Chapter 12
MY SUBCONSCIOUS HAS ZERO CHILL
MIKAELA
The spoon is the last clear thing I remember.
After that, the mountain turns into an oven.
We leave the safety of the tunnel and continue on the path, and it’s like walking into a dragon’s throat. The humidity hits us first. Thick, wet, and smelling of ancient copper. Then the heat.
It’s not just warm. It’s stifling.
My fever, which had been a manageable hum, roars into a scream.
Time gets slippery. I don’t know how long we walk. I just know that my legs stop feeling like legs and start feeling like lead weights I have to manually drag forward.
“Mih-kay-lah.” Sarven’s voice is rough, coming from somewhere above me. “Stay… awake.”
“I’m awake,” I slur. “I’m just… melting. It’s fine.”
It is not fine.
The tunnel narrows. The ceiling drops until we are forced to our knees, then to our bellies.
A crawlspace.
If I weren’t so delirious, I’d be terrified. There are enough cave-diving accidents on Earth that tell me this is a bad idea. The rock presses down on us. The walls squeeze in. But mostly, I’m just aware of him.
Sarven is right behind me.
Because the space is so tight, he has to crawl practically on top of me. His heat radiates into the soles of my shoes, up my legs. Every time I stall, which is often, his shoulder bumps my hip, or his hand brushes my calf to urge me forward.
“Go,” he rasps. “Almost… there.”
I’m dragging myself over sharp stone, sweating through my tunic, dizzy with fumes, and my brain decides this is the perfect time to focus on how large he is.
He fills the tunnel. He blocks out the dark. He is a wall of solid, shimmering gold in the blackness, and he is the only reason I haven’t just lain down and let the mountain take me.
“Hot,” I whimper, stopping again.
“Yes,” he growls. “Move.”
His claw lands on my ankle, large and strong. He gives me a little shove.
The contact sends a jolt through me that feels embarrassingly good.
We spill out of the crawlspace an eternity later.
The chamber we land in is loud. The sound of water is much louder here, close and heavy. The air is thick with mist and that cloying, sweet-rot smell of the bloom.
I try to stand.
My knees say absolutely not.
I crumple.
Sarven catches me before gravity can do its worst. He hauls me up, then realizes I can’t hold my own weight. He sinks down with me, pulling me back until we are braced against a relatively cool section of the wall.
“Burning,” he murmurs, his hand pressing to my forehead.
“You’re one to talk,” I mumble, leaning into his touch. He feels like a furnace. “You’re glowing.”
He doesn't understand the words, but he understands the shiver running through me.
“Healing,” he rumbles in Drakavian, the translator whispering the correction in my ear. “Good for… heart.”
He wraps his arms around me, tucking my head under his chin, his legs tangling with mine.
It should be too hot. It should be claustrophobic.
But as soon as his chest hits my back, that vibration starts.
That purr.
It rattles through my ribs, sinking deep into my bones. It grabs the frantic, erratic rhythm of my feverish heart and forces it to slow down. To match him.
Thum-thum. Thum-thum.
“Sleep,” he commands, his voice vibrating against my skull. “Safe now. I watch.”
I cling to his arm, my fingers digging into his skin, inhaling deeply as the scent of him drowns out the rot.
“Don’t let go,” I whisper, my eyes dragging shut.
“Mih-kay-lah…safe,” he vows.
I fall asleep wrapped in heat and that deep, steady purr, and honestly, I don’t even fight it this time.
I’m too tired. Too cold and hot everywhere except where Sarven touches me.
So, I let go.
And immediately, I’m somewhere else.
The dream starts in golden darkness.
Warm. Alive. Like being wrapped in honey-colored silk that breathes.
Like Sarven’s glow.
I’m lying on something soft that yields beneath me, supporting my weight perfectly. And I’m not alone.
I feel him before I see him.
His hands slide up the inside of my thighs, spreading them wider.
His breath, hot against my skin, as he settles between my legs.
Ohhh.
I should stop this before it goes any further.
But dream-logic doesn’t care about should. Dream-me just arches into the touch, shameless and wanting.
His mouth finds me.
The first slow drag of his tongue makes my entire body shiver, a deep moan barreling up my throat.
Holy—
My brain braces for clumsy. For rough. It gets neither. His tongue is broader than a human’s, textured in a way that sends sparks up my spine with every stroke. He explores. Tastes.
His claws brace on my hips, holding me steady with just enough room to squirm. Like he wants me to move if I need to. Like he wants to feel me respond.
And God, do I respond.
My hands find his hair, the dark strands silky-rough beneath my fingers. I twist my grip, and he makes a sound against me that vibrates straight through my core.
“Mih-kay-lah,” he murmurs, his voice low and rough. “Tor-vakh. So sweet. So ready.”
And somehow, impossibly, I understand him.
Every word.
Not just the meaning but the weight behind it. The hunger, the restraint, the devotion.
“Don’t stop,” I hear myself say, my voice breathless and wrecked. “Please, Sarven, don’t—”
He doesn’t.
He doubles down, his tongue circling, pressing, finding the exact rhythm that makes my thighs shake.
I’m grinding against his mouth now, chasing the building heat, and he lets me. Encourages it with the tilt of his head, the flex of his claws on my hips, the approving rumble that rolls through his chest.
More, I think. Need more. Need—
His tongue slides lower, then back up in one long stroke, and I feel the orgasm start to build in the center of my belly.
“Yes,” I gasp, fingers tightening in his hair. “Right there. Just like—”
The dream flickers.
Reality bleeds through in fragments: cold stone beneath me, the weight of exhaustion in my limbs, the distant echo of dripping water.
But the feeling doesn’t stop.
The heat. The slick warmth between my thighs. The desperate, aching need that’s been building for days without release.
I’m half-awake now, caught between worlds, and my hand, my own traitorous hand, slides down beneath the scale-tunic without conscious thought.
My fingers find slickness, heat, the swollen bundle of nerves that’s been screaming for attention despite my trying to ignore it.
I bite my lip hard to muffle the sound that tries to escape.
My hips twitch against Sarven’s thigh. He’s still behind me, still solid and warm, still wrapped around me like a living shield.
Oh God, is he awake? Can he feel this?
I freeze for half a second, listening.
His breathing is deep. Even. The purr is still there, steady and low.
Asleep, then.
Probably.
I should stop. I absolutely should stop.
But my body has other ideas.
My fingers circle, press, find the rhythm that the dream started, and I let my eyes fall shut again, chasing the ghost of his mouth on me.
In my mind, I’m still there. Still golden and warm and his. Still hearing his voice murmur praise in a language I shouldn’t understand.
The orgasm builds fast.
My thighs clench. My breath catches. My free hand fists in the scales of the tunic, knuckles tight.
And then it hits.
The release crashes through me like a wave, drowning out everything else. My whole body locks up, toes curling, back arching, and I see gold light flash behind my eyelids like someone turned on a spotlight inside my skull.
For one dizzying heartbeat, I swear I feel someone else’s pleasure tangled with mine.
Not my own echo.
Someone else’s.
Then it fades, and I’m left gasping quietly in the dark, my heart pounding so hard I’m sure it’s going to wake him.
The aftershocks ripple through me, softer now, gentler.
I lie very still, trying to catch my breath without making noise.
My hand is still between my thighs, fingers slick and trembling. I drag them away slowly, wiping them on the inside of the tunic where it won’t be obvious.
The satisfaction should feel good.
It doesn’t.
Because it wasn’t him. It was my hand and my imagination and a dream that felt more real than it had any right to.
And I’m still here, wrapped in his arms, with the ache only partially sated and the guilt starting to creep in.
What the hell is wrong with me?
I take a shaky breath and risk a glance over my shoulder.
Sarven is still behind me, eyes closed, face relaxed in sleep.
But.
His glow is brighter than it was before. Not by much, but enough that I notice.
His breath is rougher, too. Like he’s been exerting himself.
And…there’s something hard. Something that physically shouldn’t be there.
I freeze. I know what I’ve seen. I know they’re usually smooth, sealed up like golden Ken dolls. But right now, pressed firmly against the curve of my ass, there is a distinct, heavy ridge.
It’s rock hard. It’s twitching beneath the skin of his pouch. It feels like a steel bar trying to break out of containment.
What the hell is that?
I swallow hard as a hot pulse goes straight to my core.
I thought they didn’t... I thought that didn’t happen unless they were bonded?
And then I realize…this might not be a bond thing at all. This might just be because…
Oh no.
Did he… feel what I was doing? Did he know?
My rational brain scrambles to reassure me: You were quiet. He’s asleep. There’s no way he could tell.
But intuition, and the very impossible, very hard ridge pressing into my lower back, whispers something else entirely.
I squeeze my eyes shut, cheeks burning hot enough to rival his glow.
You’re just going to lie here and pretend to sleep and never, ever think about this again.
I force my breathing to slow. Force my body to relax, muscle by muscle.
Behind me, Sarven shifts slightly, his arm tightening around my waist in an unconscious gesture that makes my heart twist.
The purr deepens, just a fraction, as his breath ghosts across the back of my neck.
I lie there in the golden dark, hyperaware of every place his body touches mine, and try very hard not to think about how good it felt to imagine it was him.
How much I wanted it to be real.
How desperately unsatisfied I still am, even after the orgasm, because it was my hand and not his mouth, my imagination and not his touch.
You are in such deep trouble, I tell myself, staring into the dark.
This isn’t just the weird alien-planet fever dreams making me horny at inappropriate times.
This is something else.
Something bigger.
Something that makes my chest ache and my thoughts tangle and my body respond…
I’m…
I’m falling for him.
Fuck.
I close my eyes, but sleep is impossible now.
All I can think about is the warmth of his body against mine, the rough-silk sound of his voice in my dream, and the way his glow brightened like a star going nova the moment I came.
And behind me, wrapped around me like he’s afraid I’ll disappear if he lets go, Sarven sleeps on.
Unaware.
Probably.
Hopefully.
I lie there in the golden dark, heart pounding in time with the drip of the poisoned water, waiting for the inevitable moment he wakes up.