“I love you,” she murmurs. “You hear me, Theo Stirling? I love you enough to fight my way back to you from the stars. Can you not battle one puny dragon? Did I overestimate your feelings for me?”
The dragon coils around the words, suspicious, territorial. He does not want to loosen his grip. He was built for this body. For the heat. For the certainty of flame.
Human skin is fragile. Human hearts fracture. Flame does not.
My chest aches with the need to feel the tangle of her hair in my fingers and the taste of her lips against mine.
The fire that once gathered to destroy turns inward. Not outward burn, but collapse. Heat folding in on itself, compressing beneath rib and scale.
It hurts.
The first crack is small, a splintering along our spine where wing meets bone. The dragon snarls as the joint shifts. Muscle spasms. Wings strain and the membrane thins, shivers, retracts.
I grit my teeth, though I no longer know which set belongs to me.
Scales ripple. Not falling away, but withdrawing, like armor being dragged beneath the skin.
The spikes ache as they shorten. Pressure builds behind our eyes. Our vision fractures gold, then narrows, depth shifting as the world rises around us.
Her hand remains curved around our face, and she keeps breathing for the both of us, never faltering in her belief in me.
“Easy,” she whispers, though nothing about this is.
Our claws convulse, carving trenches one last time before bone shrinks, splits, and reforms. Fingers force their way through the memory of talons. Nerves ignite as sensation floods in where once there was only heat.
The dragon roars, furious at the confinement.
I hold him. Not chained. Not silenced. Cradled.
I’m not alone. Daphne is right beside me as I wrestle him back for control.
“You are not losing,” I force through teeth that are no longer fangs. “You are choosing her.”
Our body folds inward, the vastness compressing, weight redistributing until the basin no longer trembles beneath us. The last of the scales recede across our shoulders and ribs, leaving skin bare and exposed to the cold air of the mountain. For one suspended heartbeat, I kneel between forms, smoke curling from my skin, breath ragged, the echo of wings still a phantom against my back.
Then there’s only me, on my knees before her, the earth no longer scorched beneath talons, but pressed against human palms. My head remains bowed against her belly. Her shaky hands thread into my hair, and I grasp her hips, centering myself with her as my reason for breathing once more.
Her hot tears drop onto my head. “Look at me,” she demands as her hand curls under my chin and forces me to face her. Her breath hitches as our eyes collide. I may have wrestled him back, but I know he’s close to the surface, studying every move she makes.
“Pretty mouse?” I growl. My voice is guttural after many moons of not using it.
She gives me a genuine but wobbly smile. “No longer a mouse. I fear I never was.” She leans down and presses her soft lips against my own.
The kiss seals the reality. It’s her. The hows and whys don’t matter. She’s here, and nothing can tear us apart ever again. I feel that deep in my bones and clutch the part of her soul she gifted me when she returned to us tighter.
I stand and lift her. She wraps her legs around my waist, never breaking the kiss. I push her against the nearest stone and shove my hands beneath her dress, finding her bare.Why?The fleeting question dissipates with her low moan when I push my fingers inside her heated channel.
“Brother,” someone snaps.
Nope. If I ignore them, they will go away. I need her. Now.
“Theo,” another growls, grabbing my shoulder.
My fist snaps to the side, pushing Malachi away, and still our mouths remain joined.
“Daphne, we need to move, now,” Hart snarls. “We’re being hunted.”
“No time for that kind of reunion, brother,” Nash utters in my ear. “Soon. None of us have been with her because we were waiting for you. Now it’s your turn.”
