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CHAPTER ONE
JAIYANA
Isat on the floor of an honest-to-God oubliette. A pit designed by the French to throw people into and forget about them. Smooth white stone surrounded me in a bottle shape, leading up to a hole at the top just big enough to fit a man. Artificial, bright white light radiated down, casting a shadow of the barred hole just bigger than me.
My concept of time had vanished, along with my confidence. I took a deep breath and rested my arms loosely on my crossed legs. My gamble at the Elemental Meeting hadn’t paid off. The opposite, really. But the only true way to fail was to stop trying. I took another deep breath and focused on the circle of light in front of me.
In the twenty-first century, how the fuck is there a medieval French castle, with an oubliette, on a tropical island?
Really? Logistics? We’re in the murder hole!
Maybe we deserve to be in the murder hole.
I grimaced, seeing the man’s brown eyes glow with pride as his astral projection smiled at me. ‘My love, my muse, my obsession. I’ve gifted you these dragons to fix our mistake.’
The pain in Rehan’s gaze flashed through my memory, followed by the unease in Ogs, the confusion in Lux, and finally, raw anger from Tyson.
I’ve gifted you these dragons to fix our mistake.
The words echoed in my mind. I squeezed my eyes shut and covered my head, letting it rest on my knees as recent memories ricocheted around my skull.
Everything happened so fast at the Elemental Meeting.
A literal bomb of air exploded around me, physically tossing my dragon mates off the table. Heat bloomed at my feet, and a searing wall of flame grew around me. The rancid smell of burning hair made me pull my ponytail in close as a barrier of solid fire magic trapped me in place.
In moments, the inferno ate up my oxygen, and I struggled to breathe. I’d pushed my weak ass elemental muscles showing off for the Kings, and what little air magic I now called didn’t help me stay conscious. My last memory before waking up in this oubliette was the sounds of a fight, shouting, and my name spit with so much venom that acid curled in my gut.
Gifted you dragons.
My heart wrenched.
You like them. All of them.
I knew better. None of the emotions were real. I told them to keep their distance.
They didn’t want to.
They fucking do now.
I pulled on my ponytail and screamed in frustration. The sound echoed off the walls, cutting into the silence and chasing away my approaching panic.
No, Jay. You’re smart. A thousand years old. Most powerful…
I sighed, not even finishing the thought. I wasn’t anything now except maybe the most fucked.
And not in a good way.
I uncurled my folded legs and took a deep breath, brushing my fingers across my mate marks. Rehan’s wave puckered my skin just below my ear on the right, while Tyson’s flame did the same on the opposite side. Scarily fitting for their contrasting personalities. I ran my hand down the front of my hip, feeling the tiny puffy cloud from Lux’s mark, before leaning to the side to feel my ass. Heat filled my face. Of course, the not-so-shy earth dragon flipped me over to leave his little textured tree on my butt cheek.
You’ve still got their marks.
I opened my palm, attempting to call fire into the center of it, but the magic never formed. Instead, a line of dull orange streaked toward the ground. I kept casting and followed the line to slightly darker, thin stone channels in the floor, in the shape of a star, covering most of the twelve-by-twelve-foot space. Five angular balls of quartz sat at each point with a symbol for each element inscribed inside them.
I dropped to the floor and cast each element in turn, watching the quartz eat it while my mind raced.
The moment I’d ingested every flavor of dragon jizz, I got my voice back, and my vision mostly cleared. But nothing about my magic improved. I was still as lame as the moment I woke up at the start of the Hunt. Despite early evidence, I sat here using all of their magic equally, even though technically, only Rehan physically penetrated me. I could use Lux’s wind magic after just his mark.
What the fuck did I need to do to break this curse?
