“Lysa,” I rasped, my voice distorted by a throat reshaping for fire. “Real. You’re real. Please be real.”
“Fenrik?” She said, her hands fisting in my torn shirt.
The sound of my name on her lips shattered the last of my restraint. “Mine,” I snarled. I meant that as a claim, and a warning to the universe. “She does not touch.”
But the danger wasn’t over. The ley-line beneath us screamed, vibrating through my knees. I was a vessel overflowing, the waste magic boiling my blood, demanding a release I couldn’t give without leveling the mountain. My chaos lashed out, silver threads seeking purchase; her magic rose to meet it, golden and steady. The collision of our powers was agony. My back arched, the pressure inside me reaching critical mass. If we didn’t ground this, I would burn out, and I would take her with me.
“Fenrik,” she gasped, her nails digging into my shoulders. “Stay with me.”
She yanked me down. Our hips collided, grinding together against the unforgiving stone. The friction sparked a hunger that hurt more than the dislocated shoulder. I groaned, the sound vibrating through my chest into hers, and pressed my weight down, pinning her. I needed to be closer. I needed to excise the memory of Kelda’s lies from my skin and replace it withthis.
I ground against her, the ridge of my arousal hard and painful against the barrier of our clothes. She bucked up to meet me, her rhythm matching the irregular beat of the fractured ley-line.
“Yes,” she panted, her head thrown back, exposing the fragile line of her throat.
My control snapped. I needed to anchor myself before the magic tore me apart. My hand, half-clawed and shaking, tore at the waistband of her trousers. I shoved my fingers inside, finding the slick, molten heat of her clit. She screamed my name—a broken, desperate sound that was music to my beast. The moment I touched her, the circuit closed. The chaotic silver fire raging in my blood found a conduit. I wasn’t burning anymore; I was flowing.
“Let go,” she cried out. “Fenrik, don’t fight it.” I didn’t. I couldn’t. My free hand scrambled for my own fastenings, desperate for the friction of her skin. Her hand found me, wrapping cool and firm around my length, and the sensation blinded me.
I surged into her touch, my hips snapping forward in a rhythm dictated by survival. With every stroke of her hand, shepulled the poison from my soul. With every movement of my fingers against her, I grounded her wild, golden light.
Mine.The word echoed in the roar of blood in my ears.Real. Here. Mine.
We moved together in the dust and the dark, forging something new from the wreckage. The pressure built, a rising tide of silver and gold, until it crested. I threw my head back, roaring her name as I poured everything I was—magic, man, and monster—into her hand.
twenty-five
Lysa
My heart was still doing something bird-like against my ribs, echoing the pulsing silence of the cavern. I stared up at the vaulted ceiling, trying to remember my name. The scholarly texts I’d hoarded had chapters on biology, and the scandalous, dog-eared romance novels I kept hidden beneath my mattress had plenty of adjectives aboutquivering membersandheaving bosoms, but none of them—not a single one—had mentioned that the aftermath of unparalleled ecstasy would involve a cramp in my left hip and the acute sensation of stone grit sticking to my ass. For twenty-three years, my experience with pleasure had been a solitary affair, a quick, guilty friction in the dark while imagining faceless heroes who didn’t exist. This... this was a violent, sweaty, magnificent sensation.
Fenrik was a dead weight on top of me, his face buried in the crook of my neck. His breath hitched against my skin, as thesilver scales along his spine dissolved into sweat-slicked human skin. He smelled of musk, a scent so intoxicating I wanted to bottle it and drink it, though currently, I mostly just wanted to pull my trousers up.
“Fenrik,” I said, my hand stroking the damp hair at the nape of his neck. “Are you—“
The ground beneath us lurched. The Manor above us let out a high, tearing scream of timber and stone.
Fenrik groaned, lifting his head. His eyes were grey again, storm-dark and dazed. “The valve,” he rasped, looking past me. “The governor... it’s gone.”
I followed his gaze. The ley-line fissure, which had been boiling with silver chaos, was no longer effectively siphoned by the shadow dragon or the ritual. It was vomiting toxic magic waste into the room.
A wheezing laugh cut through the rumble. Lady Kelda was propped against the far wall, blood trickling from her nose, her perfect hair in disarray. “You fools,” she spat, though she looked like she might vomit. “You didn’t fix the leak. You blew up the dam.”
I scrambled out from under Fenrik, fumbling with my buttons with numb fingers. My hand brushed my pocket, feeling the cold glass of two vials.
One: My father’s Dragonheart extract. A single boost to push past limits.
Two: The dubious vial Kelda had given me in the hallway.This will ease his pain.
“Getback!” I said, pulling both vials out as I staggered to my feet. My knees felt like water, a delightful side effect of the last ten minutes, now terribly inconvenient. Kelda’s eyes snapped to the red-tinted glass in my left hand, the Dragonheart. She recognized the shimmer of potency. “Give that to me,” she shrieked, lurching forward. “You’ll kill us all if you try to channel that much raw entropy!”
She was fast for a woman wearing three layers of Hearthcraft robes. She lunged, her manicured claws raking for the red vial.
I dodged, slipping on the loose shale, and nearly dropped both. “Back off, or I’ll—“
“You’ll what?” She grappled with me. “You’re a nursemaid, Lysa! Hand it over!”
She grabbed my wrist, twisting hard. Pain flared, and I gasped, my grip loosening on theothervial—the clear one. The “pain relief.”
