Accept me.
Accept my will.
Serve my will.
I am your Liege.
No.
The words repeated. Jori denied them again, his subconscious grasping the fragile thread connecting him to Kymri. The words came again, and again, each time louder and with more force. The thread began to fray, floating across the void. The dragon’s words were the solid ledge on which he stood.
He denied them.
Until he couldn’t.
22
Kymri’s dragon fed her the power they’d absorbed from the raw ore of the mountain walls. She funneled it all into the bond thread she cast to Jori. She knew he could sense her. She could feel his response to her presence and echoed her sentiment.
I love you.
It reverberated back and forth along the length of their psychic thread.
Through it, she could feel the emotional turmoil he was experiencing as the dragon king recited the ritual to bend him to his will, to force his loyalty.
The ritual was meant to be voluntary.
She could feel Jori’s resistance, and she had no idea what that would do to him as the dragon pressed harder on his mind.
Visually, little was happening.
Jori stood naked, his body strung so taut he looked as though he could snap. Every muscle was flexed and rigid with the strain of the power being forced on his human form—his subservient form.
Her throat was tight, her heart hammered in her chest.
She was dimly aware of the doors opening behind them as air whispered around the massive cavern.
She dared not look, as she desperately held onto Jori.
A tall woman drifted into her line of sight, her gaze glued on the scene before all of them, her expression impassive.
Assessing.
She frowned. Confusion crept across her features, her lips thinned, brows furrowed.
Her lips parted with a gasp, and the concentrated frown sprang loose as her expression twisted back and forth between joy and pain.
Elora.
A thin band of metal hugged her slim throat.
Her eyes slid between Jori and the dragon, and rage descended over her as she drew breath. A ripple of power surged around them as Elora screamed words so ancient, Kymri had no idea what they meant, but her dragon reacted with shock, making her lose concentration on her thread.
Everyone seemed to be affected by the trigger of recognition, hearing words only their deepest dragon understood. It shocked the king, causing enough distraction to pull his attention from Jori.
The effect on Jori was instant.
Released from the onslaught, his body sagged.
Terror ripped through Kymri. What had Elora done? Had she killed him?
Jori didn’t fall to the floor, he caught himself on a knee, the air shimmering around him. It intensified.
A deafening roar emanated from a throat incapable of making such a sound.
It resonated through her, snatching an involuntary gasp of awe and desire. Her dragon was fully alert, straining against the magic of the shackles repressing her as Jori’s dragon emerged.
Oh.
He was magnificent!
The torchlight made the deep green of his scales shimmer. His claws were razor hooks. His opalescent eyes were otherworldly.
The crowd flowed away as he filled the space.
The dragon king stumbled into the cave wall.
Jori struggled to regain his breath, exhilarated and terrified by what was happening.
Kymri’s whisper in his head—I love you—had been replaced by the forced dominance of Richmund’s monstrous voice luring him into submission.
Then, he could have sworn he’d heard his mother; a rage-filled shout that struck his heart, and everything changed.
Released, the air around him changed and he was melting. Everything that he was, disintegrated, warped to make room for something else, adding to himself. Growing.
Was he having an out of body experience? Richmund had killed him, and this was Jori leaving his carcass behind as he floated upward like a helium balloon to the cave roof. When he looked down, he didn’t actually feel weightless. He was very solid, but so very high up.
He looked down on his father, the dragon king.
That pathetic little dragon had tried to suppress his will and make him subservient. How dare he? He deserved to be crushed.
Anger shot through his body, white hot. He felt a pull on his lower back, turning in time to see a heavy tail whipping through the space. His own tail lashed back and forth, expressing his agitation.
Then he noticed the little people staring up at him in awe.
Kymri stared up at him in awe.
His female.
But she was too small. She was human.
He wanted to see her dragon.
He bent his head toward her, sniffing.
The scent of Richmund’s magic shackled her. Confined her.
His large head swung back to the dragon king and he growled in his face.
You are not my king. I have no king. I answer to no one.
The king lunged at him, teeth snapping. You will submit.
All of Jori’s life had been lived in peaceful existence. Loving his parents, adventures around the world, taking life in stride. He had never felt the need to control events around him, never struck out at another. Acts of violence were acts of survival.
What thrummed through him now was pure and raw. The instinct to destroy what had tried to dominate him blurred his vision and filled his chest. His fist-claws curled with the desire to strike and rip. To claim and make this place, these servants, his own. These females his own. He was power and they were there to serve him.
Jori’s human brain was screaming inside him, but his dragon did not wish to hear such a feeble voice.
The dragon king lunged again.
Yet Jori could smell Richmund’s fear as he went on the offensive.
The king would make Jori submit to his will or he would kill him.
All or nothing.
23
Kymri stumbled backward along with everyone else to allow for the extra space needed to accommodate Jori’s size. The cave, as large as it was, had suddenly become claustrophobic.
The king’s guards were shouting to move in, but there wasn’t enough room for them to shift. Some were scrambling to figure out how to help their king. Everyone else looked on as though it were a spectator sport. Spotting Elora on the far side, her back to the cave wall, Kymri, pushed her way toward her.
“Kymri Steelscale?” The shock of seeing her son was still etched into her features as she turned to Kymri in recognition.
“Madam Ambassador, how do we remove these shackles?”
Elora blinked, “I uhm, the king, he has to touch them and release the spell.”
“How do we get out of here?”
“With great difficulty, if you can’t fly.”
Kymri bristled at the sound of Stenlen’s voice shouting over the sound of snarling dragons echoing through the cave.
She turned, snarling at him, putting herself between Elora and the male.
“You won’t be going anywhere until the king decides you may.”
Clive and Merwin moved in, surrounding the women.
“I suggest we move out of the way while our king puts his son in his place.”
“I’m not leaving without him,” Elora spat. “How the hell did he get here?”
“It’s a long story.”
The ground shook as the king stomped the cave floor with a roar, lunging for Jori’s throat. Jori roared back, swiping his claws across the king’s face, leaving behind sliced flesh. Blood flew through the air, speckling everything within range.