Page 30 of Dragon’s Ending

God. Want flared hot through me.

I dragged my gaze upwards to find he was watching me. Busted. But if I wasn’t mistaken—and damn this torchlight for making it unclear—there was something on his face, a flicker of heat, of interest returned. And then he shut it down again, and all that was left was Ben Berstow, professional historian and trainee automaton.

He folded his clothes with maddening neatness and set them down beside the rocks while I pointed my phone so he could see what he was doing. Mostly because if I shifted now, my dragon would probably launch itself straight at him in whatever insanity had temporarily overtaken me.

The beam swept across Berstow as he stepped back from the pile of clothes and shifted.

And my entire brain stopped functioning. He was white. Not pale grey like me, but white as snow under cold starlight, vast wings furled close to a body that gleamed ghost-bright against the dark hillside.

For one impossible second I simply stared. Then my dragon slammed upwards inside me so hard it punched the breath from my lungs.

What the actual fuck? There was no such thing as a white dragon. Everyone knew that.

And underneath the shock came something else entirely—fury, burning hot. Yet another piece of information Rhodri had kept from me. Ben’s family coming out of hiding after centuries, a family we hadn’t even known existed. At least one of them was an impossible colour. And Rhodri knew all this.

He’d been at the Moot when the Berstows’ existence had been revealed. He’d known enough to agree to Ben coming here. Of course he fucking knew, and of course he hadn’t told me.

I was still staring when Berstow launched into the air, hauling himself upward with powerful strokes of his wings. Displaying the same strength that made him look so calmly certain of who he was.

I didn’t remember tearing my clothes off and shifting, only the violent relief of finally letting my dragon free. One moment I was trapped inside skin and anger and too many thoughts, and the next the night air was beneath my wings. Everything dropped away up there—the house, Rhodri, the endless feeling of being watched and found wanting. There was only movement and height and the wild joy of flying hard enough that no one could touch me.

Ahead of me, impossibly bright against the dark sky, the white dragon wheeled in a slow circle, waiting.

I threw myself after him.

BEN

The air was cold as I climbed into the wide open sky. God, I’d missed this. I hadn’t realised quite how badly until I’d had it again. A gusty wind was blowing, and my wings knew exactly how to compensate with each beat. I wondered how humans managed, never experiencing this simple, profound joy.

For a few glorious moments, I simply flew. Then I banked in a slow circle, waiting for Dominic to join me. A heartbeat later, he burst through the low cloud layer in a flash of silver-grey scales and sheer unrestrained power.

Oh God. Nothing had prepared me for this version of Dominic. Not the human one, with all that restless energy trapped under his skin, nor the glimpses I’d had of his dragon pressing too close to the surface. Up here, there was no trace of restraint left in him at all. He was exultant, climbing hard into the night before folding his wings sharply and dropping with terrifying speed towards the dark hills below.

I banked sharply, breathless. He levelled out barely above the ridge line, skimming the land with an absolute confidence that made my stomach tighten, before twisting upwards again in a fluid movement filled with joy. And something wilder.

Freedom. The word came unsought to my mind, and I knew it was true. Because up here, he wasn’t being difficult or provocative. He wasn’t the dragon constantly braced against an invisible enemy in the house below—a bracing I hadn’t consciously noticed until it was gone. Here, in the night sky, he was simply, joyously, savagely free.

And beautiful. The thought landed with enough force that for a second I almost forgot to beat my wings.

Dominic banked back towards me then, moonlight catching silver along the edges of his wings, and his amused voice sounded in my head.

Careful, historian. You’re staring.

I nearly dropped out of the bloody sky. It wasn’t as if I’d forgotten we could speak into one another’s minds as dragons—I just hadn’t expected it from him. And definitely not that tone, teasing, full of laughter, and relaxed. Without the edge that always seemed to be there in human form.

He laughed into my mind and wheeled away. I accepted his invitation and chased him around the dark night sky, through heavy, wet clouds that clung to our scales, past silver-tipped stones on hillsides. I was dizzy with joy.

Eventually, he banked towards the ground, and I saw the rocky outcrop we’d started from. I felt lighter somehow, full of bubbles as I backwinged in beside him. Closer than I should—a leftover of the feelings that had been there as we flew.

It’d been so long since I’d flown with anyone else, and it had never been like that, save perhaps as a dragonet with my sister when we’d played together. With Will, it had been… nice. Like everything had been. With Dominic, it had been many things, but so far beyond nice, it didn’t even make the list.

I shifted first, and he followed as I turned my phone on to help us see while getting dressed. One moment, silver-grey scales caught the light. The next, Dominic stood barefoot on the wet grass, damp hair falling across his forehead, skin gleaming faintly where mist and cloud-water still clung to him.

Oh dear God. Seeing him shirtless had been bad enough. This was on an entirely different level. He stood loose-limbed and entirely unselfconscious in the cold night air, broad shoulders rising and falling slightly faster than usual from the exertion of flight. My flashlight traced the powerful lines of muscle through his chest and stomach, the strength in his thighs, the sharp cut of his hips. Finally, his cock, soft and heavy, and absolutely mouthwatering.

He was beautiful. And then my cock decided it agreed, and reacted with spectacular and deeply unfortunate honesty.

I half-turned away as I reached for my clothes, desperately yanking my underwear on with fingers that were suddenly clumsy, hoping against hope that he wouldn’t have noticed.