Chapter 14 Rhavor
“Rhavi, were you expecting someone? Because they’re leaving. Fast.”
Ronda stood at the kitchen window, peering out with intense curiosity.
Rhavor didn’t answer. His pulse kicked hard against his ribs—a frantic, jagged rhythm. Something was wrong.
He yanked the front door open.
All he saw was a cloud of dust drifting over the driveway, hanging like a ghost. The distant, fading whine of a car engine vanished into the fields.
His gaze dropped.
A small basket sat on the porch, abandoned against the weathered wood.
His stomach tightened into a knot.
The scent hit him instantly—nutty, rich with charred notes, and something softer threaded beneath it. Something floral. Sweet.
Sylvie.
“What’s going on?” Ronda asked, stepping out beside him.
“You should leave,” he said, not looking at her. “We settled everything between us, Ronda. There’s no reason for you to stay.”
“We haven’t settled the farm,” she shot back, her voice sharpening into that entitled edge he used to mistake for confidence. “I have as much right to be here as you do.”
Yes. He knew. This was the rot under his ribs—the mistake he’d made years ago coming back to bite him. And here it was, teeth sunk deep and twisting.
“Anyway,” she said lightly, lifting the box he’d packed for her with a shrug, “thanks for keeping my stuff safe. I half expected you’d burn it.”
She smirked, then leaned toward the basket with a bag in her hand.
“That smells amazing. What is it?”
“Goodbye, Ronda.”
She held his gaze, but he didn’t flinch.
“Well,” she said, sliding into her car with that lingering look he used to find tempting—now it felt like an itch beneath his skin he couldn’t scratch. “I’ll still be around. Can’t miss the Honeybloom Festival.”
He stepped back inside before she’d even cleared the drive, slamming the door hard enough to rattle the frames.
“Fuck.”
He sat at the kitchen table and reached into the bag. The aroma of smoked rye and toasted nuts immediately filled the room. His mouth watered; his chest ached.
He pulled out a bun, his thumb tracing the perfect, golden crust.
The door creaked open again.
Who the hell now?
He lifted his head, a growl vibrating in his throat.
His aunt walked in like she owned all the oxygen in the room.
“I just passed two cars speeding away from your farm,” she said, not missing a beat. “Thought you were scaring the customers again.”
She stopped mid-step. Her nostrils flared.
“What smells so good? Smoked rye?”
Her gaze landed on the basket.
She reached in, pulling out a single bun. She inspected it with professional scrutiny.
“Well. These certainly don’t look like Seth’s bricks. Are these Sylvie’s?”
He gave a short, stiff nod.
She tore off a piece. Tasted it.
Her brows lifted, her expression shifting from skepticism to genuine shock.
“Whatever she did with my recipe—this is better.”
His head snapped up.
“You gave her our recipe?”
“She’s a top-tier baker,” his aunt replied calmly. “I trust her hands more than Seth’s. Bless the man, but he butchered the soul out of that bread.”
He dragged a hand over his face, feeling the grit of the day.
“Ronda was here.”
“Clearly Sylvie was, too.”
His aunt tilted her head, her gaze piercing.
“Arla might have mentioned that you used to be engaged.”
Rhavor’s stomach dropped through the floor.
“And I don’t know why you’re still sitting there,” Vera said sharply, gesturing at the basket. “This girl made you the best dragon bread in existence, and she left in a hell of a hurry.”
She crossed her arms over her chest, her expression grim.
“I’d say she didn’t like what she saw here.”
“Fuck,” he muttered again, the weight of his own stupidity pressing down on him.
“Get your ass up and go after her,” his aunt barked, her voice echoing off the kitchen tiles. “If you don’t”—her eyes narrowed into dangerous slits—“I will.”
He stood so fast the chair scraped hard against the floor.
He definitely did not want that.
She was right. He had to find Sylvie. He had to fix this before she misunderstood everything.
***
He didn’t slow down when he reached the bakery.
He shoved the door open with enough force to make the bells jingle violently.
Julian barely had time to blink before Rhavor was inside, his shoulders filling the doorway.
The faun stepped directly into his path.
He pointed a sharp, accusing finger at Rhavor’s chest.
“You better play this right, big man. She’s in the back. And let’s just say she is not sweet right now.”
A crash echoed from the kitchen—metal against tile, sharp and angry.
Rhavor moved.
Sylvie stood at the kneading table, her hands buried deep in a mound of dough.
Flour dusted her cheeks and smudged beneath her eyes like war paint.
Her shoulders tensed the second he crossed the threshold.
She didn’t look up.
“Hi,” he said, trying for composure.
“You can’t be in here,” she replied, her voice a sheet of ice. “Staff only.”
Julian appeared at his elbow, shoving blue shoe covers and a mesh hairnet into his hands.
“Health and safety,” Julian said dryly, giving Rhavor a long, don’t-fuck-this-up look before retreating to the front.
Rhavor muttered a dark curse and pulled the plastic over his boots.
A seven-foot mountain of dragon blood, heart pounding like a hammer against his ribs—and wearing a mesh hairnet.
He had never felt more ridiculous.
“I know you were at my place,” he started, stepping closer.
“Yes,” she cut in, her movements rhythmic and violent. “That was a mistake.”
She kneaded the dough as if it had personally betrayed her.
“A mistake?”
The word lodged under his ribs—sharp and jagged.
“Maybe not,” she snapped, still not looking at him. “Maybe it was good I was there. It opened my eyes.”
“To what?” he demanded.
“To how things really are. To the reality of your life, Rhavor.”
He stepped closer, the heat of the ovens nothing compared to the heat radiating off him.
“I don’t want you getting the wrong impression. Ronda was—”
He noticed a bead of sweat slide into the hollow of her collarbone, disappearing beneath the fabric of her shirt.
His mouth went dry.
He wanted to press his lips there.
To drag his tongue over her warm skin and erase every doubt—every shadow of another woman from her mind.
She finally looked at him.
The hurt in her eyes hit him harder than her anger ever could.
“Yes,” she said. “I got the wrong impression. That’s on me.”
“What do you mean? A wrong impression of me?”
“Yes. Of who you are. Of what you want.”
“I am who I am,” he growled. “I can’t change my blood, Sylvie. I can’t change my history.”
“You certainly change your mind when it suits you.”
“I don’t change my mind,” he shot back. “ I’m attached for life. I don’t let go.”
He stepped closer again.
“Don’t,” she said, her voice trembling. “Don’t look at me like that. That’s how you make people forget you’re dangerous.”
He stilled.
“Dangerous?”
“Yes.”
“I can’t change who I am,” he said again, his voice rough.
“I’m not asking you to. I was blind, Rhavor. I didn’t see the reality of what that meant at first.”
Blind?
Like being with him had been a lapse in judgment.
“It’s my nature,” he said, his voice dropping lower. “I am a dragon, Sylvie.”
“Well, your nature isn’t compatible with mine.”
Something cold twisted in his gut.
“You didn’t seem to mind my nature when you were kissing me.”
She swallowed hard.
“I guess we can both call it a distraction,” she said. “A little break from your dragon drama.”
A bitter thought took root.
Was that all I was for her? A bit of rough mountain novelty she could play with?
The thought was a jagged blade.
“I guess everyone deserves a little fun,” he said dryly.
Sylvie slammed the dough onto the worktop.
Flour exploded into the air between them like a white curtain.
“If you say so.”
“I enjoyed it,” he said—and hated the raw longing in his own voice. “We had… something.”
“Well, I’m glad you’re using the past tense,” she said, her voice cracking slightly. “Because that’s where it belongs. In the past.”
She kneaded as though she could work him out of her system.
He stepped closer, leaning over her.
“What about you?” His throat tightened.
“What about me?”
“Did you enjoy it?”
He searched her face for anything—a flicker, a softening, something, anything to tell him they had a chance to turn this around.
“No,” she said.
But her voice betrayed her.
It was a lie, and they both knew it.
“You were more than you are,” she added quietly.
His chest constricted—sharp and physical.
“Who do you think I am, Sylvie? Tell me.”
She stopped and truly looked at him then.
He could see the flour smudges under her eyes were wet.
“You’re not for me, Rhavor.”
The words nearly took him to his knees.
“I’m busy,” she said, turning her back to him and heading for the ovens. “And the last thing I need in my kitchen is an obnoxious health-and-safety hazard of a man who bites more than he can chew.”
Silence stretched between them.
Thick.
Charged.
Full of the scent of burning sugar—and everything he had already fucked up.