Chapter 39
THIRTY-NINE
AUREN
The Shadow Clan stronghold burns behind us as we fly home.
I don’t look back. Don’t need to. The flames are visible for miles—orange and gold consuming centuries of darkness, reducing Ulrik’s seat of power to ash.
The Shadow Clan will spend generations recovering from this defeat.
Their king is dead. Their forces are shattered.
Their stranglehold on dragonkind is finally, permanently broken.
I should feel triumphant. Should feel the satisfaction of a war well-ended, a threat eliminated, a future secured.
All I feel is the woman in my arms.
Tamsin sleeps against my scales, exhausted beyond anything I’ve ever witnessed. Aisling healed what she could—closed the wounds, stopped the bleeding, replenished some of the life force the Crown devoured—but the rest requires time. Rest. The kind of deep recovery that can’t be rushed.
She almost died. The thought keeps circling, a predator I can’t escape. She almost died in my arms, blood streaming from her eyes and ears, her heartbeat stuttering against my chest. If the Fire-Bringers hadn’t poured their power into her—
I don’t finish the thought. Can’t.
She’s alive. That’s what matters. She’s alive, and she loves me, and somehow, impossibly, we have a future.
The Brotherhood fortress appears on the horizon as dawn breaks—gray stone catching the first light, familiar and welcome in ways it hasn’t been for decades.
Home. I haven’t thought of it that way in so long.
But with Tamsin’s warmth pressed against me, her breath steady and sure, it feels true again.
We land on the main platform in formation.
Drayke first, massive bronze form touching down with practiced grace.
Rurik follows, his usual chaotic energy subdued by exhaustion.
Zyphon materializes from shadow at the platform’s edge, the purple cracks in his scales dimmer than I’ve ever seen them.
The curse is fading. Slowly, but noticeably.
Ulrik’s death is already unraveling his greatest creation.
The Fire-Bringers dismount. Selene leans into Drayke, their claiming bond visible in the easy way they touch.
Aisling is already cataloguing injuries, her healer’s instincts overriding her own exhaustion.
Nasyra stands close to Zyphon, not quite touching, but close enough that he could reach for her if he needed to.
I shift to human form, keeping Tamsin cradled in my arms. She stirs at the change but doesn’t wake. Just turns her face into my chest and sighs, her breath warm against my skin.
“Take her to the infirmary.” Aisling appears at my side, professional despite the dark circles under her eyes. “I need to check her vitals, make sure the healing took—”
“My quarters.” The words come out harder than I intend. “She’ll rest better somewhere familiar.”
Aisling’s eyebrows rise. Something knowing flickers in her expression—the same look Selene gets when she’s about to make a comment I won’t appreciate. But she just nods.
“I’ll check on her in a few hours. Make sure she drinks water when she wakes. And, Auren—” She pauses. “Take care of her.”
“I intend to.”
I carry Tamsin through the fortress corridors, ignoring the stares of the guards and servants we pass. Let them look. Let them see their cold, controlled strategist carrying a witch princess through the halls. Let them understand that something has changed.
Everything has changed.
My quarters have never felt so empty.
I lay Tamsin on the bed—my bed, which has never held another person in all the centuries I’ve slept here—and study her in the morning light. She’s pale. Too pale. The blood has been cleaned from her face, but the shadows beneath her eyes speak to how close she came to death.
The Crown rests dormant against her chest, that crystallized sphere that nearly killed her. I want to rip it away, throw it into the deepest vault, never see it again. But it’s part of her now. Part of her inheritance, her responsibility, her power.
I hate it. And I’m proud of her for wielding it.
She stirs as I pull the blankets over her. Her eyes flutter open—amber meeting gold, fire meeting ice—and her lips curve into a smile that makes my chest ache.
“We made it home.”
“We did.” I sit on the edge of the bed, taking her hand in mine. Her skin is warm against my cold fingers, and I marvel at how natural the contact feels. How essential. “How do you feel?”
“Like I fought a war and won.” She squeezes my hand weakly. “Tired. But good. Really good.”
“You should rest.”
“I should.” But she doesn’t close her eyes. Just looks at me with an expression I’m learning to read—love, yes, but also something else. Decision. Certainty. “Later. After.”
“After what?”
Her free hand rises to cup my cheek. Warm fingers tracing the line of my jaw, the shape of my mouth, mapping features she’s memorized. “You know what.”
I do know. Have known since she told me she loved me in that throne room. Have been waiting, planning, wanting with an intensity that should terrify me but doesn’t.
“Tonight.” I turn my head to press a kiss against her palm. “Rest now. Recover. Tonight, when you’re stronger—”
“Tonight.” She smiles, and her eyes finally close. “I’ll hold you to that.”
I watch her sleep. Watch the steady rise and fall of her chest, the way the morning light catches the copper highlights in her dark hair. Watch this woman who crashed into my life and refused to leave, who shattered every wall I built and made me grateful for the destruction.
Six centuries of control. Decades of ice. And she melted through all of it without even trying.
Tonight, I’ll claim her. Make her mine in every way that matters. And she’ll claim me in return—not just as her dragon, but as her mate, her partner, her equal.
It feels like coming home.