Chapter 30
SERENNA
Serenna’s boots struck stone and her knees buckled.
The portal Vesryn had torn open in their path snapped shut behind them, severing the Starshards’ wail.
She caught herself against a boulder outside of the Everfrost Caverns, rough rock scraping her palms. Her lungs dragged in air, then cinched tight, braced for the sky to wrench it away.
Fenn landed on the stone beside her and kept his feet, his wings vanishing with hers. Vesryn shifted and remained turned toward the dissipating rift, Essence whirling around him, his hands flexing with nowhere left to strike.
Kaedryn’s sentries flanked the tunnel entrance. One took in their battered state and warped deeper into the Everfrost, news of their return already racing ahead of them.
Zaeryn’s telepathic sending reached Vesryn before Serenna had steadied her breathing. She circled above the caverns on Trella, with Naru at her flank. The western scouts had sighted Skylash and broken off their sweep rather than provoke the dragon.
Kaedryn arrived on the heels of the report and marshaled them underground for a meeting, already asking questions before Serenna had brushed the grit from her palms or shaken the wind gliders from her mind.
Guildmasters and wraith lieutenants were crowded into one of Blossom’s dim chambers deeper in the mountain. Mismatched cushions scavenged from Asharyn formed a rough circle beneath them, their wool and hide crushed thin.
Jassyn was already there, mapping the threat he and Lykor had discovered in the rainforest—the human army marching north toward the Aetherveil.
Each measured detail shortened Serenna’s breath.
The king’s razorwings could outpace the column by days.
One glimpse of the island range, and Galaeryn could claim Veyrix before their own alliance ever reached his chains.
Lykor paced through the report, his boots grinding the same route into the stone over and over, his restlessness scraping against her own.
Sitting still allowed the flight to collect its debt. By the second hour, the muscles under Serenna’s shoulder blades had drawn into hard cords. She resettled on the flattened cushion, only for the ache to migrate somewhere new.
Worse, every few minutes, her lungs remembered the air vanishing into the wind gliders’ throats. Her chest hitched around an inhale until she forced it out.
At last, the meeting broke apart. Jassyn’s voice brushed through Serenna’s mind, drawing Vesryn and Fenn into the sending as he asked the three of them to meet with him and Lykor in private.
A route unfurled behind her eyes, descending toward a secluded hollow farther in the caverns. Kaedryn and the guildmasters still had Jassyn pinned under questions, but he and Lykor would follow when they could. Serenna was on her feet before his words faded.
Vesryn sent globes of illumination ahead through the winding tunnels. Their light slipped around each bend, leading them downward as moisture gathered on the walls and heat dampened Serenna’s skin.
The passage opened into a chamber veiled in steam. Centuries of condensation had burnished the stone to a glassy sheen. A pool filled the cavern floor, its water so dark it disappeared into bruised violet depths.
Serenna paused at the threshold. Fenn’s gaze went straight to the steam-veiled pool. He rolled one shoulder, and the lingering stiffness tugged through the bond alongside the ache in her own muscles.
“Jassyn and Lykor won’t escape Kaedryn anytime soon,” Fenn said, a wicked glow in his eyes. “Shame to waste the water while we wait.”
He kicked off his boots and hauled his tunic over his head, tossing it aside. Scars crossed his ribs, each seam familiar from the paths Serenna’s fingers had traced before. He caught her staring and grinned.
“What?” He loosened the laces of his trousers. “You’ve both seen me unclothed before.”
Serenna huffed a quiet laugh. “That doesn’t make it less distracting.”
“I would be offended if it did.”
Beside her, Vesryn folded his arms, irritation sharpening through the bond while Fenn peeled his trousers down his thighs without breaking eye contact with her. The prince refused to even glance at Fenn, intent instead on the flush climbing Serenna’s cheeks.
Fenn had somehow turned removing his clothes into a declaration of war.
“Must you make a spectacle of undressing?” Vesryn asked.
“Just making sure I have your attention.”
Fenn flashed his fangs and sauntered toward the pool, midnight hair swaying behind him.
He waded into the dark water and loosed an indecent groan, drawing it out until Serenna caught the taunt beneath the pleasure, each shameless note meant for Vesryn.
Her pulse struck her ribs anyway. She knew that sound against her skin, his talons wound through her hair, fangs buried in her throat, his growl shuddering through her chest until her spine arched to chase it.
Vesryn’s palm pressed into her lower back, fingers spread wide.
Eyes closed, Fenn tipped his head against the pool’s lip. A smirk curled his mouth before one glowing eye opened to a slit and found Vesryn.
“You getting in, princeling? Or are you just going to watch?”
Vesryn rolled his eyes and dragged a hand over the shorn side of his head before tearing into the disheveled braid on the other.
“Someone has to make sure you stay where you can touch the bottom,” he said, fingers ripping through the plait with more force than the knots deserved. “Drowning in a hot spring after surviving the Aetherveil would be a humiliating end.”
Fenn’s cackle rang off the stone. “Well,” he said, settling an arm along the edge of the pool, “you’ll have a better view in the water.”
Vesryn said nothing. His fingers curled at his sides, tendons taut along his forearms. Serenna didn’t need the bond to guess who he imagined strangling.
She touched his arm and slid her hand down until she reached his fist. She eased it open and laced their fingers together. The hard line of his mouth softened as his thumb skimmed her knuckles.
“Let’s get in,” she said quietly.
Vesryn exhaled, a weary surrender. He met Fenn’s eyes across the pool. Without looking away, he reached for the clasp at Serenna’s shoulder.
The buckle released with a soft click. A flutter stirred low in her belly as he worked the leather loose beneath Fenn’s watch. The prince’s hands remained steady, though strain pulled through his wrists with every movement. He lifted the armor away and laid it on the stone.
Across the water, Fenn went wraith-still, every trace of amusement giving way to focus as Vesryn drew the side lacing from her tunic one crossing at a time.
The fabric parted under the prince’s knuckles, their graze following her ribs to the curve of her waist. He drew the tunic over her head and let it fall, baring her breasts to the mineral steam.
Fenn’s eyes flared, his fingers tightening against the stone lip of the pool.
Vesryn’s palms settled at her hips, thumbs slipping under the waistband of her trousers. He sank to one knee before her, letting Fenn fall from his attention as his eyes rose to meet hers. Serenna’s breath caught halfway in as he took off her boots.
He drew her trousers down her thighs, his hands lingering over the skin he uncovered. His fingers flexed against the backs of her knees before easing the fabric past one ankle, then the other.
Once she stood bare before him, Vesryn drew one measured breath and let his hands fall away. He rose, close enough that the hair by her ears stirred when he spoke.
“Go on,” he said quietly.
From the water, Fenn watched Serenna approach, steam eddying around her ankles as she crossed the stone. Behind her, she felt Vesryn’s gaze tracing the length of her back.
Warm water closed over her feet and climbed with every step, past her knees and over her hips, until it circled her waist. She waded to Fenn and sank beside him, close enough that their shoulders touched.
When leather rustled, Serenna glanced back at the prince.
Vesryn took his time undressing, casting aside his tunic before loosening his trousers. He stepped free of them and straightened under Fenn’s scrutiny, shoulders squared, a muscle ticking in his jaw.
When the prince angled toward the pool, Fenn smirked and patted the water beside himself.
Vesryn waded past the offered place. Water lapped low around his hips before he settled on Serenna’s other side. Beneath the dark surface, his hand closed around her knee, his thumb resting against her thigh.
Fenn chuckled, leaning past Serenna to look at the prince. “That went better than expected. But you’re being unusually quiet.”
Vesryn’s expression remained flat. “I’m conserving energy.”
“For what?”
“Tolerating you.”
Fenn put a claw to his chest in mock offense. “Cruel. You take a male to reclaim his piercings, and he starts imagining a future.”
He hooked an arm around Serenna’s waist and drew her across his lap until her back met his chest, his thighs bracketing hers. The length of him pressed against the base of her spine, already hard.
“Let me fix your hair before your princeling decides we’ve soaked long enough.”
His claws combed through the tangled strands, teasing apart what flight had twisted together.
Vesryn watched his talons disappear into her hair. Through the bond, Serenna sensed him attune to each hitch in her breathing, each shiver Fenn’s touch coaxed across her scalp.
A stubborn snarl tugged at her roots, and Serenna winced.
“Sorry,” Fenn murmured. “The wind did a number on you.”
Vesryn’s gaze lowered to the strained curve of her back, still aching from fighting the sky. “The knots in her shoulders need it more.”
Fenn’s talons stilled in her hair, then skimmed lower. His palms spread over the muscles bunched at the base of her neck.
Serenna’s breath stalled when his thumb sank into the first knot. Pressure mounted until pain lanced through her shoulder. Then the muscle loosened, a wave of relief spreading down her spine.
His thumbs worked deeper into the remaining tension, drawing a moan from her.