Page 17 of The Dragon Queen (Ember: Queen Of Dragons #6)

EMBER

The moment I step out of the doctor's makeshift office, all four of my mates, Amy and Rhiannon all rise to their feet as one. I put a hand on my stomach in a futile attempt to quiet the butterflies fluttering around in there.

"Well, it's official."

"You're knocked up," Amy finishes.

I nod, my voice wobbly with nerves and excitement. "Well and truly."

It's too early for a conventional medical test, but magic has its uses, and extremely early result pregnancy tests are apparently one of them.

Really, though, was there any question? My mates scented the change in me; Mariutza felt it with just a look. All of this was a formality.

That doesn't make it any less momentous, of course. Amy squeals, but there's no competing with my mates for first to embrace me.

Storm's closest, and he pulls me into his arms, kissing me wet and warm, and drawing back to gaze at me with glassy eyes. Jianyu is next, and then Malik, and then Rafe is there. His kiss is less warm and more hot, and my insides melt. It doesn't matter that we made love over and over and over all morning--it doesn't matter that their baby is growing inside of me. I still can't get close enough, my inner dragon's hunger for these men a force of nature all its own.

Only after Rafe releases me does Rhiannon clear her throat. "Congratulations."

She's smiling broadly, but my stomach does a little dip at the hint of conflict in her gaze. It's a match for the quiet mix of emotions rattling around inside my chest. Joy, pride.

Fear.

Rafe keeps an arm around me, and I lean into his support.

"Thanks," I tell her. "This was...unexpected, to say the least."

"But welcome," Malik interjects.

"Of course." I thread my hand through his.

"I'm not sure how unexpected," Rhiannon muses, raising a brow.

Right--unlike me, she probably remembered that my reproductive system would come online once I Emerged.

And maybe...

I scrunch up my brows. "Did you know?"

"I suspected." She shrugs.

Chuckling, I shake my head, and embarrassment heats my cheeks. Apparently, everyone in the world knew but me.

I feel clueless. Out of touch, and divorced from my own senses.

I tamp down that shiver of insecurity the best I can, reflexively hiding it behind a joke. "Well, you sure showed it, with all those Shadow Bolts you've been tossing at me during training."

"I'm sure my mom will go a little easier on you now that she knows for sure." Amy nudges Rhiannon with her elbow. "Right?"

Rhiannon's eyes narrow. "Quite to the contrary."

Rafe stands up straighter, and Malik makes a quiet sound of menace.

"Take it from me," Rhiannon says. "I've raised a child in the middle of a war." She darts a pointed gaze at Amy before looking again at me. A knowing half-smile curls her lips, but there's purple fire in her eyes. "And it will only make you stronger."

MAYBE SHE'S right about that, and maybe she's not.

But what sure as hell makes me feel stronger is having my mates by my side.

That afternoon, as Rhiannon's dragon hurls purple bolts of lightning and dark clouds of shadows at us, I still struggle to summon the kind of protection spell that used to be second nature--but I dodge them with a grace I couldn't have imagined the day before. Without my mates, my senses were dulled, an irretrievable part of my attention spread out across the strained limits of our bonds. With them here, my senses come to life.

I feel the beating beneath Rhiannon's wings in Storm's fingertips; feel the heat of danger in Rafe's heart. The flow of magic ripples through my connection to Malik, and every movement reverberates through the solid earth beneath Jianyu's feet.

"Better." High Priestess Fang nods as Jianyu and I hold hands and call forth a thin sheet of stone to block an attack--which by her tough standards is basically gushing praise.

But that bit of magic is nothing compared to what my mate and I could do when I had the Shadow Bracer on my arm. I flick my glance at my wrist, where the pearly but muted gunmetal gray remains static. I've been told multiple times that it contains no magic, but I still expect it to start vibrating with life at any moment. Instead, it stays utterly silent.

So does the ring I've started wearing on the index finger of my other hand.

But that's all right. My mates are here. We're having a child together. I have every reason to fight, and I have more resources and more allies on my side than ever. They continue to stream in, guided here by my mates, bearing old tomes and ancient maps. One of them has to contain the secret to unearthing and unlocking the Crown Of Cinders.

Right?

As much as I try to push aside my anxiety, it continues to rear its ugly head.

And never more so than at the end of our training session.

I'm hot and sweaty and gross and tired--we all are. My mates' exhaustion is particularly heavy. They flew through the night to get to me, and once we were reunited, we sure as hell didn't get any sleep. As much as it stinks to be parted from them, I send them ahead to get cleaned up while I stay to speak with High Priestess Fang and the others. As the Fire Kingdom Enchantress is giving a me a final few pieces of advice, it occurs to me that I've lost track of Rhiannon and Rook, but I don't give it much attention.

Not until I'm on my way back to the castle, walking in human form to give myself some time to think. And I catch Rhiannon's voice coming from just off the path.

I glance around. Amy already left to go meet up with Grace--and yes, there's still a weird vibe between the two of them, but Amy's persevering, acting like if she doesn't acknowledge it again, then maybe it'll magically cease to exist. Fang and the others said they'd be right behind me, but they're trailing by quite a bit. With no one around to notice what I'm up to, I pull off to the side of the path, ducking behind a tree.

And fine, okay, I get it. Eavesdropping is bad.

But so is talking about someone behind their back--right?

"She's not ready," Rhiannon says, more ardently this time, her normally cool composure cracking.

I suck in a breath. I've never heard this level of concern before in her voice.

This fear.

Does this have anything to do with the fact that I'm knocked up? Rhiannon found out, but she promised to keep it to herself. Rook and Fang and the others are all still in the dark.

With my knuckle pressed to my mouth, I strain to listen, my gaze darting around to make sure no one's coming.

"Of course she's not," Rook says, calm and level, and yeah, that's fine--not a knife to my heart or anything.

Because I get it. I'm not ready. But hearing it from the people who've been helping me prepare?

It's gutting.

"We can't let her face him."

"Do you see any other option?" Rook says it with an openness I wouldn't have expected, considering how dire his warnings about the Shadow King have been. He'd honestly love to hear another viable plan.

"No," Rhiannon admits.

"Then if we tell her she can't face him, we're admitting defeat. Erembour will steal the magic from all of dragonkind, he'll marry Aria, and he'll conquer our entire world, while we sit idly by and watch."

"Obviously, I don't want that--"

"Then we fight. She fights. She's earned that right."

"But..." Rhiannon's voice wavers, and I bite down on the inside of my cheek. Is she going to tell him our news?

Rook waits her out, giving her a moment to gather her thoughts.

Finally, she sniffles and continues, wetly, "She's so young--younger than Amethyst, even. She has those hopelessly devoted mates and her whole life ahead of her and-- It's not fair."

Something inside of me unclenches. She'll keep my confidence, for now.

"None of this is," Rook tells her, and there's a tenderness to the way he's speaking that has my brows knitting together.

"I thought we ended it, with the last war. I left everyone behind to save my children, and now we're sending children into the fray to clean up the mess we left--"

"A mess I helped make." Rook's tone burns with regret.

Rhiannon barks out a quiet laugh. "As if I could forget that."

"We're doing what we can, now," Rook assures her. They're speaking more and more quietly--more intimately. "They're their own people. They'll fight their own war. All we can do is prepare them the best you can."

"I hate it when you make sense," she says, but the warmth in her voice makes it sound like she doesn't hate it that much at all.

Everything goes silent, and I dare to peek around the edge of the tree.

What I see rocks me.

They're kissing, Rook's arms around her, and her hands clutching at his broad shoulders, and holy shit.

How long has this been going on? How did I not know?

My eyes inexplicably sting. Rook is one of the only family members I have left, and from so early on, Rhiannon made me feel like I was a part of her brood. As much as they seemed to hate each other when Rook first arrived, this feels...right.

And I really, really don't want to get caught watching them make out.

I hightail it out of there basically as fast as I can go. My mind spins, careening between excited shock over Rhiannon and Rook's relationship and absolute despair about the doubts they've just confided to each other. The urgency of the coming fight tightens my chest, and my dragon claws at the insides of my ribs.

And it suddenly occurs to me--there's no reason not to let her out.

The shift comes naturally enough to me by now. I open my chest, and a rain of scales and shadow and smoke pour out. My bones crack and pop, my flesh giving way, and I beat my arms against the sky, launching myself upward.

As I leave the ground behind, I leave my human concerns with it.

My dragon vision is razor sharp. All my focus narrows to the brilliant sky and the rush of the wind, the heat of the sun and the roaring river and the vibration of the stone far below.

All I feel is a possessive, ferocious, hungry love for my mates.

A fierce, snarling need to protect our whelp.

And fury at the dark specters on the horizon of our future.

I can't literally see the Shadow Kingdom from here--not by a long shot. But it's there, somewhere in the far-off distance. I can feel it like a looming shadow, tunneling through the earth and darkening the air. Poisoning the waters and sending a chill cascading though the fabric of magic itself.

Black flames ignite in my gut.

They fuel me, and I soar higher before plunging over the valley, skimming my talons along the surface of the river. Rocketing upward once more, I fly and fly, trying to exorcise the rage from my system, but it only grows.

Allowing my beast to take over may have quieted my anxiety, but the violence in my dragon veins is almost too much.

Almost.

Something starts to glow within me.

Violet shadows gather in the space between my claws. Dark smoke blooms, crackling with lightning. The black waves of shadow magic want to consume my heart, but the fear I once felt for my own nature is gone.

I embrace it--just like Rook has kept telling me to, just like I did in the moments before the Shadow Bracer rejected me.

I pull those shadows into my own core, my anger about the unfairness of the situation, my terror for my unborn child, my rage at Erembour and at myself--my grief at my own inadequacy...

It all boils over, and I shudder.

But the darkness doesn't consume me.

The violet hum radiating from my talons stutters.

And there's a crackle of energy. A breath and a light.

I falter, but I'm not falling from the sky. I twist mid-flight, my dragon eyes catching on a brilliance gleaming off my scales.

But then it's gone.

In its place is Water, Fire, Stone, Air. My connections to my mates pull tightly, gleaming with light.

"Hello, gorgeous," a rich, deep dragon voice speaks into my mind.

Whatever the hell had been happening to me a moment earlier disappears from my consciousness, eclipsed by the power of my mates' presence. Malik's dragon flies up right alongside mine, our wings brushing and sending a shiver of electric warmth racing along my serpentine spine.

"You okay?" Storm asks from my other side.

I mentally shake my head to clear it. "Fine."

And there was something happening--something going on--

But I've lost it.

More importantly, I don't care. Not when Jianyu's dragon is soaring just above mine, and Rafe's gliding beneath me. As my mates' powerful, sleek dragons surround mine, a crackle of desire racks my entire frame.

But the heat we let grow to an inferno the last time we all flew together doesn't build in the same way. It smolders gently, my mates' energy more warm than hot.

"What's up?" I ask, my dragon's gaze darting among the four of them.

"Nothing," Malik says, but his aura of tension tells me otherwise. "Just had something I wanted to show you."

Well, that has my curiosity piqued.

"So if you're done fluttering around up here..." Rafe intones.

I glance from one mate to the next again and flap my wings in the dragon equivalent of a shrug. I nod toward Malik. "Lead the way."