“Clothes,” she mutters against my mouth between desperate kisses. “Too many clothes.”
We strip each other with urgent hands. Buttons scatter across the floor. Fabric tears. I don’t care. Nothing matters except skin against skin, her warmth pressed to mine, the soft sounds she makes when my hands find bare flesh.
She’s beautiful. Perfect. Every curve, every freckle, every scar from battles I wasn’t there to fight. I trace them with my mouth—the line of her collarbone, the swell of her breasts, the soft skin of her stomach that quivers under my lips.
“Drayke.” My name on her lips is a prayer and a demand. Her fingers tangle in my hair, tugging me back up to her mouth.
I settle between her thighs. Press my forehead to hers. Our breath mingles, ragged and hot, and I feel her heartbeat racing against my chest.
“The claiming happens at the peak,” I manage, voice rough. “When the fire releases—it will mark you. Brand you as mine. There’s no going back after.”
“Good.” She rolls her hips, making me groan. “I want everyone to know I’m yours. Want it burned into my skin so deep, nothing can erase it.”
My control snaps.
I slide into her slowly, watching her face for a last moment of hesitation. There’s none. Only pleasure, only want, only trust so complete, it terrifies me and humbles me and makes me swear silent oaths to be worthy of it.
She gasps. Arches into me. “More.”
I give her more. Give her everything. She pulls my head down and our kiss is an explosion of hunger and desire. Each thrust drives us higher, building toward something I’ve never felt—not just physical pleasure, but a merging. Her fire reaching for mine through skin and sweat and shared breath. My dragon straining toward her heat, recognizing its mate, demanding completion.
“Drayke—” Her nails rake down my back hard enough to draw blood. “I’m close?—”
“I know.” I feel it building in her, in me, in the space between us where our fires are already starting to merge. “Let go. I’ve got you.”
My hand slides between us, finding the spot that makes her cry out. My other hand presses flat over her heart—over the place where the claiming mark will burn—palm already hot with the fire that’s been waiting four centuries for this moment.
She shatters around me. And I follow.
The fire releases.
It pours from my palm into her chest—hot and golden and alive, carrying four hundred years of loneliness and longing and desperate hope. I brace for her scream, for the smell of burning flesh, for the worst.
Instead, she moans. Her back bows off the bed, but not in pain. Her own fire rises to meet mine—brilliant and fierce and entirely hers—wrapping around the claiming flame, welcoming it home.
The fires merge. Dance. Become one.
And then I feel her. Not just her body clenching around mine, not just the aftershocks of pleasure, but her. Her heartbeat echoing in my chest.
The claiming mark burns into existence over her heart. Intricate, beautiful—dragon scales and flame, intertwined in a pattern that’s never existed and will never exist again. My mark. My mate. Mine.
“Selene.” Her name comes out broken, wrecked. “You’re—you survived?—”
“Told you.” She’s laughing and crying at the same time, hands exploring the new mark on her skin, tracing the raised edges where my fire branded her forever. “Fire can’t burn fire.”
I collapse beside her, pulling her against my chest, feeling her heartbeat sync with mine. The bond hums between us—new and raw and permanent, a golden thread tying her soul to mine across any distance.
“I can feel you,” she whispers, wonderment in her voice. “Inside my chest. Is that?—”
“The bond.” I press my lips to her hair, breathing her in. “You’ll always be able to find me now. And I’ll always be able to find you. No matter how far. No matter what tries to separate us.”
She tilts her head up, kisses me soft and slow—a contrast to the desperate urgency of moments ago. “Good. Because I’m not letting you go. Not ever.”
Another roundof intimacy and I start to wonder if we’re both addicted to each other. I have to remind her we need to keep watch for any rogues. We’re dressed and in the main room for a while, going over the journals.
Marcus, one of the guards, bursts into the clearing with wild eyes and heaving breath. He’s run for miles—sweat soaks through his shirt, legs trembling.
“Gathering,” he gasps. “Major rogue gathering. Three territories east. Veylor, his lieutenants—everyone. If you strike now, you can end this.”
