“Then feel it,” he says.
There’s no room for doubt in his voice, no space for retreat. Only him. Only us.
I lean into the touch, my lips brushing the corner of his mouth—not quite a kiss, but close enough that the air between us burns. His breath hitches. The space hums, waiting.
This time, there’s no interruption.
30
KARA
The suns scrape across the horizon, thin light bleeding over the dunes. My eyes sting when I open them, lashes crusted with grit. Every muscle aches—not only from the fight, but from what came after—my body marked in new ways, both tender and raw.
For a moment I don’t move. His arm is heavy across my waist, scaled and scarred, anchoring me in this moment, here with him. His breath is steady against my shoulder, slower than mine, deeper. I should pull away, should pretend I wasn’t awake yet, but I don’t. Instead, I lie still, listening to the quiet rhythm of him.
The storm has passed. The canyon below is hushed. No scraping claws. No hiss of pursuit. No impending threat to survival. Only the faint whistle of wind threading through bone and stone.
My hand drifts to his forearm. The scales are smooth and cool. This monster of a world gave me him. Gave us this. My chest tightens at the thought, my breath hitching.
He stirs, head lifting, horns catching the light as his eyes find mine. Dark. Endless. Not soft—he’s never soft—but solid and steady, and in some way that makes me steadier too.
Neither of us speaks. Words would ruin the moment.
At last, he shifts, pushing up in one fluid movement. His wings rustle as he rises to his feet, then he holds out a hand.
I hesitate, not because I don’t want to take it, but because the gesture feels… different. He doesn’t help people. He shields. He commands. He endures. But this—this is different. An offering. An affection that feels at once out of character for him and yet perfectly him.
I slide my hand into his. His claws close carefully, pulling me up and steadying me when my knees nearly buckle. For a heartbeat, his grip lingers longer than needed before he lets go—and it’s as if the world rushes back in.
My belly grumbles as hunger gnaws. The wound on my arm throbs. The stench of the monster’s corpse drifts past on the hot breeze. He glances toward the creature, jaw tightening.
“Meat,” he says, the word a rumble low in his chest.
I swallow hard, pulse jumping. Not romance, not poetry—survival. It’s the truth of him, and of this world.
“Meat,” I agree, nodding.
And just like that, the moment between us folds into something else—not gone, but reshaped. A bond not only made in heat, but in survival, in what comes next.
The stink of blood hits stronger the closer we edge to the rim. My stomach twists—not only from hunger, but from the raw memory of fangs and claws tearing the rock beneath me.
The monster’s body sprawls across the canyon lip, massive and wrong, a ruin of scale and muscle. Its ichor glistens black in the dawn light, pooling in slick trails across the sand. The thing had seemed endless when it lunged at us. Now it looks… smaller. Dead. Defeated.
Because of us.
I shiver, not from cold but from the weight of that truth.
He crouches at its side, lochaber in hand, and with one clean motion severs a slab of flesh from its flank. The blade cuts through hide and sinew like it’s nothing. He doesn’t flinch at the heat steaming from the wound or the reek of it—just works, efficient and precise.
My throat tightens. I should help. My knife feels pitiful against the beast’s armor, but I can’t stand useless while he does everything.
I step forward, gagging a little at the stench, and wedge the blade into a seam where scale meets softer tissue. The skin gives reluctantly. My arms shake, but I push harder, sawing until the strip comes free.
It drops heavy into my hands, slick and warm. I almost drop it, but his eyes cut to mine before I can. He nods once—acknowledgment, approval—and the weight suddenly feels less unbearable.
We keep working. Strip by strip. Cut by cut. My arms quickly burn, trembling under the strain, but I grit my teeth and keep going.
“This will feed them,” I whisper, half to myself. “For days.”
