Her voice—real or imagined—dragged him back from the curse’s edge. Not his discipline. Not decades of training. Her.
He clamped down on the curse with brutal force, channeling his shadowfire into controlled, razor-precise arcs that carved through the corruption without consuming everything in sight.
The Shadowbinder laughed, the sound echoing strangely in the warped space.
“Perfect,” he murmured, his pale eyes gleaming with satisfaction. “Absolutely perfect.”
Vaelrik’s dragon calculated escape routes with brutal efficiency even as the Shadowbinder’s laughter echoed through the warped space. The creature wanted to study them, to measure their resonance like specimens in a laboratory. Not today. Not with her life hanging in the balance.
Without hesitation, he curved his massive neck downward, his claws reaching out with careful precision. Serenya didn’t flinch as his obsidian talons closed around her waist with gentleness—his dragon instincts overriding every other impulse to ensure she remained unharmed. Her complete trust flooded their bond, steadying the curse’s snarling hunger beneath his ribs.
His wings caught the distorted air currents, muscles bunching as he launched them upward through the rift’s twisted geometry. Reality bent around them—up became sideways, gravity pulled in impossible directions—but his dragonnavigated the chaos with ancient instinct, following currents of clean air that shouldn’t exist in this corrupted place.
Serenya’s pulse thrummed against his claws, quick but steady. Her lumen magic wrapped around his shadowfire like silk threads, guiding him through pockets of warped space where normal flight would have torn them apart. She wasn’t just trusting him to carry her—she was helping him fly.
The ascent felt endless, reality folding and refolding around them as they climbed through layers of corruption that tried to drag them back down. But finally, they burst through into clean daylight, the Gloam’s influence falling away like shed skin.
Vaelrik’s wings caught thermal currents, carrying them north toward Cinderhollow’s volcanic peaks. The flight back passed in silence, Serenya’s presence a warm anchor against his consciousness while his dragon savored the simple act of protecting what belonged to him.
When the Citadel’s obsidian gates came into view, he circled once before descending to the courtyard with controlled precision. The moment his claws touched stone, the shift back to human form hit him like a breaking wave—bone and muscle contracting, wings folding into nothingness, and scales melting back into bronzed skin.
He staggered, his breath ragged, pain lancing through his ribs where the Gloamrot shadows had struck. Blood trailed down his side in dark rivulets, but his arms remained steady around Serenya as she found her footing.
Her palm pressed against his bare chest—right over his thundering heartbeat—and the simple contact sent heat flooding through him. Her touch steadied him more effectively than any healing magic, grounding the curse’s restless energy into something manageable.
“It wanted us to come,” she whispered, her voice tight with realization. “It wanted to see us in action together.”
Fury coiled in his chest—cold and lethal. He cupped her jaw, his thumb brushing her cheekbone with devastating tenderness.
“Then we’ll make it regret that,” he said firmly.
Footsteps pounded across the courtyard. Kyr burst through the gates, his storm-gray eyes wide with relief and barely-contained panic. His second-in-command took one look at Vaelrik’s naked, bloodied form and immediately shrugged out of his traveling cloak.
“What in the seven hells happened?” Kyr demanded, wrapping the dark fabric around Vaelrik’s shoulders.
Dragon shifters, witches, and humans—they all stared from the courtyard’s edges, whispers rising like smoke. Vaelrik didn’t care. He’d saved Serenya from that creature. He knew what they were up against now. The rest could burn for all it mattered.
“Later,” Vaelrik said, his voice thick with exhaustion. “I need to go to my quarters.”
Serenya fell into step beside him, her shoulder brushing his arm as they crossed the threshold. She wanted to be close to him—he could feel it through their bond, that same magnetic pull that had been building since their kiss. The need to tend to him, to make sure he was truly safe.
His quarters felt like sanctuary after the Gloam’s twisted reality. Vaelrik moved to his supply chest with economical precision, retrieving bandages, healing salve, and a bottle of something strong enough to clean wounds. When he settled on his bed, Serenya sat beside him without invitation.
Her fingers worked the cloak’s clasp with steady hands, fabric falling away to reveal the gash across his ribs—angry red, still weeping blood, but clean of corruption. The sight of his wound made her jaw tighten with something possessive and fierce.
“Let me,” she said, reaching for the supplies.
He didn’t argue. Couldn’t, really, when her proximity sent heat racing through his blood and made his dragon purr with satisfaction. This wasn’t the clinical stabilization ritual from days ago—this was intimate, chosen, layered with emotions neither could deny anymore.
Serenya’s palm settled against his bare chest, and the shackle bond didn’t just flare—it detonated. Power erupted between them like lightning striking twice, white-gold light colliding with shadowfire in a resonance so pure it made the air itself sing. The metal bands around their wrists cracked, then shattered completely, falling to the floor in smoking pieces.
She jerked back, eyes wide. “How is that possible? The shackles shouldn’t break.”
The truth burned in his chest like molten metal, ancient and inevitable.
“It’s the mate bond. It’s growing too strong for shackles,” he said simply.
Her breath caught. “Vaelrik...”
