Chapter 13
SERENNA
The sun bled gold and rust over Asharyn’s skyline, spilling long shadows across Serenna’s balcony. In the palace gardens below, the turquoise fountains shimmered with the dying light, each surface flashing like a burning mirror set in stone.
She drew a brush through the damp weight of her hair, bristles snagging on knots the bathing pools hadn’t coaxed free. The water had washed the Bramblemaw’s den from her skin, but not the tremor from her nerves.
Serenna’s gaze slid back into her chamber, to the table where her Starshard lay. For a breath, she thought it pulsed.
She stared too long.
Long enough to remember when the stars had opened like a thousand eyes, every one of them watching her burn. And how Vesryn’s shard had siphoned the raging sunfire from her veins before the sky could claim her.
The Starshard should’ve unsettled her even more after that. Yet it had saved her too. Now every glance carried the question of whether it would be her salvation again. Or her ruin.
She couldn’t pretend her hand wouldn’t tremble when she next touched the gem, haunted by the Aelfyn who’d died clutching their shards, reaching for the stars and finding only void.
So when a shadow unfurled across her balcony—too sudden, too close—it was as if the phantoms from the tomb had followed her back. All defenses forgotten, Serenna’s scream ripped loose. The brush clattered to the floor as she stumbled back, spine striking a sandstone pillar.
Massive wings flared across the balcony, blotting the dusk. No time to run. No time to—
A chuckle spilled around her.
Serenna clutched her throat, eyes wide as the shadows peeled back, resolving into Fenn.
“Didn’t expect you to bleat like a pocket goat, she-elf.” His fangs flashed, eyes glowing as he stepped in close to crowd her. “Should I knock next time?”
Serenna scowled and shoved at his chest. Or tried to. His body—unfairly solid—took the push without budging.
“You didn’t spend the day in a cursed tomb with dead illusions shrieking at you!” Serenna snapped, words cracking. She winced, teeth clicking shut, breath too fast to slow.
Fenn’s smirk vanished, his voice dipping lower, cautious. “Are you alright? I didn’t mean to—”
“I’m fine.” Straightening, Serenna squared her shoulders, as if posture alone could conjure composure. “I just didn’t sense you until you were already on me.” She cleared her throat, pushing forward. “How was your day, Captain?”
That, at least, landed.
Fenn’s lips curved, and the bond nearly purred for him, as if the new title were a scratch under the chin.
“I’d say productive.” His wings rustled once before vanishing. The scaled sheen of his arms slipped back into deep indigo as he shifted back into skin. “I accompanied Jassyn to the Maw. Would’ve flown in with him, but Lykor took over.”
“They…” Serenna blinked. “They went into the Maw?”
Fenn nodded. “They returned not long before you and the princeling.”
A knot cinched low in her gut, sharp enough to steal her breath.
She hadn’t even wielded lightning yet, let alone channeled it the way Vesryn said Jassyn had.
The earth bent so easily for him while she still carried the scorch of sunfire in her veins, unable to shake nearly burning to cinders in the tomb.
If he was already flying ahead, then she was falling behind.
The thought had barely formed before Fenn closed the distance, scattering it.
“And now,” he said, voice velvet and heat, “I’ve ended up exactly where I wanted to be.”
His fang grazed the ring at his lip, pulling her gaze to his mouth, to the gleam tucked in his grin.
“Reporting for duty, of course,” he murmured, threading a claw through her damp hair, as if the brush she’d dropped had simply handed the task to him. “And it’s Skyclaw Captain of the Emberguard,” he drawled, sliding fully behind her.
Serenna huffed a laugh as she eased back into his chest. “Lykor outdid himself, but I’m not saying all that. And besides…” She tilted her head to catch his eyes, finding the flicker behind his smirk. “Pretty sure I outrank you, Captain. You’re the one stationed at my door.”
Fenn’s growl reverberated against her ear like a promise. “Then what orders does my she-elf have?”
Serenna shivered as his fingers glided from her hair, trailing down the curve of her neck. His talons slowed, lingering where he’d sink his fangs—if she asked again.
His thumbs pressed in slow, coaxing circles, unwinding the tension she’d carried since the den. Serenna’s breath loosened as her body sank into his touch.
Then Fenn’s palms slid lower, kneading her back in unhurried strokes. She bit down on her lower lip, swallowing the moan that threatened to rise. The sound would only widen his smirk.
“I doubt Lykor had this level of hands-on attention in mind when he formed the personal guard for Jassyn and me,” she managed, voice catching as another knot surrendered.
Claws slipping away, Fenn chuckled as he circled to face her. “Is it really that obvious?”
“You’re not exactly subtle.” Serenna rolled her shoulders before crossing her arms. “If it’s not you trailing me, it’s your sisters. I can’t so much as bathe without one of you jumping out of a shadow with a report.”
“File my fangs,” Fenn muttered. “I’ll have to reassign them. Should’ve known they’d gossip.”
“Speaking of…” Serenna’s voice thinned. “Did they tell you that Koln approached me in the corridor this morning?”
She’d nearly forgotten about that encounter, though something about it still lingered. Fenn’s partner had approached her and that was hardly her fault.
Fenn stilled, wariness rippling through the bond. “What did he want with you?”
Serenna shrugged, drawing it out. “He asked if I wanted to join him. At the Oasis.”
“Did he now?” Fenn’s irises flared, a flicker of confusion breaking through the fire. “That doesn’t sound like him.”
“He thought you might…appreciate the both of us,” she said, aiming for nonchalance and failing to land it clean. “At–at the same time.”
Koln had been blunt but polite, and he’d made it clear he had no interest in her. She remembered the way he’d said it, flat and unapologetic, drawing his line. I fuck Fenn. Fenn fucks you. Just don’t expect me to mingle with you. Simple.
Fenn snorted. “Of course he did. Still trying to pay off that debt from his first night in Asharyn, when he nearly got himself castrated and I had to drag him out of it.”
Serenna raised her brows. “Do I even want to know?”
Leaning back on the bannister, Fenn chuckled darkly.
“He got drunk on nectared wine, stripped, and waded straight into the druids’ sacred pool.
” He tipped his chin to the gardens below, waters shimmering in the last dregs of sunlight.
“You know, the one with the floating mistpetal blooms? The druids get twitchy if anyone so much as sniffs one. Koln ate half a dozen. I had to intervene before the servants got creative with the gardening shears.”
“He…” Serenna stared, shaking her head.
Before she could respond, Fenn’s palms slid to her waist, settling at the flare of her hips. The bond between them stirred, attuned and curious, curling against her desire like smoke hunting for a way in.
Heat rose in her cheeks. She hadn’t meant to let Koln’s offer linger in her thoughts. But it had, heating something low. Not for herself. And certainly not for Koln—his foolishness only made her scoff. But for Fenn.
Unfiltered as it was, Koln’s invitation hadn’t been a dare or a trap, but a rough sort of grace—a way to make room for what she and Fenn had, even if it meant sharing the bed.
Some reckless part of her sparked at that, until guilt jolted her back.
She hadn’t even unraveled the tangle with Vesryn, and already her mind was weaving more knots.
Fenn’s talons flexed against her, teasing the line between claim and caress. “Are you still in your fertile days?” His grin curved wickedly. “Or have the moons turned? Tell me we’re finally free to be reckless without compromising the integrity of your womb.”
The forwardness caught her off guard, pulse leaping beneath her skin like it wanted to answer him first. She should’ve expected it by now. Wraith humor always straddled that knife-edge between clinical and obscene, and Fenn never veiled what he meant.
She knew the timing, a few days of risk twice a year. The rest left her free to act without consequence.
“Yes, the moons have turned,” Serenna mimicked, rolling her eyes—too flustered to play coy, unable to pretend his question hadn’t already sent desire climbing.
For a heartbeat, Fenn’s gaze dropped to her mouth, his breath catching, discipline held by the thinnest strand. She knew exactly where it would snap if she plucked.
“We still have some time before dinner,” Serenna murmured, sliding her palm up the hard plane of his chest.
His pupils slashed to wild, vertical slits. Fenn opened his mouth, but she interrupted.
“Only there’s one small issue.” Serenna walked her fingers up the centerline of his armor. “This is surely out of line.” Her mouth curved as she lifted her eyes through her lashes. “Since you’re on duty and all.”
Fenn snarled. And then he broke.
He snatched her jaw, restraint shattering under the rupture of need. His mouth crashed into hers, all heat and hunger and molten intent.
Serenna’s body answered before thought could, fingers locking in his hair in a grip that claimed him without needing a word.
Fenn kissed her like he fought—unyielding as steel, relentless as fire. Each drag of his mouth burned her breath away, leaving her aching for more. His fangs traced her lip, a perilous graze that threatened skin without breaking. Serenna gasped, his tongue chasing the sound like it belonged to him.
Lips tingling, she drew back to breathlessly ask, “Is this part of your evening patrol, or are you breaking protocol?”
“Consider this fieldwork,” Fenn growled, grin sharpening to a feral edge as his palms traced her body. “Perimeter inspection—very thorough.”