He leaves.
The chamber falls silent.
FOURTEEN
ALERIE
“He noticed.” Steadier than I feel. “About the restructuring.”
“Seravax notices everything. It’s what makes him useful.” Izan moves to the window, staring out at the city below. The orange-gold light of Pyraeth’s ever-burning fires catches on his profile, illuminating the hard lines of his features. “And dangerous.”
“Is it true? What he mentioned about the raid schedules and positioning?”
He doesn’t answer immediately. I watch the tension in his shoulders, the careful stillness that tells me he’s measuring his response.
“Yes.”
One word. No justification. No excuse. Truth offered without apology.
I cross the chamber to stand beside him at the window. The capital of the dragons who rule this realm. Somewhere down there, the Blood Regent is completing his trap. Somewhere down there, his cascade grows stronger with every passing hour.
And here, in this room, another kind of entrapment tightens around me.
“You’re not subtle.” I keep my words light, deflecting. “An entire war restructured around one witch? People will talk.”
“Let them.” His tone roughens. “I don’t care what they say.”
“You should. Kaelreth is building opposition. Seravax is calculating his own advantage. Your position?—”
“Is secure.” He turns to face me, and we’re closer than I realized. His fire presses against me like physical contact. “As long as you’re breathing, my position is exactly where I need it to be.”
My mouth goes dry. Every instinct I’ve developed for reading powerful men tells me this is the moment of greatest danger—when obsession tips from protective to possessive, when the cage transforms from gilded to iron.
But his eyes, burning in the firelight, don’t hold the cruelty I’ve learned to expect. They hold desperation. Need. The raw vulnerability of someone who has spent centuries building walls only to watch them crumble.
“I’ve never—” He stops. His hand rises toward my face, then drops back to his side. The trembling in his fingers is visible even in the dim light. “I don’t know how to do this. Any of this. Dragons don’t—we don’t feel like this. We dominate or destroy. We don’t... want.”
“But you do.”
“Yes.” The word sounds like it costs him. “I want. I need. I obsess.” His focus traces my features with an intensity that makes my skin flush. “And I don’t know how to stop, and I’m not sure I want to even if I could.”
I reach up and lay my palm flat against his chest.
His heart thunders beneath my touch. His fire surges toward my hand, seeking contact, seeking the ash-magic in my blood that answers him so naturally. The blaze burns through the fabric of his shirt in ways that should hurt but don’t.
His hand comes up to cover mine, pressing it harder against his chest. We stand at the window overlooking a city that’s slowly being enslaved, and all I can sense is the thundering of his heart beneath my palm.
“I can’t promise control.” His words are a rough whisper. “I can’t promise restraint. Whatever this is, it’s stronger than anything I’ve fought before. And I’ve spent my entire existence learning to fight.”
“Then don’t fight.” The words feel like surrender. Like freedom. Like the most dangerous choice I’ve ever made. “Not this. Not now.”
He makes a sound—low, rough, halfway between a groan and a growl. His free hand tangles in the hair at the nape of my neck, tilting my head back. His eyes blaze down at me, all control abandoned.
“If I don’t fight it—” His breath scorches against my face. “—I’ll burn everything that tries to take you from me. I’ll rearrange the entire world to keep you close. I’ll become the monster everyone already believes I am.”
“I know.”
“And you’re not afraid?”
