Chapter 40
LYKOR
Fucking stars.
Lykor forgot how to breathe as Jassyn kissed him within an inch of his life. It began slow, then deepened—gravity tilting into a single pair of lips, a pull Lykor had no defense against.
Shoulders locked, spine braced against the couch, he sat frozen beneath Jassyn’s thighs. Caged and tense, clinging to restraint like that alone could keep him from flying apart.
Warmth spilled through every point of contact. Chest to chest, skin to skin, heat sank past muscle and marrow, filling hollows Lykor hadn’t known were starving until they sparked awake under Jassyn’s touch.
And beneath it all—faint but unmistakable—the scent of rain tangled with citrus, a storm breaking over sun-warmed stone. It burrowed deep, striking a feral instinct that wanted that smell pressed into his skin until it branded him there for good.
He hadn’t meant to shred Jassyn’s shirt. Like a fucking animal. But in that blinding second, he couldn’t bear being the only one stripped bare. Not with Jassyn looking at him as if he were something worth wanting.
And now he couldn’t look away. Couldn’t pretend he didn’t notice the way Jassyn fit against him—lean muscle, desert-touched skin, a beauty fierce enough to wrench Lykor’s pulse off its axis.
Jassyn didn’t flinch or hide. He offered himself without hesitation.
And Lykor didn’t know what to do.
Didn’t know where to touch.
How to move.
How not to shatter the fragile, wordless trust Jassyn had already given him—guiding Lykor’s palms exactly where he’d wanted them, steady and sure.
No one had ever offered him that before. He’d made sure they couldn’t, torching every bridge before it could even begin to form.
Untouchable by design.
Untouchable because survival demanded isolation.
Steel forged to withstand fire, not to be softened.
Certainly not to be wanted.
But now…
His body turned traitor before he could brace for it.
Heat punched through him before his mind could catch up. His cock hardened without permission, mortification striking with the same swift violence.
Lykor tensed, shame spiking through every nerve. He nearly shoved Jassyn away, convinced he’d already ruined the moment.
But Jassyn moved closer.
The nearness stopped him cold.
And then he felt it—felt Jassyn hard against him, trembling. Just as undone by this as he was.
The relief hit like a blow. That it wasn’t just him.
A low sound slipped between them—half groan, maybe a growl—and Lykor didn’t realize it was his until Jassyn’s hips ground down in a shock of friction that sent a bolt of pleasure racing straight up his spine.
Jassyn’s mouth returned to his, coaxing and claiming, each kiss landing with ruinous precision. But he must’ve felt the tension in Lykor’s stillness, the way his hands hadn’t budged from where Jassyn had first set them. His voice came next in a whisper against Lykor’s mouth.
“You can touch me,” he murmured, palms gliding up Lykor’s ribs. “If you want.”
The invitation detonated inside him. Lykor’s throat seized around a wrecked sound, too close to a whimper to hide.
“I haven’t…” he rasped, voice fraying.
The rest jammed in his throat. He’d never done this. Had no instincts to fall back on. No sense of where to put hands that felt like weapons, too dangerous to trust. One wrong touch might cross a line Jassyn still carried and Lykor would never forgive himself.
Jassyn eased back just enough for Lykor to see him clearly. Starlight spilled across his features—eyes widening, scar silvered on his cheek, breath catching in a soft hitch.
Lykor wanted to drag the words back into his mouth and choke on the humiliation before Jassyn could read it for what it was.
“You haven’t?” Jassyn asked. “Is this…too much?”
Panic slashed through him when Jassyn’s weight began to lift and retreat.
Lykor didn’t think. He seized Jassyn’s hips and hauled him back down into his lap. Graceless. Desperate.
“No,” he growled, lips brushing Jassyn’s throat. “It’s not too much.”
Dragging in a shuddering breath, Lykor buried his face in the curve of Jassyn’s shoulder. “I just…” He swallowed, wholly gutted as silence braided around their uneven breathing. “I don’t know what I’m doing.”
Jassyn’s fingers slipped into his hair, gentle and reassuring. Lykor nearly broke for the kindness he had no map for.
“Aesar and Kal…” he began, the admission scraping its way out. “I know they…” He winced. “I stay out of it. I’ve never looked in those memories. I don’t—stars, I don’t want to see that.”
Heat climbed his throat, hotter than any fire Jassyn could summon.
“But I know the mechanics,” Lykor mumbled, trying to claw back a shred of dignity he didn’t possess. “I’ve caught wraith desecrating every stars-forsaken crevice in our fortress. You wouldn’t believe—”
He cut himself off. If he looked up—if he found even a flicker of softness in Jassyn’s eyes—he’d break open. His ribs cinched tighter, each inhale snagging in his chest.
And when the silence stretched too far, when Lykor thought it might crush him completely, Jassyn released a breathless sound. A quiet chuckle, all warmth and no mockery, melting straight through the fractures Lykor tried to hide.
That was what finally gave him courage to lift his gaze.
Jassyn didn’t look away.
Lykor’s grip tightened reflexively at Jassyn’s hips. He shut his eyes for a beat, hauling air into lungs that barely seemed to inflate anymore.
“Will you show me?” he managed, his voice low and hoarse, silently pleading he wouldn’t fumble the moment beyond repair. “With whatever you’re comfortable with?”
Jassyn didn’t hesitate when he reached for him.
Lykor flinched when Jassyn touched his claw. Instinct snarled to pull back, to hide the monstrous thing he hated more than words.
But Jassyn held his gaze. He didn’t recoil or look at him like something broken or cursed. His fingers wrapped around Lykor’s with the same quiet certainty he used to touch the rest of him. As if this, too, was just another piece of Lykor worth wanting.
Still bracing, Lykor barely breathed as Jassyn guided him lower. Through a haze of disbelief, he watched his own claw—his fucking claw—trace the taut lines of Jassyn’s body. Down over flushed skin, across the lean planes of his abdomen.
To the waist of his pants.
Jassyn didn’t push him further. He simply placed Lykor’s palm over the rigid heat beneath the fabric—giving him that choice without shame, without demand—then let go, letting Lykor feel him. Or choose not to.
Lykor’s breath shuddered loose. A tremor chased up his arm as the shock of that contact surged through him—the heat of Jassyn’s body, the unmistakable proof of him wanting back.
For a heartbeat he could only stare up at Jassyn’s eyes, molten like amber in the low light. Wild. Draconic.
And when Jassyn slid his hand beneath Lykor’s waistband, something feral and unguarded broke free in his chest. Anticipation and hunger tangled so tightly he couldn’t tell one from the other. Every thought screamed restraint. Every impulse begged for more.
Fighting the unsteadiness in his claw, Lykor mirrored the motion and followed Jassyn’s path. Careful, so scorching careful, not to scrape him with the edge of his talons.
Jassyn didn’t retreat. If anything, he pressed closer—still straddling Lykor, their hips locking with a rough drag of breath between them. They moved together, slipping beneath the last barriers of cloth.
Skin met skin. Fevered. Trembling.
Lykor’s claw curled around Jassyn’s length just as Jassyn’s hand closed around his. Their bodies jolted together, heat and desire colliding. A snarl tore from Lykor’s throat, fangs extending beyond his control.
Hips bucking, Jassyn drew in a sharp breath. Lykor met the movement with a groan, chasing more—more pressure, more heat, more of that devastating slide where restraint no longer kept pace with want.
Lykor watched Jassyn tilt his head back, curls tumbling across his brow.
His mouth parted, eyes fluttering, vertical pupils gleaming.
Lykor wanted to drown in that look. To lose himself in every hidden and untamed edge of this male.
To burn beneath Jassyn’s hands until his own name turned to ash, until Jassyn’s was the only word left on his tongue.
As Lykor stroked, an unexpected catch of coolness snagged against his palm. Disoriented by the sensation, he blinked, eyes drifting downward.
Metal, smooth and unmistakable, pressed beneath his fingers. He brushed along Jassyn’s tip and found the curve of a ring. And another. Then a laddered line of twin studs running down his rigid length, all glinting faintly with captured illumination, threaded clean through Jassyn’s flesh.
Lykor stilled.
He knew what piercings meant among the wraith—rank marked in their ears. His warriors went further than that and impaled themselves with metal in reckless displays, turning their own bodies into battlegrounds to prove their dominance.
But nothing like this. He would’ve heard of such a thing.
Before the pieces even clicked into place, Jassyn tensed. His hand faltered, going slack around Lykor as strength drained from his grip.
Lykor’s gaze snapped back up in time to catch Jassyn glance away before their eyes could meet.
“I–I didn’t think…” Jassyn cleared his throat, lashes casting shadows across the flushed curve of his cheek. “I can take them out. If you want.”
Lykor caught the retreat before the words even settled—in the curving of Jassyn’s shoulders, the breath he dragged inward and held like a shield.
The truth struck Lykor in a brutal blow. These piercings weren’t rebellion or some kind of thrill-seeking defiance. They’d been forced into him.
The knowing staked Lykor’s chest like glacial ice. The air between them answered in frost, his magic lashing out. Rage slammed through his lungs, his breath bursting white, searing from his mouth in a snarl of snow.
Something inside him cracked nearly in half. He would rather have taken a blade to the gut than see the shame Jassyn tried to hide.