Kelda faltered, the spear wavering in her grip as she turned, her eyes widening.
Fenrik ripped his right arm free. The motion was so violent it must have dislocated his shoulder; I heard the joint pop, saw the unnatural angle, but he didn’t even flinch. He used the freedom to tear at the bonds across his chest, his claws, real, obsidian claws now, shredding the magical construct Kelda had built.
He dropped from his suspension, landing in a crouch amidstthe silver sludge. He didn’t look human anymore. Shadows wreathed him like smoke, and his skin was a map of glowing fissures.
Kelda shrieked, refocusing her aim. She hurled the silver spear.
Fenrik moved faster though. He crossed the distance between the fissure and me in a heartbeat. He didn’t strike at her. He didn’t try to deflect the magic. He launched himself at me, and his body collided with mine, hard enough to knock the breath from my lungs. His arms locked around me, one hand cupping the back of my head, slamming me into the stone floor. He curled over me, shielding me with his own back.
BOOM.
The world turned white.
The spear struck the spot where I had been kneeling a fraction of a second before. The impact detonated the stone, sending a wave of pulverized rock and wild magic blasting outward.
The noise deafened me. I felt the heat sear over us, felt Fenrik’s body jerk as debris rained down on his back, but he didn’t let go. He only squeezed tighter, pressing my face into the crook of his neck, burying me beneath him. We were sealed in a pocket of choking dust. The air was thick with pulverized quartz and the metallic tang of discharged magic. I lay there, gasping, my chest heaving against his. He was heavy.
“Fenrik?” I wheezed, my voice trembling. “Are you in there, or is it just the dragon?”
He lifted his head. The dust swirled around us, obscuring everything beyond a foot, creating privacy. His face was inches from mine. His eyes were wild, the pupils blown wide, flashing silver and violet.
He barred his teeth in a snarl.
“Mine,” he rasped, the voice layered and distorted. “She does not touch.”
The cavern’s roar had dulled to a distant thunder, but the real storm raged inside us. Fenrik’s body crushed mine to thestone, his weight a burning cage. His skin scorched through our clothes, fever radiating from his scales. Silver threads of Waste Magic snaked from his fissures, lashing at my Quiet, which rose in golden pulses to meet them. The clash sent razors through my veins, his chaos trying to unravel me, my stability scorching him back. Our powers looped, feeding on each other.
I gasped, my hands fisting in his torn shirt. Pain bloomed in my chest, a vise squeezing tighter with every mismatched heartbeat. His. Mine. The ley-line’s. They hammered out of sync, threatening to shatter my bones. If I didn’t ground this, we’d both fracture.
“Fenrik,” I said. His face hovered inches from mine. His claws dug into the stone beside my head, scoring deep grooves. He bared fangs, breathing hot against my throat.
“Won’t let her take you,” he mumbled, the words slurring through gritted teeth. “Mine. Won’t... take...”
The feedback spiked, a fresh wave of agony ripping through me. My back arched against the floor, my hips bucking involuntarily. I grabbed his shoulders, yanking him down harder. “Stay with me.” My nails bit into his flesh, drawing blood. The contact sparked, his Waste flooded into me, wild and scorching, but my Quiet wrapped around it, forcing a brutal harmony. Heat pooled low in my belly, liquid fire spreading as our bodies aligned. He groaned, a guttural sound that vibrated through his chest into mine. His hips ground down pinning me with raw force. The ridge of him pressed against my core through layers of fabric, hard and insistent. I bucked up to meet it, chasingthe friction that dulled the magical storm. Our rhythms synced with the ley-line’s pulse—throb and release, throb and release. Each grind sent sparks exploding behind my eyelids, the agony transmuting into desperate need.
“Lysa,” he snarled, one hand sliding down to grip my thigh, hitching my leg around his waist. The angle deepened the pressure, his length rubbing exactly where I ached. Fabric dragged, rough and unyielding, but it didn’t matter. I rolled my hips, matching his frantic thrusts. Stone bit into my shoulders, cold against the fever building between us. His mouth found my neck, his beast teeth grazing my skin without breaking it, breath hot and ragged.
“Yes,” I panted, fingers tangling in his hair, pulling him closer. The feedback loop tightened, our magics clashing in white-hot bursts that only the grind of our bodies could contain. He rocked harder, uncoordinated, driven by survival. I felt him swell against me, the heat of him searing through his trousers, my own arousal slicking the barrier. His free hand shoved under my shirt, his claws rough on my bare stomach, sliding up to cup my breast. A thumb circled the peak, drawing a moan from my throat. The ley-line surged again, and he answered with a deeper grind, our hips circling in time with its frenzy. Pressure built, coiling tight in my core, every thrust pushing me closer to the edge. We clung like that, our bodies the only anchor.
The pressure was going to kill us. The ley-line screamed beneath the floor, a soundless vibration that rattled my teeth, demanding a conduit for the ocean of Waste Magic Kelda hadunleashed. Fenrik was a dam about to burst, his body boiling. We were burning alive in the dust, two broken halves of a circuit trying to ground raw lightning. I realized then that we couldn’t suppress this. Kelda’s words, twisted as they were, held a kernel of truth, I couldn’tstopthe energy. I had to let it flow. I had to open the valve before the pressure tore the cavern apart.
“Let go,” I gasped against his mouth, my hands scrabbling between our bodies. “Fenrik, don’t fight it.”
He made a fractured sound, half-sob, half-growl. My fingers fumbled with the fastening of his trousers. The moment my hand found him, hot and hard and trembling, the magic arced between us with the violence of a whip crack. Fenrik bucked, his head thrown back, exposing the silver-veined column of his throat. He didn’t pull away; he surged into my touch, starving for it. In response, his hand tore at my breeches, sliding down to find the slick heat of me. His fingers were rough, clawed, and desperate, dragging a scream from my lungs that was lost in his mouth as he kissed me again. He kissed me like he wanted to devour my breath, his teeth scraping my lips.
The rhythm took us. With every stroke of my hand, I pulled the chaotic silver fire from his core. With every movement of his fingers against me, he grounded the golden flare of my Quiet, giving it a shape.
Gold. Silver. Gold. Silver.The colors strobed behind my eyelids. The pain in my chest dissolved, transmuted by the pleasure that spiked sharper and higher with every frantic heartbeat.We were forging an alloy. I could feel the dragon inside him shrieking in terror.
“Lysa,” he roared into my mouth.
“I’m here,” I cried out, matching his frantic pace, chasing the precipice. “I’m right here.”
The world narrowed down to the point where we touched. The ley-line’s pulse synced with ours, a thundering drumbeat that shook the foundations of the manor above.
We broke together. The release slammed into me, a white-hot detonation that shattered my spine. I shouted his name, clutching him as he found his own release in my hand, his body rigid.
Our orgasm triggered the transmutation I somehow felt it would. The chaotic, poisonous Waste Magic rushed through the connection we’d built, filtered through the gold of my soul and the silver of his blood, and erupted outward as pure power. A shockwave of light exploded from our bodies. It passed through us harmlessly, a warm, resonant hum that felt like the first breath of spring, but it hit the cavern with the force of a gale. The choking dust vaporized. The lingering shadows of the dragon were scoured from the walls, and the illusions died.
