Chapter 16
Chapter
Sixteen
The wind howled like a living thing, tearing through the courtyard with feral claws, whipping my hair loose from its braid as the clouds above churned into a violent, swirling mass.
The sky darkened so quickly it felt like dusk had fallen all over again, cloaking the castle in a veil of ash-colored shadow.
Lightning forked in brutal cracks across the heavens, blinding arcs that hissed down and kissed the stones with fire. One struck ten feet from where I stood, exploding into sparks and leaving a scorched crater in the earth.
My ears rang, and the raw, humming burn of power surged through me like a rising tide, ancient and wild and done with being caged.
The other people on the grounds had fled. I barely registered their silhouettes diving for cover.
But Zander didn’t run.
He grabbed me.
His arm locked around my waist, dragging me against his chest as another bolt forked through the sky, lighting us both in flashes of blue-white fire. The earth trembled beneath our boots, stones groaning as the magic clawed through the castle’s bones.
“Ashe!” he shouted against the wind. His voice sounded far away, like it had to cross through a thousand storms just to reach me.
But I didn’t answer.
Because there was only the power.
It burned through me, hot and cold, ice and flame, grief and rage. Kaelith’s absence throbbed like a missing limb.
It’ll be over soon, I told myself.
Kaelith would be free.
And so would I.
In a way.
Then something shifted.
Zander’s magic pressed into mine, not just brushing it, invading it. His essence was all thunder and stone, cold fury and anchored weight. It wrapped around my core, not to suppress… but to reach.
Suddenly, I felt them.
Kaelith.
And Hein.
Their roars filled my head like battle drums, ancient and angry.
And they were yelling.
Not at me.
At him.
At Zander.
I didn’t know how it was happening. I didn’t know what he’d done. But for the first time since Kaelith abandoned our link, I felt her again.
I felt her fear.
Her rage.
Zander’s grip tightened, and I saw his mouth move, though I couldn’t hear the words over the crackling magic.
But his power didn’t waver.
And somehow, through it all, he was holding me together.
The air split with one final thunderclap, so loud it rattled the ramparts of the western wall. But the lightning no longer struck. The storm above us held, trembling, churning, but it had stopped its descent.
Because Zander had me.
His arms wrapped tight around my back and under my knees, and I felt his magic still threaded with mine, pulsing like twin heartbeats colliding beneath my skin. I couldn’t stand on my own anymore. My limbs had gone limp, my breath ragged.
Hein, I heard faintly—Hein is anchoring her mind. Kaelith’s voice echoed, clipped and strained. I will help. But do not let go.
Zander didn’t answer aloud. He just gritted his teeth and lifted me like I weighed nothing, muscles taut and jaw clenched with focus.
My storm didn’t vanish.
It bled.
The clouds twisted slower now, less like claws and more like winded beasts. The roar softened, winds still brushing against the stone, but no longer flaying it.
They were siphoning it. Zander… Hein… and Kaelith.
Pulling the fury from my veins, thread by thread.
I let out a quiet breath against his shoulder as my head lolled against him.
“I… can’t…”
“You don’t have to,” he murmured. “Not right now.”
My eyes blurred as the castle’s stone corridor came into view, torches flickering against banners, the echo of our footsteps bouncing through the silence that followed the storm.
Zander carried me deeper into the heart of the fortress, past familiar turns and cold arches, until he pushed open a door and stepped into his chambers.
He didn’t hesitate. Just crossed the room and laid me gently atop the thick navy blankets of his bed, the scent of him already warm in the space.
I blinked up at the ceiling, breath shallow. While most of the violet on my pendant had disappeared, it pulsed faintly, tired, uncertain.
Zander knelt beside the bed and cupped the side of my face.
“You’re safe,” he whispered.
But I didn’t feel safe.
I felt empty.
Still, I turned into his palm, because the storm, my storm, had been killing me, and somehow he’d held it back.
Held me.
Until I remembered how to breathe again.
The storm was gone, but its ghost lingered, in the burn beneath my skin, in the raw ache curling in my spine, in the silence that followed like the hush after a scream.
I lay on his bed, still in my leathers, my braid undone and clinging damp to my shoulder. Zander hadn’t moved from where he knelt beside me, one hand on the mattress, the other still cradling my face like he was afraid I’d disappear if he let go.
His voice came low. Rough. “Why did you let it get that far?”
I turned my head just slightly, looking at him through half-lidded eyes. “I didn’t let it. I couldn’t stop it.”
He said nothing for a moment, but I could see the tension in his jaw. The unspoken fear behind his silver-blue gaze.
“I don’t think dragons kill riders who lose control,” I whispered. “I think the riders kill themselves, because without an anchor… without someone to take the edge off their power…” My voice cracked. “It just tears them apart.”
Zander’s fingers curled tighter into the blanket. “You scared me,” he said, voice hoarse. “Don’t do that again.”
“I wish I could promise that,” I said, the bitter truth bleeding from every word.
“But whatever you did tonight, whatever Kaelith and Hein helped you do… it’s a temporary fix.
The magic’s still there, and I have no outlet.
” I looked at him, tired and raw. “It’s building again, Zander. And next time…”
He leaned forward, his forehead brushing mine. His breath ghosted over my lips.
“Then let me give you one,” he said.
And he kissed me.
Not with restraint.
Not with hesitation.
But with the force of someone who had nearly lost everything and couldn’t bear to let go again.
His mouth claimed mine, fire to storm, and my hands tangled in the front of his tunic before I even realized I was moving. His kiss was molten, desperate and aching and real. He tasted like thunder, like magic, like every secret I’d tried to bury in the dark.
The bed shifted beneath us as he leaned in, one arm sliding around my shoulders, pulling me closer like I was something he needed to survive.
And in that moment, maybe I was.
Because when he kissed me, the magic stilled.
Not gone.
But quiet.
And for now, that was everything.
Zander’s hands trembled once when he slid the clasp from my leathers and peeled them away with reverence rather than urgency, revealing skin flushed from power and want. The storm still hummed faintly in my veins, but it softened beneath his touch. Quieted.
He undressed me first, like it was a vow. Before removing his own clothing.
His lips found mine again as we tangled in the sheets, all heat and ache and pent-up desire. I pressed closer, and his mouth trailed down my throat, over the line of my collarbone, then lower, over my ribs and hips and the hollows no one else had ever dared to kiss like that.
His hands held me open, and his mouth worshiped every inch of me like I was holy. Like he wanted to learn my body by heart.
His tongue made its way to my sensitive core and my hips bucked as he took his first foray between my slick lips.
He licked, sucked, and probed my core with his tongue. I wound tighter with every swipe. My skin prickled as my magic built around us. The air thickened and the storm of my powers crackled across my skin and his. But Zander didn’t flinch or stop.
When a wave of power rippled from me, Zander inserted two fingers and sucked my clit into his mouth.
That was all it took for me to combust. Crying out his name, I climaxed and clawed at his back.
I probably left furrows, but I couldn’t stop.
He moaned against my skin, making me thrash beneath him in wanton ecstasy.
Any guilt I felt over my outburst was immediately assuaged. He seemed to like what I was doing. Marking him. A second later, he surged to his feet and knelt between my legs. Before I could ask what was happening, he lifted me up and buried his cock inside me.
My core convulsed around him and he stopped moving, worried that he’d hurt me. But I wriggled against him, urging him to keep going. That I needed this. Needed him. We were both panting and breathing hard as our gazes locked.
“You are the best thing to ever happen to me.” His words brought a lump to my throat and made me want to tell him that I felt the same way.
But trust wasn’t easy, and we had a spiteful princess to overcome. He thrust into me with full abandon, taking my body to the heavens before allowing me to erupt.
I gasped, then shattered.
He didn’t look away. Didn’t stop. Just held me together as the last threads of magic unspooled through my blood and left me trembling beneath him.
When he continued again, it was slow. Deep.
A claiming without force, just the press of two people who had endured too much apart and could no longer stand the distance.
We moved together in a rhythm that felt older than either of us, our breaths syncing, our magic laced. His name broke from my lips like a vow, and I felt his power bloom around us, grounding, anchoring.
This wasn’t a conquest.
This was home.
And as the world blurred again, it wasn’t because of pain.
For the first time in what felt like forever.
I was held.
I was seen.
And I wasn’t alone.
At least until someone pounded on the door.