“Come with me.” I whispered.
He rose stiffly, muscles strained and atrophied. I thought of the cave where I had found him, closing my eyes to better picture it. Ronan clung to me, and when I opened my eyes, we were there, surrounded by darkness.
We didn’t need light. We didn’t need anything except each other.
His hands found my face and pulled me to his. Ronan’s kisses were always desperate and heated—as if at any moment happiness could be brutally ripped away. Our bodies met quickly and ferociously, Ronan making up for lost time as he threw me against the cave wall and thrusted inside deep of me.
“When we have a proper bed, all three of us will make you scream.”
I moaned as I imagined it; all three of my mates together with me, lost in each other. Was such a thing even possible in times like these, when the mountain lay ruined and my large, magnificent bed faraway? Ronan ran a hand down my wing scales as he took my breast in his mouth. I cried out his name and he came, his face twisted in agonized pleasure. When he was done, those golden eyes turned on me. He laid me down across a flat rock, his face descending to my hips. I didn’t get a single word out before his tongue and hands worked their own magicks, sliding and licking and touching. It was a testament to how much I missed my mates that I came as quickly as I did, my cries reverberating around the dark cavern as I felt him smirk against my inner thigh. I would have preferred to stay here, to simply linger and hold Ronan to me, but I knew that’s what Benedict wanted. If I had any chance of finding out what they were meeting about, I had to go.
“We must get back. I want to know what’s going on.”
I spread my wings without thinking, stretching them out along with the rest of my body. Ronan’s eyes bugged out in his head, and I turned to see why. Joining the purple tips and red mid-section was a beautiful gold that almost went to the bottom of my wings. Only one band of white remained at the very bottom.
“It’s the sunset,” he whispered reverently, reaching a hand out to touch it.
“It’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.” His eyes shot to mine as he said it, and I blushed, closing my wings self-consciously. A mischievous gleam flashed in his eyes, and I knew we were thinking the same thing. He always had been on the same level as me. He held out his hand, and I took us back.
We arrived in the middle of what appeared to be a standoff.
“I brought you the earth witches, who promised to revitalize your island in exchange for territory here. It was not part of our territory bargain.”
Astrid stood in Benedict’s face, unafraid of his ugly sneer. I could tell he struggled not to take an automatic step back, the air witch a force to be reckoned with in her own right. The brown-haired earth witch next to Astrid nodded, her face just as stoic.
“Should the Overlord fall, we would wish to return to our forests regardless. This is only temporary.”
Benedict scowled, crossing his arms.
“Fine. The witches may have the west end of the island, after you revitalize the south section for us and our wounded, then the rest of the island as you please. You may begin immediately.”
Astrid raised a brow to the earth witch, a tall willowy woman with brown hair spilling down her back.
“We cannot begin immediately,” The earth witch said slowly, her eyes squinting as if she were trying to see through the massive mounds of rock and stone towards the volcano on the north side of the island. Benedict growled, and I threw him such a nasty look that the sound disappeared into his chest.
“Can you explain?” I asked politely, and her head turned towards me.
“I am Vela, leader of the earth coven,” she offered to us, “and I don’t think there’s much point in growing too much while the fire demon hiding in your volcano is still alive.”
The drakens all blinked, me included. Vela glanced around at the varying degrees of befuddlement that surrounded her.
“Ah,” she said slowly, “you didn’t know about the fire demon.”
I whirled back to Astrid.
“You said the demon hordes caused the eruption!”
Astrid blanched. “No, I said it was a magical eruption that wasn’t natural. Nothing about what precisely did it.”
Benedict looked ready to throttle everyone.
“Was the eruption caused by the Overlord or not?”
Vela shrugged, her long hair rippling over her back.
“Depends. You’ll have to travel to the middle of the volcano and see for yourself. They are sentient, you know.”
“The volcano?” I asked in confusion. Vela looked at me like I was slow. “Oh,” I said, blushing, “you meant the fire demon.”
“What do we do now?”
Benedict sighed heavily.
“We go into the volcano, obviously.”
Six
The earth witches continued to heal the island, despite Vela’s recommendation to wait. I think they wanted to prove themselves worthy of a home on Lyoness, but I worried they would overextend themselves. A group of a dozen witches concentrated on the valley in the south, quickly managing to create a young forest with several trees strong enough to withstand being built upon. The air witches used their brooms, showing the drakens how to safely and humanely build homes within the young branches. Most of them were unaware of the monster under the volcano, threatening to destroy us all at any moment.
Benedict didn’t want the witches to come exploring with us under the volcano, but it was sheer stupidity to leave them behind. A wave of their fingers could banish the air and squelch any
