Chapter 42 The Brother Who Did Not Believe
Chapter forty-two
The Brother Who Did Not Believe
Sol
Sol's mind spun as Korin carried her into a dark hallway, his arms cradling her against the solid heat of his chest. Every thought collided with the next, a tempest of impossible truths she couldn't outrun.
Dragons cannot lie.
She'd tried to deny it. Tried to say the words—I am not your mate, I am not your queen, I am not a dragon—and her tongue had betrayed her every time. The sentences had curled and died in her throat like smoke snuffed by wind. Her own body had confirmed what her mind refused to accept.
She was like him.
She was his.
Sol shivered against Korin's chest, and the movement pressed her bare skin closer to his warmth. She should have hated the contact.
Should have recoiled from the man—the beast—who had snatched her from everything she knew. But her body had other ideas. Her body wanted to sink into him, to let his heat seep into her bones and stay there.
What is wrong with me?
She thought of his flames that hadn't burned her. The way his fire had kissed her skin and left her gasping—not in pain, but in pleasure so sharp it had stolen her breath.
She thought of that massive tongue dragging up the length of her body, claiming every inch of her like she was already his.
And she'd liked it.
That truth sat heavy in her chest, shameful and undeniable.
Her thighs pressed together as the memory surfaced again—the wet heat of his tongue sliding between them, lingering just long enough to make her hips jerk.
A flush crept up her neck.
Her nipples tightened against his chest, and she prayed to every god she knew that he couldn't feel them.
But of course, he could.
Sol exhaled slowly, trying to steady herself, but something was different now.
Something had shifted in her blood. A strange warmth was building in her core—not the lingering echo of his fire, but something deeper.
Something that pulsed with its own rhythm, like a second heartbeat awakening beneath her ribs.
The longer she was in his arms, the warmer she was getting.
Far too warm.
Sweat beaded at her temples despite the cool air of the corridor. Her skin felt tight, oversensitive, as if every nerve had been pulled taut and left trembling.
When Korin's thumb shifted against her hip—a small, unconscious adjustment—she nearly gasped aloud.
I don’t understand. What is happening to me?
Between her thighs, she was slick. Embarrassingly, undeniably wet.
She could feel it—the evidence of her body's betrayal soaking into nothing because she wore nothing at all.
Every shift of Korin's arms pressed her bare sex against the hard muscle of his forearm, and she had to bite her lip to keep from grinding against him.
This is madness. He kidnapped me. He's a monster. I should not want him.
But she did want Korin.
Her body screamed it.
Her thoughts scattered like startled birds.
She couldn't focus. Couldn't think past the heat spreading through her limbs, pooling low in her belly, throbbing between her thighs with an insistence that bordered on painful.
She needed. . .something from Korin, but she didn't know what.
But her body did.
Her body desperately ached with that knowing.
Sol pressed her face against Korin's shoulder, breathing him in—jasmine, stormwater, flame—and a soft, involuntary sound escaped her lips.
Not quite a moan.
Not quite a whimper.
Something in between.
Something wild and desperate.
Korin's arms tightened around her.
His stride didn't falter, but she felt the change in him—the way his muscles tensed, the way his breath hitched just slightly before steadying again.
He knew.
Whatever was happening to her body, he knew.
And from somewhere beyond the corridor, that other roar answered again—colder, hungrier, and closer now.
Your other king, Korin had said.
Sol's blood ran hot and cold all at once.
No one knew that Korin had a twin. How did the world not know this?
She was being carried toward a second dragon.
And her body—traitorous, burning, wanting—didn't seem to mind at all.
Then soon, Korin brought Sol through a new doorway lined with sparkling gold, and the world shifted into even more luxury.
Korin’s treasure hoard had been magnificent—mountains of gold, rivers of gems, thrones buried beneath centuries of wealth.
But his brother’s?
That was something else entirely.
Oh my.
Sol's breath caught as they emerged into a cavern so vast it seemed to hold the sky itself. The walls stretched upward for what must have been a thousand feet, carved from black rock veined with rivers of molten gold that pulsed like living arteries.
Crystals the size of huts jutted from the stone—some clear as frozen water, others dark as midnight, and still others that shimmered with colors she had no names for.
But it wasn't the walls that stole her voice.
It was the lake.
In the center of this impossible space lay a body of water unlike anything she had ever imagined. The surface shimmered with liquid gold—not just reflected light, but actual gold coins floating across the top like fallen leaves on a pond.
Thousands of them.
Perhaps millions.
They drifted in slow, hypnotic spirals, catching the light from above.
And above. . .
Sol tilted her head back, and her heart nearly stopped.
High above them, the cavern narrowed to a jagged opening—a hole in the top of what she now realized was a hollowed-out mountain.
Her nerves frazzled.
Where is Korin’s brother?
Sol put her view back on the lake. Steam rose from the edges of the lake. The water stirred and tons of bubbles broke the golden surface.
"Welcome to the heart of our home," Korin murmured against her ear. "This is where we were born. Where we have lived for centuries. And now. . .where you will rule beside us."
Sol couldn't respond because something began to rise in the center of the huge lake.
A shape.
Massive.
Threatening.
At first, she thought it was an island—a mound of black stone rising from the golden waters. But then the shape shifted. Scales the color of midnight and silver caught the light.
A spine ridged with obsidian spikes broke the surface.
And then. . .gigantic eyes opened. Two orbs of molten silver—not gold like Korin's, but cold and bright as winter moons—fixed upon her from across the lake.
Sol's body locked.
No. No. No.
The creature in the lake was identical to Korin in his dragon form—the same impossible size, the same brutal elegance, the same raw power that made the air itself tremble.
But where Korin's scales had been black and gold, this dragon was black and silver.
Where Korin's eyes burned like twin suns, these eyes gleamed like large moons.
The same.
And yet. . .different.
Colder.
Harder.
Hungrier.
"K-Korin. . ." Sol's voice cracked. "I’m scared."
"It is only my brother. Your king." Korin shifted her in his arms, adjusting his grip on her naked body as he began to walk toward the edge of the lake. "Pyrran."
The name hung in the air like a curse.
Pyrran.
For several minutes, the dragon in the lake did not move. He simply watched them approach with those terrible silver eyes, his massive head still half-submerged, nostrils flaring just above the waterline.
Steam curled around his snout.
Gold coins drifted against his scales.
Sol began to tremble.
This was not like meeting Korin. When she had faced the golden-eyed dragon, there had been terror, yes—but also something else. A pull. A recognition. A heat that matched her cold.
But Pyrran?
Pyrran made her want to scream and run.
“Do not be afraid.” Korin stopped at the water's edge and gently lowered Sol to her feet.
“Why is he looking at me that way?”
“He’s not used to anyone being in here besides our servants.”
“Servants?”
“Yes. We are gods and must be prayed to and serviced.”
“But. . .” Her legs nearly buckled, but Korin’s hand remained firm at her back, steadying her.
"Stand." Korin smiled. "Pyrran needs to see you. To smell you. To know."
Sol's teeth chattered. She was still naked, still trembling, still trying to process everything that had happened. And now she was standing before another dragon—another beast who could incinerate her with a single breath.
Oh wait. I suppose his fire won’t work on me either. . .
"This is my brother Pyrran." Korin’s voice carried across the water. "And Pyrran. . .this is our queen."
For a long moment, nothing happened.
Sol’s heart hammered in her chest.
Then Pyrran moved.
Water cascaded from his massive form as his head rose from the lake. Gold coins slid down his scales in glittering waterfalls. His neck uncoiled—longer than Korin's, Sol realized, or perhaps it just seemed that way because of how slowly he moved.
How deliberately.
And then out of nowhere. . .he roared.
The sound was different from Korin's. Where Korin's roar had been fire and fury, Pyrran's was ice and shadow. It rolled across the cavern like thunder trapped in a canyon, shaking the crystals in the walls, sending ripples racing across the golden lake.
Sol screamed and stumbled backward, but Korin caught her. "Easy. Pyrran is. . .testing you."
"Testing me?!" Sol gasped and held up her hands at the dragon, preparing herself to shoot him with ice.
But Korin only laughed—a low, warm sound that was utterly mad given the circumstances. "My brother is not easily swayed like me. It takes him time."
Still, Sol kept her ice ready to shoot out of her hands if he tried to come closer.
Pyrran's silver eyes cruelly narrowed. He didn’t appear warmed to her at all. When he spoke, his voice was nothing like Korin's sensual rumble.
This voice was darker.
Deeper.
It scraped against her bones like claws on stone.
"Brother. . .why do you bring someone that could be a witch into my hoard?"
Sol flinched.
Korin's hand tightened on her back. "Witch? You smell her, brother. You know what she is. You know she is our queen."