Chapter 12
JASSYN
Pinned to the cliff with Lykor’s wings locked against his, Jassyn barely had time to blink before lightning screamed down.
The blinding charge slammed into Lykor’s back, and he grunted as his scales devoured the strike. The bolt writhed across his wings like a living vein torn from the sky then vanished, the storm hissing into silence as the current dissolved against him.
Hair spilled across Lykor’s eyes as his chest heaved against Jassyn’s, but he didn’t move. The wind calmed. Only the grind of his wing talons, locking tighter around Jassyn’s, broke the quiet.
Smoke rose from Lykor’s shoulders, the scent of scorched leather thick in the air. He hadn’t flinched, wings flared to take another strike—as if the Maw would have to unmake him, piece by piece, to break through.
Breath shallow, Jassyn’s wings twitched, every nerve shuddering with an aftershock the air no longer carried. Panic scraped his ribs, yet beneath it, something more dangerous stirred.
Their eyes met—Lykor’s faintly glowing—and the pull snapped taut.
He couldn’t look away.
Beastblood coiled, feral and restless, urging him to reach. Each heartbeat pushed him closer, as if nearness itself meant he had the right to claim the one who’d protected him.
Jassyn swallowed hard, choking back the darker current that beckoned him to drown the terror. Forge it into fire. Blur fear into desire. Trembling into ache. But he stopped himself, because all he’d ever learned of touch was how easily it could destroy.
And perhaps the bitter truth was admitting that he longed for someone he wasn’t sure he could trust himself to hold.
Not when beastblood distorted everything, confusing desire with care.
Not when his scars remembered possession as pain, not closeness.
And not when Lykor—carrying just as many wounds—was the one he feared he might break, even by wanting too much.
The storm folded back into the sky, but Jassyn’s body hadn’t stilled. He’d forced the beastblood down, yet his pulse raced, breath catching ragged, muscles twitching as though lightning cracked in his veins.
His awareness slipped from Lykor to the height gaping open around them. The vastness struck all at once. The ledge beneath him no longer felt like ground at all—only a strip of stone hung in the sky, nothing below but the endless fall.
Jassyn’s balance swayed. With a gasp, his wings vanished. He couldn’t bear the stretch of membrane, the threat of lift. Not when the thought of flight made his stomach clench.
He lurched sideways out of Lykor’s gravity, the motion too desperate to mask as anything but fear. Wings and scales retreating, Lykor stepped away and let him go.
Stone grated beneath Jassyn’s boots as he stumbled. His legs buckled, his knees crashing against rock.
The sky reeled, tugging like a riptide. He squeezed his eyes shut, gasping on air that vanished as fast as he found it.
Hands closed on his shoulders—firm, burning with strength.
“Jassyn.” Lykor’s voice struck through the wind. “Breathe. Look at me.”
He couldn’t. The world spun too fast behind his closed eyes, the gale shrieking through his ribs.
Jassyn felt Lykor drop beside him. Steady hands cupped his face, cradling him as if he might break. A touch that didn’t command, didn’t push, didn’t make him flinch.
“Breathe,” Lykor said again, quieter this time. “You’re here. You’re not falling.”
“I can’t—” Jassyn shook his head, the plunge clawing at the back of his eyes. “We’re too high. I can’t— Stars, you could’ve been killed. Why didn’t you warp?”
His voice broke. Unable to open his eyes, he clung to Lykor’s wrists like they were the only solid thing left.
“I’m sorry,” Jassyn whispered. The words tumbled out, one fear bleeding into the next. “I should’ve stopped the lightning. Should’ve known Essence would call it.”
He’d never be able to stand beside Lykor and face the storm. Always a burden to shield.
“What’s wrong with me?” Jassyn choked out. “I’m never going to fly.”
“You will,” Lykor said, his voice forged in conviction, not comfort. “You’re the strongest person I know.”
Jassyn shook his head, a disbelieving laugh scraping loose, sharp as a sob. But Lykor didn’t relent.
“Shift your eyes to dragonsight,” he urged. “They’re made for this. For distance. For sky. So are you.”
Clenching his jaw, Jassyn trembled as beastblood slid hot through his veins, restless and aching to rise.
It didn’t feel like strength. Not when every heartbeat thrashed, sharpening his emotions until they cut. Panic flared into aggression, care twisted into possession, hunger wore the mask of need. He hated it—hated how even desire turned dangerous in its grasp.
Control had always been fragile, slipping like sand. Lost to Stardust. To fear. To the hands that had once stripped him bare of choice.
Now the shift threatened to take that from him too, and he wasn’t sure who he’d be if he let it rise. Because beastblood didn’t just blur—it rewrote everything. Even the way he looked at Lykor.
Jassyn’s voice frayed to a whisper. “What if I lose control?”
“You don’t have to control anything,” Lykor murmured. His thumbs brushed Jassyn’s cheeks, lingering to trace the scar. “Trust me. I won’t let you fall.”
Jassyn’s breath caught as relief shuddered through him—that Lykor hadn’t demanded he master fear and fly. He only held steady, promising that Jassyn wouldn’t be lost to the drop.
Lightning split the sky, searing white behind Jassyn’s closed lids. When his lashes fluttered open, Lykor’s face sharpened into focus. His eyes burned softly, wind-tossed hair falling across a brow furrowed with concern.
Bracing himself, Jassyn exhaled and reached for the flame in his chest. The flicker came behind his eyes, pressure kindling until dragonsight snapped into place.
The sky stopped spinning, the plunge below no longer threatening to devour him.
The horizon settled into what it had always been. Just distance. Something he could measure, not fear. The storm above unraveled into currents, the weight of height loosening its grip on his chest. Fragile clarity, thin as glass, but it held.
Lykor stayed there beside him, cupping his face like he might shatter if he let go.
Jassyn inhaled, deeper this time.
The air held.
And so did he.
Before he could stop himself, he leaned in, just enough for their foreheads to touch. He shouldn’t have, but Lykor didn’t recoil. The press became an anchor, steadying him when the world threatened to spin.
And Jassyn found he wasn’t ready to lose the grounding weight of Lykor’s hands, the shelter of closeness. But the moment couldn’t stretch forever.
He eased back on his heels, and Lykor’s palms slipped away. The cool wind rushed in where warmth had been, the space between them suddenly feeling wider than the fall.
Something deeper than his balance shifted—trust, quiet but jarring. He shouldn’t crave this closeness, not while still trembling on his knees, the cliff gaping beside them like a second sky.
And yet the want crept in, fierce and unshakable. Lykor had seen him breathless and fractured time and time again, but hadn’t turned away. He’d only moved closer.
That was the truth Jassyn couldn’t outrun. That he didn’t just trust Lykor—he hungered for more. The ache didn’t vanish when the beastblood cooled.
It stayed.
Jassyn didn’t mean to keep staring as he caught his breath. But he did. Lykor’s mouth parted as if to speak, then closed again, jaw clenched, biting back whatever he’d been about to say.
Jassyn had seen that look before. In the tunnel, before they’d freed Cinderax. When silence had pressed too close and Lykor had leaned in.
Jassyn had frozen then, though not from fear. Not quite. From the weight of wanting. And Lykor had read the hesitation, had retreated without bitterness or demand.
Now, again, Lykor was close, still kneeling within reach. Jassyn’s hands twitched to bridge the gap, but they stayed knotted tight against his legs.
He caught the mirrored longing in Lykor’s eyes—glowing softly right before they dimmed, gaze slipping away. A retreat so careful it seemed like gentleness, yet Jassyn felt the sting of it like a bruise.
Maybe it was better this way. If they crossed that line, something in him might splinter. Easier to pretend neither of them were ready, when the truth was that he’d always be too full of caution and broken scars.
And guilt rose for what he left unanswered. Lykor had never pushed. He’d only opened the door, guarding the threshold between them as surely as he guarded the cliff’s edge. Waiting.
Even if Jassyn never reached back, he knew Lykor would still stand there—holding the line between terror and sky, between hesitation and claiming—until Jassyn chose to cross it.