by Selena Scott
Solar turned around slowly and the momentary grave look lining the Oracle’s face had his blood turning to ice. The Oracle was never serious.
But the look fell away as the Oracle cocked his head to one side and leaned back in his chair like a man on vacation. “I said we use Zara to lure Dalyer out of hiding. Look, she hit fertility about a week early. We still have a few days until her actual 21st. And she was always Dalyer’s favorite wife. I saw it with my own eyes while I was living at the castle with them.”
“You think he’ll leave hiding with the hopes of finding her and claiming her,” Solar’s voice dropped the temperature of the jungle about twenty degrees.
“Well,” Javi interjected, scratching his beard in a way that told Solar he was actually considering this ludicrous idea. “Dalyer doesn’t know she’s hit her season yet. Or that she’s been claimed.”
The Oracle put one finger in his mouth and snapped it out of his cheek. “Popped like a champagne cork.”
“Jesus Christ, O!” Javi exclaimed, glancing at Solar.
But it was a testament to how concerned this plan made him that Solar didn’t even comment on the Oracle’s absurdities. He turned to his comrades.
“And how close to Dalyer would we have to dangle my mate in order for this plan to work? How long would she be out in the breeze? Waiting to be snatched up by the most evil, most disgusting, vindictive son of a bitch to ever walk the dragon realm?” His voice was finally rising.
“The details of the plan haven’t been worked out yet,” the Oracle waved his hand through the air. “Mostly I was concentrating on getting you to agree to it first.”
Solar paced across the small room, filled a tin cup with water, contemplated sipping at it, but set it down untouched. He refused to let his hand shake. Mind over matter.
“If we did this, O, what would happen to her? Tell me.”
The Oracle’s brow furrowed as he studied his friend. “You know I can’t tell you that, brother.”
“Can’t or won’t?” Solar’s voice was rising again. “What’s the fucking use of having a fucking oracle around if he won’t ever tell you the fucking future?”
Javi leaned back in his chair, out of the line of fire. He’d been down this road himself, when his wife died. And he’d come up against the same unfulfilling answers. He knew that all Solar could do right now was rage until he made peace with it.
“Of course the answer is both can’t and won’t. No prophecy has come to me regarding what might happen with Zara if we do this plan. Probably because of the sheer quantities of mights and ifs.”
“Then close your eyes, do your voodoo thing, and find the fucking prophecy!” Solar raked his hand painfully through his hair. He was losing his grip on the moment. On himself.
The Oracle’s eyes went soft, kind, and utterly annoying. “Solar, you know better than most the dangers of soliciting a prophecy.”
Solar picked up the cup of water and flung it to the side. Of course he did. He was still grappling with what he’d learned in his own fucking prophecy. He knew that. He would never want to burden Zara with a prophecy about her own life. It was hell knowing what was going to happen to you. It made your life into a cage. A one-way road. It trapped you into being a puppet in your own play. He’d never ask that of Zara. Or the Oracle.
“Solar,” Javi said, his voice low and calm. “The reason you’re already so upset about this is because you’ve accepted the logic of it. The fact that it really might be the only way.”
A strangled noise of frustration ripped its way out of Solar’s throat. “I can’t ask her to offer herself up like this without knowing I can protect her.”
Javi and the Oracle exchanged weighted glances. Neither of them liked seeing their leader and friend like this. Solar was rarely unhinged or out of control.
When O spoke, his voice was carefully monotone. The burden of his gift was, and always had been, to tell people what they didn’t want to hear. Mostly he chose a spoonful of sugar. Right now, he chose simple, clear, and inevitable. “Our future is defined by our choices. You know this. And asking for a prophecy is a choice. If we ask for this, get one, learn what’s going to happen, and then use it, we’ll be cementing the future in a way that becomes unchangeable. You know this, Solar. We’ve been through this before. There is no fate. There are only choices.”
“I won’t make this choice,” Solar said and stood, facing the two other men. “I will never make the choice to put her in harm’s way.”
“You won’t,” said Zara, her voice ringing clearly as she stepped into the hut. “But I will.”
Javi and Solar whirled to look at her. The Oracle merely smiled to himself.
“How did you-” Solar started.
She cut him off. “I was coming to see if you were done with your meeting and I overheard.” She threw her arms up in the air. “You can yell about that later. But let’s talk about the matter at hand.”
Zara turned to the Oracle. “I’ll do it. But we’d better act fast because the more time passes after my birthday, the less likely Dalyer is to believe that there’s still a chance to claim me.”
O nodded. “I figure that gives us about four days of wiggle room.”
“Wait a second here,” Solar cut in. “You two are acting like this is a done deal.”
“It is,” Zara said, barely inclining her head toward him before she shifted back to the Oracle. “What do you think is the best way for him to know where I am?”
“Well, the fertility scent thing you’ve got going on is our best bet, I think. And by the way, darling,” the Oracle said, leaning in. “Can I just say, you smell good enough to eat.”
“OKAY!” Solar shouted, stepping in between them. “Will everybody just slow the fuck down, please?”
Touching Zara calmed Solar. But not by a lot. He took a deep breath and turned to her. “Zara, why are you agreeing to this? It’s too dangerous.”
Her eyes clouded for a second and she dropped them to the ground. He hated that. Over the last few days he’d gotten mighty used to her looking him dead in the eye. “You don’t know what it was like, Solar. The Oracle was there. He saw how Ki- how Dalyer treated me. The things he made me do and say. The clothes he made me wear.” She shoved away from Solar. “I was his possession. Something he owned and bossed around and threatened. And the whole time I was just dreading the day I finally hit my fertility season. For me, it meant that my life would be over. Because I knew that no matter what I had to do, no matter what drastic measure I had to take, I’d never let him do that to me. Mate with me. Or claim me.”
Solar felt as if there wasn’t any air left in the room at her words. The thought of her taking the messy way out made his blood curdle in his veins. “Zara,” he started toward her, but she held up a hand, warding him off.
“No. Listen to me. I understand what you say about a global perspective. That this is about more than just our generation of dragon shifters. It’s about more than Dalyer. It’s about making sure his line dies out with him one way or another. I get that. I really do.”
Her passion made color fly high in her cheeks. Her hair tumbled over her shoulders and her eyes were bright with emotion. “It might be risky. It might be too sudden for your taste, Sol. But mark my words. Dalyer is going to die. And if, in the course of the plan, something goes wrong and he gets close to me, then I’ll be the one to kill him. I’ll do it with my bare hands if I have to. With my teeth.”
With that, she brushed the angry tears out of her eyes and brushed past the men, hurrying out of the hut and disappearing into the dim jungle.
The three men stood stock still in the silence that settled in the wake of her speech.
“Wow,” Javi said.
“Yeah,” said Solar.
“That was really hot,” said the Oracle.
“Yeah,” said Solar again.
He slowly sat down in his chair and dragged his fingers through his hair. But when he looked up, there was the fire of determination
burning in his eyes. “Alright. This plan better be fucking perfect.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Zara had to fly. There was no other way to get rid of some of the insane energy and tension that dogged her. She didn’t usually mind the heat of the jungle. But suddenly, right now, the oppressive blanket of foggy heat had her feeling like she was going to come out of her skin.
The second she stepped out of the hut, leaving Solar, Javi, and O behind, she headed back into the jungle, stripping off her dress and underclothes as she went. Not even caring who might see. She was shifted and in the air in less than a minute.
Zara beat her wings against the air; the canopy of the jungle swayed and retreated from the huge gusts of wind that puffed beneath her. Each stroke of her wings brought her higher and higher into the air. She needed the good clean, cold air of the atmosphere. She needed the thin, almost suffocating, layer of ozone. So high a dragon could always see the stars, no matter what time of day it was.
The breath came fast in Zara’s dragon lungs and from the corner of her eye she could see the sun glinting off her gray scales. She’d always thought her coloring as a dragon was boring, but she’d always appreciated how it allowed her to blend in. She picked up the colors of the world around her. She could look purple in the twilight, blue over the ocean, green in the jungle. She’d always been good at hiding.
After Solar had left the castle behind, Zara had gotten very good at hiding. Anytime that King Dalyer had required her presence, she would dutifully attend. But anytime that wasn’t strictly required, Zara would absolutely disappear. She used to spend most of her time in her room, or on the roof of the castle, where she could be alone, shift, and fly.
Zara gasped against the thinning air of the atmosphere as she climbed and climbed. The jungle ceased being an ecosystem and became a blanket of hilly green stretching out beneath her. In the distance, she could see a shiny, blue ribbon of the ocean. In the other direction, white tipped mountains rose up from the landscape even higher than she was. She executed a kind of twisting backflip in the air and felt as if she could see the curve of the earth beneath her.
She felt the same kind of exhilarated freedom she used to feel when she’d fly from the roof of the castle. Flight was the only freedom she’d felt for the lifetime she’d spent as the king’s betrothed. There had been one other bright spot in her tenure at the castle. Friendship. When Lucy had been there.
Lucy was a human that Dalyer had kidnapped from the human realm to mate with. But that had never come to pass, thank god. Lucy had fallen in love with Amos, the head of the king’s security and personal bodyguard. The two of them had escaped out of reach of the king’s grasp and back into the human realm to live their lives in peace.
Zara had been happy for them, deeply happy. But she’d also despaired. Lucy had been a good friend. Supportive. Kind. Hilarious. But Lucy hadn’t left her high and dry. Lucy, Amos, and the Oracle had been the ones who conspired with Solar to have Zara kidnapped by the Surgere in the first place. Lucy had made sure that Zara wasn’t left to live out her life in the clutches of the king forever.
And since then, Solar had looked after her. And in his surprising way, cared about her deeply. Her entire life Zara had good people caring for her, keeping her safe.
Zara twisted again and swooped upward. She jetted through a cloud and the small water droplets froze on her scales as she whipped across the sky. Using her momentum, she pushed herself farther, faster, higher, and she broke out of another layer of the atmosphere. The sky was black around her. The air almost non-existent, gravity almost gone. The universe surrounded her like a shiny, black globe. Stars and planets spiraled above her and Zara’s mind whirled. She ducked back down for air. She knew she was too high up here, flying dangerously.
As she plummeted downwards, Zara’s breath was taken from her again, but not by the nature of the atmosphere, so thin up here. By the view. The dragon realm was gorgeous below her, spanning out in every direction.
Zara had always been able to fly for hours. Just lock her wings and soar from gust to gust. She supposed it had to do with the fact that flying had been her only freedom when she was a prisoner at the castle. She’d had a few hours every week where she was out of sight, out of mind for Dalyer and she spent every second of it in the sky. She never wanted to land back at the castle and risk being summoned to his side.
So when the light in the sky started to change, Zara barely noticed. She was rising up and down through the layers of the atmosphere, the deep black of the universe beckoning to her like an open door, and then she’d swoop back, closer to earth, the colors of the clouds and the ocean and the air and sunlight and the dragon realm below all blurring into one beautiful rainbow.
On one such dip and dive through a particularly chilly cirrus cloud, something caught in the corner of Zara’s eye. A flash of deep blue. Like moonlight. Solar. In his dragon form, flying a wide circle around her. Zara flipped onto her back and almost seemed to float for a second. Of course he’d found her here. And of course he was striking that perfect balance between sticking by her and giving her space.
Zara caught his eye and challenged him. No one was faster in an out-and-out race than Solar, but she was 500 feet lower and so much smaller. She might be able to beat him back to earth. Wasting not another second, Zara ducked her nose and executed a perfect dive.
She didn’t dare look behind her, she couldn’t risk losing the speed. She knew he’d be gaining on her. The canopy of trees loomed before her; soon she lost view of the ocean. One by one, the mountains seemed to disappear behind the curve of the earth.
Zara plummeted toward the canopy. She’d have to pull up soon, or else she’d risk crashing, but she wasn’t scared. A zippy thrill went through her when she realized she might actually beat him back to earth. But then she felt a sharp wind below her, above her, around her.
The bastard not only had caught up to her, he was circling her! Arrogant. Zara pulled out of her dive, knowing she’d been beat. Solar whipped around her again, turning upside down underneath her so that their underbellies brushed against one another. Zara let herself be twirled with his wind and the two of them spiraled together, back down to earth.
He’d led them to the small clearing by her hut. Their hut. They both landed softly on the mossy jungle ground. That was something they had in common, Zara reflected. They were both extremely light on their feet.
Wordlessly, the two dragons shifted back into their human forms, flashes of prismed light reflecting off their scales. Then it was their bare skin that glowed in the dim jungle light, both of them naked in their human forms. They both breathed heavily from the exertion, the exhilaration of their flight. The setting sun threw shadows over Solar’s face, his silvery scar catching the light.
“You’re fast,” he breathed, his eyes burning holes in her. He took a step to his left and she found herself automatically mirroring him. He took another step and so did she. They were circling one another, the excitement of their race still zinging between them, like a scent on the air. He experimentally swiped one arm out at her. She danced just out of reach, a small smile playing on the edges of her mouth. His eyes lit up with the game.
The sun went lower in the sky and a thrill rocketed through Zara. She moved, Solar moved. She knew that if she retreated he would chase her. A spark of play and lust danced in his eyes. He was hunting her.
Zara stopped moving. She held perfectly still and his stance reflected hers. He was waiting to see what she would do. She didn’t disappoint. His dark blue eyes deepened with anticipation. And then Zara was off like a shot. Her arms pumping and her feet as light as air over the jungle floor. The game was to get to the hut first, and she wanted to win. But not as much as she wanted to be chased by him. To be caught by him.
She hadn’t gone ten steps before she felt his arm band around her waist, inexorable and gentle. She squealed in delight and pleased hysteria. They were still ten feet from the cabin but he dragged the two of them t
o the ground. She landed, sprawled on his chest, her hair making a curtain around them as she propped herself up.
Part of Zara wanted to gaze at him in the dimming light. Cherish him. The moment. But the other part of Zara won, and apparently the same thing in Solar did too. They fell on each other. His hand gripped her scalp through her hair so tightly, little kisses of pain exploded through Zara. It incensed her, got her back up. Thrilled her. She gripped his own hair just as tightly and the two of them rolled over the jungle floor. He was on top now, flipping one of her legs over his hip and thrusting his cock part way into her.
They both groaned at the contact, but Zara rolled them again before he could push all the way in. And then she was on top, poised over him, just the head of his cock inside. Her hair spilled everywhere and the light between each tree around them darkened. The same wispy cirrus cloud they had swirled and dove through moments before pulled across the sun and set the sky on fire. The gold orange light of the sun broke over the jungle, filtering all the way down to the mossy ground. She tried to push down on him, take him all the way in, but he held her hips still and rolled them again.
He was on top again, this time pinning her arms into the ground to keep her from getting any leverage. She tried to roll them again, desperate to win, to be on top. But he had her pinned. Her legs pushed against the ground, fighting for purchase, but it only served to press him further inside her.
Then his mouth took hers and she was a goner. His lips and tongue, so demanding and so personal. Zara couldn’t help but arch up to him. Solar reared back and plunged in with his cock until he bottomed out inside of her.
Zara found herself screaming her pleasure into his mouth and then into the still jungle air. Solar really began fucking her. Pulling out as far as he could and plunging back into her. A bird of paradise sang in a nearby tree. Zara could smell fruit on the air. The jungle was alive around them. They were alive too. Gloriously. The world beat and breathed as they writhed against one another. Their breath was furious, cutting. Their hearts beat a rhythm as old as the earth itself, calling out to one another, racing each other and themselves.