Chapter 29 #2
The arrow wound burned. It grew hotter, hotter still until I feared I’d humiliate myself by crying out like a youngling. Thankfully, as quickly as the searing pain started, it cooled, taking the sting of the poison with it.
“There you go.” She stumbled back and tripped, landing on her ass.
“Sera?”
“I’m okay.” She waved me off, breathless.
I rose slowly and tested my limbs, the fire inside me alive again. Good enough to shift. Bones cracked, muscles flexing. The sharp bite of magic washed over me, and when I blinked, my nude form rested on the ground.
“Thank the goddess.” Serafina scrambled to my side, and I grunted as she flung herself into my arms. “I thought I’d lost you.”
“You’ll not be rid of me that easily.”
She grew quiet, dodging my eyes.
“What is it?”
“Did you mean what you said?”
I brushed my fingers along her silken cheek. “If I say it again, will you believe me this time?”
She shrugged, feigning nonchalance. “I’m not one to trust in fairy tales. In my world, the dragon prince never falls for the lowly servant.”
“Screw your fairy tales.” I gripped her chin, forcing her to meet my gaze. “We’ll write our own story. I love—”
“I love you too,” she said in a rush.
I grinned. “I was going to say ‘flying beneath the stars’.”
The softness in her expression turned to ice, and her clawed fingers shot toward my cheek. I captured her wrist before she could make contact and drew her against my body.
“Let me go, you—”
Her curse died a quick death against my lips. Our mouths melded, hers soft where mine was hard. She clung to my neck, her grip tight and desperate. Her spicy fragrance filled my senses, taking over my brain until my only thought was one of…Sera.
We drew apart, panting, and I peered into her languid eyes, getting lost in their depths. “I love you, Serafina.” Her gaze flooded with liquid emotions, the weight of them tracking down her cheek.
I cupped her neck, trailed my fingers over her collarbone and set my palm over her heart. “Know that the flame that burns inside of you is a piece of me,” I rasped, voice thick. “The very heart of me. I’m trusting you to keep it safe. Because I cannot survive without my heart.”
Her hand trembled as she pressed her palm over mine. Her other hand rested against my cheek. “And mine burns inside of you,” she whispered. “Where I know it’s protected. Safe within my dragon.”
I tangled my fingers with hers and lifted her knuckles to my lips in a lingering kiss. “I will guard this treasure to the end of my days.”
Her watery smile nearly undid me. “As I will yours.”
Desire licked up my spine, primal and consuming. “I want you to be my mate, Serafina. In every way.”
“I want that too,” she whispered, her lips a breath away from my own.
A sardonic laugh pushed up my throat. “I’d give you my flame, but you already have it. My heart is already yours. Riches?” I brushed curls back from her flushed cheek. “They mean nothing. All I have left to give…is me.”
Her green eyes locked with mine, fierce and unyielding. “And that is all I want.”
The last of my restraint shattered. “Then take me. Body and soul.”
Our mouths came together in a hungry press of heat and savagery.
Serafina’s clothing disintegrated beneath my eager fingers.
Her bare skin was a hot bath in a bubbling spring in the dead of winter.
I groaned as her breasts filled my hands, her curves filling my palms perfectly.
No other had ever fit me this way. Smoothed the jagged pieces that have been fractured for so long.
I pressed her down into the grass and wedged my body between her thighs. “I want—” My voice broke into a groan, fire licking my throat.
“Yes?” She writhed beneath me, hair a cascade of flames around her shoulders.
“All of you. All at once.”
Her sultry laugh shivered against my lips. “Now?”
“Now.” I kissed her neck. “Tomorrow.” Across her collarbone. “Every day, for the rest of our lives.” My lips teased the place my flame rested beneath her breast.
“I’m yours,” she said, voice raw and ragged.
My shaft pulsed at her words, demanding more. “Say that again,” I growled, bracing myself on either side of her. My every muscle trembled with restraint.
Serafina grasped my face and peered deep into my eyes. Cheeks flushed. Green eyes gleaming. Legs wrapped tightly around my hips. She’d never been more beautiful.
“I am yours, Thorne Blackwing. And you are mine. My mate. Forever.”
Lost to emotion, I plunged into her in a single, claiming thrust. The sensation like coming home.
“Blessed Goddess, yes!” she cried, her nails raking my shoulders with a delicious burn.
Instincts surged. Scales rippled across my back as fire built in my chest. My flame burned through both of us. It twisted with the golden spark I had given her, completing a circle older than either of us.
“More. More, Thorne,” Sera demanded. Her hips ground against mine, legs locking me to her.
“Yes, my mate. Everything I am is yours,” I said, my low growl rumbling.
Flames painted my throat, and I sank elongated teeth into her neck, completing the bond, branding my mate.
Serafina’s cries raced through my blood.
I thrust harder, deeper, until we were nothing but flame and movement, two halves of the same inferno.
“Fly for me, my beautiful girl,” I commanded.
She threw back her head, shattered within my arms, and shouted her pleasure at the sky.
Heat gathered at the base of my spine, breaking me apart as well.
Passion exploded in a detonation of burning embers.
Ecstasy overloaded my senses, my vision turning white as I gave her every piece of me, claiming her.
My mate’s heated channel pulsed against my shaft. Drawing me closer, eager for every bit of my essence. The two of us becoming one—man, woman, dragon. Everything about the moment felt right. Destined.
As I fell from the heavens, back to earth, I registered Sera’s panting breaths. They mingled with my own. I gathered my mate in my arms and rolled her on top of me.
I struggled to keep my heart from soaring out of my chest. My soul from tearing out of my body to soar joyfully amongst the clouds. This kind of bliss was something I was unfamiliar with.
“I love you, Serafina,” I whispered, voice hoarse. With the back of my finger, I grazed the mark I’d given her.
Her tears wet my chest as she nestled her face into me. “And I love you, my dragon.”
We lay there in silence. Our bodies cooled while the fire of our bond lingered between us. For a few perfect breaths, it felt as though the world could not touch us. While I clung to those precious moments, the shadows haunting us crept in.
My mate’s curvy body tensed against me by degrees. Mine clenched in response. Tension threaded through her limbs where minutes ago there had only been surrender. The shift was subtle, yet it was enough to tell me the dream was over. Reality had found us.
“I wish we could linger,” she said, her voice a soft ache of regret, “but there is something urgent you need to know.”
I drew a steadying breath, already dreading the words. “What is that?”
“Alaric has partnered with The Dark One. He’s the one who broke your brother’s curse.
Not me.” She quickly explained all that had happened since I’d left Pyrrhus.
About Alaric’s endless betrayals. How he traded her life for his own.
That he’d joined The Dark One’s ranks. “They march on Carcerem as we speak. They plan to attack the new royals and destroy their sacred arbor.”
Dread was an icy fist, squeezing the joy out of our shared moment. “I knew Alaric was desperate, but never imagined he’d stoop this low. With the Fallen Trials about to begin, it will be a slaughter.”
She bit her bottom lip, eyes darkening with remorse. “I’m afraid there’s more. This isn’t the first time they have teamed up. Alaric is the one who let him into Pyrrhus.”
Rage swept through me. Burning so hot as to cross a threshold where it became cold, brittle, icy. Instead of erupting, my fractured heart turned into a frozen tundra. In this place, I found an odd sort of calm. Where my brother, my guilt, my pain once existed was a vast sea of nothingness.
“All these years, he let me believe I was the reason our kingdom fell that day.”
“What do you want to do?” Sera whispered as if anything more would shatter me.
My words emerged on a jagged snarl. “If Alaric wants a war, then he’s got one.”