Chapter twenty-four #2
Slow at first—long, deep strokes that made me feel every inch of him.
His forehead stayed pressed to mine, our breath mingling, his eyes never leaving my face.
It was intimate in a way that made my chest crack open.
Not just sex. Not just physical. Something deeper, something that resonated in a place I couldn’t name.
“I can feel you,” he breathed, and his voice sounded awed. “The bond. I can feel what you’re feeling.”
“Good,” I managed, rolling my hips to meet his next thrust. “Then you know I need you to go harder.”
His control snapped. His hips drove forward, and I cried out—pleasure so sharp it bordered on pain, exactly what I needed. He set a pace that was relentless, claiming, his hands gripping my hips hard enough to leave marks I’d wear proudly.
“Mine,” he growled, and the word vibrated through me like a tuning fork. “You’re mine, Dante.”
“Yours,” I agreed, because I was. Had been since the first time he’d looked at me across the ice with those impossible eyes. “Yours, always yours.”
He buried his face in my neck and drove into me until the world narrowed to nothing but sensation—the drag of him inside me, the weight of his body, the sounds he was making against my skin. I was close, so close, the pressure building at the base of my spine like a wave about to crest.
“Come for me,” he said, his hand wrapping around me between our bodies, and I shattered.
The orgasm tore through me with a violence that stole my vision, my muscles locking, my whole body arching off the bed as I cried out his name.
I felt him follow—felt it through the bond, this new impossible thing between us—a wave of pleasure that wasn’t mine but was, crashing through both of us simultaneously until he was groaning against my throat, his hips stuttering, emptying himself inside me.
We lay there tangled together, breathing hard, hearts hammering in tandem. His weight on me was grounding. Perfect. I ran my fingers up and down his spine and felt something there—a warmth beneath his skin, a faint vibration like touching a guitar string after it’d been plucked.
“What’s that?” I murmured.
He lifted his head, his eyes still copper-bright, and smiled in a way I’d never seen before. Open. Unguarded. Young, somehow, despite the silver in his hair. “My scales. They’re responding to you.”
“Your scales,” I repeated. “Under your skin.”
“The shift isn’t just one thing or another. It’s a spectrum.” He pressed a kiss to my jaw. “You’ll understand better when you see it.”
My heart kicked. “When I see it?”
He rolled off me carefully, reaching for the tissues to clean us up with that same gentle efficiency he’d shown in the kitchen. But there was something new in his expression now—anticipation. Excitement, barely contained.
“Get dressed,” he said. “Something warm because it’s cold at altitude.”
The words took a moment to register. Then my pulse spiked so hard I felt dizzy.
“You’re going to—”
“I’m going to show you what I am.” He just pulled on shorts. Moving with that contained energy I recognized from game days, that sense of purpose barely held in check. “And then I’m going to take you flying.”
I scrambled out of bed so fast I nearly tripped over the sheets.
Twenty minutes later we were in his backyard—that sprawling property I’d noticed on the drive in, the one with no neighbors, the one positioned for privacy.
The late-evening sun nearly completely gone.
The mountains rose in the distance, snow-capped and massive against a sky so blue it hurt to look at.
Theron stood in front of me, ten feet away, wearing nothing but his shorts which he kicked off. I could see it now—the faint iridescent shimmer of his skin, like light catching on something just beneath the surface of his skin. His scale patterns, I realized. The markings Cinder had mentioned.
“You’re sure?” he asked, and for the first time, I heard uncertainty in his voice. Real, genuine fear that what I was about to see would change things between us.
I walked forward and took his face in my hands. Kissed him once, firm and certain. “Show me.”
He nodded. Stepped back. And shifted.
It wasn’t like anything I’d expected. Not violent, not grotesque.
It was—beautiful. His body expanded, bones reshaping with a sound like distant thunder, skin rippling into scales that caught the sunlight and fractured it into a thousand copper-gold sparks.
Wings unfurled—massive, membrane-thin, veined with the same metallic sheen as his eyes.
His neck elongated, his jaw reshaped, and then he was there.
A dragon.
Sixty feet of copper and bronze and burnished gold, scales overlapping in patterns that seemed to shift and move like living metal. His eyes—those same gray eyes with their copper warmth—looked down at me from a height that should have been terrifying.
I couldn’t breathe.
Not from fear. From awe.
“Holy shit,” I whispered. Then, louder: “Holy shit, Theron.”
He lowered his massive head until it was level with me, those eyes—intelligent, warm, unmistakably him—watching me with an intensity that made my chest crack open all over again. A low rumble came from his chest, vibrating through the ground beneath my feet.
I reached out.
My hand touched his snout, and the scales were warm—not hot, but warm the way his skin always was when he held me.
Smooth and hard and alive beneath my palm.
I felt that same vibration I’d noticed along his spine earlier, amplified now into something I could hear as well as feel. A frequency. A song.
“You’re beautiful,” I said, and meant it with every fiber of my being. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and you’re all mine.”
And you’re mine.
I jerked back, my hand flying off his scales, and the voice vanished instantly. Silence. Just the wind and the distant sound of birds and my own ragged breathing.
“What the—” I stared up at him, my heart hammering. “Did you just—was that—”
He rumbled again, that deep chest-sound, and lowered his head further. Nudging my hand with his snout like a dog asking to be petted. Patient. Waiting.
I swallowed hard and pressed my palm back against the warm scales.
There you are. His voice again, flooding my mind like sunlight through a window. Touch is the bridge. When you’re connected to me physically, you’ll always hear me. Even like this.
“Oh my God.” My voice came out strangled. I pressed both hands flat against him now, greedy for it, for the intimacy of hearing him without sound. “This is—Theron, this is insane.”
I know. There was warmth in the thought, amusement threaded through it like gold wire. It overwhelmed me too, the first time my father explained it. But it’s part of the bond. Part of us.
“Can you hear me? Like, my thoughts?” The idea was simultaneously thrilling and mortifying. If he could hear every thought I’d ever had about him—
No. A ripple of what felt like laughter moved through my mind. Only what you direct at me. Your private thoughts are your own. I’ll never take that from you.
Relief and something like disappointment warred in my chest. I pressed my forehead against his scales, feeling the vibration of his song humming through my bones. “I have about a thousand questions.”
I know. And I’ll answer every single one. A pause, and then something shifted in the tone of his thoughts—playful, almost boyish in a way I’d never heard from Theron Kincaid out loud. But first—do you trust me?
I pulled back enough to look up at him. Those massive copper-gray eyes watched me, and even in this form—sixty feet of dragon, scales and wings and fire—I could see him. My Theron. The man who burned breakfast and held me like I was glass and coached hockey like it was warfare.
“With everything,” I said.
He shifted his body, lowering one shoulder toward the ground, and I realized what he was offering. A wing extended, creating a ramp of sorts—membrane stretched taut over bone, strong enough to hold my weight.
Climb up. Hold on to the ridge at the base of my neck. The scales there are rougher—easier to grip.
My legs were shaking as I climbed. The wing membrane was surprisingly firm beneath my feet, warm and slightly textured, and I scrambled up to the broad plateau of his back.
The ridge he’d mentioned ran along his spine—raised scales, almost like a natural saddle, and I wedged my fingers between them and held on.
Good. Lean forward. Press your chest against me.
I did, flattening myself along his neck, my cheek against scales that radiated heat. My hands gripped the ridge so hard my knuckles went white.
I won’t let you fall, he said, and the certainty in his voice—in his thought—was absolute. I will never let you fall.
His wings spread. The span of them blocked out the sky, casting me in shadow that smelled like metal and fire and something ancient. Muscles bunched beneath me, coiling with power I could feel through every point of contact.
“Okay,” I breathed. “Okay, I’m ready.”
He launched.
The ground dropped away so fast my stomach flipped into my throat, and I pressed my face against his neck and held on with everything I had.
Wind roared around us—cold, sharp, exactly as he’d warned—and I felt his wings catch the air with a sound like a sail snapping taut.
One beat. Two. And then we were climbing.
Open your eyes, he said gently.
I did.
And the world was so beautiful I forgot how to breathe.