We landed in the forest. So glad I was that Glorian was alive. We stood before each other now as Man and Woman, both naked, and looked at each other as if we never laid eyes on the other before. There in the forest, in the moonlight, I really looked at him, how he had changed from the boy I knew.

Long black hair touched his shoulders and shined in the moonlight. He was much taller than me about six foot three or more. His body was lean and hard with muscle, the body of a panther. His jaw was square, he had deep dimples as he grinned at me. A trace of beard covered his chin and a slight mustache sat above his lip. A straight aristocratic nose, and eyes the color of honey. Thick black lashes framed those beautiful eyes. He was perfect, almost too perfect to look at. Strange tattoos that I knew he never had before, black twists and designs worked their way up his left side from his hip covering his shoulder blade and wrapping up and down his left arm to the elbow.

I stepped closer and inhaled, leather, and firewood. I touched his tight nipple and he exhaled, honeysuckle. I nuzzled in closer. His fingers gently brushed my lips before he twisted his hand in my hair and claimed my mouth with his. And there he laid me on the forest floor and made love to me over and over through the night. Sometimes sweet and tender with words of love, other times rough and desperate, saying “Mine” over and over in my ear.

When we woke in the morn, Glorian and Avantia were no more. We awoke as Dreya and Raven, The Dragon Queen and her consort.