The Dragon Kings' Forbidden Witch

GLACIUS emerged fully formed, enormous, his wingspan extending at least twenty feet on either side, his scaled body towering over where Morgana stood. His eyes were still Kaelen’s pale blue, but they were larger now, more primal, burning with centuries of hunger and power.

He looked at her, and for a moment, Morgana understood why dragons had been legend and terror and magic all at once. There was nothing small about the creature before her. There was nothing controllable or safe about the raw power radiating from him.

But the eyes were still Kaelen.

GLACIUS made a sound....not quite a roar, but something that vibrated through her entire body. Then he lowered himself, his wing extending like a ramp, his movements surprisingly gentle for a creature of such size.

The message was clear: climb onto my back.

Morgana gathered the cloak around herself and climbed onto the dragon’s back.

GLACIUS was warm, his scales smooth and hard, the ridges along his spine providing handholds. Once she was positioned between his wings, he rose slightly, ensuring she was secure, then he spread his wings fully.

The movement was magnificent. The wings caught the night air, and suddenly they were rising....not jumping, but lifting with a grace that seemed impossible for something so massive.

The palace fell away below them.

The world spread out beneath them in ways Morgana had never imagined. The palace was a complex of lights and stone below them, and then the city beyond it, thousands of lights creating patterns in the darkness. The river that ran through the kingdom was a ribbon of reflected starlight. The mountains in the distance were dark shapes against the star-filled sky.

And they were soaring through it all.

The wind rushed past, pulling at the cloak that Kaelen had wrapped around her, making her hair stream behind her like a banner. GLACIUS’s wings beat steadily, powerfully, carrying them higher and farther from the palace.

Morgana should have been terrified.

Instead, she found herself laughing.....a sound of pure joy and exhilaration that was swallowed by the wind but that she felt radiating through her entire body. She had never imagined that flying would feel like this.....like freedom, like power, like being part of something vast and ancient and magical.

GLACIUS flew deeper into the mountains, away from the palace, away from civilization, toward something wild and untamed.

***

They landed on a high mountain, far from any sign of human habitation.

The peak was rocky, with sparse vegetation clinging to the stone. Below, the kingdom spread out in all directions, visible in the starlight. Above, the stars were so thick and bright they seemed close enough to touch.

GLACIUS lowered himself, and Morgana climbed down from his back. For a moment, she stood on the mountaintop, looking at the vastness of everything, feeling smaller than she had ever felt and somehow also more real, more present, more alive.

Then GLACIUS began to transform back.

The change was as violent and beautiful as the first one, but now Morgana was watching it from the ground, watching the scales fade back into human skin, watching the wings dissolve into arms, watching the creature become a man again.

Kaelen stood before her, and he was magnificent.

He was still shirtless, his muscled chest heaving with the exertion of the transformation, his pale eyes burning with the aftereffects of being in dragon form. He was sweating, his body glistening in the starlight.

And he was looking at her like she was the most important thing in the universe.

”You stayed with me,” he said, his voice rough from the transformation.

”Yes,” Morgana replied.

”You weren’t afraid.”

”I was afraid,” she said honestly. ”But not of you. Never of you.”

Kaelen crossed the distance between them and pulled her into his arms.

He held her, just held her, for a long moment. She could feel his heartbeat against her, could feel him breathing, could feel the tremors running through his body as he brought his dragon under control and became fully human again.

Then he pulled back enough to look at her.

”Tell me what you are, Morgana.,” he said quietly. Because my brother is right about something being wrong, or not wrong, but different. There’s something about you that doesn’t fit normal categories.”

Morgana looked up at him, and she saw the uncertainty in his eyes, the questions, the wonder.

Kaelen reached out and brushed a strand of hair from her face.

”What if I told you that you might be something the prophecy has been describing for two centuries?” he asked softly. ”What if you’re the one we’ve been searching for? The one who might break the curse?”

Morgana felt her breath catch.

”I don’t know if I can do that,” she whispered. ”I don’t know if I’m strong enough.”

”You flew on a dragon’s back,” Kaelen said, his pale eyes fixed on hers. ”You didn’t scream or panic or demand to be put down. You flew with me. That’s strength, Morgana. That’s the strength of someone who can do the impossible.”

He pulled her close again, and this time, his kiss was slower, deeper, more exploratory. It was the kiss of someone trying to understand her, trying to see into her, trying to figure out how she existed at all.

His hands moved across her back, holding her against him, and Morgana matched his intensity. She kissed him back with everything she had.

When they finally broke apart, both of them were breathing hard again.

Kaelen pulled her down to the rocky ground, wrapping the cloak around both of them, holding her against his chest. They sat there on the mountaintop, overlooking the kingdom, with nothing around them but stone and stars and the vast silence of the wilderness.

”I want to know all of you,” Kaelen said quietly, his fingers threading through her hair. ”Not just the parts you let people see. All of you. The things you don’t understand about yourself. I want to know.”

”I’m afraid of what you’ll find,” Morgana admitted.

”I’m not,” Kaelen said firmly. ”I’m terrified of a lot of things. But you’re not one of them. You’re the only thing that doesn’t terrify me anymore.”

They sat together in silence for a long time, holding each other, watching the stars wheel slowly overhead.