Chapter Nineteen
Theo
Iretreated into my dragon because he is simple in his feelings. Rage, grief, pain. A cycle of destruction that shields me from the bullshit of others.
Time heals all wounds. It does not. Soon, you’ll only remember the good things.
That’s the problem—all I can remember are the good things.
You’ve moved into the next stage of grief.
I have not moved, and I never will. A part of her lives on in you.
That gives me pause. I search for it, but alas, it appears someone forgot to put that in my gift box.
Except now, it’s there. A glow not my own. Something unique to Daphne. What changed?
My dragon ignores the potential, persuading me to believe it must be trickery at work.
Perhaps from my brothers, who can’t find their way to bring me back home.
Because home is not in the bricks and mortar they weep in; it’s in a woman who lived her life without fear or restraint.
Occasionally, I fool myself into thinking her fingers whisper against our scales as we fly high in the stars.
But mostly, I brood and wait for the day when my dragon will have consumed my soul and we are no longer two.
When he is alone and I am gone. I don’t know how long that will take, but I sense myself becoming smaller and less significant. It’s the only blessing.
But now there’s this woman who wears her face and speaks a jumble of words so unique to her that I’m struggling to see beneath the magic to the rot beneath. Is this an Idol playing with me, or my brothers’ attempt to lure me back to them? I snarl at her and prepare to burn away the trickery.
She keeps one hand on our scales and eyeballs some bones on the ground. “Don’t you clean up after yourself? Didn’t we discuss these terms when I last agreed to be your dragon wife? I could polish your gold, rub your jewels, and offer glowing and entertaining company.”
I shake our head as if I can wrench her loose.
“In return, you make the sausage, ideally before it arrives, since we know my issues with eating friends. Resurrection has made a profound impact on some things, but chomping on friends, no matter how good they taste, is not something that has changed. I considered going vegan for three tempos, but then there was exposure to vegetable sausages and I just couldn’t do it.
Maybe I can be vegan except for the sausage?
Cakes are okay, right? And cheese? No, wait, that’s an issue. ”
I huff.
“You’re right, best to just stay as I am, imperfections and all.”
She’s perfect. What is she talking about? Bloody woman still can’t see her worth.
Wait. She... as in Daphne.
My dragon snorts at my thoughts as if he’s been waiting for me to catch up. He’s kneeling before her. Does she understand that he kneels to no one? The significance of this act is unfathomable.
Mine.
Ours.
Keeping one hand still on our scales, she bends to pinch a bone between her fingers.
“Was it dead already? Maybe we can become part-vegan where we only eat dead animals?” She frowns as she drops it.
“Yes, that’s what we are now. Semi-vegans, consuming absolutely no live animals.
Really, we are doing the realm a service by cleaning up the dead. ”
Semi-vegans. The words settle into me like grit in a wound.
We shift under her touch, muscle sliding beneath scale, heat building along the ridge of our spine.
Hunger and fire come easily to him. Taking is second nature.
He does not understand mercy, or compromise, or her steady palm resting against the center of our snout as though we are something that can be reasoned with.
No one stands this close to a dragon.
Correction—no one sane.
Ours.
He agrees, the thought tight against our chest. But there’s a fear so deep it weaves around the word. Our claws press deeper into the basin floor, and stone splits beneath them. The urge to rise, to tower, to remind her of scale and consequence, rolls through our limbs.
If she is a trick, I need only open our jaws and end it. If she is real—
Fire gathers in our throat. Uncaring, she brushes ash from her fingers and smears it across our scales as though we’re no more dangerous than a sulking hound. “You sulk for five tempos, and suddenly we’re redecorating in apocalyptic chic.”
Our lips peel back, exposing rows of teeth built for war. Smoke leaks between them. The heat swells, ready to erase the shape before us and the ache it brings with it.
She doesn’t move.
The familiar scent in the air doesn’t change. Salt. Wind. Faint citrus. Skin warmed by exertion.
She steps to our side, her fingers never breaking contact with our scales.
The spines along our back lift in warning. Our wings flex, casting shadows over her slight frame. One sweep would send her skidding across the basin.
She huffs. “You’re doing that broody internal monologue thing again,” she says, her eyes finding mine.
“It’s loud enough to wake the dead. You won’t hurt me, Theo.
You could, as you say, end me with a flick of your wing.
But then you’ll never get to feel the brush of my fingers against your skin and scales again. ”
Something inside our ribs stutters. She can hear us? I feel him coil inward, guarding the hollow places we carved out in grief.
Mate.
Not possible. Dragons don’t mate with maidens.
No longer a maiden. She is made both as before and new.
Idol?
Her hand slides along our flank, over the thinner hide where heat pulses strongest. The contact burns and steadies in the same breath.
“I’m not an Idol,” she mutters. “Don’t insult me.”
Our jaw tightens until the hinges ache. Smoke curls across her shoulder, and yet she doesn’t flinch.
“If you’re going to stay a dragon,” she says, her voice losing its edge, “then look at me.”
She moves around to our front and glances between our eyes. “Really look at me, Theo.”
Looking means seeing. Seeing means remembering. Remembering means standing in the moment she fell all over again.
The dragon resists, pushing for sky, for distance, for the clean violence of flight where memory cannot follow.
“Don’t run from me.”
Our eyes narrow. Focus sharpens. Not on the outline of her, but on the real Daphne. Hair tangled from the climb, face streaked with the ash of my rage. Cloak scorched at the hem. Chin lifted, though her hand trembles where it rests against us.
Breathing. Alive. Strong but vulnerable.
Protect her.
Always.
Our claws grind deeper into the earth, and the fire in our chest wavers. The kneeling was not thought; it was instinct. Our weight lowering without command, spikes settling, body curving around her shape. Not in surrender—that’s not what she needs or wants. Shielding.
She presses her forehead against ours, and for a moment, the world narrows to the point of contact, to the heat of her skin against scale.
“I can’t do this without you.” Her breath washes over our jaw.
The dragon surges, desperate to break the contact, to fling us both into the sky and let distance swallow the choice.
Our wings stretch, ready to lift. I fight him and the war raging in our minds.
To accept she is here leaves us vulnerable, because if it’s true, if this is her, then my heart is held once more in the palm of a hand that can be easily broken.
I hold him steady. I’m already broken. I have to take this leap and hope she catches me, because Idols help the land if she is a false woman.
Our head lowers, the tension in our neck draining in a slow release that leaves us exposed.
Her fingers slide along our jaw, not claiming, not demanding, simply there. “You stubborn, overgrown, dramatic lizard.” She rests her forehead against ours once more, and this time, I feel the tremor she tries to hide. “Come back to me.”
The fire in our chest gutters and reshapes. The heat that wanted to consume twists into something heavier that settles behind our ribs instead of erupting from them.
The dragon does not rise. Neither do I. But the space inside the scales shifts, and for the first time since she fell, the silence is no longer empty.
“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.”
“Fuck, can we just take them joined?” Malachi wonders. “I doubt they’d even notice some Idol skewering them.”
Idol. Danger.
I tear my mouth free of the dazed woman in my arms. She scowls at our audience. “Sausage blockers. A maiden can die of being too maideny, you know.”
“Not a thing,” Hart mutters as he chucks a bundle of clothes in my direction. “Suit up. I’m assuming using your dragon to burn our enemies isn’t an option right now?”
I shake my head. I need to create a little distance between us, or I risk losing myself to my dragon forever. With a sigh, I release Daphne from my grasp. Her feet slide to the ground, but then she keeps going until she’s on her ass. “I just need a tempo.”
“That must have been some kiss,” Malachi muses.
I wink at Daphne, not trusting myself to speak yet while I yank on the clothes. With difficulty, I tear my gaze away from the impossible creature who rescued me. There’s nothing I wouldn’t do for her.
She brought me back from the beast, but she has no idea what else followed me out.