How had they gone from being forced together, magically shackled against their will, to wanting each other with an intensity that felt both inevitable and impossible?
Vaelrik strode toward her and handed her some dried fruit and a flask of water, his movements carrying that predatory grace that made her pulse quicken. His hand was steady only on the surface when he offered the provisions—she could see the faint tremor in his fingers, and the careful control that kept his curse from reaching for her too fiercely.
“You didn’t sleep much, did you?” she observed quietly, noting the shadows under his eyes and the tension in his shoulders.
“Enough.” His voice was low and rough. “But I’m glad to see that you finally got some rest.”
Neither of them mentioned the kiss. That silence was louder than speaking of it, filled with everything they couldn’t say with dawn breaking around them and an impossible mission stretching ahead. But when she brushed his fingers taking the flask, the magical bond flared between them—hot lightning racing through her veins that made her breath catch.
They both pretended not to feel it, but the air between them crackled with unspoken hunger.
She couldn’t deny how much she wanted him. Shouldn’t want him, especially with what lay ahead—walking straight to the Gloam to face whatever ancient corruption lurked in its depths. But desire didn’t follow logic, and her body hummed with awareness every time he moved.
“We should get going,” he said, his tone carefully neutral.
They packed their supplies with efficient movements, the easy synchronization that had become second nature. In the distance, the wasteland stretched ahead in jagged black stone and sulfur fog that seemed to pulse with its own malevolent life.
Serenya kept her eyes forward as they walked south through the harsh landscape, their footsteps echoing off barren rock. The silence between them was companionable but charged, and her mind circled around a single, dangerous truth: she’d wanted that kiss. Had been wanting it for two days without admitting it to herself. And she wanted to kiss him again and wanted his hands on her skin.
That desire was dangerous—not because he was a dragon, but because she’d felt safe when he touched her. Truly safe, in a way she hadn’t experienced since childhood. Like he could settle every dark spot in her mind and make her feel at peace. When they’d kissed, her lumen magic had wrapped perfectly around his shadowfire while his dragon pushed back with equal counterbalance, creating a unity where there should have been destruction.
Together, they’d created an impossible harmony that shouldn’t exist.
When they finally approached an etched obsidian line carved deep into the stone—a dragons’ warning from centuries past—Serenya’s pulse quickened. The air beyond that boundary felt different, thicker, as if reality itself bent around whatever lay ahead.
“Once we cross that line,” she murmured, her voice barely carrying over the wind, “it changes everything.”
Vaelrik glanced at her, his jaw tense and his gray eyes holding depths she was only beginning to understand. “Everything’s already changed.”
That deliberate reference to their kiss made her breath catch, heat spiraling through her body. He didn’t elaborate, and she didn’t ask because she knew exactly what he meant. The careful distance they’d maintained, the professional boundaries—all of it had shattered the moment his lips touched hers.
Then they stepped across the etched obsidian line together, into the Gloam’s waiting darkness. The moment they crossed the line, reality twisted like a knife blade catching light. Serenya’s stomach lurched violently as the world tilted sideways, gravity becoming something negotiable rather than absolute. Her lumen magic thrashed beneath her skin like a caged animal, the sigil on her wrist burning white-hot in response to whatever ancient corruption saturated this place.
Her vision flickered at the edges—shadows dancing where there should be empty air, whispers threading through silence. The Gloam pressed against her consciousness with the weight of centuries, trying to crawl inside her mind and make itself at home.
But Vaelrik walked steady beside her, anchored and immovable as if gravity obeyed him alone. His shadowfire hummed beneath his skin with an eerie calm, and she could feel through their shackle bond that something in this cursed place was calling to the darkness within him—gently, insistently, like a lover’s voice across a crowded room.
Without thinking, she moved closer to his solid warmth, almost brushing his arm. The proximity sent heat rushing through her veins, memories of their kiss flooding back with dangerous intensity.
“Stay with me,” his voice was quiet, commanding without being harsh.
Her magic immediately bent toward his shadowfire, harmonizing instinctively. As if their kiss had opened somethingbetween them that couldn’t close now—a door that led to perfect magical synchronicity and something far more dangerous.
They approached the massive rift in the ground, and Serenya’s breath caught. The chasm yawned like a wound in the earth itself, fog rolling upward in defiance of natural law. But it was what lay at the rim that made her knees weak.
She dropped to the scorched earth, brushing ash and debris aside with trembling fingers until the impossible revealed itself. The Vex sigil—identical to the one branded on her right wrist—shone dull and cracked beneath her palms. Ancient. Purposeful. Carved with desperate precision by hands that shared her blood.
“My ancestors must have carved these,” she whispered, her voice barely audible above the low hum rising from the depths.
Vaelrik crouched behind her, his large hand settling between her shoulder blades with devastating gentleness. The contact sent warmth racing down her spine, grounding her.
“Your bloodline stood here,” he said, his voice tinged with something that might have been awe. “And fought the corruption.”
Her throat tightened as she traced the familiar lines of the sigil with her fingertips. But then she saw it—another mark carved deep into the stone beside her family’s sigil. She knew that pattern intimately now.
“So did yours.” She pointed to the drakebrand sigil that matched the one tattooed across his left bicep. “Your ancestors fought alongside mine. Before dragons started fearing witches.”
The bond hummed between them—present, alive, impossibly intimate. The revelation settled into her bones with the weight of destiny, making her wonder if their connection had been written in stone centuries before either of them drew breath.
