Chapter 8 Esme
ESME
“After the ritual, back at Heathborne, I told you that you needed training, didn’t I?” Dayn says, voice cool, layered with that infuriating calm he wears like armor. “It seems I was correct.”
“I don’t want your lessons, ‘your grace’,” I spit out, stepping away from him until my back hits the pillar. The stone is cool now, inert.
“Don’t you?” His eyebrow arches. He gestures with a flick of his wrist to the medics now hauling a groaning Harding onto a stretcher.
“Because your version of lessons seems to involve catastrophic shield failure and near-fatal trampling. It’s an unconventional approach to learning, I’ll grant you that. ”
He steps closer, crowding me against the pillar. The heat rolling off him is a physical presence, wrapping around me, making the air thick and hard to breathe. I can feel the thrum of his blood, a deep, resonant hum that calls to the matching essence in my own veins. It makes my teeth ache.
“Let’s try this again,” he says, his voice dropping to a low murmur. He takes my hand, his grip firm, inescapable. His fingers are a cage of warmth around mine as he guides my hand back to the opening in the stone. “This time, without the theatrics.”
“Get your hands off me.”
“No.” The word is flat, final. His other hand comes to rest on the pillar just beside my head, effectively pinning me.
His scent—ozone, fire, and something anciently wild—is overwhelming.
“You are a liability, Esme. Your lack of control makes you a danger to yourself and, more importantly, to my plans. So you will learn.”
His hand covers mine completely inside the pillar’s recess. “Now, focus,” he commands, his voice a low rumble against my ear. “Don’t think about the dragons, the commander, or how much you want to stab me. Feel the energy inside you. The magic. Not just your own, but mine.”
I try to resist, to pull my magic back into its core, but it’s impossible. With his touch as a conduit, the power surges. It’s not a gentle wisp this time, but a roaring inferno. My own darkblood essence wars with the blistering heat of his draconic power, twisting together, coiling like serpents.
“Don’t fight it,” he breathes, his lips brushing the shell of my ear. A shiver I can’t suppress traces a path down my spine. “It’s part of you now. My blood knows the way. Let it guide you.”
I squeeze my eyes shut and obey, not because he commands it, but because the alternative is being torn apart from the inside.
I let the torrent flow. The pillar blazes to life with a vortex of black and gold light, shadows and embers swirling in a violent, beautiful dance.
The dormant runes all the way around the arena flare in response, pulsing with a power they were never designed to contain.
A low groan escapes my lips, a sound of both agony and a terrifying, unwanted pleasure. The power is too much, a storm breaking inside me. I feel him in every part of it, his magic wrapping around my own, possessing it, directing it. This isn’t a lesson. It’s a claiming. A forcible union of power.
“There,” Dayn’s voice is a low growl, vibrating through his chest into my back. “Do you feel it? The balance. Your shadow, my fire. They don’t fight each other, Esme. They feed each other.”
His words are like poison, seeping into the cracks of my control.
My breath comes in ragged pants. The heat from his body is a brand against my spine, and the pulse in his wrist, under my hand, is a war drum calling to something dark and hungry inside me.
It’s like our duel in Heathborne’s halls.
The suffocating proximity, the exertion of will, the raw, electric friction between us that feels less like a fight and more like a prelude.
Only this feels far stronger, far more intense.
My throat is sandpaper. A primal thirst, sharp and demanding, claws its way up from my belly.
All I can think about is the memory of his blood, rich and alive on my tongue.
The rush of it, the power. It was an addiction born in a single taste.
The scent of him now is an agony. I want to sink my teeth into the column of his throat, to feel his skin under my lips, his pulse give way under the pressure.
“You’re trembling,” he observes in a whisper. His thumb strokes the back of my hand, a slow, deliberate circle that sends a fresh wave of fire through me. “Are you afraid of the power, or are you afraid of what you want to do with it?”
I want to spit the word in his face. Both.
I’m afraid of this monstrous power, this unholy fusion of shadow and flame.
And gods, I am terrified of the thing inside me that claws for him, that wants to taste him, to break him, to own him in the only way I know how.
The craving is a physical pain, a hollow ache deep in my bones that only he can fill.
“It’s not fear,” I manage to choke out, the words scraping my raw throat. “It’s revulsion. At what you’ve made me.”
“I’ve made you powerful,” he counters, his voice a silken thread weaving through the chaos in my mind.
He leans in closer, and his lips are so near my own I can feel the heat of his words as he speaks.
“More powerful than any darkblood in your coven’s history.
You can feel it, can’t you? The potential.
All that raw energy, just waiting for a command. ”
My fingers tremble against his. I try to pull away, but it’s like trying to fight the tide. He is an ocean, and I am drowning.
“Stop,” I whisper, but even to my own ears, the word lacks conviction.
“Why?” His breath ghosts across my neck. “Because you're afraid I'll see how much you want this?”
The truth of it hits me like a collision. I do want this—the power, the connection, the dangerous intimacy of our magic intertwined. And I hate myself for it. I hate him for showing me.
“I want to kill you,” I breathe.
“I know.” His voice is thick with something that might be amusement, or desire, or both. “But you also want to taste me. I can feel it in the way your pulse quickens every time I'm near. In the way your magic reaches for mine even when you fight it.”
My jaw clenches. “You're delusional.”
“Am I?” He shifts his grip, and suddenly our palms are pressed together inside the pillar, fingers interlaced. The intimacy of it sends a jolt through me that has nothing to do with magic. “Tell me you don't dream about it. About the ritual. About the way my blood felt sliding down your throat.”
I can't. Because he's right. Every night since Heathborne, I've woken in a cold sweat, my body trembling with need. I've tried to convince myself it's just the aftermath, that it will pass, but I’m struggling to believe it more and more.
“This is torture,” I manage.
“No. This is training.”
The power surges again, and this time I can't hold back the cry that tears from my throat.
It's too much, too intense. My vision whites out, and for a moment, I'm not in the arena anymore.
I'm back in the ritual chamber, Dayn's blood hot on my tongue, his body pressed against mine as ancient magic bound us together in ways I could never have imagined.
When my sight clears, I realize the entire arena is bathed in our combined light.
Every pillar burns with that same swirling black and gold.
The air crackles with power, and somewhere in the back of my mind, I register that this shouldn't be possible.
One person—even a dragon—can't power all twenty pillars.
But we're not one person. We're something else entirely.
“Do you see now?” Dayn's voice is rough, strained. Even he's affected by the magnitude of what we're creating. “This is what we are together. This is why they fear you. Why they should.”
I want to argue, to push him away, but my body won't obey. Instead, I find myself leaning back into him, seeking more contact, more heat. The thirst is unbearable now, a living thing clawing at my insides.
“I need—” The words catch in my throat.
“I know what you need.” His free hand comes up to clutch my jaw, turning my face toward his. His amber eyes are molten, burning with something that transcends mere hunger. “But not here. Not like this.”
The denial stings worse than it should. My pride flares, hot and sharp. “I don't need anything from you.”
“Liar.” The word is quiet, almost gentle. His thumb traces my lower lip, and I feel myself sway toward him despite every screaming instinct to pull away. “Your body betrays you, Esme. Every tremor, every quickened breath. You're starving for it.”
“For what?” I force the question through gritted teeth, even though I already know the answer.
“For me.”
The arrogance should infuriate me. Instead, it sends heat pooling low in my belly, a dangerous warmth that feels somehow both right and utterly wrong. This is exactly what he wants—to make me dependent, to bind me tighter with every shared breath.
“Let go,” I whisper, but my voice lacks conviction.
“Make me.”
It's a challenge, one I should rise to meet. But the power still flowing between us makes movement nearly impossible. I'm caught in the current, drowning in sensation. His scent wraps around me like smoke. The steady thrum of his pulse beneath my palm is a siren song.
I could bite him. Right now. Sink my teeth into the exposed column of his throat and take what my body screams for. He'd probably let me. The thought terrifies me more than anything else.
I’m going crazy.
“It's too much,” I gasp. “I can't—”
The words are barely out before I feel it: the snap.
Like a cord pulled too tight finally giving way.
My hand jerks free from the pillar, and the connection shatters.
The swirling vortex of black and gold light gutters out instantly, plunging the arena into relative dimness.
Only the torches remain, their mundane flames suddenly inadequate after what we'd created.
I stagger back, gasping, my legs unsteady beneath me.
Dayn catches me by the shoulders, steadying me, but I wrench away from his grip with what little strength I have left.
The loss of contact is both a relief and an agony.
My body still screams for him, but at least I can breathe again. At least I can think.
“Esme—” he starts, reaching for me.
“Don't.” I hold up a shaking hand. “Just... don't.”
He studies me, his amber eyes searching my face for something I refuse to give him. After a long moment, he steps back, giving me space. The absence of his heat is like stepping into winter.
“My lord.” Nyssa’s voice cuts through the charged silence and startles us both—I’d forgotten she was even here.
When I turn, she’s pale, her silver hair slightly dishevelled, eyes wide with something between shock and concern.
She takes a hesitant step forward, moving as if approaching a wounded animal.
“Perhaps… perhaps we should move to something less strenuous for Lady Esme’s introduction to the Bellatorium.
I’d suggest the Repository, my lord. If she is to understand her place in Draethys, perhaps she should first understand our history…
The artifacts there tell the story better than any lecture could. ”
Dayn’s gaze lingers on me, heavy and searching, as if measuring the aftermath of what’s passed between us. Whether I’m able to stand and move.
I give a quick nod. Despite my exhaustion, the Repository is a place that catches my attention. A vault of ancient dragon artifacts. If there's anywhere in this cursed city that might hold answers, it could be there.
There’s a long pause, before Dayn nods slowly in return, still watching me. “Then, let’s go.”