Chapter 19 Zyphon
NINETEEN
ZYPHON
Days of training sessions where her fire reaches for my shadows without her permission.
Days of shared meals where I catch myself watching her across the table, cataloging the way she laughs at Rurik’s jokes, the way she leans into Selene’s warmth, the way she’s slowly, carefully, learning to belong.
Days of wanting her so badly, it’s become a physical ache.
I thought I’d mastered this hunger. So much grief should have burned it out of me, should have left nothing but ash where my desire once lived. But feeling her shoulder brush against mine in the garden, watching her choose to stay instead of retreat—
It’s all come flooding back. The wanting. The need. The desperate hope I’d convinced myself was dead.
Yesterday, Rurik cornered me in the armory and asked why I was “radiating enough sexual tension to power a small city.” I nearly threw him through a wall. He just laughed and said he’d take that as confirmation.
This morning, Aisling gave me a look during breakfast that suggested she knew exactly why I couldn’t stop staring at Nasyra’s hands wrapped around her teacup. She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to.
Everyone can see it. Everyone knows.
And the worst part is, she feels it too.
I can tell by the way her shadow-flame flares when I correct her stance. By the way her breath catches when my hand brushes hers. By the way her gaze lingers on my mouth during conversations, then jerks away when she realizes what she’s doing.
We’re circling each other. Two damaged creatures, drawn together by something neither of us fully understands, too wary to close the distance but unable to walk away.
Something has to give.
Today’s training session ends early.
Not because she’s struggling—she’s made remarkable progress, her control sharper with each passing day.
But because our powers have become impossible to manage in close proximity.
When I step near her, my shadows surge toward her fire without conscious direction.
When she loses focus, her shadow-flame curls toward my darkness, seeking something it recognizes.
By midday, we’re both breathing hard, and not from exertion.
I watch her practice her favorite construct—a blade of shadow-flame, its edges sharp and stable. The darkness inside me stirs, reaching for her fire with an intensity that makes my skin prickle. Her gaze flicks to mine, and I see the same awareness reflected back. The same hunger.
“We should stop.” My voice comes out rougher than intended. “Take a break.”
She stands across the training yard, shadow-flame flickering at her fingertips, her mismatched eyes fixed on me with an intensity that makes my blood heat. “Why?”
“Because if we keep going, I’m going to do something we’ll both regret.”
The words hang between us, raw and honest. Her fire flares brighter—response to the admission, to the desire I’ve stopped trying to hide.
“Would we?” Her voice is quiet. “Regret it?”
The question lands with the weight of everything we haven’t said. I can see the challenge in her expression, the invitation she’s not quite willing to speak aloud. Part of me wants to cross the distance between us, to show her exactly what I’ve been imagining every time I close my eyes.
But not here. Not in broad daylight, with Rurik likely watching from some window and the whole fortress wondering what’s happening between us.
I don’t answer. Don’t trust myself to speak. Just turn and walk away before I do something that can’t be undone.
Her gaze follows me out of the training yard. I can feel it against my back, hot and questioning.
I spend the rest of the afternoon in my quarters, fighting the urge to go back to her.
Night falls. I don’t sleep.
Instead, I stand by my window and watch the stars emerge, one by one, over the mountains. The shadows inside me are restless, stirring beneath my skin, reaching toward where she’s lying in her own bed. Probably not sleeping either.
A few doors. That’s all that separates us. A few doors and centuries of grief and the knowledge that if I go to her now, I won’t be able to stop.
She deserves better than this. Better than a dragon cursed by the same magic that killed her. Better than a man who’s spent years becoming something dark and dangerous and barely controlled.
She deserves gentleness. Patience. A love that doesn’t come wrapped in shadows and old grief.
I can’t give her any of those things. All I have is this consuming want, this desperate need that’s been building since the moment I saw her in the shadow-territories. All I have is longing and a curse that won’t let me forget what I lost.
The knock at my door comes just past midnight.
I know it’s her before I open it.
My shadows recognize her fire—reach for it even through the solid wood of the door. When I pull it open, she’s standing there in nothing but a thin shift, her dark hair loose around her shoulders, her feet bare against the cold stone.
Her mismatched eyes find mine. There’s something fragile in her expression—vulnerability she’s been hiding for weeks, finally allowed to surface.
“I couldn’t sleep.”
“Neither could I.”
“I know I should go back to my room.” She wraps her arms around herself. “This is probably a terrible idea. But I’m tired, Zyphon. Tired of questions. Tired of being careful. Tired of lying alone in the dark, feeling empty, when you’re so close.”
My hands curl into fists at my sides. Every instinct screams at me to pull her inside, to close the door behind her, to finally take what I’ve wanted for so long.
But she doesn’t understand what it would mean to let me touch her.
“You should go.” The words scrape against my throat. “This isn’t—you don’t know what you’re asking.”
“Then tell me.”
“I’ve spent three centuries wanting you.
” I force myself to hold her gaze, to let her see the hunger I’ve been hiding.
“Hundreds of years of remembering what it felt like to hold you. To touch you. To have you look at me the way you’re looking at me right now.
If you come inside, I won’t be able to be gentle. I won’t be able to hold back.”
She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t retreat. Just lifts her chin and meets my gaze with something fierce burning in her eyes.
“I don’t want gentle.” Her voice is steady. “I want to feel something other than hatred and confusion and grief. I want to feel alive. I want—“ Her breath catches. “I want you. Even if I don’t understand it. Even if it’s too soon or too fast or too complicated. I want you.”
The last thread of my control snaps.
I pull her into my chambers and kick the door shut behind us.
She comes willingly, her hands finding my chest, her fire flaring to meet my shadows. The moment our skin touches, something shifts in the air—a resonance, a recognition. Her shadow-flame and my darkness reaching for each other, finally allowed to connect.
“Last chance.” I cup her face in my hands, tilting it up so she can see the darkness swirling in my eyes. “Tell me to stop and I will. I’ll walk you back to your room and we’ll pretend this never happened.”
“I don’t want to pretend.” Her hands slide up my chest, fingers curling into the fabric of my shirt. “I want this. I want you.”
I kiss her.
Not gently. Not carefully. All of my longing pours into it—all the nights I spent aching for her, all the mornings I woke reaching for someone who wasn’t there. She gasps against my mouth, and I swallow the sound, my tongue sliding against hers, tasting her, claiming her.
Her arms wrap around my neck. Her body presses against mine, soft curves molding to hard angles. I can feel her heart racing, her pulse pounding where my hands grip her waist. She kisses me back with equal desperation, her teeth catching my lower lip, her nails scraping against the nape of my neck.
I walk her backward until her shoulders hit the wall. Pin her there with my body, one hand braced beside her head, the other sliding down to grip her hip. She moans into my mouth—a sound that goes straight to my cock—and rolls her hips against mine.
“Zyphon.” My name comes out breathless, broken. “Please.”
I drag my mouth from hers, trailing kisses along her jaw, down the column of her throat. Her pulse flutters beneath my lips. I lick across it, then suck hard enough to leave a mark. She cries out, her head falling back against the wall, her fingers tangling in my hair.
“I’ve thought about this,” I murmur against her skin. “About you. About what I’d do if I ever got you alone again.”
“What did you think about?” Her voice is ragged.
“This.” I bite the junction of her neck and shoulder, and she shudders. “Tasting every inch of you. Making you scream my name. Watching you come apart in my arms.”
“Yes.” The word is half moan, half demand. “All of it. I want all of it.”
I grip the hem of her shift and pull it up and over her head in one smooth motion. She stands before me in nothing but moonlight, pale skin glowing, her body a landscape I want to explore with my hands and mouth and tongue.
“Fuck.” The curse escapes before I can stop it. “You’re so damn beautiful.”
She reaches for me, tugging at my shirt. “Off. I want to see you too.”
I strip it away, baring the scars the curse has left—purple veins crawling beneath my skin, marks that will never fade. She doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t look away. Just traces her fingers along the lines of damage, her touch achingly gentle.
“Does it hurt?”
“Not right now.” Not with her touching me. Not with her looking at me like I’m something worth wanting instead of something to fear. “Right now, all I feel is you.”