Christmas was her favorite time of year.

Cadeyra, the Dragon Queen, stood in her wedding dress in front of the Christmas tree in the foyer of the chapel. The massive pine tree reached well into the high vaulted ceiling above. Its branches had been frosted with magic, real snow twinkling in the lights that wound through the greenery. Bright ornaments—dragons in Christmas colors or teams of them pulling sleighs as they raced along the branches—made her smile. Looking up, her gaze sought the very top, where a white dragon rested asleep in a star. It was her favorite and had always topped the tree here in the court chapel as long as she could remember.

Lifting a hand, she reached out, interrupting the path of one of the enchanted sleigh teams. The dragon stopped in a flurry of sleigh bells to sniff at her hand and then skirted around it and carried on with trumpets of happiness.

“You always did love that tree,” a male voice sounded behind her.

She turned in a rustle of skirts to find Calan, her cousin, standing behind her. He was dressed in his court finery, white and gold to match hers as they walked down the aisle where he would give her away. To Sawyer… Her bridegroom.

A pleasant thrill rolled through her as she recalled what today was. Not only was it Christmas Eve, possibly her favorite day of the year past Christmas Day, but it was also her wedding day. She was getting married. Finally. To Sawyer, the growly, grumpy, sexy as hell, former general on the Council of Blacks, who had been the soulmate right under her nose all this time.

A smile curved her lips as she looked at the tree again. “I do. It’s one of the first things I remember—Mum and Dad bringing us here on Christmas Eve… The hot chocolate when we left and then bed, where we would never sleep, watching at the window for Santa instead.”

Calan’s smile matched hers as her words evoked the memories. “Then flying in the morning after presents, when they told as we were chasing Santa to make sure he got back to the North Pole.” He chuckled. “Nothing at all to do with making sure we got exercise after the huge amounts of chocolate we ate for breakfast.”

She laughed. “Oh no, of course not. It was all about Santa.”

“Remember that time we thought we’d found him?” Calan took a step closer, looking down at her. “But it turned out to be the wing lights of that little plane?”

“Oh my goodness, yes!” she exclaimed in delight. “I’d almost forgotten that. We about gave him a heart attack. Mum and Dad had to make sure he got home okay.”

“I remember.” His smile eased as he looked down at her, the mood turning from jovial to more serious. “You look beautiful, Cadeyra. Just like your mother did.”

“Yeah?”

She couldn’t help the note of nervousness in her voice. Her mother had been so beautiful, tiny and delicate in both human and dragon forms… In human form, Cadie was just as delicate, but her dragon form was an entirely different matter. Whites were big and powerful, easily a match for any black—or a horde of them—on the battlefield. In a society where males were very alpha and dominant, a female that was stronger and more powerful could be a turnoff.

“Yes,” Calan said firmly, reaching out for her veil, gold and white like her dress, and gently drawing it down over her face. “Sawyer will be blown away. I promise you.”

Turning to stand at her side, he held out his arm. She took a deep breath to quell her nerves, slid her hand onto his arm, and made to move toward the door that would take them into the chapel. But Calan didn’t move, his expression serious when she looked at him quizzically.

“I need to check,” he said. “Do you want this? If you’re not sure, we can put the ceremony back until you are… Or even cancel it entirely. It’s up to you.”

Her dragon snarled inside, taking Calan’s words to mean he was trying to keep them from their mate. With the ease of long practice, she talked the volatile creature back from the edge and smiled up at her cousin.

“I’m sure,” she said firmly. “Nothing in this world will stop me walking through those doors and claiming my mate in front of the whole court. In front of the whole world if necessary.”

Calan’s face split into a grin, a flash of white teeth as he nodded. “Good. I’m rather glad you said that. I wouldn’t want to face Sawyer if you’d said no. I figure my future would contain a pissed off black and a shit load of bruising.”

She grinned in reply. “I wouldn’t have wanted to be you either. Fortunately for you…” she reached up to brush his cheek with gentle fingertips, “I’m not saying no. I’m very definitely saying yes. So… shall we get this show on the road?”

“Sounds like a plan to me.”

They stepped up to the door, which slowly opened in front of them, and the bridal march began. Taking a deep breath, Cadeyra adjusted her grip on her bouquet and stepped forward when Calan did, her gait light and her heart happy.

It was Christmas Eve, and she was getting married.

* * *

She was Mrs. Sawyer Stone. It was the best Christmas present she’d ever had.

Cadeyra the white, Dragon Queen, smiled down at her spread hand, watching the way the light sparkled off the glittering diamond band her husband had slid on her finger during the ceremony earlier.

Her husband.

Deep within, her dragon purred with happiness and contentment. She looked up and around, trying to locate her new husband in the packed room. Decorated and ready for Christmas tomorrow, the room was a riot of traditional trimmings mixed in with white and gold wedding drapes on the walls. They’d decided to hold the reception in the larger of the two ballrooms in the palace, which had proven to be a sound move. What seemed like every dragon in the world was packed in here like sardines.

“You look absolutely beautiful, Your Majesty.”

Cadeyra turned to find Adra, one of her twelve blacks, standing behind her. The dragoness was out of her usual black-on-black combats and wore a fitted sheath dress, the bright red a perfect foil for her dark hair.

“I’m not the only one,” she replied, smiling as Adra snagged a couple of glasses of champagne from a circling waiter and handed one to her. “Look at you… absolutely gorgeous. Has Nik managed to get his jaw off the ground yet?”

Color painted banners on Adra’s high cheekbones. “Why would it be on the ground?”

Cadeyra chuckled, taking a delicate sip of the sparkling amber liquid in her glass. “Oh, don’t act all innocent. It’s no secret he has the total hots for you. Dressed like that, I’m surprised he hasn’t thrown you over his shoulder and spirited you away to his lair.”

“Ha! He could try,” Adra laughed out loud. “But it would be one of the last things he did.”

“Really? Not the last thing?” Cadeyra lifted an eyebrow.

“Well, I’d have to let him carry me off to see what his intentions were…” A sly smile curved Adra’s lips. “Then it might take me a while to kick him out of bed.”

Cadeyra chuckled but her attention was diverted as the crowds parted to reveal her new husband walking toward her. She sucked in a breath, a shiver rolling down her spine as he locked gazes with her. A flare of desire and possessiveness washed over his features as he abandoned his conversation with her cousin to stalk toward her.

Everything else in the room ceased to exist for her. Their path to true love had been a rocky one, filled with years of longing as well as a fake treaty that had almost locked her into a diplomatic marriage with someone else and a spate of magical attacks that had almost stolen him from her for good. She still shuddered at the recollection of his memories, the ones he’d laid out for her to convince her of the truth.

They had, but they’d also done something else… she’d seen his love for her as he’d bared his mind and soul. She’d seen that she was his mate and her dragon, so alone and isolated, had cleaved to his.

He was hers, her mate, and she his.

But they weren’t mated yet.

They’d decided to wait until they were married for Sawyer to come to her bed again, and to give her his bite.

It had been the longest freaking week of her life.

Another shiver hit her, and Adra melted away into the crowd as Sawyer approached. The barely controlled desire in his eyes was enough to set fire burning through her veins and she pressed her thighs together. The movement beneath her long skirts was barely perceptible, but from the way his gaze flicked downward and the sudden hardness in his features, she knew he knew.

“Your Majesty,” he said with a small bow, just the edge of his lips quirking up as he paid her the respect due to a queen. He’d rarely done so before, insisting that as her bodyguard he had better things to think about than the level of his bow. So the fact he did so now filled her with amusement.

“Prince Consort,” she replied with a small incline of her head, holding out her hand for him to kiss as she used his new title. The moment he’d slid the ring on her finger earlier, he’d become both her consort and a prince. She suspected that only the first mattered to him.

“It has come to my attention, Your Majesty, that you have failed in your duty,” he murmured as he took her hand, the soft brush of his lips across her knuckles making the skin tingle.

“Oh?” Her eyebrow winged up as she looked quickly around, trying to spot what she’d missed. Royal weddings were a damn nightmare to arrange, especially in a week, but she hadn’t wanted to wait any longer to marry Sawyer. There was no way he was getting away from her now. Ever.

She turned back to catch the mischievous look in his eye as he pulled the hand he’d been hiding out from behind his back. He lifted the sprig of mistletoe up above her head, the quirk breaking into a devastatingly handsome smile.

“Only the most important Christmas tradition of them all…”

“We can’t have that, can we?” She smiled, taking his hand and allowing him to pull her into his arms. She felt more than heard the room around them go silent as her new prince bent her back over his arm and kissed her.

As soon as his lips touched hers, she forgot all about the people who watched them. There was just the two of them and Sawyer’s lips on hers. Her own softened immediately, parting in invitation. The small catch in his breathing told her he’d noticed. The next instant, her lips were parted further as his tongue invaded to tangle with hers.

It was a brief, hard kiss, over almost as soon as it had begun, but it rocked her to the core. For a split second she’d felt his passion, his need… and the control he was exerting over himself to keep it all inside.

Shock rolled through her as he broke the kiss, her gaze seeking his as he straightened up and put her back on her feet. That was… she’d never felt anything like it.

“Smile,” he suggested in an undertone, his own lips curved in a broad smile as he looked around, nodding to acknowledge their audience. “We’d be on camera if this lot could manage it.”

Blinking, she snapped back to reality to realize the entire court watched them, cheering and catcalling as Sawyer held her close to his broad chest. Heat hit her cheeks, burning like dragonfire, and she dropped her gaze for a second to collect herself. The sight of their queen thrown off her guard for a moment by a kiss seemed to delight them all even further.

“Now, now. No need to embarrass Her Majesty,” Sawyer called out in response to some of the more ribald comments. “But… taking some of that advice, I think it’s about time my wife and I retired for the night.”

Cadeyra had thought she had her blushes under control but no… the burning in her cheeks intensified to able-to-cook-eggs level, especially when Sawyer bent at the waist to scoop her up, holding her close to his chest.

She gasped, secretly thrilled by the move and his strength. “Sawyer, no, put me down!” she whispered urgently. “I’m the queen. What will people think?”

He just smiled and held her closer. “They’ll think you’re a bride leaving with her groom. Cadie… you were born to be queen, a little thing like being carried will not change that. Besides,” he grinned, “it’s traditional for the groom to carry a bride over the threshold. Since this is your palace… that’s a LOT of thresholds. I plan to carry you over every single one.”

She chuckled softly, winding her arms around his shoulders as a path parted for them through the crowded room.

“Congratulations!”

“Bless you both and Merry Christmas!”

“Bless Her Majesty and the prince!”

The well-wishes followed them from the room, the doors closing behind them to cut the sounds of revelry as Sawyer turned to walk toward the queen’s wing and her, now their, bedchambers.