Serenya stood near the bed, just finishing the task of pulling her dark leather pants over her hips. Her hair was tousled, her lips still swollen from his kisses, and the faint glow of the incomplete mate mark was visible through the thin fabric of her blouse. She met Kyr’s stunned gaze with a lift of her chin that was pure defiance wrapped in satisfaction.
Kyr’s face went flat as a polished shield, his military composure warring with something that looked suspiciously like disbelief. “You’re joking, right? You two just had sex?”
Vaelrik didn’t flinch, didn’t soften the brutal honesty of his reply. His dragon stirred with primal satisfaction. “Yes. She’s my fated mate. I simply claimed what was mine.”
The words hung in the air like a declaration of war against centuries of dragon-witch animosity. Kyr’s slate-gray eyes went wide, then comprehension hit him like a hammer striking steel.
“That’s why you’ve been protective. Territorial. Unstable.” He counted off the behaviors on his fingers, each word landing with the weight of sudden understanding. “Every time someone threatened her, every time the Council tried to control her—your dragon was responding to mate-threat.”
Vaelrik nodded once, sharp and decisive. Behind him, Serenya’s cheeks flushed with color, but she didn’t deny it, didn’t retreat into the shadows of shame or political calculation.
Kyr exhaled hard through his nose—the dragon version of grudging acceptance. His shoulders relaxed incrementally, though his expression remained carved from granite. “Well, I guess I’ll learn to adjust.”
He studied Vaelrik closer, his gaze cataloging details with the precision of a man who had spent decades reading his warlord’s moods. “You look...” he searched for the right word, “...sane. More centered.”
“It’s all because of her,” Vaelrik replied firmly. The shadowfire curse that had tormented him for a century sat quiet beneath his ribs, held in check by the steady pulse of her presence in his blood.
Kyr nodded back, his acceptance settling into something grounded. “Then I’ll stand beside you. Whatever fallout this causes.”
But then his expression hardened again, shifting back into the tactical mindset that had kept them both alive through countless battles. “Just prepare yourselves. The Council smells blood in the water—they must sense something.”
Vaelrik’s jaw hardened to match, his dragon rising to meet the implied challenge. Whatever political games Archon Serect was playing, whatever trap was being laid in the Council chambers, he would face it with Serenya at his side. “Then let them.”
Within minutes, Vaelrik had pulled on a dark shirt and boots while Serenya gathered the broken fragments of their shattered shackles. The metal was still humming faintly with residual magic.
They made their way through the Citadel’s volcanic corridors in a formation that was both protective and declarative—Vaelrik slightly ahead, Serenya at his shoulder, Kyr flanking them with the precision of a man prepared for war. Guards and servants pressed themselves against the walls as they passed, sensing the change in the air around them, and the way their combined presence seemed to make the very stones hum with dangerous energy.
The Council chamber doors loomed ahead, carved obsidian that reflected their approach in distorted shadows. Vaelrik could already scent the presence of the elders beyond—Archon Serect’s particular blend of molten gold and political calculation strongest among them.
When they entered, Serect was already standing, fingers steepled in a pose that radiated false calm. His golden eyes fixed on them with the intensity of a predator sizing up prey.
“Vaelrik. Serenya.” His voice carried the smooth warmth of heated metal. “I trust your mission to the Gloam was... illuminating.”
The word choice made Vaelrik’s nostrils flare with the first taste of fury. Illuminating. Not successful. Not informative. The kind of word choice that suggested their outcome had been anticipated.
“We encountered the Shadowbinder,” Vaelrik replied, his tone carefully neutral. “He claimed we were his final pieces.”
Serect’s expression remained perfectly composed, but Vaelrik caught the microscopic tightening around his eyes. “Fascinating. And did his corruption magic provoke you? Heighten your emotions in any way?”
The questions were a blade wrapped in silk. Too pointed. Too prepared.
“Did he cause you to shift, Vaelrik?” Serect continued, his voice taking on the cadence of an interrogation disguised as concern. “Serenya, did you attempt to stabilize him in the Gloam’s depths?”
Serenya and Vaelrik exchanged a look—brief but loaded with the weight of shared understanding. Serect shouldn’t know any of this. Not the specifics of what had transpired in that twisted rift. Not unless he’d known exactly what they would find there.
Vaelrik’s fury began to build, controlled but inexorable. The shadowfire curse stirred in response, but Serenya’s presence kept it leashed and focused rather than chaotic.
Without a word, Serenya stepped forward and placed the broken shackle fragments on the obsidian Council table. The metal clattered against stone with a sound like breaking chains.
Serect recoiled as if she’d placed a viper before him. “That—should be impossible.”
“It’s not,” Serenya said evenly, her voice carrying the kind of certainty that could move mountains. “Our mate bond rejected it.”
“What?” Serect snapped, his carefully maintained composure cracking like heated glass.
Vaelrik stepped forward, his presence filling the chamber like gathering storm clouds. “Well, your forced partnership turned out to be a fated pair. Serenya’s my fated mate. And no Council collar will ever touch her again.”
Gasps echoed from the other elders, but Vaelrik’s attention remained fixed on Serect’s face. Behind them, Kyr moved to stand at their backs—a silent declaration of where House Obsidian’s loyalty lay.
