Chapter 16
Chapter Sixteen
LEIRA
Steam curls around my bare shoulders as I step from the shower, droplets catching the light like tiny crystals before sliding down my skin.
My chamber feels too large, too empty without him.
I wrap a towel around my body, the soft fabric a poor substitute for Varok's scales against my skin, and press my forehead against the cool stone wall.
My pulse still hasn't settled since he left me at my door an hour ago, his lips burning against mine in a kiss that promised more to come.
I catch my reflection in the polished stone that serves as a mirror in this strange underground world.
My eyes look different, brighter somehow, with a warmth I don't recognize.
My hair, still damp and darkened to the color of wet bark, curls against my neck where his fangs grazed hours earlier.
The memory alone sends a shiver racing down my spine that has nothing to do with the cool air.
Last night feels both vivid and dreamlike, real and impossible.
I close my eyes and his den materializes behind my eyelids: the heartstone's aqua glow painting shadows across his scales, the surprising softness of his sleeping nest, the weight of his body above mine.
My fingers find my lips without conscious thought, tracing where his mouth claimed mine.
Not the cautious, testing kiss we'd shared before, but something deeper, hungrier.
A claiming that left me breathless and aching for more.
I pad across the cool stone floor to my nest, dropping my towel as I reach for the silk robe that Jeslyn, the servant assigned to my chambers, laid out for me.
The air kisses my bare skin, pebbling goosebumps along my arms. Every movement reminds me of him: the pleasant soreness between my thighs, the ghost-memory of his hands on my hips, my breasts, the places that made me gasp his name in the night.
Heat climbs my neck at the thought of my boldness, how readily I surrendered to sensations I'd never known before.
What would my father think if he could see his diplomatic, dutiful daughter now?
Instead of a symbol of peace, I've become entangled with the very being I was raised to fear.
I've welcomed him into my body, craved his touch, whispered things in the dark I never imagined myself saying.
The thought should shame me, but all I feel is a fierce, wild joy that bubbles up from somewhere deep and carnal.
“You’re in trouble, Leira,” I whisper to myself, though the warning falls hollow. The woman in the reflection isn’t chastened or cautious—she’s radiant, eyes soft with something dangerously close to surrendering her heart.
The silk slides cool and whisper-light across my skin as I tie the robe around my waist. It's a beautiful garment, dyed the deep blue of midnight and embroidered with silver thread that catches the light from the keh’shali running through the walls.
Just one of the many garments Varok commissioned Furra to craft for me, the weaver with copper scales who'd measured me with tape as well as scrutinizing eyes in the market before TrueCoil assassins descended like shadows, before Varok's arms became my sanctuary.
How strange that a memory so fresh could feel like a lifetime ago and not just weeks.
My chamber still feels impossibly vast and impersonal despite the luxurious furnishings.
The massive nest with its silken covers, the crystalline formations sprouting from the walls like frozen waterfalls, the heartstone pit glowing at the center.
All of it beautiful, all of it cold. Nothing like the lived-in warmth of Varok's den, with its weapons hanging on the walls and maps spread across stone tables.
His space told the story of who he was. This room tells only what others believe I should be.
I move to the windows overlooking Vessan-Kar, pressing my palm against the cool glass. The underground city stretches before me, a constellation of lights winking in the vast cavern.
Through our bond, I sense Varok's presence, a steady pressure like a hand resting at the small of my back. The connection thrums whenever my thoughts drift to him, as if the very magic binding us together recognizes his name in my mind.
Tonight we'll dine together, another courtly appearance after his coronation.
The thought sends a flutter of anxiety to my stomach, quickly replaced by a different kind of nervousness.
Will we maintain the careful distance of political allies in his court?
Or will everyone see the change between us, read the truth in how our eyes meet across the table?
And after the evening meal...my body flushes hot at the memory.
I want him again. The exquisite stretch as my body yields to accommodate him, the impossible fullness when his twin lengths claim me one after the other, each thrust sending pleasure spiraling through me until I can't tell where I end and he begins.
When he growled my name last night, his voice rough with need as he emptied himself deep inside my slick heat.
I felt branded from within. The intensity should terrify me, but instead, it feels like awakening to a hunger I never knew existed, like discovering a void within myself that only he can fill.
"Focus, Leira," I mutter, pushing away from the window. I need to prepare for the day, to remember my role here goes beyond what happens in Varok's nest. I am still the bridge between our peoples, still the Threadborn whose presence has awakened an ancient prophecy.
But as I move across the room to select something appropriate for the day ahead, I can't help but smile at the memory of Varok's promise when he left me at my door this morning: "Until tonight, Ashira.
" His pet name for me rumbled from his chest like distant thunder, his eyes burning with promises that weakened my knees.
Until tonight, indeed. The waiting will be its own exquisite torture.
From the alcove, I select a floor-length, sleeveless tunic of deep forest green, the fabric cool and liquid between my fingers.
The garment is beautiful and cut to accommodate my human shape while incorporating naga aesthetic sensibilities.
I have no undergarments to wear beneath it.
The naga have no need for such things, and I haven't the words to explain panties to Furra in a way that wouldn't leave me mortified. So I go without.
As I slip the tunic on over my head, I wonder what Serin would think of it. My little sister, with her love of pretty things and delicate fabrics, would run her hands over the silk with wide-eyed wonder, peppering me with questions about how it was made and who designed it.
Serin. Her name tightens my chest, a knot of longing that never fully loosens.
In the quiet moments, her absence aches like a phantom limb.
I miss her gentle laugh, the way she'd tilt her head when considering a difficult question, how she'd absently tuck flowers behind her ear when we walked through the gardens within Clavenmoor's walls.
I cinch the tunic at the waist with a silver clasp Miria gifted me, my fingers working automatically while my mind drifts home.
Serin would be tending the garden now, her hands stained green from crushing herbs, soft wisps of her hazel-brown hair escaping her braids.
Unlike me, she never minded the dirt or the insects.
She found beauty in the smallest things like a dew-covered spiderweb, the pattern of veins in a leaf, the precise architectural perfection of a beehive.
What would she make of Vessan-Kar? I can see her now, clutching my arm with trembling fingers, her breath coming quick and shallow at first, those hazel eyes wide with the terror that made me volunteer in her place.
But then, inevitably, wonder would overcome fear.
She'd reach out, hesitant, to touch a glowing vein in the wall, jerking back with a nervous laugh before trying again.
By the third day, she'd be pressing her cheek to the stone, listening for its pulse.
“You'd hate it and love it here, Serin," I whisper to the empty room, my words falling into silence like stones into a bottomless well.
"The market would terrify you until you saw the glassblowers shaping molten light or the crystal carvers coaxing constellations from stone.
Then I'd lose you for hours while you peppered them with questions, forgetting to be afraid.”
I move to the vanity, running a comb through my damp hair, shorter now than I've worn it since childhood. Another change, another adaptation to this strange new life.
"And there's someone..." The words catch in my throat. How would I even begin to explain Varok to her? The fierce warrior who first terrified me, then fascinated me, and now...now makes my heart race with a single glance. "There's someone I wish you could meet."
I can almost see Serin's reaction. The raised eyebrow, the slow bloom of a knowing smile.
"The terrifying naga commander isn't so terrifying after all, then?
" she would ask, eyes dancing with mischief.
She would see through any attempt to downplay my feelings, would poke and prod until I confessed everything, my cheeks burning with embarrassment.
The thought makes me smile despite the ache.
Serin always could pull truths from me that I tried to hide even from myself.
I wonder what she would say about Varok’s fierce protectiveness, his unexpected gentleness, the way his presence fills a room like a brewing storm.
Would she approve? Would she understand how a woman raised to fear naga could find herself willingly in one's arms?
"He's nothing like I imagined," I tell her phantom, the comb pausing mid-stroke. "He's...complicated. Dangerous, yes, but not to me. Never to me." The words feel important to say aloud, even if only to myself.