Page 5 of The Dragon Queen (Ember: Queen Of Dragons #6)

I've spent my entire adult life trying to summon my dragon, only to be crushed when the cage of my ribs closes in on her, trapping her within me.

Considering the disappointments of the last few days and hours, a part of me is already bracing myself. My dragon Emerged, but she's been quiet all morning. I'm going to try to shift, and she's going to get stuck--I can feel it.

But Rafe's eyes are glowing gold, the beast within him eclipsing the man. The air crackles with rippling heat, and only part of it is the magic of his inner fire.

The connection between me and my mates is flame and need, burning brighter than the rising sun. All around me, my men are shaking off their humanness. Jianyu's muscles ripple and tense, silver scale manifesting itself from smooth skin. Storm's dragon rifles the air as bright wings burst forth. Malik's lithe, glistening blue dragon takes to the sky.

Rafe holds out his hand.

And I reach inward.

Please--

My dragon soars into my consciousness, and everything goes still.

For a second, my flesh is unyielding. My stomach drops, and I curl my hands into fists, begging the way I've always begged before. Doubts redouble in my mind, my failures tasting like ash on my tongue. I'm not enough, I've never been enough--

Black smoke fills my lungs.

And then everything is erupting at once.

With a roar that rends the air, my dragon explodes from my chest. My self-deprecation dies in the purple rush of searing wind, my dragon incensed and joyful, and as my vision expands, my wings unfurling, all of my human concerns fall away.

In a cloud of deep violet shadow, my ebony dragon takes to the sky. The gleam of my scales is duller than it was on my first flight, the purple streaks in my hide less vibrant, but who am I to question anything?

I'm a motherfucking dragon.

My dragon whoops and howls, flying us in a loop-the-loop through the waking sky. The rainbows in the webbing of my wings shine in the early dawn sunlight, and my mates are there.

I laugh, tears of desperation and relief evaporating as I fly from Rafe's bold, red dragon to Malik's gleaming blue one. Jianyu's silvery wings graze mine, and Storm swoops beneath me, taking me in with an appreciation that glows white hot in our bond.

My dragon heart is bigger than my human body ever was, and still, it feels too full.

"There you are," Rafe speaks into my mind, and the tenor of his dragon voice is so rich and deep, it vibrates through my very center.

Jianyu's wingtips ghost along my tail. "Magnificent."

"Just like I always knew you'd be," Storm beams.

My dragon preens, and oh. This was what I always wanted--not quite the way I ever imagined it, but I'm here, fully Emerged, bonded to Storm.

Teenage me could scream for happiness.

Fully adult me is a bit more sedate, but I'm still over the moon.

Besides--it's not just Storm I'm mated to.

"Come on, beloved," Malik entreats me, his sonorous voice gliding over me like warm silk.

He's off, his dragon swooping down into the valley, and the predator instinct within my dragon mind goes razor sharp. Before I can even think to chase him, we're darting through the air in hot pursuit.

I thought my connections to my mates were intense before, but they thrum through me now, primal in a way I never could have imagined. They don't overwhelm me, though.

They make me stronger.

With Jianyu on my tail, I soar after Malik. Storm flies circles around me--literally, using currents of air and his own magic to give himself bursts of speed that have my dragon salivating. He's a pristine specimen of delicious male dragon, and my insides flare with wanting.

I almost falter in the sky as the idea of letting one of my mates sink their claws into me eclipses my vision. Dragons don't fuck in their shifted form, but it doesn't matter. There's a harsh need pulsing through my blood to be taken, mated, claimed.

My mates feel it with the same red-hot flare of desire that I do, the throbbing wave of desire almost staggering in its intensity. Malik glances at me over his shoulder, and his teeth gleam white.

Dipping over the river, he sends up a rush of cool water with his magic. The spray cools my searing scales, wafts of steam cascading into the air. The refreshing mist brings me back myself--a bit.

I beat my wings against the air and surge forward, faster, feeling my own strength gathering. Muscles I've never used before flex and ripple, and the power is intoxicating.

It's not like it was with the bracer sometimes; the power in my new form doesn't scare me.

Maybe because it's mine.

Just as I'm about to catch up with Malik, Storm swoops over top of me, wrapping me up in a pillow of air. The wind is a soothing balm on my scales, a counterpoint to the way his display of power fans the flames of my desire. I shift course to follow him, sensing the elemental magic within his heart and wanting it for my own.

Jianyu swoops out of the sky before I can reach my mate, though, and I growl, only to be scooped up in his talons. He spreads his wings wide, hurtling us toward the sheer rock of the cliff where we started.

Terror claws at me, for all that I sense the absolute safety of my mate's embrace. My dragon thrills, and dark purple sparks flicker to life behind my jaws.

The stone melts before us, creating a tunnel through the earth. We barrel through the passageway, forced close by the confines of the space he's made, and I don't mind. His heat sears through me, igniting deeper sparks of wanting in the most animal parts of my reptilian brain.

I need to be pinned down by sharp talons, mounted and taken.

I want to sit astride my lovers, wings spread wide as they fill me with their essence. I want them to be a part of me--want to bear their whelps and soar with them over a vast and endless sky--

And where is that even coming from? I've never particular cared if I have children or not; for most of my life, I assumed a family was out of my grasp. I was a reject. Defective. Storm's dirty secret. I could never be the mother to his heirs.

My dragon roars as we burst free from the stone.

She doesn't want to carry anyone's heirs.

She wants to breed heirs of her own.

And that's a whole other minefield I don't have time to explore right now.

The stone tunnel Jianyu carves from the cliffside closes behind us, but Malik is surging toward us anyway. "Are you insane?" he bellows.

"Utterly mad," Jianyu agrees, but he's tangling his tail with mine, our wings brushing, his deep, dark eyes blazing straight into my soul, and my body is ignited.

"He didn't break your little mountain," Rafe growls, swooping in and wrestling me from Jianyu's grip.

I want to protest, but I'm only too delighted to be caught up in a blooming swamp of absolute heat.

"The entire city rests on that mountain," Malik reminds us.

Storm soars around us, his wings barely moving as he shows off his utter mastery of riding and manipulating the currents of air. "And it's still standing."

"Behave," I rebuke them all, slipping from Rafe's fiery grasp to fly back toward Malik.

He wraps me up in the embrace of his sleek, sinuous wings. But there's still concern in his projected voice. "I swore to protect you, your friends--"

"And you have." I send waves of reassurance into our connection. Our gazes meet. He's so close, and the cool radiance of his dragonflesh feels so good.

My dragon's body undulates against his, and his blue eyes flash dark.

In the distance, thunderclouds boom. A fine mist of rain scatters itself across the sky.

The sun crests the far-off mountaintop, and just like that, the entire sky is cast in the most brilliant rainbow. It dances on my scales, reflecting in all directions, and I soak in its heat, its light.

All my mates' displays of magic suddenly come together within me.

And for a moment, I can forget that the Shadow Bracer rejected me.

Because a purple cloud of smoke and lightning bursts into being around me. Its power radiates through me, enfolding Malik into a cocoon of shadows that feel like warmth and protection and love--Gods above, I feel so much love.

"Beloved," Malik gasps.

He's caught in my spell now, and I take him tumbling into a barrel roll.

Jianyu dives to follow us, with Rafe hot on his heels. Storm sweeps forward on a current of air, and I enfold all four of my mates into my web, and how, how, how was I ever afraid of my dragon? Of the shadows that she and I can weave?

We're not some cackling villain like Erembour.

We're brilliant.

We're a queen.

Maybe not the Queen of Shadows, but power thrums through us.

And so does an impossible, unquenchable heat.

Need so sharp it aches burns a line up my center. Desire floods the clouds of shadow surrounding me and my mates, knitting us all together even more deeply than before. Their own male lust reverberates through our connection.

As passion blazes through the five of us, Malik's dragon slips his tail over mine, and Storm sweeps a tendril of sensuous air across my flank. There's grazing contact between my wings and Jianyu's and Rafe's, and I feel solid and molten all at once.

We need to land.

I scan ahead, my keen dragonsight capturing the forest and rock faces and river in detail my human eyes could never have hoped to take in.

And there--just east of the abandoned city--

The overgrown forest gives way to a meadow so pillowy-soft and green I could sink right into its embrace. Pulling my mates along with me, I surge forward.

"Whoa--" Jianyu murmurs, but I'm not slowing, I'm not listening.

I'm tumbling head-long into a mess of desire, fueled by magic and fate and the sheer animal need for contact with my mates.

My dragon grazes the grass with her talons, and I have no idea how to shift back into my human form. I've never done it before--not intentionally or willingly, in any case.

My dragon doesn't fight me for control, though; she wants exactly the same thing I do. Even before she can alight, the scales and wings are retreating, leaving me a mess of oversensitive flesh and splaying limbs.

I fall into the lush, green, dewy coolness of the meadow. Landing on my back, I tear at my clothes. The shirt rips, but it was probably a lost cause, anyway. My breasts strain, swollen and achy and begging to be touched. Between my legs, I'm dripping, the emptiness within me unbearable.

"Ember," Rafe says, human and wild. He hauls his shirt over his head and tosses it with abandon. His fiery hair is a cloud around his head, and his eyes are burning with heat. "You're incredible--"

"You are," I breathe, and then I'm yanking him in.

Our mouths crash together, and I taste fire on his tongue. He groans, grasping my face with one broad hand while undoing his pants with the other. He shoves them down his muscular thighs, his huge cock springing free, and a piercing pang of need zips from my clit to the tips of my breasts.

"Need--" I claw at him and at my clothes, and fuck-- The magic my dragon commanded evaporates into mist, and that's fine-- I knew it would happen.

I don't have time to mourn its loss right now.

While I may not have any powers in my human form, the impossible, glowing power of my bond with my mates is even more sparkling and vivid than ever. I know the shapes of their dragons now; I've tasted their elemental magic in a whole new form. My wings, furled inside my chest, understand what it's like to beat the air alongside theirs, and I love them, I love them, I love them.

Just as much as they love me.

I shudder, the depth of feeling resonating through our connection almost overwhelming in its intensity. Pure emotion crashes over me again and again, their love a force more powerful than dragons or shadows or magic or light.

"Beloved," Malik breathes, naked and molding himself to my spine. He coasts a huge hand down my side, pushing down my pants and underwear and leaving me bare to his and Rafe's touch.

And it's too much--Malik's cool water magic and Rafe's fire. The contrast is delicious, though, and I reach a hand back for Malik while yielding to the utter possession of Rafe's kiss.

There's more still, though, and I open my eyes to find Storm on one side of me and Jianyu on the other.

In Storm's gaze, I see all the hopes and dreams we had together, back our first time around. So many of them just came to life as our dragons took to the sky as one. I want to laugh, but the scrape of Rafe's teeth against the inside of my lip makes everything all too serious.

Nothing about our first flight together was the way we imagined it as teens.

It was better.

Jianyu cups the back of my head, pulling me away from Rafe, who lets me go with a growl. In Jianyu's eyes, I find the same intense longing and desire I've found in all my other mates, but there's something else there, too.

"What?" I ask, my mouth a hair's breadth from him.

"You were magnificent," he vows, and I glow inside.

And yet...

"But?" I ask.

"But nothing." His eyes darken. "Your magic may be hidden. But it's not gone."

And then he kisses me--so hard and deep, I have no breath left for asking questions.

But that doesn't mean that they stop forming in my mind.