A spark shone in his eye as his head shot up, brow lifting as if to scold me. He definitely heard that.
“What do you want, Verena?” he muttered.
The smirk was gone as his head dipped again, lips moving to my throat, then softly back up to my jaw. My eyes answered what my voice could not, rolling toward my skull when his hand slipped higher, fingertips skimming the edge of my waistband.
The air thinned, breaking apart inside me as wings erupted, each scale catching what little light dared to still linger. They unfurled above us, folding inward until the tent became nothing but shadow.
Without warning, I was back in that cell. Back in that lost well of my mind. Instinct and panic surged as one, my gut plummeting, the bond fraying as my shields buckled. His wings stilled, retracting slowly, feeling the break inside me.
“Breathe,” he spoke. “It’s for privacy. So you don’t feel any shame admitting it out loud.”
He thought it was shame?
His chest was stone beneath my palm and though the wounds had mended, what they took from him lay visible still. “I don’t feel shame,” I admitted.
The ache that had bloomed in my core throbbed with each heartbeat as every inch of him pushed closer. His body spoke what neither of us would, the hardness straining against me a promise that I wasn’t the only one unraveling. His wings shuddered, releasing a cool mist, brushing my overheated skin. Mint threaded the air between us, claiming it. Claimingme.
My eyes widened. “Did you just...mark me?”
His expression froze. “Not intentionally.” The mist thinned, leaving only the heat now.
“You might as well have pissed on me, you dog.” I shoved him away, hating how I ached for the comfort I’d just banished. “I am not a possession to claim.”
The exhale he let out was slow, frayed. “It’s not a performance, Verena. It’s instinct. Primal, even”
I used my own arms to hold in the last of his warmth, wrapping them around myself. “So, what? You flap those monstrous wings and I’m supposed to swoon?”
The corner of his mouth curved, not in humor, but in grim truth.
“It means my blood has already chosen. That my soul recognizes yours, whether or not my mind allows it.” His wings shifted slightly, the very thought stoking them. “It means every dragon within five hundred miles will know you’ve been touched by me.”
My stomach flipped. “That sounds a hel of a lot like possession.”
“No.” He crossed the space between us in a single stride, until there was nowhere else to look but him. “It’s protection. It tells them you are mine to defend. Mine to guard. And gods help the one who tries to take you from me.”
I swallowed, voice breaking into a whisper. “And if I don’t want it?”
For the first time, his expression split, the dragon yielding to something unbearably tender. “Then I’ll burn it out of myself.” He exhaled. “Even if it kills me.”
My thighs pressed together, a forbidden swell gathering low. I should have been furious. Should have shoved him again for having the audacity to brand me with instinct he claimed he couldn’t control. But there was an intoxicating pull in it. That he couldn’t hide, that the most volatile part of him had answeredmewith such primal certainty.
“You will never be a possession. Not anyone’s. I swear it.”
I believed him and still, at that moment, all I could think of were his hands. How badly I needed them back on me, how badly I wanted to feel the intensity of them against my skin. One found me again, delving between my thighs, pressing over the maddening barrier that kept me from truly feeling him.
“Verena...” His voice broke on my name. “Let me touch you. Let me feel you.”
My head tipped back, words tumbling out on a jagged breath. “Why do you want to touch me, Prince of Wraith?”
A low, rueful chuckle rolled from his chest, vibrating over my throat. “Prove me wrong,” he murmured, smoke curling over the places his fingers didn’t reach. “Prove to me that this sweetness isn’t real. That it’s all in my head. That it's only hate between us still.” A single wisp of smoke lifted my chin before his hand replaced it, knuckles dragging over the base of my throat. “I could worship you. With my hand,” his fingers dipped below the hem of my pants but didn’t dare move any farther. “On my knees.” His mouth replaced his other hand then, brushing my jaw, dragging down the side of my neck. “With my mouth.”
Oh gods.
“Say the word,” he breathed.
I didn’t want to cave so easily. Didn’t want to hand him this victory. But the ache honed itself into something ravenous, desire taking shape where restraint had once been, and I couldn’t deny him. Couldn’t deny myself.
My face tilted up, hips shifting toward his heat. “Then worship,” I whispered.
