Chapter 1
LEXA
The purple-scaled warrior's claws gleamed in the flickering light. I watched them arc downward toward Terra's exposed neck, time stretching into something thick and viscous.
"Say goodnight, human."
My throat burned with the scream. "Terra!"
She turned, her eyes finding mine across the chaos of the corridor. Behind her, the bastard's strike descended.
Then gray scales and massive wings materialized between them.
He dropped from the shadows above, landing in a crouch that cracked the stone beneath his feet. His wings spread wide, blocking the purple warrior's path to Terra. Steel-gray scales caught the light, each one edged in white like frost on metal. I barely knew him, but I recognized him on sight.
Nyx.
The purple warrior's strike never landed. Nyx caught his wrist mid-swing, twisted, and bone snapped with a sound like breaking branches. The warrior's scream echoed off the carved walls.
My heart kicked against my ribs.
We were fucked. Completely, utterly fucked.
A senior warrior had found us, and there was no way Terra and I could fight past him. Not after everything we'd already survived in this goddamned trial.
I moved before thought caught up, putting myself between Terra and Nyx. I gripped my knife, the weight familiar despite the tremor in my grip. Exhaustion made my bones feel hollow, but I locked my knees and held position.
"Run," I said to Terra. The word scraped out of my throat. "I'll hold him off."
"Lexa, no …"
"Run!" I shoved her toward the archway behind us, the one that led deeper into the temple. "Don't waste this. Go!"
Terra hesitated for half a heartbeat, then she was gone, vanishing into the darkness.
The gray warrior's eyes tracked her movement, then snapped back to me. Pale silver, those eyes. Like winter ice over deep water.
I lunged.
Nyx moved to counter, and we became a tangle of motion. My blade sought the gaps between his scales, the vulnerable places at joints and throat. He deflected each strike with minimal effort, his claws a blur of violence held in check.
God, he was fast. Fresh. I'd been fighting for hours, bleeding myself dry in this trial, and he moved like he'd just woken from a nap.
My blade scraped across his forearm, drawing a thin line of dark blood. He didn't flinch. Just adjusted his stance and came at me again.
I ducked under a swipe that would have opened my throat, rolled, came up with my knife reversed in my grip. The stone floor bit into my knees through my shredded leathers.
His tail whipped around, caught my ankle, yanked.
I went down hard. My knife skittered across the floor, metal ringing against stone. I scrambled after it, fingers closing around the hilt just as his shadow fell over me.
He pinned my wrist to the floor. Not rough. Precise. Just enough pressure to keep the blade trapped.
I looked up at him, ready to spit defiance, ready to fight until he knocked me unconscious or worse.
His scent hit me.
Smoke and heated stone, something sharp underneath like the air before a lightning strike. It crawled into my lungs, settled there, made my pulse stutter and restart at double-time.
What the fuck?
His eyes held mine. Silver and steady and entirely too knowing.
My free hand came up, reaching for his face. I didn't remember deciding to move. My palm found the line of his jaw, scales smooth and warm under my touch.
The corridor tilted. The walls rippled like water.
His claws traced my jaw, mirroring my touch. Gentle. Careful of my fragile human skin.
We weren't fighting anymore.
Then his mouth found mine.
Fierce. Claiming. His lips were softer than I expected, but there was nothing soft about the way he kissed me. He took, demanded, and I opened for him without thought.
My stomach dropped, then swooped upward. Something hot and liquid pooled low in my belly, spreading outward until my thighs trembled with it.
The taste of him flooded my senses. Heat and something sharp, foreign, nothing like kissing a human man. His tongue swept into my mouth, longer than it should be, the texture different, and I moaned against him. The sound came from somewhere deep in my chest, needy and desperate.
My hands fisted in … nothing. He wore no shirt in this place that wasn't quite the temple corridor anymore. Just scales under my palms, smooth and warm and alive with the thrum of his pulse. Heat radiated from him, soaking into my skin, making me burn from the inside out. My core clenched.
I traced the ridges, the patterns, learning the map of him. His chest rumbled under my touch, a sound that vibrated through my bones. It traveled down my arms, settled in my chest, resonated lower. Between my legs, I was getting wet, slick arousal coating my thighs.
His claws, so careful, found the tears in my leathers and made them wider. Fabric parted like paper. Cool air hit my overheated skin for a moment before his hands covered me, palms against my ribs. His touch sent electricity skittering across my nerve endings.
My skin felt too tight, too sensitive. Every point of contact between us blazed.
My legs wrapped around his waist without permission from my brain.
My boots scraped against scaled thighs, finding purchase.
He pressed closer, and the ridge of him ground against my core through too many layers.
The pressure hit exactly where I needed it.
I rolled my hips, seeking friction, needing more, my body moving on instinct older than thought.
I gasped into his mouth. My lungs couldn't get enough air. My heart slammed against my ribs, so hard it hurt. The pulse between my legs matched the rhythm, pounding and insistent.
His tail coiled around my ankle, all possessive surety.
Fangs grazed my throat. Not biting. Just the promise of danger, the edge of violence held in check.
My head fell back, exposing the vulnerable line of my neck, surrendering to this impossible thing.
My pulse jumped under his mouth, frantic and wild.
He had to feel it, the proof of what he did to me.
His mouth traveled downward. Collarbone. Sternum. The curve of my breast. That tongue, god, that tongue traced patterns that made me shake.
I found the piercings in his ears, multiple metal rings climbing the ridge of cartilage. I tugged, and he growled. The vibration traveled through me, settling low in my belly, making everything clench with need. My thighs trembled where they gripped his waist.
His claws traced my spine, moving down each vertebra. My ribs. The dip of my waist. So careful with my fragile skin, as if I might shatter if he pressed too hard.
Goosebumps erupted in the wake of his touch. I felt too tight, too sensitive, every nerve ending screaming for more contact. The careful restraint in his touch made me ache worse than roughness would have.
The first touch between my legs knocked the air from my lungs.
The tip of his tail teased my entrance through the barrier of my remaining clothes.
Gentle pressure, testing, learning what made me gasp and roll my hips seeking more.
The friction against my center sent sparks up my spine.
I was so sensitive there, swollen and throbbing, that even the light touch through fabric made my vision blur.
Slick evidence of my arousal soaked through. The proof of how much I wanted this, wanted him, shocked me.
His scent surrounded me. Smoke and stone and Drakarn male. It filled my lungs with each ragged breath, making my head spin. I wanted to drown in it, wanted it on my skin, in my hair, marking me as his.
His wings mantled around us, creating a private world. Everything else disappeared entirely. There was only this: his body and mine, heat and need and the inevitability of what came next.
The final barriers between us vanished.
The first press of him against my entrance left me breathless. He was too big. No way this would work.
My body opened anyway, physics bending to the rules of this place that wasn't quite real.
The stretch burned. My inner walls protested, muscles clenching around the intrusion, trying to accommodate something they weren't built for.
The pressure bordered on pain, a fullness that made my lower belly ache.
I whimpered, and he froze, giving me time to adjust, to breathe, to accept the invasion.
Heat radiated from where we joined, spreading through my pelvis, making everything throb.
His voice rumbled in my ear, words in Drakarn I didn't understand but felt in my marrow. Promises or curses or prayers, I couldn't tell. Didn't matter.
I rolled my hips, taking him deeper, and he groaned.
The rhythm built slowly, then faster. His hips driving forward, mine rising to meet him, desperate and graceless and perfect. Claws dug into stone beside my head, gouging furrows, his control threatening to break with each thrust.
My nails found purchase on his scales, scratching, marking, claiming him the way he was claiming me.
Pressure built low in my belly, winding tighter with each stroke. The fullness pressed against something inside me, relentless pressure that made my thighs shake. My inner muscles contracted around him, gripping, trying to pull him deeper even though there was nowhere left to go.
Sensation overload. Fullness and pressure and the skilled movement of his tail, circling and pressing and driving me toward the edge.
My climax built, cresting, everything in me drawing tight.
His pace increased until I couldn’t take it anymore. The wall behind me provided leverage as I braced against it, meeting him with equal force.
The moment before I came apart completely held me suspended.
I jerked awake.
My quarters materialized around me. The carved stone ceiling. The heat crystal pulsing its low orange glow. The narrow sleeping platform with its tangled silky sheets.
My heart hammered against my ribs. Sweat cooled on my skin. Between my legs was the slick evidence of arousal.
Fuck.