Chapter 30
KARA
The suns scrape across the horizon, thin light bleeding over the dunes. My eyes sting when I open them, lashes crusted with grit. Every muscle aches—not only from the fight, but from what came after—my body marked in new ways, both tender and raw.
For a moment I don’t move. His arm is heavy across my waist, scaled and scarred, anchoring me in this moment, here with him.
His breath is steady against my shoulder, slower than mine, deeper.
I should pull away, should pretend I wasn’t awake yet, but I don’t.
Instead, I lie still, listening to the quiet rhythm of him.
The storm has passed. The canyon below is hushed. No scraping claws. No hiss of pursuit. No impending threat to survival. Only the faint whistle of wind threading through bone and stone.
My hand drifts to his forearm. The scales are smooth and cool. This monster of a world gave me him. Gave us this. My chest tightens at the thought, my breath hitching.
He stirs, head lifting, horns catching the light as his eyes find mine. Dark. Endless. Not soft—he’s never soft—but solid and steady, and in some way that makes me steadier too.
Neither of us speaks. Words would ruin the moment.
At last, he shifts, pushing up in one fluid movement. His wings rustle as he rises to his feet, then he holds out a hand.
I hesitate, not because I don’t want to take it, but because the gesture feels… different. He doesn’t help people. He shields. He commands. He endures. But this—this is different. An offering. An affection that feels at once out of character for him and yet perfectly him.
I slide my hand into his. His claws close carefully, pulling me up and steadying me when my knees nearly buckle. For a heartbeat, his grip lingers longer than needed before he lets go—and it’s as if the world rushes back in.
My belly grumbles as hunger gnaws. The wound on my arm throbs. The stench of the monster’s corpse drifts past on the hot breeze. He glances toward the creature, jaw tightening.
“Meat,” he says, the word a rumble low in his chest.
I swallow hard, pulse jumping. Not romance, not poetry—survival. It’s the truth of him, and of this world.
“Meat,” I agree, nodding.
And just like that, the moment between us folds into something else—not gone, but reshaped. A bond not only made in heat, but in survival, in what comes next.
The stink of blood hits stronger the closer we edge to the rim. My stomach twists—not only from hunger, but from the raw memory of fangs and claws tearing the rock beneath me.
The monster’s body sprawls across the canyon lip, massive and wrong, a ruin of scale and muscle. Its ichor glistens black in the dawn light, pooling in slick trails across the sand. The thing had seemed endless when it lunged at us. Now it looks… smaller. Dead. Defeated.
Because of us.
I shiver, not from cold but from the weight of that truth.
He crouches at its side, lochaber in hand, and with one clean motion severs a slab of flesh from its flank. The blade cuts through hide and sinew like it’s nothing. He doesn’t flinch at the heat steaming from the wound or the reek of it—just works, efficient and precise.
My throat tightens. I should help. My knife feels pitiful against the beast’s armor, but I can’t stand useless while he does everything.
I step forward, gagging a little at the stench, and wedge the blade into a seam where scale meets softer tissue. The skin gives reluctantly. My arms shake, but I push harder, sawing until the strip comes free.
It drops heavy into my hands, slick and warm. I almost drop it, but his eyes cut to mine before I can. He nods once—acknowledgment, approval—and the weight suddenly feels less unbearable.
We keep working. Strip by strip. Cut by cut. My arms quickly burn, trembling under the strain, but I grit my teeth and keep going.
“This will feed them,” I whisper, half to myself. “For days.”
“Longer,” he says, his voice a deep rumble.
He doesn’t say more, but his glance lingers—dark and sharp—as if he’s measuring not the meat we’ve carved, but the strength I’ve shown. My chest flutters with the memory of his growl last night—beautiful, mine.
I duck my head before he can see too much, before he can read the heat stirring in me.
We pile the cuts onto a stretch of hide he’s stripped from the beast’s leg. When it’s enough to drag, he ties the makeshift bundle with strips of sinew, his hands deft even in this grisly work.
The rising suns catch on his scars, lighting him in sharp ridges of red and silver. My chest aches at the sight—warrior, survivor, and something more.
Mine.
When he straightens, he hooks the bundle over his shoulder as though it weighs nothing. Then he turns to me.
“We go.”
A command—but also a promise.
I wipe blood from my hands and nod, forcing my legs steady. The canyon looms behind us, shadows deep and dangerous, but ahead stretches desert and the thin glint of hope we saw on the horizon.
We’ll carry this back to the others. Together.