7. Cassia #3
Rhykor turns his head. The heat radiating from him shifts into a slow, unvarying simmer that draws me in, a warmth that promises safety rather than destruction.
He remains quiet, shifting just enough for his wing to brush my arm.
The membrane is surprisingly soft, like high-grade suede, and the contact sends a spark of electricity up my shoulder that makes my skin tingle.
"You're a stubborn woman, Cassia," he murmurs, the sound resonating through my frame and making my breath catch.
Moving closer, the size of him is suddenly overwhelming in the quiet dark.
He reaches out, a clawed finger hovering an inch from my cheek, his half-lidded gaze searching mine for a permission I’m terrified I’m about to give.
Up here, the patient has vanished. There's no wound to focus on, no injury to keep my hands busy and my brain in routine.
There's only him. My pulse is a frantic, messy thing, hammering wildly in my ear as I realize I'm leaning in.
Every rational thought I own is screaming at me to pull back—he's a Kraaj enforcer representing everything I swore I'd never trust—and none of it is louder than the furnace warmth of his skin or his shallow, ragged breathing, like he's fighting the same losing war I am.
CRACK.
A single rifle shot tears the moment apart.
The transition is instantaneous. One second, Rhykor is a man reaching for a woman; the next, he is a force of nature.
He lunges, his massive frame slamming into me and pinning me against the gravel before the echo even fades.
The air knocks out of me, the rough stone biting into my back through my coat, but his body is a shield of solid muscle and heat above me.
"Stay down!" he roars, the force of it shaking the very vents I am leaning on.
Another shot pings off the concrete, kicking up a spray of gray dust and stone chips that rain down on his shoulders.
The dark expanse of his chest fills my vision, the heat bleeding from him thick enough to taste, smelling of metallic tang and ancient fire.
His growl vibrates through the floor, a guttural, primal sound from a predator whose territory has been violated.
He snarls, a sound of pure, unadulterated slaughter, and pushes off me. Paralyzed, my eyes track his leap toward the neighboring roof. He uses the broad span of his wings to stabilize a jump that carries him across the forty-foot gap between buildings with a terrifying, predatory grace.
He lands among the shadows on the far roof like a falling star, the concrete cracking under his feet. I hear the short and horrified screams. These professional shooters look like children caught in a thrash against him. Rhykor moves through them, his hands glowing a dull, angry red.
Grabbing the first assassin by the throat, he turns himself into the ultimate weapon by hurling the man against a brick chimney with enough force to shatter the masonry, then pivots as the second shooter tries to bring a rifle around.
Rhykor's wing slashes outward, the hardened edge catching the man at the knees and snapping bone like dry kindling.
Metal snaps as bodies slam, with a sickening thud, against the masonry.
He moves with a cold finality, systematic and absolute, as he tears through them like they're made of wet paper.
I see the flash of his claws in the moonlight, tearing through fortified plating as if it were parchment.
Bile rises in my throat as my fingers dig into the gravel, my eyes refusing to leave the scene.
I see the Dragon in his element, a creature designed for the sole purpose of ending lives.
In less than a minute, the gunfire stops. The only sound left is the muffled, rhythmic thrum of the district's failing power grid and the heavy breathing of the man on the far roof.
He stands among the corpses, flaring his wings wide to catch the moonlight as he looms against the horizon.
His hands still radiate that furious crimson heat, the light reflecting off the blood on his claws.
The man who shared his past dissolves, leaving only the Dragon in his place.
He is the monster who melts steel and breaks armies.
Shifting his head, his eyes are molten with the remnants of the kill.
He looks at me across the gap, and for a heartbeat, I search his gaze to see if he recognizes me or if I have become another target in his sights.
The heat rippling from him is visible now; a crackling wave of dry, thinned oxygen makes my lungs work harder as it surrounds his wings.
And purely like that, the man on the rooftop, the one who told me about the pits, who almost touched my cheek with a gentleness that made my chest ache, disappears behind the thing he was built to be.
The fear I thought I had buried resurfaces, icy and precise, widening the distance between the man I knew five minutes ago and the killer standing in front of me now.
Gone is the provider of rations, hidden by the looming image of a weaponized enforcer.
My hands tremor, blurring the wreckage of his violence into a singular, haunting truth: only moments ago, I nearly welcomed his touch. And I wanted him to.