Part of me wanted to consume her, wanted to wrap her in wings of shadow and fire, to lock her in a tower of my own making and keep the world, and my brothers, away. But to save her, I had to let the others in. I had to share my hoard. It was a strategic necessity, something a dragon was biologically wired to reject.
Damp, stale air filled my lungs as I took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to wrestle more control away from the beast within. I focused on the bond, on the faint, thrumming thread that connected me to Aria. Even unconscious, she felt like a lodestone, a magnetic north that my soul oriented toward.
I would share her. I would let them touch her, taste her, fill her with the power she needed to survive.
But I would be the first. And when the dust settled, I would be the last.
As I turned back toward the fire, watching the way the orange light played across her sleeping face and Flynn's protective silhouette, I knew the waiting was the real torture. The hunger in my blood wasn't for food.
How long could we keep this fragile peace before the need to claim her burned us all alive?
TEN
Aria
I floated back to consciousness on a tide of warmth and the savory, impossible scent of roasting meat.
It was disorienting. The last thing I remembered was the damp, crushing cold of the cavern and the metallic taste of my own exhaustion. Now, the air smelled of smoke and rendered fat, a rich, earthy aroma that made my stomach cramp with sudden, violent hunger.
I didn't open my eyes immediately. I burrowed deeper into the heat source behind me, a solid wall of muscle and steady rhythm that felt less like a pillow and more like a fortress. My cheek rested against fabric that smelled of sulfur and ozone, not the damp wool Flynn had been wearing, but something sharper. Something incendiary.
"She’s waking," a voice rumbled through the chest pressed against my back. It was a deep baritone that vibrated right through my spine.
Kaelen.
I was in Kaelen’s arms.
The realization sent a jolt through me that wasn't fear, but a sharp, electric awareness. I peeled my eyes open. The cavern wasstill dim, but the darkness had been pushed back by a small fire crackling a few feet away.
"Easy," Kaelen murmured. His arm tightened around my waist, keeping me anchored against him. "Don't try to sit up yet. You're still weak from all that magic usage."
I shifted, realizing my position. I was seated between his legs, my back resting against his chest, his legs bracketing mine. It was intimate, possessive, and overwhelmingly safe. I looked down at his arm wrapped around me; he had discarded the tattered ceremonial robes for a simple tunic he must have scavenged from the supplies, sleeves rolled up to reveal forearms corded with muscle and faintly etched with the scars of our escape.
"Food?" I croaked, my voice a rusted hinge.
"Flynn went hunting," Kaelen said, his breath stirring the hair at my temple. "He found a subterranean stream a mile down the tunnel. Blind cave fish and something that looked like a rabbit but probably wasn't. He insisted it was edible."
"He ate the first one raw just to prove a point," Elias’s voice drifted from across the fire.
I turned my head slightly. The Phoenix sat cross-legged on the other side of the flames, looking annoyingly pristine in his grey robe. He was staring into the fire, his turquoise eyes reflecting the dancing embers, his expression distant and unreadable. Thane was further back, sharpening a jagged piece of obsidian against a rock, the rhythmicshhh-shhhsound providing a strange comfort. Flynn was nowhere to be seen, likely prowling the perimeter.
"Here," Kaelen said.
He shifted, reaching toward the fire where a skewer of meat rested over the coals. He didn't use a cloth to pick it up; his bare fingers grasped the hot wood without flinching. As he pulled a strip of meat from the bone; the juices ran over his thumb.
It was steaming hot, searing enough to blister mortal skin. I hesitated, my stomach screamingyeswhile my instinct screamedburn.
Kaelen brought the morsel toward my lips. "Trust me."
I watched, mesmerized, as a faint golden shimmer coated the meat. It wasn't fire; it was the absence of it. He was pulling the heat away, drawing the thermal energy into his own skin, tempering the food with a precision that was terrifyingly delicate for a creature capable of turning a mountain to slag. Dragon magic. The mastery of temperature.
"Open," he whispered.
I parted my lips, and he fed me.
His fingers brushed my mouth, rough calluses against soft skin, and a shiver that had nothing to do with the cave's chill raced down my neck. The meat was perfect, all warm, savory, and tender. I chewed and swallowed, nearly moaning at the sensation of food hitting an empty stomach.
"More," I whispered.
