"I carve them all," he says quietly. "Every name. Every face." His golden eyes meet mine. "I won't forget you either."
The heat makes it hard to think, hard to hold onto words, but I manage: "Kess."
"Kess." He says my name like he's tasting it. Like it's something precious he doesn't deserve to hold. "Run, Kess. Please. I'm begging you."
"No."
"I can't control it." His voice cracks. "The rut. Once it starts, I—" He stops. Swallows. Tries again. "You're different. Wrong. Your scent is all wrong, and my beast is—" Another shudder wracks through him, violent enough that I see his muscles spasm. "It wants you. It's never wanted any of them. Just killed them because they weren't?—"
He doesn't finish.
Doesn't need to.
They weren't me.
"Good," I snarl, and lunge for him as far as the chains allow.
My teeth sink into his forearm. Not hard enough to break skin—not quite. Just hard enough to leave perfect crescents pressed into his flesh. Hard enough to show him exactly what kind of omega he's dealing with.
He jerks back. Stares at the marks I've left on him. At me.
Then something breaks in his face.
The control he's been white-knuckling shatters like glass hitting stone.
His eyes go completely black—pupils swallowing the last sliver of gold until there's nothing human left in them. His breathing turns harsh and ragged, each exhale visible in the cooling evening air. His hands curl into fists at his sides, and I watch his claws extend with a sound like knives being drawn.
His scent changes too. Intensifies until it's a physical pressure against my skin, until I'm drowning in smoke and stone and underneath it all—rut. Thick and overwhelming and designed by cruel nature to make omegas pliant and willing.
It makes my heat spike so hard my vision whites out for a second.
When it comes back, everything is red. The fever burning through me has turned nuclear. Slick gushes between my thighs. The emptiness inside me becomes a physical pain, a howling void that drowns out everything else.
I bite my tongue until I taste blood. The sharp pain cuts through the haze—just for a second, but a second is all I need.
Long enough to remember why I'm here.
Long enough to find the knife hidden in my hair and pull it free.
He's already moving. Grabbing for my knife hand. But I'm faster—heat-maddened and desperate and purely feral.
The blade slashes across his throat.
Not deep enough. He's pulling back even as I strike, dragon reflexes saving him from a killing blow. But deep enough to matter.
The skin parts. Blood wells up—dark and arterial, almost black in the fading light. It runs down his neck in rivers, drips onto my chest where he's still leaning over me. Each drop burns against my overheated skin like a brand, like a promise.
First blood.
Mine.
5
Kess
The wound gapes for a heartbeat—Ican see the white of his windpipe, the pulsing red of the artery beneath—then starts to close. Dragon healing knitting flesh back together like invisible fingers sewing meat. Fast, but not instant.
He doesn't make a sound.
