Chapter 7
Kieran
I’ve been awake for hours.
Maybe longer. Time moves strangely in Japti — the light never quite changes, the air stays warm and still, and I’ve lost track of how many times we’ve slept and woken and slept again.
Days. Its been days since the Gate. Since the shadows passed through. Since she collapsed in my arms and I carried her here, to the furs by the hot spring, and held her while she cried herself unconscious.
She’s still asleep.
Curled against my chest, her breath warm and slow against my throat. Her face is softer in sleep — the grief lines smoothed out, the tension in her jaw finally eased.
She’s been cycling between crying and unconscious for what feels like an eternity. Last night — or what passed for last night — we bathed her in the hot spring. All of us. Gentle hands washing blood and ash from her skin, removing the salt from her hair, holding her steady when her legs gave out.
She fell asleep before I finished rinsing her hair.
I carried her to the furs. Wrapped her in warmth. Held her while the others settled around us in a protective circle.
And now I can’t move.
Not because I’m injured. Not because I’m trapped.
Because I’m terrified that if I let go, she’ll vanish again.
The way she did centuries ago. The way I’ve dreamed about for hundreds of years — when we finally made it to the Valkyries that night and I couldn’t find her, leaving me alone with the weight of everything I couldn’t stop.
Even now, unconscious, she twitches. Restless. Running from something in her dreams.
I smooth my hand down her spine. A slow, steady stroke.
“Shh,” I murmur. “I’m here. You’re safe.”
She settles. Just barely. Her fingers curl tighter into my shirt.
I don’t move.
I hardly breathe.
I just hold her.
The others are already awake.
I hear them moving quietly at the edges of my awareness.
They’re giving us space.
I don’t know when they left. Don’t know what silent agreement passed between them.
But one by one, they slipped away — Finn and Malrik first, whispering something I didn’t catch.
Torric gesturing toward the Valkyrie hall before disappearing into its shadows.
Darian going silently, without looking back.
Aspen was last.
He paused at the edge of the furs, looked at me with those ice-blue eyes that see too much, and nodded once.
You need this. She needs this. We’re giving you space.
Then he was gone.
And it’s just us.
Kaia and me.
The bond hums between us — warm and golden and finally, finally free of the guilt I deserve. No more walls. No more distance. Just her, nestled against my chest, and me, holding on like I’ll die if I let go.
My dragon stirs.
Ours, he rumbles, then settles back. Content to watch. To wait.
I close my eyes.
Yes. Finally.
She stirs.
At first I think it’s another nightmare — another restless twitch, another whimper I’ll soothe with my hands and my voice.
But then she shifts against me. Really shifts. Her breath changes — deeper, slower, the rhythm of someone surfacing from sleep.
Her fingers uncurl from my shirt. Curl again. Like she’s checking that I’m real.
“Kieran…”
My entire body goes still.
Her voice is soft. Muzzy with sleep. But she said my name. My name.
“I’m here.” The words come out rougher than I intend. “I’m right here.”
She makes a sound — something between a sigh and a hum — and nuzzles closer. Her lips brush my throat. Warm. Soft.
“My dragon…”
My heart stops.
“My oldest love…”
I can’t breathe. Can’t think. Can’t do anything but lie perfectly still while she mumbles against my skin, half-asleep and completely destroying me.
“I remember you,” she whispers. “From back then…”
Back then.
The field. The first time she touched my scales and something zipped through both of us — recognition, belonging, the bone-deep knowledge that we were connected in ways neither of us understood.
She was six years old. I was just a boy, finally able to shift. And she looked up at my dragon form with those violet eyes and said pretty like it was the most obvious thing in the world.
I’ve never recovered.
“The field,” she murmurs now, still groggy, still half-dreaming. “Your beautiful dragon…”
My hand trembles against her back.
“The way something zipped through me when I touched your scales…”
She tilts her head, presses a sleepy kiss to the underside of my jaw.
“It felt like you were mine.”
I break.
Everything in me — dragon and man, ancient and new, all the centuries of waiting and wanting and aching — bows to that.
“I am yours, Kaia.” The words tear out of me, hoarse and desperate. “Every part of me. My body. My dragon. My past and my future.” I cup the back of her head, press my forehead to hers. “Then, now… always.”
She sighs. Soft and warm and content.
Then she snuggles closer and kisses my neck.
Not sleepy this time.
Deliberate.
Her teeth graze my pulse point and I shudder.
Fully awake now. Fully here. Fully aware of what she’s doing as her lips trace up my throat, as her tongue flicks against the sensitive spot beneath my ear, as her fingers slide under my shirt to rake across my chest.
She pulls back just enough to look at me. Her eyes clear. Violet eyes dark with want, sharp with certainty.
Then she pulls me down into a kiss.
Not tentative. Not asking permission.
Claiming.
I give her everything. My mouth opens against hers, and she makes a sound — a small, desperate sound that goes straight to my cock. Her tongue slides against mine and I’m already hard, already aching, already lost.
“Please,” she whispers against my lips. “I need you. I’ve needed you for so long and I didn’t even know—”
I roll her onto her back.
The furs slip down and she’s bare beneath them — golden skin warm from sleep, from the bath we gave her last night. I’ve seen her naked before, but not like this. Not spread out beneath me with that look in her eyes, the one that says take me.
“Gods, Kaia.” I pull back just to look at her. Golden hair spread across dark fur. Flushed cheeks. Parted lips. The soft swell of her breasts rising and falling with each shallow breath. “You’re so beautiful it hurts.”
“Then stop looking.” She reaches for me. “And touch me.”
I lower my mouth to her throat.
She gasps when my lips find her pulse. Moans when I suck gently, tasting the salt of her skin. Her hands fly to my hair, fingers tangling, pulling me closer.
“Centuries,” I murmur against her skin. “I’ve waited centuries for you.”
“I know.” Her voice breaks. “I’m sorry it took me so long to remember.”
“Don’t.” I kiss lower. The ridge of her collarbone. The hollow between her breasts. “Don’t apologize. That’s mine to do. You’re here now. We’re here now. That’s what matters.”
I take my time.
I’ve waited too long to rush this.
My mouth traces the curve of her breast, and she arches into me, a whimper escaping her lips. I circle her nipple with my tongue — slow, teasing — and she makes a sound that’s almost a sob.
“Kieran—”
I draw her into my mouth and suck.
Her whole body jerks. Her fingers tighten in my hair until it hurts, and I groan against her skin, the pain only making me harder.
I lavish attention on one breast, then the other. Licking. Sucking. Grazing with my teeth until she’s writhing beneath me, her hips rolling up against nothing, desperate for friction.
“Please,” she gasps. “Please, I need—”
“I know what you need.”
I kiss down her stomach. Dip my tongue into her navel just to hear her gasp. Press my lips to the soft skin of her hip, the crease where her thigh meets her body.
She’s shaking by the time I settle between her legs.
I look up at her. Hold her gaze as I press a kiss to the inside of her thigh. Then the other. Then higher, close enough that she can feel my breath on her core.
“Kieran.” Her voice is wrecked. “Please. Stop teasing.”
“Never.” I press another kiss, just beside where she wants me. “I’ve waited centuries for this. I’m going to savor every second.”
“I’m going to kill you—”
I lick her.
One long, slow stroke from her entrance to her clit, and she screams.
Her thighs clamp around my head. Her hips buck up off the furs. Her hands twist in my hair so hard I see stars.
I don’t stop.
I learn her with my tongue — every fold, every secret spot, every place that makes her gasp and shake. She tastes like heaven. Like everything I’ve been denied for hundreds of years finally given to me.
I circle her clit with the tip of my tongue and she sobs my name. I seal my lips around it and suck, and her whole body arches like a bow.
“Oh gods— Kieran— I can’t— I’m going to—”
I slide two fingers inside her.
She’s so wet, so ready, that they slip in easily. I curl them, searching, and find the spot that makes her shatter.
She comes on my tongue.
Her thighs shake. Her hands pull my hair. She cries out my name like a prayer, like a curse, like something sacred and profane all at once.
I work her through it, licking and stroking until the aftershocks fade and she’s lying boneless beneath me, chest heaving.
“Gods,” she breathes. “That was… I…”
I press a kiss to her inner thigh. Slide my fingers out of her slowly, watching her shiver at the loss.
“We’re not done.”
Her eyes widen.
I crawl up her body, kissing her stomach, her breasts, her throat. She tastes herself on my lips when I kiss her and moans into my mouth.
“I need you inside me,” she whispers against my lips. “Please, Kieran. I need to feel you.”
I reach down and strip off my pants. Kick them away. When I settle back over her, the head of my cock presses against her entrance, and we both groan.
Her arms lift. Instinctive. Wrists crossing above her head.
I freeze.
“Kaia—”
“Hold me there.” Her voice is soft but certain. “I want you to hold me there. I want to feel you everywhere. I want to give you everything.”
Something breaks open in my chest.
I reach up. Wrap my fingers around both her wrists. Pin them gently but firmly to the furs above her head.
She arches into me immediately — a full-body shiver, her breath catching, her pupils blowing wide.
“Yes,” she breathes. “Like that. Just like that.”
I hold her there. Let her feel the weight of my grip. Let her feel how much I want this — how much I’ve always wanted this.
“Look at me,” I murmur.
She does. Violet eyes dark with need, lips swollen from my kisses, cheeks flushed with pleasure.
“I love you.” The words come easier than I expected.
Maybe because I’ve been holding them for centuries.
“I have loved you since you were a child looking up at my dragon like I was something beautiful instead of something terrifying. I have loved you through time and death and realms. I will love you until the stars burn out and the gods forget their names.”
Tears slip down her temples.
“Kieran—”
I push into her.
Slow. Inch by inch. Giving her time to adjust to the size of me, the stretch.
Her head falls back, mouth open on a silent cry. Her wrists strain against my grip. Her legs fall open wider, welcoming me deeper.
“You feel—” She can’t finish. Can’t form words. “Kieran.”
I seat myself fully inside her and hold still.
She’s so tight. So warm. So perfect that I have to close my eyes and breathe through the urge to come right now.
“I can feel you,” she gasps. “Through the bond — I can feel everything you’re feeling—”
“I know.” I press deeper, impossibly deeper, and she moans. “I feel it too. Everything. Your pleasure. Your need. Your love.”
I start to move.
Slow at first. Long, deep strokes that drag against every sensitive spot inside her. She whimpers with each one, her hips trying to roll up to meet me, her wrists pulling against my grip.
“More,” she breathes. “Please, Kieran. I need more.”
“Tell me what you need.”
“Harder.” She wraps her legs around my waist, heels digging into my back. “Faster. I need— I need—”
I give her what she needs.
The pace breaks. My control shatters.
I drive into her — hard, deep, relentless. She meets every thrust with a roll of her hips and a cry that echoes through the empty hall. The sound of our bodies coming together fills the space. Wet. Obscene. Perfect.
She pulls against my grip on her wrists — not to get free, just to feel it. Just to feel held. Just to feel owned.
“You’re mine,” I growl against her throat. “Say it.”
“Yours.” She can barely breathe. “Always — oh gods, right there — always yours.”
I angle my hips to hit that spot again. Again. Again.
She screams.
“That’s it.” I’m losing myself. Losing everything except her, except this. “Let go for me, Kaia. I’ve got you. I’ll always have you.”
Her whole body tightens around me.
“Kieran— I’m— I can’t—”
“Let go.”
She shatters.
Her back arches off the furs. Her walls clamp down on my cock so hard I can barely breathe. She cries out my name — broken, beautiful, mine — and the bond blazes between us, golden light flooding through both of us.
I feel everything she feels. Every wave of pleasure. Every pulse of release. Every ounce of love she has for me reflected back through the bond.
It destroys me.
I bury myself deep and come so hard my vision whites out. Her name tears from my throat like a prayer. I spill into her in waves, centuries of longing cresting and breaking and flooding through me until I’m empty and full all at once.
We stay like that.
Tangled together. Trembling. Breathing.
I release her wrists, and she immediately wraps her arms around my neck, pulling me down against her. I bury my face in her hair. Breathe her in.
Her fingers stroke through my hair. Gentle. Loving.
“Centuries,” she whispers. “You waited centuries for me.”
I lift my head. Meet her eyes.
“I would have waited longer.”
She pulls me down into a kiss. Soft. Slow. The kind of kiss that says I know. The kind of kiss that says me too.
When we break apart, she’s crying again. But these tears are different — warm and quiet, sliding down her temples into her hair.
“I never forgot you,” she says. “Not really. Even before I knew your name… I remembered your dragon. The way you made me feel safe.”
I gather her against my chest. Press my face into her hair. Hold her so tight I’m not sure where I end and she begins.
“You are safe,” I murmur. “Always. I swear it.”
Her breathing slows. Her body relaxes into mine.
She falls asleep between one breath and the next.
I don’t follow. Not yet.
Instead, I hold her. Watch the soft rise and fall of her chest. Feel the bond humming warm and steady between us, brighter than it’s ever been.
Centuries.
I’ve waited centuries for this.
And now that I have her — now that she’s here, in my arms, remembering me the way I’ve always remembered her—
I’m never letting go.