Page 60 of Possessed By the Dragon Alien
Transform, he commanded himself.Shift. Change. Become what you were born to be.
Nothing happened.
Panic clawed at his throat. The wind rushed up and around him at terrifying speed. All his wings could do was steady his decent. They were not strong enough to change his course, and they certainly couldn’t stop him or make him fly upward. If he didn’t get this done, he was going to hit that energy dome and be disintegrated on impact.
Nena, he thought desperately.I have to get back to Nena.
Still nothing.
He could feel something stirring inside him, some primal force trying to break free, but it was trapped behind walls ofconditioning and control. The Axis had done their work too well. They’d buried his dragon so deep that he couldn’t reach it when he needed it most.
The dome was getting closer. The translucent, shimmering waves of energy moved like water between the nodes that kept it energized. It was at full power, nearly crackling with its maxed-out energy output. Beyond that, the gleaming towers of Axis Central rose like spears toward the sky.
He was in trouble. Soon, he would hit that surface at terminal velocity. There would be nothing left of him. It would be as if he never existed.
She believes in you, a voice whispered in his mind. Not his own voice, but something deeper. Older.Your mate sees the dragon. She’s not afraid.
Heat began to build in his chest. Not the controlled fire of an Axis weapon, but something wild and primal. Something that belonged to him, not to the empire that had stolen him.
You chose her over everything, the voice continued.Over power, over position, over the only life you’d ever known. What does that make you?
The heat spread, flowing through his veins like molten metal. His bones began to ache as something fundamental shifted inside him. But it still wasn’t enough. The transformation wavered, caught between human and dragon, leaving him trapped in a nightmare of half-change. His tenuous hold on flight crumbled. His wings, already strained to the point of breaking, gave out. He began tumbling toward the dome.
That’s when Ellion caught him.
Massive claws closed around Madrian’s torso, not gently but with the desperate strength of someone refusing to let his brother die. He looked up to see Ellion’s huge purple head angle toward him. He looked nothing like the male who had stood on the command deck with him, but when those large, silver eyesgazed down at him, Madrian felt it.Connection. Through that contact—claw against scale, dragon against the dragon trying to emerge—Madrian felt something snap.
Family. The concept hit him like a physical blow. Not the cold hierarchy of the Axis, butthis. Brothers who would risk everything to save each other. Males who shared his blood, his loss, his stolen heritage.
The heat in his chest exploded outward.
His bones cracked and reformed, growing longer, stronger. His spine stretched as his neck extended. His wings enlarged. His shoulder blades molded into the huge, meaty things they needed to be to support him. His jaw elongated into a snout filled with teeth that could crush steel. Scales thickened across his skin into deep aqua that caught the light like cut gems.
Razion wasn’t wrong. The pain wasunreal. The transformation made every nerve scream as his body rebuilt itself into something magnificent and terrible. But underneath the pain was a sense ofrightnessthat took his breath away. This was who he was supposed to be. This was what the Axis had tried to steal from him.
Ellion released him, and Madrian spread his new wings for the first time. His dragon-self knew exactly how to move through the air. The sensation was like remembering how to breathe after nearly drowning. Like sunlight on the face after many cycles in space. He rode the wind with instincts that dampened out his complex thought. He could think about Nena, about what they were trying to do there, but beyond that, his dragon mind couldn’t process much more.
Around him, his brothers took their positions. Six dragons circling the energy dome that protected their stolen home. Each one was magnificent in his own way: Ellion’s deep purple scales, Razion’s burnished gold, Cyprian’s brilliant crimson, Takkian’s emerald green, Stavian’s shifting sapphire-blue. And Madrianhimself, deep aqua. They were the colors of their mother’s royal offspring and they were there to retake the home that had been stolen from her.
They formed a spiral pattern around the dome’s primary node. Each dragon took his place in a formation that felt as natural as breathing. Madrian could feel the power building between them. It was more than their individual fire, something greater. The combined might of the Zaruxian royal line, amplified by the bonds they shared with their Terian mates.
Through his connection with Nena, he felt her presence like a warm flame in his chest. Her faith in him, her love, her absolute certainty that he would succeed. It fed his fire, making it burn hotter and brighter than anything the Axis had ever created.
They didn’t need to speak to know what to do.
Six streams of dragon fire converged on the dome’s surface. But this wasn’t a controlled, measured flame like that of a plasma blaster. This was creation and destruction in equal measure. It was a fire that could melt mountains or forge new worlds. The power of their ancestors, channeled through bonds of love and brotherhood.
The energy barrier held. Madrian felt the heat from the swirling band of fire that poured from each of their mouths, merged into a thick white stream and blasted against the shimmering energy dome. He could smell metal and ozone and fire. He could feel the sparks of energy hit his scales like painless pricks. Then, the dome began to crack.
Fissures of light spread across the dome’s surface as the ancient technology failed under assault it was never designed to withstand. The cracks widened, deepened. The node they had focused on split apart. They held their positions, pouring fire down on the dome until the structure gave way in a cascade of shimmery sparks.
Axis Central lay exposed beneath them. The seat of galactic oppression, stripped of its defenses.
Madrian felt a roar building in his chest. It wasn’t one of rage, but of triumph. They had done it. Six stolen princes had reclaimed their birthright and torn down the empire that had enslaved the galaxy.
Below them, he could see the rebel fleet pouring through the gap, ready to finish what the dragons had started. And they would follow to take down the gleaming spires, until nothing of Central remained. But for this moment, suspended in the sky above his homeworld, Madrian felt something he’d never experienced in his life.
Peace.
