Chapter 15
ELLA
It starts with silence. Not the kind that echoes with doom or holds its breath waiting for disaster—but the kind that wraps you in velvet. The kind that feels safe. Sacred.
Takhiss hasn’t moved in ten minutes. He’s crouched near the heat coil, claws folded, head bowed like he’s praying. The quiet hum of the repurposed capacitor bathes the room in a golden pulse. The shadows he casts look like war-gods chiseled in bronze.
My hands won’t stop shaking. I pretend it’s from low blood sugar. Or stress. Or cold. But it’s not. It’s him. The way he hasn’t touched me. The way he’s waiting for me to move. Like I’m not prey. Like I’m not even a prize. Like I’m everything.
I don’t think. I cross the coil space barefoot, each step quiet against the warped floor plating. He hears me—his head lifts slightly, but he doesn’t look up. Doesn’t speak. Doesn’t assume.
That makes it worse. Or better. I don’t know.
I kneel in front of him. My knees hiss against the metal as I sink down. He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t reach. Just watches me with those eyes like twin eclipses—blazing rings of red.
I place one hand on his chest. His armor’s gone. Just him now. Scaled, hot beneath my palm. Muscles tight, trembling. He’s holding himself back with the strength of a collapsing star.
“Do you want me?” I whisper.
The sound he makes—guttural, raw—reverberates through his chest and into my skin. He doesn’t answer with words. He doesn’t need to.
His claws lift, slow as reverence, and brush the sides of my jaw. Then tangle in my hair like he’s memorizing the weight of it.
“I’ve wanted you,” he breathes, “since the first moment the bond sparked. But now…”
His forehead presses to mine. His breath is hot, wild. “Now it’s not about the bond. It’s you, Ella. You, with your fire and fury and broken knuckles. You’re the only thing in this frozen hell worth dying for.”
My eyes sting. Stupid tears. I don’t want to cry. I want to feel.
I shift forward, crawl into his lap like it’s where I’ve always belonged. He holds perfectly still, hands shaking as they slide down to anchor at my waist.
Our mouths hover a breath apart.
“Kiss me,” I say.
He does.
It’s not soft. It’s not hesitant. It’s heat and hunger and history slamming into the now. His mouth claims mine like it’s oxygen. Like it’s war. And I kiss him back like I’ve got nothing left to lose.
The tension breaks like a power coil overloaded with heat. One moment we’re sitting in quiet gravity, our bodies two orbiting masses with barely enough pull to touch. The next—I’m burning.
Takhiss shifts his weight beside me, and the heat he radiates brushes my hip.
I don’t know if it’s the lack of oxygen, the fear, or the fucking bond humming through my marrow, but I can’t take it anymore.
I roll toward him, placing a hand against his chest. It’s like touching a furnace—hard, scaled, alive.
His breath catches. Not loud. Just a soft hitch, almost reverent.
“I remember,” I whisper.
His gaze flicks down to my mouth. “Remember what?”
“The kiss.” My hand trails lower, fingers grazing over the seam of his armor. “The one you said wasn’t real.”
He stays so still. As if the wrong move will crack the universe. “Ella…”
“I want another.”
His growl is low. Warning and surrender, wrapped in velvet threat. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“I know exactly what I’m asking.”
He stares for one heartbeat. Then another. And then he moves.
His mouth crashes into mine, all heat and hunger and restraint ripped away.
His tongue is hot and smooth, tasting of ozone and tension.
My back hits the thermal coil and he’s on me, bracing his weight on one arm while his claws curve beneath my thighs.
I open for him without thought, fingers tangling in the ridges of his armor until they find skin—hot, rough, scaled and beautiful.
He pulls back just enough to look down at me. His red eyes are molten, pupils wide, voice ragged. “If I take you now, I won’t stop. Do you understand?”
“Then don’t stop.”
He lets out a sound—deep, guttural, like a dying star screaming—and then he’s everywhere.
My clothes vanish beneath his claws. Not ripped, not careless. Precise. Controlled. Reverent. As if every stitch is a barrier he needs gone, but not at the cost of hurting me. When the last of my fabric hits the floor, his gaze rakes over me like a command.
“You’re perfect,” he murmurs.
I laugh, breathless. “You’re delusional.”
He growls. “Quiet, female.”
Then his mouth is on my throat, dragging heat across my pulse. His tongue flicks over my collarbone. His claws skim along my ribs, down my belly, circling the skin just above my mound until I’m writhing.
“Takhiss,” I pant.
“Say it again.”
“Takhiss,” I moan, back arching when he dips lower, shoulders bracing between my thighs. His hands hook beneath my knees and spread me wide.
The first lick is slow. Deep. His tongue is thick, ridged, velveted with friction. My hips buck, and he growls in pleasure—like I’m the meal he’s been starving for.
“Oh, fuck,” I gasp.
He doesn’t speak. He devours.
Each stroke is measured, strategic, like he’s learning my body in real-time and storing every reaction. My breath breaks. My fingers dig into his scaled shoulders, and I come undone on his tongue, a sharp, shattering high that hits too fast and too hard.
He doesn’t stop.
“Too much,” I gasp.
He chuckles against me. “You taste like fire.”
Then he’s kissing up my belly, licking a path up to my breast. His tongue flicks over my nipple and I see stars. I want to melt into him. I want him inside me so bad it’s painful.
“Takhiss,” I beg. “I need you.”
His eyes glow like twin suns as he rises to his knees. “You’ll have me.”
He strips the rest of his armor and what’s beneath. And holy stars—he’s massive.
Thick. Long. Ridged. Dark green and black, just like the rest of him. Veins pulse along the shaft, and the tip glistens with slick.
“You’re not going to fit,” I whisper, eyes wide.
He leans down, kisses the corner of my mouth. “I will. Slowly.”
And he does.
Every inch stretches me. My body trembles with the ache, the burn, the impossible fullness. He pushes in with patience that borders on sacred, pausing every time I gasp. His thumb finds my clit and rubs gentle circles, coaxing me open.
“Just a little more,” he growls.
I whimper, and he stills.
“You okay?”
“Better than okay,” I breathe. “Move.”
He pulls back. Thrusts shallow. My nails claw his back. The angle hits something deep and I sob his name. Then he starts to fuck me in earnest—deep, controlled thrusts that steal the breath from my lungs.
“You’re mine,” he snarls.
“Yes,” I cry. “Yours.”
He moves faster. Harder. Each thrust rocks me into the mat. The heat coil flares beside us, casting orange light over his muscles, his scales, the sweat slicking down his chest. His hips grind, cock plunging into me again and again.
I feel the bond surge.
Not just in my mind—but in my skin. My blood. Every nerve lights up as our connection flares open like a sunburst. I see him—his pain, his rage, his hope—all buried beneath the war and the armor.
He sees me too.
And gods help me, he accepts it.
“Come for me,” he rasps, thumb working my clit as his cock pistons into my soaked pussy. “Let me feel you.”
I shatter.
It rips through me like a nova, violent and electric. My scream echoes off the walls. My legs clamp around his waist, body convulsing as pleasure roars through every cell.
He roars with me, hips slamming in once, twice—then stills as he spills inside me, heat flooding deep.
He doesn’t move for a long moment.
Then he lowers his head, panting hard, and whispers, “You were always mine, Ella.”
I wrap my arms around his neck, pull him down to me, and kiss him like I believe it.
Because I do.