holding back, when they weren't carefully moderating their power for human sensibilities. Raw. Primal. Older than kingdoms.

"The Harbingers fear you, little rider. And they should. You represent change, evolution, the breaking down of barriers they've spent centuries building. With the Reaper at your side..." A pause, heavy with ancient satisfaction. "They will learn that some prey fights back."

The words hung in the air like a promise—or a threat. The temperature around us seemed to drop another degree, and I could swear I saw shadows moving independently of their sources, responding to Veldor's presence like living things.

Then the presence withdrew abruptly, leaving me gasping as the pressure in my head released. The sudden absence was almost as jarring as the contact had been, like stepping from a thunderstorm into perfect silence.

Ciaran's eyes returned to their normal silver. He blinked slowly, as if coming back from somewhere very far away.

Draven was staring at Ciaran like he was seeing him for the first time. "The Reaper," he said again, shaking his head. "I feel significantly more confident about keeping Tess safe from the Harbingers now."

Kane nodded slowly, his strategic mind clearly recalculating everything. "This changes the entire dynamic. If they know who you are—"

"They don't," Ciaran said firmly. "And we're going to keep it that way, for now. The element of surprise is too valuable to waste."

The mate bond pulsed with Mason's steady presence, grounding me in the moment. Around the table, I could feel the shift in energy—not fear, but a kind of awed determination. We weren't just a group of supernatural beings trying to keep one human safe anymore.

We were something else entirely. Something the Harbingers wouldn't see coming.

And judging by the predatory gleam that still lingered in Ciaran's silver eyes, they were going to learn exactly why some legends were worth fearing.