“You’re right,” I said. “I am strong. I am brave. I am fire and brimstone, and I could burn the world down over a slight.” My words floated through the shadowed stairwell, but my voice was threaded thinly. I didn’t realize I’d been crying either until salty tears ran over the curve of my top lip and slipped across my tongue.
His hand rose tentatively and slowly so as not to scare me. I stared at him wide-eyed, my vision swimming, as he gently caught a tear before it fell and tenderly wiped the others away, one at a time. “Brave, sweet liar,” he whispered.
“This thing… I’ll survive it, and I’ll survive you too.”
He tipped his chin up, respect sharpening his eyes. “You do that.”
We continued to stare at one another, one breath, one heartbeat too long.
I didn’t know what made me do it. Perhaps I simply needed to prove to myself that I could do it. That I could touch him. A small part of me was aware of what I had to do to free myself—tame him—and this was simply my way of testing myself.
Stretching up on tiptoe, I reached out to cup his cheek. Warmth and the dusting of stubble tickled my soft palm. Silky, disheveled hair was featherlight against the back of my fingers.
He went deathly still.
I heard the sharp intake of breath.
Saw the way his lashes flared wide.
He didn’t blink. He stayed exactly where he remained, staring down at me, perhaps not daring to break this connection either.
His skin was warm beneath my thumb as I swept it across the broad plane of his cheekbone, watching the faint freckles disappear and reappear under my moving thumb. Curled my fingers and brushed the backs of them along his jawline. Traced a single fingertip over his full bottom lip, the pulse of his breath whispering against my sensitive flesh. The helpless groan he tried to stifle.
He didn’t move. He didn’t press back into my touch. He just let me quietly explore him.
I enjoyed the way his throat bobbed as he swallowed thickly. The hollow at the base of his throat too, when I dipped afingertip into its indentation and then slid along the wyrmfire ink before meeting the ribbed neckline of his t-shirt.
I wondered what it would have been like if I had entered the fortress under completely different circumstances. If indeed there were no Alverac or machinations, and I was simply his bride.
How different our lives could have been if this tragedy hadn’t happened between our families. If I wasn’t a Wychthorn and he wasn’t a Crowther. If I wasn’t a wyrm and he a tamer.
Would we have met in a normal way, like a boy and girl did? Maybe at one of the House Gatherings. Shy smiles and interested glances.
Would we have even been attracted to one another without the chemicals of wyrm and tamer influencing each other?
Would my parents have even entertained the idea of my marrying a Crowther?
ThisCrowther, with his arrogant swagger and tattoos and filthy mouth.
If I had fallen in love with him.
For a moment, I truly felt sorry for him.
I’d spoken honestly earlier. I was going to survive. I was going to survive him too. But he wasn’t going to survive me. It was a surety that hummed in the depths of my bones.
I drew a deep breath, closed my eyes, and let the moment be.
Rolling back onto the flats of my feet, I stepped closer and pressed against him, his hard body tense beneath my soft curves. A sense of safety draped over me the instant I spread my hands across the swell of his pecs and turned my face into his chest. The smell of cedar smothered me like a cloak, and I gulped down great greedy inhales of woodsy scent, not caring whatsoever that it was unique to Graysen, that it was part of what we were to one another. Right this moment I needed to feel at ease, and hisscent and presence did that. I didn’t want to over-analyze it. I simply wanted to steal some of his strength.
He hesitated.
Not because he didn’t wish to hold me. I could feel the need coiled tightly within him. But because he wasn’t sure if I’d accept him.
Soft fabric whispered against my lips as I breathed the word,please, while I drifted my hands down his sides to round his back to hug him.
His indecision was almost tangible in the air before he finally wound his arms around my body to hold me, letting me melt against him, nuzzle his chest and breathe him in. How long we stayed like that, clinging to one another, I didn’t know or care.
When I finally half-pushed myself away, the light slipping through the narrow arrow slits was a deeper shade of gold. His hand had found its place beneath my heavy braid at the nape of my neck, his other arm wrapped around my back, fingers spread across the dip in my spine. I blinked up at him, and his gaze silently asked if I was okay as he tucked a stray strand of hair behind my ear. I scrunched my nose in reply, smiling a small smile, but genuine.
