Page 93 of Dragon Cursed
A roar tore from his throat.
A sound of such pure, unadulterated agony that the very stone of the chamber shuddered.The water of the falls outside trembled with it.The carvings on the walls trembled with it.He had failed.He had watched her sacrifice herself.He had let her die.
He was alone.
Truly.Finally.Foreveralone.
But in the heart of the despair —
A different instinct.
Ancient.Primal.Terrifying.
The dragon.
It had been caged.Suppressed.Held back by the curse and by his own fear of its power.Now it was free.It surged through him in a tidal wave of raw, untamed magic, fueled by a grief so vast it could crack the earth.
She is ours,the dragon roared.We will not let her go.We will not let her go, do you hear me, give her my fire, give her every drop of fire I have ever held, GIVE HER EVERYTHING —
The change wasn’t a choice.
It was a necessity.
It was agony and ecstasy.A violent tearing and remaking of his very being.Bones snapped and reformed.Skin split and hardened into scales.His vision exploded into a world of heat and energy.He was no longer Alsander, the broken man.
He was a dragon.
A creature of fire and storm.
His only purpose was the cold still woman on the stone.
He lowered his massive head.His emerald eyes — blazing now with inner fire — fixed on her pale face.He could feel the last flicker of her life.A tiny guttering spark in vast darkness.
I will not let it go out.
He opened his jaws.
A torrent of dragonfire — not of destruction but of pure, life-giving magic — poured forth.
It wasn’t a burning.
It was abaptism.
The fire — brilliant, shimmering gold — flowed over her, sinking into her skin, into her flesh, into her very bones.A heat that was both scorching and gentle.A pleasure so intense it was almost pain.
He poured.
He poured everything.His own life force.His ancient magic.His very soul.He chased the shadows of death from the small chamber of her chest, breathing life back into her heart, and he felt the moment it caught — the tiny spark in her chest flaring back to life, fed by his fire.
He felt the dark taint of Laoch recoil from the purity of his flame and shatter, dissolving into nothingness.The shrine was cleansed.The curse wasbroken.
He didn’t stop.
He poured more fire into her.He marked her.Claimed her.Bound her to him on a level that transcended flesh and bone.This was the ancient way.The true mating.She is mine.Forever.There is no breaking it.
The fire-binding from the night before had taken deep.
It took even deeper now.
