Chapter 14
Chapter
Fourteen
They love to kiss and it’s not terrible.
-Humaning for Beginners: A Dragon's Tale of Human Management
Our mouths met in a heated tangle, hungry and unrelenting.
Taron kissed me like a man starved for something only I could give.
His breath, his blood and his salvation, all rolled into one.
As if he’d waited his entire life for this moment—for me—and nothing.
Not injury, nor war, or even death, could stop him from claiming what belonged to him.
Possession laced every sensual stroke of his tongue, every desperate drag of his mouth across mine.
Not gentle or polite, but raw and consuming, calling forth a hotter fire than I’d ever produced.
And yet, he was as much water as ember, drowning me in all that was Taron Locke.
He branded me with this kiss. Carved his name into my bones.
Maybe I carved mine into his, too. Responding wasn’t an option, but a necessity.
I kissed him back as though I’d been falling down an endless void my entire life, and he was now the only tether holding me to the world.
Passion surged through me, wild and molten, scorching fear, doubt and reason.
Everything in its path, until they were nothing but ash beneath the flood of this heat.
“You taste so good,” he growled into my mouth. “Feel so good.”
“More,” I demanded, other words currently beyond my ability. His heady scent blended with mine, creating a drugging perfume I never wished to be without. “More.”
Taron groaned low in his throat and clasped my hips, shifting me with sudden, practiced ease.
One moment I was kneeling beside him, the next we were both on our knees, pressed together.
My heart thundered against his chest. Our mouths never parted, but with my face over his, and his tipped up to me, the kiss deepened.
And his hands. Mmm, his hands. They roamed with reckless purpose, kneading and caressing, learning what left me breathless.
Lightning licked down my spine in the wake of his touches, each pass of his fingers both reverent and ravenous, as though he couldn't decide whether to adore or consume me. Thought evaporated, scattered to ash in the heat of his hands. Only sensation lingered.
He panted a little as he cupped my cheeks with surprising tenderness and drew back. “There’s something I need to tell you.”
Though the kiss had paused, my ache remained constant, pulsing.
He stared at me, his lids heavy, irises shimmering like golden honey melted into molten amber, bubbling with barely restrained need.
We breathed in tandem, lips parted, the air between us thick and laced with a need deeper than desire. Dangerous. Perhaps even…fated.
I braced my palms on his shoulders, grounding myself in the breadth of him, toying with the ends of his tousled hair. “Don’t tell me that was nothing but a victory kiss,” I beseeched softly. “Or that it won’t happen again.”
His lips curved, but the amusement didn’t reach his irises. “It wasn’t just a victory kiss,” he murmured, voice ragged. “I…you need to know there’s no happy ending for us. Only a beautiful ruin. Whatever happens, I will leave this realm.”
His words seared my mind, my chest. I flinched, but not from pain. Longing tore through me, sudden and sharp. I didn’t want to be a ruin.
I didn’t want us to end.
He awakened things inside me I’d thought long buried.
Hope. Connection. The kind of desire that changed the very core of your being.
And I felt them more fiercely with him than I ever had with another.
Even Leopold. He had won a girl’s heart, but I was a woman now, and what I felt for Taron cut deeper, sharper.
As if Taron had found the most vulnerable parts of me and called them to life with his summons.
“Do you still want more from me, Lyssa?” he asked, the question a low rasp, reminding me of a falling feather being split by a blade. The sound of my nickname on his tongue was its own seduction. An invocation that curled through me like the most intoxicating smoke. “Not sex. But more?”
“Ja,” I whispered. “I do.”
Satisfaction flickered across his face, softening the harsh lines carved by battles fought both within and on the battlefield.
“I want…” My throat tightened, “a chance. Not forever,” I clarified quickly. “Just honesty while we’re still here.”
He frowned. “Honesty. That’s all?”
“Ja,” I repeated. Honesty was all I could afford. Even if he wished to stay, we couldn’t have forever. Not unless he survived my fire.
But risking Taron meant risking the last piece of myself. Watching him burn would destroy me. I knew it. I’d be fit only to fade into Mourfall, tending the dead like all the others who’d lost their mates. A new berserker royal would rise in Ashmorra, and if that royal wasn’t my sisters…
Taron swallowed hard, a cornucopia of emotions flickering in his gaze. “I crave you.”
A dark incantation of three words. The magic slipped under my skin and battered at the last pieces of my armor.
He’d meant what he’d said, and it was the truth that gave the words their power.
I could feel the veracity of his claim. It carried significant weight, already a living thing with a heartbeat of its own, pounding between us. And yet…
There it was. A fracture. A sliver of hesitation neither of us could hide from.
“But you’re right. The obstacles,” he rasped, confirming my certainty. “Even with sex off the table—”
“And out of the room,” I mumbled.
“Yes.” He sighed. “Any kind of physical interaction will complicate matters.”
I nodded, my voice failing before I managed to croak, “I know.”
As much as I didn’t want to risk him, he didn’t want to burn. And even if he survived, my part in the death of his loved ones was a shadow we couldn’t outrun. Like his incantation, our past was a living, breathing force. It tethered our future to doom, turning it into a constant tug-of-war.
“Can we be friends?” he breathed, stroking my hair. “At least until I leave?”
“Ja,” I muttered, leaning closer. A much safer arrangement. “Friends who do not touch. Do not kiss. Do not pretend this is easier than it is.”
He squeezed his lids shut for a moment. “And in the spirit of our agreement, I’d like to admit my mind is currently a dumpster fire, everything jumbled together and doused in confusion.”
I snort-laughed. “Same, professor.” I forced my arms to drop to my sides as the dragon beckoned…
Time passed in silence. Then he let his arms drop, too, but he didn’t rise.
He stared at me. Stared until he lifted a hand again, this time to trace my bottom lip with his thumb, as if the act alone could silence the ghosts between us.
“I don’t hate you for what happened to my family,” he admitted quietly. “Not anymore.”
A beat of stunned silence. “You don’t?” I too reached out again. My fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt, needing something solid to anchor me.
His gaze searched mine, unflinching. “If nothing else, being with you, really learning you, has shown me a side I never imagined existed. And it isn’t the bond making me want you, Lyssa.
I don’t think it ever was.” He offered a wry, troubled smile.
“You’ve haunted my dreams for as long as I can remember.
At first, as the monster. But then…” He trailed off, and the silence that followed was full of unsaid things.
Memories, regrets, and cries of a future we weren’t sure we could have.
“Am I interrupting something?” Adelaide asked, her tone infuriatingly casual.
I yanked upright with a sharp inhale. In my daze, I hadn’t even heard her approach.
My sister stood at the edge of the chamber, framed by stone walls and wood beams. Her hair was a mess of tangled curls threaded with twigs, and streaks of dirt smeared her cheek and brow. She wore a blood-stained tunic and battered leathers, her entire presence crackling with leftover adrenaline.
Whatever she’d been doing, it had left a glaze of battle-heat burning in her irises.
“By the way, I took the liberty of gathering multiple teacups for your perusal. They’re in the throne room.” She informed us, her tone overly casual.
“You are absolutely interrupting,” Taron growled, pushing to his feet with stiff reluctance, his scowl thunderous.
Adelaide simply shrugged, unfazed by the moment she’d shattered. “Relax, lovers. We’ve got more important things to discuss. Actually, forget the teacups. There are problems waiting, too.”
Typical Adelaide, completely unmoved by awkward timing or after-kisses intimacy, able to change destinies. In a matter of hours—minutes!—Taron and I would drink the bond-breaker potion. My desperation to be near him, gone. Supposedly.
Would he want me anyway? The most delightful, effervescent flutters erupted in my belly. Until my next thought came. Desire me or not, he would still go home. Inside, I flinched. Our time together had come to an end. And that was good. For the best.
“Explain,” I said, and sighed.
Adelaide strode closer and flicked a glance between us, her mouth twitching with amusement.
“For starters, Councilman Roland Hoffmann has fled the castle. Taken his son and several other soldiers. He killed Councilmen Ansel and Hugo, who tried to stop him, then hid their bodies and cut off Cedric’s hands, freeing him from our chains, and passed him on to Lorik. ”
A heavy weight settled in my stomach. Of course, Roland was the traitor.
My hands balled. Ducking his responsibility to the citizens of Mourfall.
Challenging my rule. Trying to force me into a marriage with his eldest child.
The signs had been there, plain as firelight, but I’d been too consumed by Taron to notice.
My sister thrust an envelope into my hands. “He left you a note.”
I ripped open the flap, not even caring that Adelaide was already reading over my shoulder.
Your Majesty,
I owe you the truth, even if it earns your hatred and changes nothing.
For centuries, I have stood as guardian of this realm.
I watched the crown fall once and have never forgotten the blood, the hunger, the years it took us to claw our way back from the brink.
When you rose, you ushered in an age of peace and beauty in Ashmorra, and for that, you have my enduring loyalty and gratitude.
But this threat is not like the others. You are not strong enough to defeat Lorik.
Not while you are so distracted with other wars.
That of your curse. Your human. If the crown falls again, there will be no rebuilding, only annihilation.
Every city. Every life. I won’t allow that future to come to pass. I cannot.
Your father understands the shifter king better than any living soul. He alone can face him and survive. He was once my friend, and I believe—no, I know—I can reach him. Perhaps he is even the fabled phoenix we’ve waited centuries to see rise.
You will call my actions treason. I accept that judgment. But understand this: I do not act against you. I act for Ashmorra. For our people. For the realm that has already paid too high a price for hope misplaced.
I have chosen the path that gives us a chance to live. If I’m wrong, history will brand me a traitor. If I’m right, our people survive.
That is a fate I’m willing to do anything to oversee.
—Roland
I crumpled the letter into a tiny ball. He couldn’t even face me in battle as an honorable berserker. Just worked behind my back. An ash-born coward.
But the worst part? Losing Commander Hoffmann.
“What else?” I croaked. “You said for starters. So what is next?”
She darted her gaze. “Only that we’ve now gathered all the ingredients, so Emma can start the mixing process.”
“What’s the problem?”
“Well…” She nibbled on her bottom lip. “The potion kinda needs to steep for, like, seven days,” Adelaide admitted and winced. “Oops?”
“Seven?” I blurted, staring in shock. Seven days with Taron. In my world, my home. As my friend. “But I thought—”
“Yeah. My bad.” She spread her arms, all it is what it is. “I failed to read the full recipe.”
Taron muttered something under his breath and rubbed his chest, right over his bond-scorched heart. “I took a leave of absence from work and didn’t specify a time for my return.”
So. The professor would be my guest. Probably sleeping in my room.
I would assign guards to him, but if I knew him, and I was beginning to think I did, he would give them the slip and go wherever he wished.
I licked my lips. “Make the announcement,” I instructed Adelaide. “Touch him, and heads roll.”
“I can handle myself,” he answered with a frown.
“I know.” Wait. “Did you think I doubted your strength?” I rolled my eyes. “As if I am so foolish. If anyone touches you, you’ll take their head as a trophy, and I’ll have to punish you or face revolt.”
He blinked in surprise. Then he smiled, suddenly sheepish, basking in my praise, like he valued my opinion. I almost couldn’t stop myself from flying into his arms.
“I’ll behave,” he promised.
“Thank you.”
“Ugh. Please wait till I’m gone to continue whatever kind of banter this is,” Adelaide muttered, waving a hand between us. As I pursed my lips at her, she patted herself on the back. “By the way. We found and destroyed Lorik’s rift. You’re welcome.”
Hmm. So quickly? So easily?
“That was quick,” Taron said with a frown, mirroring my thoughts. “Too quick. I bet he has at least one other.”
Yeah. I bet so too. “And that’s not all.” I told my sister about Nyla being with Cedric.
She cringed. “Ja. I intended to get to that. I fought her while she was springing him. But I’m fine now. All healed up.”
I rubbed the back of my neck. “Just…send out another search party and find any other rifts before Cedric and Nyla escape this realm.” What was their end goal? My death? Total takeover? “As for the traitors and Lorik, I want their heads on a platter.”
My focus slid to Taron and arched a brow. “Seven days.”
He nodded. “Seven days.” He didn’t exactly appear upset by the delay.
Seven days to spend together and resist the attraction blazing between us.
Though a heady mix of anticipation, dread and excitement rushed through me, I stated, “I can do it. Can you?”
“Baby, I’ll still be standing tall when you fall.”
A slow smile bloomed. “Challenge accepted.”