by Chant, Zoe
And then, his breath hot against her skin, Damon groaned her name. His powerful body tensed as his hips came forward two, three times, the hot rush of his release filling her.
Heat streamed through Autumn like a shower of golden light.
Through the bond, she could feel his pleasure as keenly as her own. And then her own climax broke over her with all the strength of a storm. Dimly, she could hear herself crying out his name, her clit pulsing again and again as she trembled.
The pleasure was incredible. She was carried away by it like a boat in a storm, the light of Damon’s love filling her until nothing else seemed to exist.
And then, little by little, she came back to herself. Damon had rolled off her and drawn her tightly into his arms. She could feel his breath hot against her lips, and when she opened her eyes, she could see him smile.
At her wrists, the new bracelets were still warm, as if a small part of Damon’s essence filled them.
She ran a curious finger over one, tracing the swirls of gold.
“I still want to decorate you with all of my treasures,” he murmured, “but you’re right. You’re all I need. My most precious treasure.”
She felt her smile widening. “So we’re mated now?”
Damon nodded. “Forever,” he said earnestly.
Then he leaned forward to kiss her until she sighed against his lips, utterly exhausted and content.
Maybe getting hunted by fire dragons wasn’t the adventure she’d been hoping for when she’d booked that trip to Iceland. But right now, she’d gladly go through it all again a hundred times if it meant that she’d get to wake up next to this sexy shifter in her bed every single day for the rest of her life.
Chapter Twenty-two: Damon
They slept in the next day. When they woke up, Damon was confused for a moment to be woken by brilliant sunlight and a view of a fluffy carpet of clouds spreading below him.
A moment later, he remembered what had happened during the past night. With a grin, he reached out with the new-found powers now pulsing gently within him, easily contained by the golden chain of the mate bond.
All it took was a gentle nudge to make the protrusion of rock that had destroyed the mirror melt back into the wall. He shifted the large crystals he’d grown out of the floor a little, so that they were out of the way.
And the huge window with the panoramic view of the clouds below he left just as it was, together with the flowering vines that covered the entire wall.
Let the chimera deal with it if he didn’t like Damon’s redecorating.
By the time they’d showered and dressed and made their way into the small kitchen, Ginny was already awake, preparing breakfast.
She beamed when she saw them, her eyes lighting up when she realized what had happened. Damon smiled proudly.
“Congratulations,” Ginny said softly.
Autumn rushed forward to hug her.
A little later, they sat down with bacon and pancakes and a huge pot of coffee. Half an hour passed while Autumn and Ginny traded stories of what had happened to the other while Ginny’d been racing through tunnels to find help and Autumn had hidden in their prisoner’s bedroom.
“He’s really not all that bad,” Autumn said firmly. “Can you believe he doesn’t even know that we’ve gone to the moon? Hey, if you’ve got shifter carpenters who hooked you up with a kitchen in these caves, surely there’ll be a werewolf engineer or something who can get you satellite internet on the mountain?”
Ginny smiled. “That’s the one thing I miss since working here. Catching up with my shows. But I was planning to go back to Mountain View next month. I’m just covering for the chimera’s caretaker while she’s off admiring her first grandkid.”
“Hmm.” Autumn made a thoughtful sound. “If not for you, then for the fire dragon. I know you guys need to know what he knows. But I’ve seen him. He’d rather die than be a traitor.”
“And you really think getting him Netflix is the solution?” Damon demanded.
Autumn grinned. “He’s already feeling guilty about the danger he’s put me in. That’s because now he knows me. It’s much harder to hate someone you know. He knows absolutely nothing about humans. So let him learn about us.”
“That could backfire,” Damon said and laughed. “What if he gets into sci-fi and starts believing that he needs to conquer space next?”
“Oh, come on,” Autumn said with mock sternness. “He’s naive, but not stupid. And so would you be, if you’d grown up locked away in some cave. I’m just saying that you need his help, and you haven’t gotten it so far. Why not try my approach?”
“The chimera’s very suspicious of technology,” Ginny said. “No one knows how old he is—but he’s far older than electricity.”
“I guess he’ll have to learn as well then,” Autumn said firmly. “Everyone wins.”
Just then, Damon felt the niggling sensation of other dragon shifters arriving. The dragon of the water and the storm had finally made it back from Iceland—and they’d conveniently missed all of the action.
Damon smirked. The dragon of water wouldn’t like that.
Just as he’d expected, the chimera sent a mental summons a moment later. Through the bond, Autumn felt it too and gave him a questioning look.
Meanwhile, Ginny jumped up guiltily. “I almost forgot about Braeden’s breakfast,” she said, quickly preparing a tray for him when Damon and Autumn rose at last.
They left her behind in the kitchen as they climbed back up through the narrow tunnels meant only for humans—or the rare human-sized shifter that received an invitation to appear at the council of elements.
As they walked towards the chamber of the council, Damon reached out with his powers, testing the stone around them. Whenever he found a weakness left by dragon fire, he quickly repaired it, the rock singing to his dragon louder and more joyfully than ever before.
And this time, the immense power concentrated in his body didn’t give him a headache, or burst out of him uncontrollably. The mate bond glowed with steady heat in his heart. His element was calm, its energy at his command whenever he needed it.
“Welcome, dragon of the earth. And welcome, Autumn Drago, lady of the earth,” the chimera boomed from the shadows.
The symbols on the plinths were glowing—water, air, earth, and fire—but the dragon of water and air were in their human form, joined by Jared, the griffin shifter. They looked rather calm for a trio of shifters who had just hurried back across an ocean. The chimera must have filled them in about the past night’s attack while he and Autumn had been talking to Ginny.
When Damon and Autumn approached, Gregory and Jared grinned at him in obvious delight at seeing him mated at last.
Even the dragon of water managed a smile and a respectful bow to Damon’s new mate.
“Congratulations,” Timothy said. His eyes shone blue like the ocean for a moment as he looked at them, and then his smile intensified. “She’s better than you deserve, but I’m glad for you two nevertheless.”
“There’ll be a ceremony back home, I hope,” Jared added with a grin. “Dragon Springs knows how to party, from what I’ve heard.”
“You're all invited, of course,” Damon said, proudly wrapping his arm around Autumn. “Although first I’ll probably have to make sure that there aren’t any further cake-related fights breaking out at home.”
“Two cakes.” Autumn giggled at his surprised look. “Seriously, with so many people, we’ll need a lot of cake anyway. Just ask both the foxes and the bears to help out with a cake.”
Damon opened his mouth to protest, thinking of the latest quarreling—and then he snapped it shut again. “You know what, that might just work. If I explicitly ask both of them for their help together, they’ll try extra hard because they’ll assume I think they can’t do it.”
“And given what I know about you shifter clans and your honor, neither will want to lose,” Autumn said with a grin.
“It might just
work.” Damon laughed, then turned back to the other shifters. “You’ve heard it. In one month’s time, we’ll have a ceremony that Dragon Springs hasn’t seen since my parents found each other.”
“Congratulations,” the chimera boomed, sounding a little impatient. “Now back to more important things.”
Damon looked at Autumn, who returned his grin, quite obviously no longer intimidated by the gruff monster in the shadows at all.
Nothing’s more important, she mouthed silently.
He sent his answering laughter through the mate bond.
“You’ve already seen this worrying development,” the chimera growled from the darkness.
Chastened, all eyes turned to the new plinth with the glowing symbol of fire.
“I’ve thought about it and consulted my books. It can mean only one thing: that for the first time in a thousand years, a fire dragon has gained mastery over the element of fire itself.”
“Impossible,” the dragon of water called out angrily. “They’ve attacked us! There’ll never be a fire dragon on the council.”
“There won’t be,” the chimera grumbled from the darkness. “Let’s take this plinth as a warning sign. They’re rapidly gaining in power. And somewhere among them, a powerful enemy is hiding. It’s that dragon we need to defeat, before they cause further destruction.”
“We’ve searched Iceland—at least until we heard about the attack here,” the dragon of air said. “We found no trace of them. They’re back in hiding. This is taking too long. We need to get that information out of our captive dragon somehow.”
“Yes,” the dragon of water agreed. He took a step forward, towards the shadows hiding the chimera. “Let me get in there with him for an hour or two. I’ll get him to talk.”
“No,” the chimera boomed. “I’ve got a different task for you. Timothy, dragon of the water, I hereby command you to find a mate as quickly as possible.”
“What?” The water dragon’s shocked exclamation echoed through the cave.
Next to Damon, Autumn giggled.
Damon gave the storm dragon a knowing look, who grinned back at him.
“That’s stupid,” the water dragon said heatedly. “What does that have to do with anything? Fire dragons are planning to take over the world, and you—”
“I will not be called stupid by my own council,” the chimera roared.
Timothy obediently fell silent, although Damon could feel the waves of annoyance rolling off him.
“It is decided. There will be no argument. Two out of the three dragons of the elements are mated. Two alpha dragons who have come into their full power out of the three of you. To deal with this new threat, Timothy will need to find a mate as well. Then, at last, we’ll have a council more powerful than we’ve seen in hundreds of years.”
“Damn,” Timothy muttered under his breath, although he’d stopped arguing. “Guess I better start speed-dating then, huh? After all, everybody knows how easy it is to find your one true mate out of the hundreds of dragons scattered all over the world.”
“A human mate,” the chimera growled from the darkness. There was a hint of smug satisfaction in it. “It’ll have to be a human mate. Things are changing, my council. Two of you have found human mates; the third will have to do so as well. That is what fate has decreed. That is how you will find the power to find and eliminate this new threat.”
With his last sentence still echoing through the cave, the shadows thickened. The final look they got of the chimera was one last glimpse of a writhing serpent’s tail throwing a shadow against the wall.
Then there was only darkness where before, shifting shadows had been.
Together, they all turned towards the eerie light of the fourth plinth, where the symbol of a flame still burned in bright defiance, as if to mock them.
“Well, shit,” the dragon of water finally said, breaking the silence. “Any of your human mates have a single sister?”
Epilogue: Autumn
Dragon Springs had eagerly embraced the opportunity to show off for the alpha ceremony, which was celebrating both Damon coming into his full power, and his and Autumn’s mating.
Autumn was wearing a gorgeous white gown studded all over with tiny diamonds arranged in the shape of swirling vines and flowers. It hugged her chest tightly, showing off her ample cleavage, then widening at the waist to gently flow over her curves with layer after layer of chiffon and silk. Whenever she turned, the skirt swirled around her. She looked like a princess—and moreover, the diamonds on the dress satisfied Damon’s inner dragon, who’d been aching to drape her in approximately forty pounds of gems and pearls.
Instead, the only jewelry she wore were the golden bracelets Damon had created for her at their mating, together with gorgeous studs of diamonds in the shape of flowers in her ears and a tiara in her hair. They’d belonged to Damon’s great-great-grandmother, who’d worn them at her own wedding—to a Spanish dragon who’d been a duke, or so Damon claimed.
It had been somewhat terrifying at first, reminding her painfully that she hadn’t been able to afford anything but the payments on her car for most of her adult life. Despite the gorgeous dress, she couldn’t be more unlike a princess if she tried.
But then she’d taken her first step out into the town’s square by Damon’s side, and all of her fears had fallen away.
Everyone had come. Tilly hadn’t been able to leave the farm during the busy season, but they’d promised her to stop by on their honeymoon.
The entire town of Dragon Springs had gathered, cheering and whooping and waving. And so many of them had become friends by now that it truly felt as if Autumn had at last arrived home.
There was the crocodile doctor, her stern face now lit up with a rare smile, although her eyes had lost none of their shrewd sharpness.
And Autumn’s mom had immediately befriended the older woman as soon as she’d arrived. Now, they were standing side by side as they watched the proceedings.
Next to them the entire clan of bears had gathered, the men shifting uncomfortably in their good suits. All the foxes were out as well—and for once, all competitiveness seemed to have been put aside.
Four of the tiny fox kits were riding on the shoulders of the largest bear shifter for a better view. And the huge banquet table was set with not two cakes, but a single, seven-tiered cake that would be more than enough for all of their guests.
Next to the cake, fox shifter and bear matriarch stood together, beaming in satisfaction as people oohed and aahed at their work. All the layers were covered with white frosting, and decorated with flowers and tiny animals made of sugar, representing every species of shifter living in the town.
“Congratulations once more, my friend,” the sheriff said when they stopped to shake his hand. “And to your mate. The town couldn’t be happier for both of you.”
Next to him, the giraffe shifter stood, who ran the local flower shop. She’d shifted for the occasion, still nudging some of the flower arrangements that hung above the square with her head. A handful of tiny birds were roosting on her back, chirping in congratulation as well.
And then, at last, they’d made it to the center of the square—where a new surprise was waiting for them.
Both the dragon of water and the dragon of air had come. Even griffin shifter Jared stood by their side, all three impeccably dressed. Gregory, the dragon of the storm, had brought his mate. She was wearing a gorgeous dress of lavender silk that curved over her pregnant belly, wearing a diamond at her throat that seemed to shift between colors in the light of the sun.
But most shocking was that there, next to the water dragon, Braeden stood.
At Autumn’s gasp of surprise, the fire dragon gave her a small smile. “I don’t know why, but they’ve let me out for the occasion.”
One of the otter children booed. In response, Braeden shrugged and lifted his hands to show them to Autumn.
Bands of a heavy, strange metal encircled his wrists. It looked like no met
al she’d ever seen, so dark it seemed to swallow the light.
“Dragonsbane and obsidian to stifle my powers. I’m impressed at how dangerous they think I am.”
Autumn hesitated a moment. Then, determined, she moved forward and hugged him. After a moment, he hugged her back, and the crowd gasped in shock.
Fire dragon or not, he’d tried to save her life, back when the other dragons had attacked the cave. Without him holding them off while she hid in the bedroom, they might have killed her before Damon made it back to them.
“Hey,” Timothy said to her right. “I’m the one who deserves all the hugs here. Not only does the old monster want me to find a mate as quickly as possible, I’ve also been forced to babysit our fire dragon for this outing.”
Braeden gave the water dragon an unimpressed look. “Don’t pretend I’m the one making your life difficult. After spending the morning with you, I'm not surprised you have trouble finding a mate.”
“Hey now,” the water dragon protested, “I’ll have you know that for the past ten years, I’ve won Most Eligible Council Bachelor every year.”
Braeden frowned, then suspiciously turned to Damon. “Is that a thing?” he asked.
“No,” Damon said, then laughed. “But if it were, I have no doubt he would’ve won.”
Timothy gave the fire dragon a victorious smirk.
“Of course,” Damon added, “flirting with every single model on a cruise is no guarantee at all that you’ll find a mate.”
“In fact,” Gregory added dryly, “I’d say it’s a pretty good guarantee you won’t.”
Timothy crossed his arms in front of his chest. “I’ll have you know that I’m a World Championship Finalist flirter. A First Degree Charmer. A—”
Autumn laughed. “It’s not about flirting,” she said, even though she had to admit he was charming. He was just too charming. “It’s about love. And commitment.”
“Ugh. My one weakness.” Timothy grimaced. “Okay, I’ll admit it. I haven’t found a mate since the chimera told me to. But not for lack of trying. Anyway, I’ve got a genius plan. After the ceremony, I’ll fly to LA and spend my nights partying my way through every single club there. Bulletproof plan. She’ll fall for me the instant she’ll see me, and then we’re done with this thing and can finally move on.”