Now the shift threatened to take that from him too, and he wasn’t sure who he’d be if he let it rise. Because beastblood didn’t just blur—it rewrote everything. Even the way he looked at Lykor.
Jassyn’s voice frayed to a whisper. “What if I lose control?”
“You don’t have to control anything,” Lykor murmured. His thumbs brushed Jassyn’s cheeks, lingering to trace the scar. “Trust me. I won’t let you fall.”
Jassyn’s breath caught as relief shuddered through him—that Lykor hadn’t demanded he master fear and fly. He only held steady, promising that Jassyn wouldn’t be lost to the drop.
Lightning split the sky, searing white behind Jassyn’s closed lids. When his lashes fluttered open, Lykor’s face sharpened into focus. His eyes burned softly, wind-tossed hair falling across a brow furrowed with concern.
Bracing himself, Jassyn exhaled and reached for the flame in his chest. The flicker came behind his eyes, pressure kindling until dragonsight snapped into place.
The sky stopped spinning, the plunge below no longer threatening to devour him.
The horizon settled into what it had always been. Just distance. Something he could measure, not fear. The storm above unraveled into currents, the weight of height loosening its grip on his chest. Fragile clarity, thin as glass, but it held.
Lykor stayed there beside him, cupping his face like he might shatter if he let go.
Jassyn inhaled, deeper this time.
The air held.
And so did he.
Before he could stop himself, he leaned in, just enough for their foreheads to touch. He shouldn’t have, but Lykor didn’t recoil. The press became an anchor, steadying him when the world threatened to spin.
And Jassyn found he wasn’t ready to lose the grounding weight of Lykor’s hands, the shelter of closeness. But the moment couldn’t stretch forever.
He eased back on his heels, and Lykor’s palms slipped away. The cool wind rushed in where warmth had been, the space between them suddenly feeling wider than the fall.
Something deeper than his balance shifted—trust, quiet but jarring. He shouldn’t crave this closeness, not while still trembling on his knees, the cliff gaping beside them like a second sky.
And yet the want crept in, fierce and unshakable. Lykor had seen him breathless and fractured time and time again, but hadn’t turned away. He’d only moved closer.
That was the truth Jassyn couldn’t outrun. That he didn’t just trust Lykor—he hungered for more. The ache didn’t vanish when the beastblood cooled.
It stayed.
Jassyn didn’t mean to keep staring as he caught his breath. But he did. Lykor’s mouth parted as if to speak, then closed again, jaw clenched, biting back whatever he’d been about to say.
Jassyn had seen that look before. In the tunnel, before they’d freed Cinderax. When silence had pressed too close and Lykor had leaned in.
Jassyn had frozen then, though not from fear. Not quite. From the weight of wanting. And Lykor had read the hesitation, had retreated without bitterness or demand.
Now, again, Lykor was close, still kneeling within reach. Jassyn’s hands twitched to bridge the gap, but they stayed knotted tight against his legs.
He caught the mirrored longing in Lykor’s eyes—glowing softly right before they dimmed, gaze slipping away. A retreat so careful it seemed like gentleness, yet Jassyn felt the sting of it like a bruise.
Maybe it was better this way. If they crossed that line, something in him might splinter. Easier to pretend neitherof them were ready, when the truth was that he’d always be too full of caution and broken scars.
And guilt rose for what he left unanswered. Lykor had never pushed. He’d only opened the door, guarding the threshold between them as surely as he guarded the cliff’s edge. Waiting.
Even if Jassyn never reached back, he knew Lykor would still stand there—holding the line between terror and sky, between hesitation and claiming—until Jassyn chose to cross it.
CHAPTER 13
SERENNA
The sun bled gold and rust over Asharyn’s skyline, spilling long shadows across Serenna’s balcony. In the palace gardens below, the turquoise fountains shimmered with the dying light, each surface flashing like a burning mirror set in stone.
