Chapter 13
RONYN
Aura sits rigid on the edge of the bed, her shoulders tense, and fingers clenched so tightly in the cloth of the blanket that her knuckles have turned the color of bone.
She hasn’t spoken since the flight back to the cave.
She hasn’t looked at us either. Her silence is louder than her anger has been.
I would rather she screamed at us. I understand anger, and fury I can meet head on, but this quiet withdrawal is worse. It’s like standing near the edge of a cliff while the ground below my feet erodes grain by grain.
Kelan stands near the fire, arms crossed, jaw locked so tightly, his teeth grind. Darial hovers a few steps away from Aura, uncertain, wary of pushing her further.
She stares at nothing.
And I know in the depths of my bones that we are losing her.
I move before I can overthink it, crossing the space between us and lowering myself to one knee in front of her. The stone is frigid beneath me, but I welcome it.
“Aura,” I say quietly.
Her eyes flick to me, guarded, and wounded.
“I know you think we broke your trust. I know you’re vulnerable, and I know we’re failing to make you believe that we’re nothing like the shifters you were running from .
I won’t touch you unless you agree,” I continue.
“But I need you to see something. Something I can’t explain with words. Will you allow me to show you?”
Her lips part, then press together again. Wariness flickers.
“You already took something from me,” she says hoarsely. “What else could you possibly want?”
I bow my head, absorbing her pain.
“To give you my truth.”
She cautiously nods. “Show me.”
I raise my hands slowly, palms spread, offering rather than demanding. “May I?”
She hesitates. Then, with visible effort, she lifts her hands and places them in mine.
The moment our skin touches, everything shifts.
Her pulse stutters below my thumbs, and her warmth floods my senses. The bond hums, unmistakable, like a harp string brushed by tentative fingers.
I close my eyes and open myself in a way I never have before.
The world tips, and the cave dissolves into light.
Aura gasps as the vision takes her. She stands within my memories.
I show her cities sparkling beneath foreign suns. Tall spires and never-ending walls. Mountain strongholds carved directly into stone. The slow march of centuries unfolding in moments. I show her wars fought, alliances created, civilizations emerging and collapsing like sand beneath the tide.
I reveal the weight of my immortality and the loneliness of it.
Then she sees herself through my eyes, wild-haired, fierce, broken, and burning with too much magic.
A woman fractured by her determination to survive, held together by will alone.
She sees how beautiful I find her. How every scar is like a story etched into flesh.
How her defiance makes me ache with reverence.
She witnesses my shame during the moment we sealed her magic, and the sinking feeling that I have betrayed her trust. She absorbs the knowledge that I would do it again if it meant keeping her alive.
And under it all, I show her my loneliness and longing for her: the desperate ache for a mate that has stretched over ages, the hollow place inside my heart where a mate's warmth and love should have been, and the despair of believing I would never know what it meant to belong to another.
Until her.
My hands shake as I open myself to her.
When I finally pull back, my breath is uneven and my vision swims.
Aura stares at me as though the world has cracked open. Tears streak down her cheeks, unchecked.
“Oh,” she whispers.
Before I can speak, she surges forward, clutching my shoulders with small, desperate hands.
Her mouth crashes against mine, her soft lips stealing my breath.
The kiss is passionate and full of an aching need that parallels my own, so raw it nearly breaks me open.
I kiss her back without thought or restraint, pouring everything I am into that single moment.
Her lips are so warm, and the press of her body is perfection I have never known.
My dragon surges, roaring in triumph, claws raking against the inside of my ribs while instinct screams to claim, to protect, to never let go.
But I have to pull back because this isn’t only about me.
I draw away, panting like I ran ten miles, my forehead pressed to hers.
Parts of me have shifted: my eyes, my wings, my horns, and the scales that cover my body like spiraling blood tattoos.
Fire rises to the surface of my skin, but I’m not ashamed.
Aura knows what I am, inside and out. She knows, and she wants me.
“I want you, Aura,” I say hoarsely. “I want to claim you, but I won’t take what isn’t freely give.”
Her eyes search mine, shimmering. She shows no fear of the beast revealed to her.
“I felt you,” she whispers. “Your loneliness. Your fear. Your soul.”
Hope surges inside me. “I’ve waited centuries for you. And I would wait centuries more if it meant you chose me willingly.”
Behind us, I sense Kelan and Darial move, the pressure of their emotions cascading through my mind, carrying hope and longing that mirrors my own.
Aura exhales slowly, then she nods.
“I don’t know what I am yet,” she says. “Or what I’ll become. But… I see you, Ronyn. It’s like I know you inside out, and my heart?” She shakes her head, her eyes widening. “My heart feels like it’s yours… I don’t understand—”
Her fingers grip my shirt.
“Let them show you, too,” I whisper, kissing her again, reassuring her that it will be okay. She’ll see their souls and love them, too. They are good men and good dragons, a rare combination.
“Okay.”
I let out a shudder of relief, and for the first time in my long existence, I allow myself to believe that my fate may not be a curse after all.