Chapter 5
SERENNA
Flying astride Naru with Vesryn behind her, Serenna stared down at the sun-bleached desert sprawled thousands of feet below. Carved open by wind and time, crevices split the ground like gaping wounds, the earth bleeding hues of copper and sunburnt stone.
Naru’s wings drummed the air in rhythmic thumps as he carried them over a wind-scoured bluff. Her legs ached from hours in the saddle, but the true torment burned at her back. Heat from Vesryn’s thighs bled through her armor, the crowding measure of him a claim she felt in her pulse.
Serenna tightened her grip on Naru’s saddle, anything to keep her hands from betraying her. She drank in the cool air and forced her gaze to the desert uncoiling below, the distraction as thin as gauze.
Somewhere beneath the scorched crust lay the ancient Bramblemaw den that Kaedryn had urged them to scout.
Only when Serenna pushed had the druid leader confessed the truth—that none of her people would dare approach.
Centuries ago during the Great War, a Bramblemaw’s scalebound had twisted the dragon’s nesting ground into a tomb, sealing Aelfyn alive in the earth.
So while the rangers and druids scouted deeper into the Crackling Maw and others continued training, Serenna found herself paired with the prince, agreeing—perhaps too quickly—to explore the depths with him.
Kaedryn’s counsel had been maddeningly sparse, little more than a warning that the tomb would yield only to ‘starlight.’ But she believed a cache of Starshards lay entombed alongside the Aelfyn’s bones.
The relics could channel Essence talents and act as reservoirs of magic for those without. That alone made the gems an advantage.
Vesryn’s hands clamped around Serenna’s waist, the only warning before Naru banked into the wind. The prince leaned with her, but the tilt slid their hips together, making it impossible to pretend she didn’t feel every inch of him.
His mouth brushed the point of her ear, breath hot enough to chase a shiver down her spine. Serenna knew exactly what he was doing. The careful adjustments. The guiding touches. Yet his fingers lingered as though they’d forgotten the ruse.
The prince was nowhere near as subtle as he thought.
She turned, meaning to glance back—or glare, really—but the look faltered when their eyes locked. A smirk tugged at his mouth, wholly unrepentant.
Vesryn’s irises gleamed like cut jade, draconic pupils glittering in the sun. Wind tugged at his bound hair, loose strands trailing silver behind them.
Even in a partial shift—dragonsight flaring, scales glinting across her arms—the beastblood surged close enough to scatter Serenna’s focus. Her senses sharpened to something savage, thoughts of the task ahead dulling beneath the burn.
Every innocent touch scorched through her, every careless graze detonating under her ribs. Each moment tipped toward abandon, toward losing control.
The press of Vesryn’s weight against her hips, the brush of his breath at her ear, stoked something molten—heat that had nothing to do with the sun above or the desert below. Worse, the bond only magnified where their skin met, turning contact into a spark.
Vesryn’s grip stayed on her hips after she turned away. His breath hitched when she eased back, just enough to draw friction between them. Enough to feign ignorance while she leaned into the space that throbbed with invitation.
This performance of restraint dangled by a thread, desire straining to break loose into something feral.
Serenna dragged air into her lungs and wrenched her gaze forward, anchoring her thoughts to what lay ahead. A line of dead trees stretched across the horizon, their withered spines long since turned to stone.
Cinderax told them that lush jungles had once claimed these lands, wild and alive with color. A thousand years ago. A memory of a memory, before the desert claimed the plains below.
But he had refused to speak further, hissing something dismissive about the Bramblemaws—earthen dragons who tunneled in stone and soil instead of claiming the skies. But beneath the scorn, Serenna had heard the unspoken fear.
Whatever had happened still prowled his memories.
Beyond the shattered expanse, the skeleton of the forest rose, petrified trees clawing skyward toward an unforgiving sun. Serenna squinted as a pattern emerged, the spiral of trees coiling too precisely, rings tightening inward.
The work of a matriarch Bramblemaw, Cinderax had begrudgingly revealed—upheaving the land around her den, sculpting root and stone into a living labyrinth. At its heart, a sunken hollow opened, vast enough to swallow three dracovae whole.
Once, the earth had cradled a dragon’s clutch. Now it served as a grave.
Vesryn rocked behind her.
Again.
And Naru’s wingbeats swaying them together in the saddle weren’t to blame. Not when the prince’s body leaned this hard into hers.
Heat raced up Serenna’s spine, as ravenous as flame devouring dry grass.
Vesryn’s voice curled at her ear, low and amused. “Nervous? Or just trying not to melt into me?”
Unhurried, his hand drifted after the words. Spreading over her stomach, his fingers sank into leather, measuring how much resistance she still clung to.
Serenna gritted her teeth and stared ahead, but desire already simmered, hers a twin flame mirroring his.
The prince’s hand slid lower, trailing with intent she could no longer call accidental. Recklessness pounded through her pulse, a hunger fed by him, but matched by her.
“Vesryn,” Serenna hissed, the warning unheeded as he skimmed the band of her trousers.
Her breath quickened, and she arched into him before she could stop herself, body yielding even as her mind scrambled to catch up.
“We can’t do this on Naru,” she managed. Barely.
Vesryn chuckled against her neck. His palm hovered just shy of her center, taunting with a promise of touch she already ached for. “If Naru had any idea what we’re capable of up here, he’d dump us in the sand and fly straight back to Asharyn.”
“He’s not blind,” Serenna retorted.
Yet the dracovae’s wings never faltered, beats steady and sure, loyal and oblivious to the storm brewing on his back.
“Maybe not blind,” Vesryn whispered, mouth lingering at her neck, “but only I will watch you break.”
He drove against her, and Serenna pushed back, hips grinding until his breath shuddered at her ear. Her pulse thundered low, body already tipping toward the edge, the fall so close she could feel the drop.
His hand dipped lower, cupping the heat between her thighs. The pressure knocked a shameless whimper from her lungs. No longer holding back, Serenna rocked against him, chasing the friction that had haunted every mile of sky.
“It wouldn’t take much,” he said. “Just this…” His palm shifted, rolling slowly with the heel. “One more push and you’d come undone.”
Thoughts disintegrating, the saddle creaked as Serenna’s hips pursued his touch. Everything else—the druids, the looming war, her two tangled bonds, finding Skylash—collapsed.
To nothing but this.
“What about you?” she gasped, jolting into him. “Planning to spend the rest of the day with your leathers sticking to you?”
“I’d suffer for hours if it meant hearing you come apart,” Vesryn said, grip roughening, hunting the tremor in her thighs.
Serenna’s breath snagged as his teeth traced her earlobe.
“But if you’re that concerned about me,” he murmured, voice darkening, “I’m sure the moment will present itself…later. Preferably when we’re not midair.”
“Right,” she said, breathless. “Nothing sparks the mood like a tomb.”
“We’ll see.” Vesryn leaned into her back. “I’d rather make a sacred ruin out of you.”
His palm became ruthless, working her with just enough pressure to keep her hovering. She trembled, close, but not quite falling. Serenna’s restraint fractured, splintering in pursuit of more.
“Unlike you,” she breathed, curling her fingers over his, driving the touch deeper. “I don’t get off on being teased.”
Vesryn swore, and through the bond, Serenna felt him chasing his own peak, hips grinding against her in rhythm with the drag of his hand. His breath hitched with every roll, drawing out the torment, clinging to the precipice without surrendering to the plunge.
A current of heat ripped through her, urgent and feral. The horizon blurred, sky and trees collapsing as the relentless pressure wound her tighter with every stroke. The bond surged, doubling sensation until Serenna couldn’t tell whose desire burned hottest, two blazes braided into one fire.
Naru glided above the petrified forest, wings carving the breeze, but even the wind couldn’t cool the heat rising under her skin. Not with Vesryn’s rhythm pinning her deeper into the saddle. Not with his exhales breaking ragged at her neck, each motion a plea for mercy.
The world held its breath and she forgot her own, lost to the ache that wound her tighter. Every pass of his fingers stripped another layer of control, until there was nothing left but fire begging to rage.
Serenna ground into his hand, pursuing the edge as if the world had tilted and left her nowhere to land. A groan tore from the prince, more tortured this time, his thrusts shuddering through them both.
“You’re the one who said you like suffering,” Serenna gasped, sensing the jolt of his arousal. “You’re not supposed to be this close to breaking.”
Vesryn’s laugh was wrecked, breathless against her neck as he drove into her again. “This is me suffering.”
Merciless, his hand never faltered. Each stroke starved himself to drag her closer to the crest, his restraint bleeding back through the bond until it set her alight.
“Stars,” he hissed. “You have no idea what you’re doing to me.”
But she did with every roll of his hips, a surrender veiled in denial. And still he didn’t stop.
Serenna’s mind had already left the saddle. Only her legs clung, trembling on the brink.
When the break came, it tore from her in a ragged gasp. Her spine arched as Vesryn’s hand clamped firm at her center, the pressure searing until it branded. The horizon tilted. Light shattered white across her vision. A cry ripped from her lungs, caught on the wind.
Vesryn wrapped her in his arms, teeth pressed to her shoulder.
When the tremor in her legs quieted, Serenna felt the shape of his smirk at her neck, followed by the soft, dangerous drag of his lips like he hadn’t just pulled her apart midair.
“Are you ready to jump?” he asked, voice gone hoarse, but body still hard against her while she lay boneless in his arms.
Breath stuttering in her lungs, Serenna slumped back into him. Of course he wouldn’t give her time to breathe. She should’ve known.
He’d once leapt from Naru’s back without the gift of flight, reckless and laughing, trusting the dracovae to catch him.
But now they both had wings. And this time, they would soar together.