Chapter 19
NINETEEN
AERO
The storm broke over the ocean as full dark settled.
It was breathtaking. Terrifying and beautiful in equal measure—lightning splitting the sky in jagged forks, thunder rolling across the water in waves that shook the cliff beneath them. Rain curtained down miles offshore, visible only as a gray smear against the darker sea.
Cassia stood at the edge of the overlook, her face tilted toward the wind, her hair a wild tangle around her shoulders. The barometer pendant caught the last gray light, brass gone dark against her skin, but she didn’t seem afraid. She seemed alive.
“It’s beautiful,” she breathed. “God, I know I shouldn’t—I know storms can destroy things, hurt people—but this…” She spread her arms, letting the wind buffet her. “This is what I am. This is what’s in my blood. And it’s glorious.”
Aero watched her, unable to look away. She was silhouetted against the lightning, wild and fierce and utterly uncontained. Every wall she’d built—every layer of control and containment and careful management—had fallen away, leaving only the storm witch beneath.
She was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen.
The thought hit him with undeniable force.
He’d existed for over eight hundred years.
He’d seen wonders beyond counting: dragon flights over mountain ranges, aurora blazing across polar skies, cities of crystal and glass that no longer existed.
He’d documented beauty with the same clinical precision he applied to everything.
None of it compared to this. To her.
His dragon roared approval.
“You should come back from the edge.” His voice came out rough. Strained. “The wind is strengthening.”
She looked at him over her shoulder. Lightning flashed behind her, turning her into a silhouette for a split second.
“I’m not afraid of storms.”
“I know.” He stood, moving toward her despite every rational thought telling him to stay back. “But I’m not interested in watching you get struck by lightning.”
“Would you care?” The question came out softly. Almost vulnerable. “If I got hurt?”
He stopped an arm’s length away. Near enough to feel the charge building around her—not the storm’s charge, but something deeper. The energy that lived in her skin, in her blood, in every breath she took.
“Yes.” The word tore from him. “I would care.”
She faced him fully. The wind whipped between them, her hair lashing, her eyes bright with something he couldn’t name.
“Why?”
“I don’t know.” Honest, this time. Painfully so. “I’ve been trying to determine that since the moment I met you. I’ve analyzed the data. Run correlations. Tried to identify what variable you represent that’s causing this—” He gestured between them. “—this deviation from my established patterns.”
“And what did you find?”
“Nothing.” He laughed—a strange, rusty sound that surprised them both. “Absolutely nothing. You don’t fit any model. You don’t correspond to any theory. You’re just—” He shook his head. “You’re chaos, Cassia. Pure, beautiful chaos. And my entire existence has been built on order.”
“Is that a complaint?”
“I don’t know what it is.” He met her gaze, letting her see the confusion he’d been hiding.
The fear. The want he didn’t know how to deal with.
“I don’t know what any of this is. I just know that when I’m not with you, I find myself counting the hours until I am.
I know that when you smile, my pulse does something I can’t explain.
I know that I’ve existed for eight centuries without feeling anything, and now—”
He stopped. The words had run out, leaving him stripped bare in a way he hadn’t been in longer than he could name.
Cassia stepped closer. Near enough that her warmth cut through the chill. So near, he could see the lightning reflected in her eyes.
“And now?” she prompted.
“And now I feel things.” His voice dropped to barely above a whisper. “I don’t know how to do that anymore. I’m not sure I ever did.”
“Maybe—” She hesitated. Her hand lifted, hovered in the air between them, then fell back to her side. “Maybe you don’t have to know how. Maybe you just have to let it happen.”
“That’s not how I operate.”
“I know.” Her smile was soft. Sad. Understanding in a way that made something twist inside him. “I had to learn to make myself smaller so I wasn’t too much.”
“You’re wrong about that.” The words came out fierce. Certain. “You’re exactly what you should be. Anyone who told you otherwise was wrong.”
Something broke open in her expression. Not pain—something closer to hope. Something fragile and desperate and achingly tender.
“You really believe that.”
“I don’t say things I don’t believe.” He’d moved closer—deliberately or not, he wasn’t sure anymore. Near enough to see the pulse fluttering in her throat. So near the charge between them built to something almost unbearable. “You’re not what they said you were, Cassia. You’re magnificent.”
Thunder cracked overhead. The storm had moved closer while they talked, the leading edge of rain beginning to fall around them—fat drops that splattered against the grass, against their shoulders, against skin suddenly too warm despite the cold.
Neither of them moved.
“We should go,” she said. Didn’t move.
“Yes.” He didn’t either.
The rain intensified. Lightning split the sky directly above them, near enough to make the air sizzle with ozone. Cassia laughed—wild and joyful—and tilted her face up to the downpour.
“This is your fault,” she said. “The storm. It responded to me, and I—” She broke off, shaking her head, water streaming down her cheeks. “I was feeling things I shouldn’t feel. Wanting things I can’t have. And now we’re both going to drown.”
“I can’t drown.” Aero reached out—finally, finally—and brushed a wet curl from her face. His fingers lingered against her cheek. Her skin was rain-cold but her magic burned beneath it, reaching for his, and the contact sent a current arcing through them both. “Dragon.”
“Show-off.” She was smiling. Really smiling. Her hand came up to cover his where it rested against her face.
And Aero stood in the middle of a storm, touching Cassia Gale’s face, feeling more alive than he had in eight hundred years.
His dragon hummed with satisfaction. This is just the beginning, it whispered. Wait until you claim her.
For once, Aero didn’t argue.
He let himself feel it. All of it. The rain and the lightning and the woman looking up at him with storm-colored eyes full of something that might be hope.
The world could burn tomorrow. The surge could destroy everything. His careful existence could fall to ash.
Right now, in this moment, none of that mattered.
Right now, there was only her.