“Not the entire time.” His mouth curves—not quite a smile, but close. “Rurik insisted I eat. Zyphon threatened to drag me out for a strategy session.”
“But mostly watching me sleep?”
“Mostly watching you sleep.”
“Definitely serial-killer territory.” I’m smiling as I say it. The claiming mark pulses warmly against my skin, and his scent wraps around me—woodsmoke and something wild, tinged with relief. The tension in his shoulders has eased. The lines around his eyes have softened. Whatever fear drove him to watch me sleep for two days is finally fading.
“So.” I trace the edge of the mark with my fingertip. “I’m marked as yours now. Like a branded cow. Very romantic.”
His hand covers mine, warm and rough. “You’re mine. And I’m yours. Completely.”
“Is that how it works? Because I don’t see any mark on you.”
He takes my hand, presses it against his chest. Under my palm, his heart beats steady and strong—and beneath that, I can sense something else. A warmth that mirrors the mark on my own skin, hidden beneath the surface.
“The mark goes both ways,” he says. “You just can’t see mine.”
“Convenient.”
“That’s how love works.”
The word hangs between us—love. He’s never said it outright. Neither have I, not in so many words. But I see it in his eyes, feel it in the way his hand tightens over mine, the way his breath catches when I look at him.
“You’re getting soft on me, Guardian King.” My voice comes out rougher than intended. “What happened to the brooding dragon who growled at me for existing on his mountain?”
“He claimed you. Now he’s insufferably smug about it.”
“Great. I’ve traded one annoying personality for another.”
He lifts my hand to his mouth, presses his lips against my knuckles. “You love it.”
“I tolerate it. There’s a difference.”
But I’m smiling, and his nostrils flare—scenting the truth beneath my sarcasm. Dragons and their damn noses.
After eatinga meal designed to fill a dragon’s stomach, I discover my power has changed. I lift my hand, and fire blooms in my palm. Not a flickering candle flame or a desperate burst of survival instinct. This fire is controlled. Deliberate. A sphere of golden warmth that hovers above my skin without burning.
“Holy shit.” I stare at the flame, watching colors ripple through it—gold, orange, hints of bronze that remind me of Drayke’s scales. “I’m basically a human lighter now. Very useful for birthday parties.”
“The claiming unlocked your full potential.” Drayke watches from across the room, arms crossed, amber gaze tracking my every movement. “Fire-Bringer power was dormant in your bloodline for generations. The ritual woke it completely.”
I shape the flame with a thought—stretching it into a ribbon, coiling it into a spiral, flattening it into a disc that spins slowly above my palm. The fire obeys effortlessly, responding to intention rather than effort.
“This is incredible. I could start a career as a street performer. ‘Watch the amazing Fire-Bringer make shapes with her hands.’ Very marketable.”
“You’re incredible.”
Heat floods my cheeks—and not from the fire. “Flattery. That’s new. Did the claiming give you a personality upgrade too?”
“Observation.” He pushes off the wall, crosses to stand before me. His hand cups my jaw, tilts my face up. “I watched you burn a Relic into dormancy while bleeding out on a stone floor. You channeled power that should have killed you and used it to save us both. Calling you incredible is understating it.”
“Keep talking like that and I’m going to think you actually like me.”
“I claimed you. That generally implies affection.”
“Does it? I thought it implied territorial instincts and poor impulse control.”
The flame in my palm flickers—not from loss of control, but from the surge of emotion his nearness sparks. Pride. Embarrassment. Love, fierce and overwhelming and still so new, it catches me off guard.
