Chapter 38 Rhystan
Rhystan
Kess is still asleep.
I've been watching her for the better part of an hour now, propped on one elbow in a guest chamber bed that smells like smoke and sex and something wild I'm still learning to recognize.
The royal suite is probably ash by now—we stumbled here sometime after the knot released, though I barely remember the walk.
Just her weight in my arms, her face pressed to my neck, both of us too wrecked to do anything but collapse onto the first soft surface we found.
The morning light catches the scales spreading across her shoulders, her arms, the curve of her spine. Black shot through with gold, the same colors as my dragon form. They're beautiful. She's beautiful. Changed and fierce and still so perfectly herself that my chest aches with it.
I reach out and trace one finger along the scaled ridge of her shoulder blade.
She stirs. Makes a soft sound. Doesn't wake.
My hand drifts lower, following the path of transformation down her back.
The scales thin out around her waist, giving way to skin that's still soft, still warm, still human.
But even there I can feel the difference—a slight roughness, a hint of iridescence, the contamination that's been changing her for months now fully expressed.
She's not human anymore. Not entirely.
Neither am I, really. Haven't been for three hundred years.
Maybe that's why we fit.
My hand curves around her hip, over the swell of her pregnant belly.
The twins shift at my touch—both of them, alive and safe and free from the curse that would have destroyed them.
Our son, no longer carrying divine rage in his blood.
Our daughter, no longer hunted by a brother who couldn't help what he was becoming.
They're just babies now. Just our children.
The relief of it hits me fresh, like it did last night, like it probably will every morning for the rest of my life.
Kess's hand covers mine where it rests on her belly.
"You're staring." Her voice is rough with sleep, but there's warmth underneath.
"Admiring."
"Same thing." She rolls onto her back, and I get my first real look at her in daylight.
The scales spread across her collarbone like armor, sweep down between her breasts, trail along her ribs in patterns that might be random or might be something more deliberate.
Her eyes are gold now—fully gold, with slitted pupils that dilate when they find my face.
Her nails are claws, black and sharp, currently retracted but visible beneath the surface of her fingertips.
She's magnificent.
"Stop looking at me like that," she says, but there's no heat in it.
"Like what?"
"Like you're seeing something precious." She turns her head away, and I catch a flash of uncertainty beneath the bravado. "I'm a monster now. Same as you."
"You're not a monster." I prop myself up on one elbow, use my free hand to turn her face back toward me. "You're a miracle. You survived something that should have killed you. You saved our children. You took three centuries of curse into yourself and turned it into something you can control."
"I don't know if I can control it." Quiet. Vulnerable in a way she rarely lets herself be. "I can feel it inside me. The rage. The divine punishment. It's not gone—it's just... contained. For now."
"Then we learn together." I brush my thumb across her cheekbone, feel the slight roughness where scales are beginning to form along her jaw. "I've had three hundred years of practice containing the beast. I'll teach you everything I know."
"And if it's not enough? If I lose control?"
"Then I'll be there to catch you." I lean down, press my forehead to hers. "The way you caught me. The way you keep catching me, even when I don't deserve it."
She's quiet for a long moment. I feel her breathing slow, feel some of the tension drain out of her shoulders.
Then she pulls me down and kisses me.
It's different from last night. Softer. Slower. Her clawed hands gentle on my face, her mouth opening under mine with something that feels almost like trust. The bond hums between us—not the desperate screaming of the flash heat, but something deeper. Steadier. A foundation we can build on.
I kiss her back with everything I have. All the love I've been carrying for months, all the fear I felt watching her transform, all the desperate relief that she's still here, still alive, still willing to let me touch her.
"Rhystan." She breathes my name against my lips. "I want—"
"What do you want?" I pull back enough to see her face. "Tell me. Anything."
"I want you to touch me." Her gold eyes hold mine, steady and certain. "Not like last night. Not desperate. I want—I want to feel like myself in this new body. I want you to show me I'm still..."
She trails off, but I understand.
She wants to know she's still desirable. Still wanted. Still Kess, underneath all the scales and claws and divine curse.
"You're still you," I tell her. "You're still the woman who bit my throat open the first time we met.
Who fought me in the training yard until we cracked the walls.
Who looked at three hundred years of monster and saw something worth saving.
" I kiss her jaw, the corner of her mouth, the pulse point in her throat where her heartbeat flutters.
"The scales don't change that. Nothing changes that. "
"Prove it."
So I do.
I start at her throat. Kiss the place where I first marked her, where my claiming bite scarred over and became something permanent. She shivers when my tongue traces the raised edges, when my teeth graze the sensitive skin.
"Still so responsive here." I murmur it against her pulse. "Still mine."
"Still yours," she agrees, and her claws curl into my shoulders.
I work my way down. Kiss across her collarbone, where scales give way to skin and back again. Trace the pattern of transformation with my tongue, learning the new geography of her body. The scales are smooth under my mouth—not cold like I expected, but warm, blood-hot, alive.
"Does this feel different?" I ask against her sternum. "The scales—can you feel through them?"
"Yes." Her breath catches. "More sensitive, actually. Like—like the nerve endings are closer to the surface."
I file that away. Press my mouth to a scaled patch along her ribs and feel her whole body arch toward me.
"Good to know."
Her laugh is shaky. "You're going to use that against me."
"Absolutely."
I keep moving down. Kiss the swell of her breasts, the tight peaks of her nipples, take one into my mouth and suck until she's gasping. Her pregnancy has made them fuller, more sensitive—she cries out when I scrape my teeth across the peak, her claws digging into my back hard enough to sting.
"More," she demands. "Rhystan—"
"Patience." I switch to the other breast, give it the same treatment. "We have time. No flash heat driving us. No battle raging outside. Just us."
"I don't want patient." Her hips roll against me, and I can smell her arousal already—slick and sweet and entirely Kess. "I want you."
"You have me." I kiss down the curve of her belly, over the taut skin where our children are growing.
Press my lips to the place where I can feel them shifting, dreaming their small dreams. "You've had me since the first time you looked at me like I was a problem to be solved instead of a monster to be feared. "
She makes a sound that might be a laugh or a sob. Her clawed fingers thread through my hair, not pushing, just holding.
I settle between her thighs.
She's wet already—slick coating her inner thighs, her cunt swollen and flushed and desperate.
The sight of her makes my cock throb where it's pressed against the mattress, but I ignore it.
This isn't about me. This is about showing her that every part of her is still wanted. Still worshipped. Still mine.
I lean in and lick a slow stripe through her folds.
The sound she makes is inhuman. Literally—a growling moan that resonates with frequencies her human throat couldn't have produced. Her thighs clamp around my head, claws scraping against my scalp, hips bucking toward my mouth.
"Fuck—Rhystan—"
I do it again. And again. Take my time learning how her body responds now, what makes her gasp and what makes her growl, where the scales thin out and where they're thickest. Her clit is still bare skin, still exquisitely sensitive, and when I seal my lips around it and suck she nearly comes off the bed.
"Please—" The word tears out of her. "Please, I need—"
I slide two fingers inside her while I work her clit with my tongue. She's tight, still swollen from last night, but so wet that my fingers glide in easily. I curl them, find the spot that makes her see stars, press and stroke while my mouth drives her higher.
She comes with a scream that shakes the walls.
I feel it everywhere—through the bond, through her cunt clenching around my fingers, through the way her whole body arches and trembles.
The orgasm rolls through her in waves, each one pulling another sound from her transformed throat, her claws leaving furrows in the mattress on either side of her hips.
I work her through it. Don't stop until she's pushing at my head, oversensitive, gasping for air.
"Enough—enough—" She's laughing now, breathless and undone. "Gods, Rhystan—"
"Not done." I crawl up her body, settle my hips between her thighs. My cock slides through her wetness, nudging her entrance, and we both groan at the contact. "Unless you want me to stop."
"Don't you dare." Her legs wrap around my waist, heels digging into my ass. "I want to feel you. Inside me. Want to know this body is still mine—still ours—"
I push into her slowly.
Not the brutal thrust of last night. A gradual slide, inch by inch, feeling her stretch around me, feeling her adjust. She's still tight despite how wet she is, still perfect, still the only place I've ever felt like I belonged.
"Okay?" I ask when I'm fully seated.
"Yes." Her eyes are locked on mine, gold on gold, dragon on dragon. "Move. Please."
I move.
Slow, deep strokes that let us both feel everything. The drag of my cock against her sensitive walls. The way her cunt clenches around me with every thrust. The bond wide open between us, carrying every sensation back and forth until I can't tell whose pleasure is whose.
"You feel—" She gasps, claws scraping down my back. "Different. Since the transformation. Like I can feel you more."
"The bond." I thrust deeper, watch her eyes flutter closed. "Stronger now. The curse was blocking part of it, the way the tea blocked it before. Now there's nothing between us."
Nothing between us. No lies, no tea, no curse. Just two people who chose each other, over and over, even when it hurt.
"I love you." The words spill out of me on a thrust, unplanned and unstoppable.
"I love you, Kess. Every version of you.
The wild omega who tried to kill me. The warrior who survived.
The mother who saved our children." Another thrust, deeper.
"This version. Whatever version comes next. I love all of them."
"I love you too." Tears are leaking from the corners of her gold eyes, trailing down her temples into her hair. "I don't want to. It would be easier if I didn't. But I do. I love you, Rhystan. Even the broken parts. Even the lies."
"No more lies." I seal the promise with a kiss, tasting salt on her lips. "Never again. Whatever happens, whatever it costs—you get the truth. Always."
"Always," she echoes.
We move together after that, finding a rhythm that builds slowly, steadily. No rush. No desperation. Just the two of us, learning each other again in these changed bodies, building something new from the ashes of everything that came before.
The orgasm crests like a wave this time—not the explosive crash of last night but a slow, rolling surge that builds and builds until it crests and breaks.
I feel her come first, feel her walls ripple around my cock, hear my name torn from her throat.
Then I'm following her over, spilling inside her with a groan that comes from somewhere deep in my chest.
The knot swells.
Slower than last night, gentler, but inevitable. I feel it lock into place, feel her cunt clamp down around it, feel us seal together in the most intimate way two people can be joined.
We lie there in the morning light, knotted together, breathing each other's air. Her clawed hand traces patterns on my back, over the scratches she left, over the scars beneath. My hand rests on her belly, feeling our children shift and dream.
"We should deal with the castle," she says eventually.
"Probably."
"And your father's body."
"Yes."
"And whoever's left of the priests."
"That too."
Neither of us moves.
"Five more minutes," I suggest.
Her laugh vibrates through both of us, transmitted by the knot that locks us together.
"Five more minutes," she agrees.
We take twenty.