The Consumption of Magic (Tales From Verania 3)

There are great risks ahead for you

A burden unlike anything the world has ever seen

We can help you carry it

But it will cost you

“Of course it will,” I muttered. “Because everything comes with a price.”

“It must,” Pat said simply, eyes flaring blue.

“It is the way of things,” Leslie said, eyes matching her mate’s.

I thought my own were doing the same, and from the look of wonder on Ryan’s face as he watched me, I was right. I felt them, the two dragons, much like I had with Zero. They were twin pulses in my head and heart, and though they were distinct from each other, they belonged together. One without the other wouldn’t carry the power they had when they were together.

“What can you do?” I asked.

It was Leslie who answered first. She leaned forward, neck stretching toward me. Her eyes were the color of the blue in her feathers—like a summer sky—and the plumage atop her head stood straight up, like a beautiful crown. The feathers rattled gently, whispering as they rubbed together, the barbs and hooklets sounding like bones.

“You know what we can do,” she said.

Pat too leaned forward, her feathers making the same rattling noise, and for a moment I thought the colors of the world began to bleed around us, running down like wet paint. I thought I was tipping—or slipping—into something… else, but everything snapped back into focus before I could follow it further.

“Dreamwalkers,” I whispered, and Ryan squeezed my hand tightly.

“Yes,” Leslie said. She might have been the smallest dragon present, but she was still very large, her head almost as long as my entire body. I tried not to flinch as her snout pressed against my chest. The feathers shook as she closed her eyes, and the heat from the breath in her exhalation warmed my skin through my thick coat, and I was—

standing at the edge of a cliff, Ryan falling behind me, blue eyes staring at me from out in the forest, and they were calling for me to

—breathing, breathing, breathing, and Ryan said, “That’s enough.”

Leslie pulled away, rubbing her face along Pat’s neck.

“You pulled us there,” I said, voice shaking. “Ryan and me.”

“We did,” Pat said.

Ryan took a step closer to me so that his shoulder was pressed against mine, our hands clasped between us. “It’s why we got here so fast. After you threw me off a cliff—”

“Yeah,” I said. “I feel real bad about that. No need to keep bringing it up, babe. Also? Just a dream.”

He scowled at me. “After you threw me off a cliff, I woke up in our camp in Tarker Mills and knew we had to get here as quickly as possible. I didn’t know what was going on, but you said it was real, and I believed you.”

“That’s because you love me.”

“Possibly.”

“I’ll still take it.”

His lips twitched like he was fighting a smile.

“Quite,” Pat said. “Though, we witnessed things we did not expect.”

“A lot of kissing,” Leslie cooed. “It was adorable.”

“So,” I said slowly, “you essentially just watched us make out. Lady-dudes. What the hell.”

Ryan stiffened beside me. “Maybe not insult the dragons.”