Dazed, Serena looked around, brow knitting as if she had just woken up.
"Oh no," Hyran said sharply from behind her. "You do not get to pull the I don't remember card. We are finishing this."
The greatest academic thrill of his life was unfolding, and he had no intention of letting it slip away.
He grabbed Serena by the arm and started down the spiral stairs before Dexmon could even sort through the tangle of emotions coming off her.
Serena went with him without resistance. She was still disoriented, moving more on momentum than intent.
Dexmon swore under his breath and followed immediately. Everyone else trailed after, and not a single one of them had the foresight to bring a light source.
They descended into pitch-blackness.
The chamber swallowed them whole.
Hyran lifted a hand, already forming a spell for light, but stopped short.
Serena's eyes ignited gold.
Then her skin.
Hyran released her sleeve at once, watching her like a man witnessing divinity through a scholar's lens. Intrigue sharpened into awe.
Without speaking, Serena stepped forward into the dark.
Where her boots touched the floor, the stone lit beneath her in radiant gold, like sunlight etched directly into marble. Each step bloomed, illuminating her path while the rest of the chamber remained dark.
Dexmon took one step after her, nothing lit under him. Noted.
Gavriel also stepped forward, then tried a small shuffle. "So it's just her, then. Cool. Not offended."
He was a little offended.
Tiberon didn't step forward. Kings do not audition for floors.
Dexmon sprinted after her, catching her hand just as she stepped up onto something.
Aegon: If she disappears into the dark one more time, I am shifting.
Then, exactly as if Serena had been waiting for it—
Light exploded outward through the chamber, runes flaring to life on the walls. In the wash of light, Dexmon realized they were standing on a bridge. Over what, he wasn't sure.
Serena's eyes flashed green, locking on Dexmon. He held her gaze for longer than he should have, unable to look away.
Gold flared in her irises again.
Aegon: The gold means she's not aware.
Dexmon: What gave it away? The glowing or the jumping off walls?
Aegon: Mate is about to run.
Dexmon: Where is she going to go? We're on a bridge.
Just as he thought that to his wolf, Serena slipped from his grip, and dove off of the bridge. The black water beneath ignited gold the moment she broke the surface, illuminating a vast lake and river that revealed the true scale of the chamber.
It was easily the size of the Drakenfell castle itself. Grass. Trees. Above them, constellations shimmered across the ceiling along with a massive silver moon.
Dexmon dove after her, cutting through the golden-lit water.
"What the…" Gavriel muttered.
"Water does that sometimes when she gets in it," Elara said casually, like she was sharing a favorite color. At this point, if that was what counted as strange, then she clearly was the one with too many loose screws.
Serena swam towards an island at the center of the lake, Dexmon behind her.
Aegon:Faster. She is getting ahead.
Dexmon:I am going at Alpha speed.
Aegon: And she is still ahead of us. What does that tell you?
Dexmon:Nothing I want to hear right now.
A crystal basin sat atop a stone pedestal at the island's center. A dim flame already burned within it.
Serena surfaced in one smooth motion, stepping onto the island. Her thick hair glowed like moonlight. Dexmon followed behind her.
She looked like she belonged on this island. He looked like a man who had been dragged into a lake by fate and was dripping on sacred ground. The contrast was not lost on him.
He watched her pick up the rock with growing suspicion that he wasn't going to like whatever she was about to do.
Aegon:She has a rock.
Dexmon:I see it.
She raised the rock above her hand.
Aegon:Stop her.
Dexmon:I am about to.
Aegon: She is going to—
Dexmon caught her wrist. "Serena—"
She moved anyway. Because of course she did. The woman had a talent for doing exactly the thing he was trying to prevent, at exactly the speed required to make prevention impossible.
The stone sliced clean across her palm. Gold blood spilled free, liquid light sliding between her fingers.
The instant it touched the crystal basin, the fire flared.
Just like the day prior, the scent of her blood slammed into his senses, primal and overwhelming.
A crushing urge to mate with her tore through him, obliterating any concern for timing, place, or consequence.
His heart thundered, caught somewhere between hunger and outright panic. His eyes blazed molten gold, Aegon dangerously close to the surface.
Aegon: Mate her. Mark her. She's ours.
Dexmon:We have had this conversation.
Every muscle locked tight as he fought for control. But every breath dragged more of her scent into him, drowning thought until the world narrowed to her pulse.
Aegon. You have your own island. It doesn't get more private than that.
His jaw clenched hard enough to ache as he forced his wolf down with iron discipline.
Barely.
Then the whispers came.
The dragon prince must also bleed.
Only then may both hands be put into the flame for judgment.
Serena's eyes flickered back to green. She stared down at her own hand hovering over the basin, then looked at him, confusion clear in her face. But he knew.
He let go of her wrist and pulled the rock from her grasp. Without looking away from her eyes, he cut his palm and squeezed blood into the basin.
Aegon:Excellent. Our blood is mixing. Next steps—
Dexmon:No next steps.
More whispers came from the basin, but Dexmon already knew.
Submit your hands to the flame for judgment.
His fingers slid through hers, intertwining as their blood mixed, guiding her hand into the flickering flame.
A sudden roar split through the chamber and the flame surged upward in a golden column, striking the ceiling far above them.
The shockwave slammed everyone off their feet, except for Dexmon and Serena, who stood in place, hands inside the roaring fire, untouched by the inferno.
King Tiberon had witnessed this once already. The night before, when the fire turned gold and exploded toward the sky.
Beneath his composed expression, his mind raced with ruthless clarity.
Confirmation.
The dragon bond alone was rare beyond measure. But this? She was his son's true fated mate, and not just any fated mate. The purest fated matebond. The highest honor.
Chosen by ancestors for fated matebonds that endure across lifetimes.
Such bonds were sacred, vanishingly rare, and dismissed as myth by modern courts.
And yet his son had not claimed her and continued the farce with Princess Agnes.
Never, in any recorded history, had a fated mate also been bound to a dragon.
History was not just unfolding.
It was watching to see who would dare answer.
Gavriel, from his position on the bridge, could not see through the wall of gold light surrounding Dex and Serena. He squinted. "Are they alright in there?"
"Do not interrupt them," Hyran clipped, in the tone of a man who would physically tackle anyone who tried.
To everyone observing, it was silent. But Dexmon and Serena heard more whispers from the flame.
Incarnate of the First Dragon King.
Daughter of the Moon Goddess.
We have waited through ages uncounted.
Through ash, through silence, through the forgetting of names.
You stand where blood remembers, and the Drakenfire rings may be granted.
Should you choose one another in this life, return and the flame will judge you.
Gold magic streamed into Dexmon and Serena, but neither of them seemed to notice.
Stone ground against stone as an altar rose from the floor of the island.
An altar rose. Two rings. Gold. He didn't remember reaching for one. He didn't remember placing it on her finger. Only that when both bands were on, the world went white and the ground shook beneath them.
Within the veil of light, unseen by the others, Dexmon leaned towards her, pausing an inch away from her lips.
She didn't pull away.
He closed the distance, his lips meeting hers. An electric pulse shot through him the instant they touched, jolting him, like something locking into place.
He parted her lips wider and drove his tongue deep inside her mouth. His shaft strained painfully against his clothes, the fantasy of replacing his tongue with his cock right here on sacred ground growing sharper by the second.
Her eyes flashed back to green in that instant, no longer in a trance.
She should have pulled away. She didn't understand why she didn't. Instead, she kissed him back.
The second she did, a pained noise escaped his throat. He gripped her ass hard and lifted her clean off the ground, yanking her legs around his waist so he could grind his throbbing cock against her core in brutal, desperate rolls.
The friction pushed him over the edge in seconds. His cock jerked and he came hard in his pants, spilling again and again while his tongue continued fucking her mouth through the blinding orgasm.
Aegon: That lasted three seconds.
The white light around them hadn't faded and he couldn't stop. She was aroused and he felt it. He was also still hard. Harder, actually.
He lifted and dropped her against his throbbing shaft in frantic, needy movements, forcing her to slide along his length again and again. He could feel it building for her but she was hesitant. Timid.
He pulled away from their kiss just enough to speak against her lips. "Stop fighting it. Let it happen."
He went back to kissing her, moving her faster against him. The command pushed her over. He knew it would.
She groaned. Her climax hit like lightning and he felt every tight, frantic pulse of it through their matebond. He kept bouncing her even through the after tremors.
His cock was painfully hard and ready. One of his hands found the zipper on her training suit. He was going to spin her around, bend her over, and fuck her. Right here. Right now. He needed it like air. He was done fighting it.
Before he could unzip her, his wolf surged and his fangs elongated. He pulled away abruptly, shutting his eyes, and pushed Aegon down.
Aegon:No. NO. We were RIGHT THERE.
Across the fortress, Bellatrix felt the tremor roll through the stone beneath her feet and narrowed her eyes. She didn't know what it was. She didn't know where it came from. But her instincts told her she was going to hate the answer.