Chapter 12
Dagan
Stone’s Edge
Adrenaline rushes through my veins like molten lava cutting through rock.
I lift Alina easily, one arm under her knees, the other around her back.
She squeaks and then wraps her arms around my neck, head resting against my shoulder.
“I’m too heavy,” she protests, and I glare at her which has my wicked little viyella rolling her gorgeous eyes at me.
A win for sure, if I ever had one.
The ring of stone we raised stands around the village like a new wall.
Beyond it, the Marches roll out in waves of green and gold and stone, calm—for now.
As I carry her back toward the shelter they’ve set aside for us, I feel the bond pulsing between us.
Not a chain.
A root system.
Deep and strong and spreading.
I have spent years telling myself I was content walking alone. That, like my fallen friend, I needed no one to complete me or to boost my power like Alaric and the others believed.
Turns out I was wrong. I’ve simply been dormant.
In my arms, within me, Alina murmurs against my throat, already half-asleep from exhaustion and the drain of shared power.
She’s not used to this—to us—but she will be.
I will see to it. Because that is my mission now, alongside saving Nightfall.
Varen’s message reaches me through the roots before we’re even halfway back to the main trail.
A low shiver runs through the earth, then resolves into words only I can hear. Like a message that enters directly into my head.
All accounted for. None dead. Some broken stone. Some broken fences.
But we live, my Lord.
I breathe out slowly.
Relief tastes like rain on dust.
I send a pulse back through the network—thanks, reassurance, the promise of stone and lumber from The Barrow and a troop of soldiers already on their way to help them rebuild.
They will arrive by dusk. Until then, the makeshift shelters I raised will hold.
The Marches settle around us, no longer on the edge of breaking.
The only thing still shaking is the woman in my arms.
Alina—my viyella, my impossible Oona—sags against my chest, boneless with exhaustion.
Power always takes its toll, and she channeled more than she knows.
I tuck her tighter against me, wings mantling, keeping the mountain winds off her.
“Where are we going?” Alina murmurs against my throat, voice blurred with weariness.
“I was going to take you straight home,” I say, my voice low, “but I think you need a rest.”
“Mmm,” she hums. “And what are you thinking, exactly?”
I can’t help the smile that curves my mouth against her hair.
“That this started as a bargain to save Nightfall,” I answer honestly. “And ends, if I am very fortunate, with you and me united as one.”
She huffs a soft, sleepy laugh. “Sounds like a fair trade, Lord of Dirt.”
The Marches, traitorous things, pulse with amusement beneath my boots.
“Yes,” I murmur as I step over the threshold of the small shelter Varen bade us use, fortified by me—a bubble of stone and woven roots tucked into the curve of the hillside. “It does.”
I pause, let the door seal behind us, earth knitting shut with a whisper.
“But if you call me Lord of Dirt again,” I add, letting my tone drop, “I’m afraid I shall have to discipline you.”
The effect is immediate.
Her fingers, fisted lightly in my shirt, curl tighter. Heat blooms in the air between us, bright and unmistakable.
Her scent shifts—desire threaded through fatigue.
Ah.
Interesting.
“You like it when I say that, Oona?” I murmur against the shell of her ear. “You crave my punishment?”
She leans back enough to look at me, cheeks flushed, eyes dark and wide.
“That depends,” she manages, chin tilting in that stubborn way I’m beginning to know too well. “What did you have in mind?”
My control frays.
For a moment, I nearly turn us around and fly all the way back to The Barrow just to have her in our bed, in our stone chamber, beneath the roof of my castle—my home.
But the Marches are still raw from the quake. I won’t stray far, not yet.
So I make this place enough.
I call to the earth, and it answers.
Stone softens underfoot, rising and reshaping, forming a broad, low platform lined with thick moss and springy turf.
Vines uncoil from the wall at my silent command, threading overhead to weave a living canopy that filters the light into soft green-gold.
Alina watches all of it with parted lips, breath catching as the bed takes shape beneath us.
“Dagan,” she whispers, reaching to touch the moss, then me.
“Careful,” I say, catching her hand, bringing her knuckles to my mouth. “I did say there would be discipline.”
Her pulse stutters against my lips.
I lower her gently onto the earthen bed, the living ground molding to cradle her. Her hair fans out around her like a dark halo against the green.
Gods, she is beautiful.
Mine.
I let a single vine curl, slow and gentle, around her wrist—more a caress than a restraint—anchoring her arm above her head.
Another follows at her other wrist, holding her in place with the lightest of pressure.
Two more have her ankles, and on my command, they will gently pry her sweet thighs apart.
I can’t wait.
Her breath shivers.
“Dagan,” she says again, and this time my name is a plea.
I drink it in.
“Please, I want to touch you,” she begs.
Dear gods, my control is hanging by a silk thread.
“Now, you may not touch,” I rumble, bracing one hand beside her head, letting my weight and heat crowd over her without quite settling.
“But not until I say so. Not until you’ve been properly punished for teasing me, little Oona.”
A shiver runs through her that has nothing to do with cold.
Outside the shelter, the Marches mutter and shift, still healing their wounds.
Inside, it is just us.
Stone and storm and the human woman who chose to walk my fault lines and stand in the cracks with me.
“And,” I murmur, lowering my mouth toward hers, “if you are very, very good for me. And keep your moans low. I will let you come, my sweet Oona. Do you want that?”
“Yes. God, yes. But why do I have to be quiet?” she whispers, already breathless.
“Because,” I growl, lips a breath from hers, “I do not share.”
Her answering smile is wicked and bright.
And as the earth rises to hold us and the roots above weave tight to keep the world out, I let myself stop thinking about Idris and SoulTakers and broken crowns.
For a little while, there is only this.
Her.
Me.
And the Marches, humming their fierce approval as I show my viyella exactly what it means to belong to the Lord of Earth.
First…
“Too many clothes,” I growl, dipping my head to taste the soft place where her neck meets her shoulder.
Her pulse kicks against my tongue.
I drag a slow, deliberate lick from the curve of her throat down to the edge of her cleavage, savoring salt and heat and the faint sweetness that is purely her.
“Oona,” I rasp, voice rough with want. “I need you.”
I sink to my knees between her thighs, palms braced on either side of her hips. The sight of her above me—cheeks flushed, chest rising and falling, eyes dark and trusting—nearly undoes me.
Air Lords fly.
Fire Lords burn.
Water Lords drown.
But Earth Lords?
We devour.
I lift my hands and call the magic that lives in my bones.
Power tingles through my fingers as I will every clasp, tie, and seam to loosen.
Fabric sighs and falls away from her body, from mine, dissolving into a soft shimmer of dust that the stone eagerly drinks in.
Alina gasps, arms instinctively pulling against the vines as if to cross over her chest.
“Easy,” I murmur, catching her elbows and gently guiding them back to the mossy bed. “Don’t try to hide from me, Oona. Not ever.”
Her breath stutters, but she obeys. She stops struggling.
I close my eyes and speak an old chant under my breath, one I’ve used a thousand times to scrub blood and grime from my own skin after battle. Earth, air, and root answer, swirling over us in a warm, invisible rush.
The dust, the sweat, the trace of stone from the shattered village—gone from us both.
My clothes fall away, just like hers, my wings folded behind me as I take in her unparalleled beauty.
No more barriers or pretenses.
What remains is only us.
Alina is—fuck—she’s devastating to my senses.
She’s all smooth, tanned skin and glorious curves.
Her scent is clean, sun-warmed, with the faint tang of exertion.
But more than that is the intoxicating, salt-sweet note of her arousal hits me like a fist to the gut.
I open my eyes.
And she’s watching me—watching me, waiting, anticipating—lips parted, pupils blown wide.
“Better,” I say roughly, drinking her in. “Now there is nothing to stop me from tasting you properly.”
Her answering shiver is all the permission I will ever need.
I lean forward, no hesitating—and I feast.
“Oh, God!” she shouts.
I suck hard on her clit and lift my head.
“Shhhh,” I remind her.
“S-sorry, please, Dagan,” she whimpers, arching her back as much as she can like she can’t get close enough to me—and it is nearly my undoing.
I fist my cock, licking my lips where I can still savor the sweet tang of her musk.
“You will be silent if you want to come, Alina. Do you understand?”
I squeeze my balls, jerking my length as I watch her squirm on the altar of moss, stone, and earth I’ve conjured for her.
Altar is the only word that fits.
Alina—my sweet viyella—is a goddess here.
Her lush curves, the strength in her thighs, the soft swell of her belly, the rise and fall of her chest… she is everything I never thought I deserved.
Everything I never let myself imagine.
I am all sharp edges and carved stone.
She doesn’t smooth them.
She fits them.
Molding, cradling, grounding me in ways I didn’t know were possible.
With her wrists bound in vines, her ankles gently held apart, she should look vulnerable.
Instead, she looks like a queen accepting tribute.
And I am more than willing to kneel.
“This is torture,” I mutter, voice rough as gravel as I drag my gaze over her, slow and reverent. “The sweetest kind the earth has ever witnessed.”