40. Clarissa
CLARISSA
K aisner’s eyes fly open with a sudden gasp, his body jerking with the force of it. It’s not pain—it’s awe. Shock. A raw, living energy pulses through him like fire through frost.
I rise slowly. “Kai?” I whisper. The word dies on my lips as I watch his chest heave, ribs expanding and contracting like bellows feeding a forge. Heat radiates from his skin—not the warm glow of passion, but something that makes the air shimmer above him like a mirage.
And then, his tattoos writhe in the candlelight.
I blink hard, certain I’m seeing things, but no—the dark ink beneath his skin moves with a life of its own. Serpentine patterns flow and shift, as if something is trying to claw its way out from within.
“What—” I start to reach for him, then snatch my hand back as his flesh burns my fingertips.
Speechless, his eyes find mine. My heart stops.
Gold bleeds through the maroon like molten metal poured into wine. His pupils stretch into vertical slits, predatory and foreign, yet somehow still achingly familiar.
A low rumble builds in his chest—not a groan of pain, but something deeper, more primal. The sound vibrates through the floorboards, rattling the crystal on his nightstand.
“Oh gods.” The words tumble out as understanding crashes over me. “Oh gods, Kai.”
He frowns. “What’s happening?” he rasps, dazed and breathless.
“You’re shifting,” I manage, the words grazing against the rising panic in my throat.
Obsidian scales ripple across his shoulder blade, each one catching the candlelight like black glass. I can almost hear them, like stone scraping stone. Beautiful. Terrifying.
He looks down. Freezes. Then curses low under his breath.
I scramble backward, my bare feet tangling in the sheets. “You need to get out of the house,” I gasp, pointing toward the balcony. “Now! Before you?—”
He’s already moving, rolling from the bed with inhuman grace despite the tremors wracking his frame. His movements are jerky, uncontrolled, as if fighting against his own body. He drags on his boxers, muscles bulging beneath skin that grows too tight.
The air around him begins to warp, heat waves distorting his silhouette. Every candle flame in the room gutters and dances, casting wild shadows on the walls. The crystal decanter on his dresser develops a hairline crack.
I yank my dress over my head, fingers fumbling with the fabric as I watch him stagger toward the balcony doors. Each step leaves scorch marks on the Persian rug.
“Clarissa.” My name is barely recognizable, distorted by vocal cords that are changing, lengthening. “Get back.”
By the time he throws open the doors, he’s no longer just a man. He’s becoming something vast. Ancient. Myth made flesh.
The night wind rushes in, carrying the scent of rain and something else—sulfur, smoke, the electric taste of lightning.
I follow despite his warning, one hand pressed to the doorframe for support. The wind whips my hair across my face, but I can’t look away as he steps to the edge of the balcony.
The stone railing crumbles under his grip.
For a heartbeat, he pauses, silhouetted against the star-drunk sky. Then he looks back at me one last time, and I see the man I love trapped behind those shifter eyes—afraid, awed, apologetic.
And then, meeting no hesitation, he leaps.
A concussive blast of energy knocks the breath from my lungs.
The force of his takeoff cracks the stone beneath his feet, fractures racing across the balcony like spiderwebs.
Stone fragments pepper my arms as I throw them up to shield my face.
The very air splits with a sound like the world tearing in half.
Light erupts from where he fell—not the warm gold of candleflame, but something fierce and incandescent that sears my retinas even through my closed eyelids.
When I lower my hands and I dare to look below... he’s gone.
No—not gone.
Transformed.
A dragon crouches where a man once stood.
Black scales shimmer like oil on water, each one the size of my palm. Wings stretch wide enough to shadow half the courtyard, membrane stretched between bones that could snap a tree in half. Talons gouge trenches in the ancient cobblestones as he shifts his weight.
But it’s the eyes that steal my breath.
Still gold. Still his. Still looking at me with an expression I recognize, despite the foreign features—wonder, terror, and desperate love all warring in that draconian gaze.
Shouts erupt from the guards’ quarters. Boots thunder across stone. I hear the distinctive slide of weapons being drawn.
“Stop!” The scream tears from my throat, raw and commanding. “Don’t shoot!”
The dragon’s massive head swivels toward the sound of approaching footsteps, smoke curling from his nostrils. A warning growl rumbles through the courtyard, felt as much as heard.
“It’s Kaisner!” I lean over the ruined balcony railing, voice cracking with desperation. “Stand down!”
The footsteps falter. Confused murmurs replace the battle cries.
I force my legs to move, to carry me down the winding stairs despite how they shake with each step. The cold stone bites at my bare feet, but I barely notice. All my focus narrows to the creature waiting in the courtyard—beautiful and terrible and mine.
He watches my approach with the stillness of a predator, but there’s nothing threatening in his posture. If anything, he seems... uncertain. Vulnerable, despite his size.
“Kai,” I whisper when I reach the bottom step.
His great head tilts at the sound of his name, ears swiveling forward like a cat’s. The gesture is so achingly familiar that tears blur my vision.
I take one more step. Another.
He lowers his massive head until we’re nearly eye to eye, close enough that I can see my reflection in those molten pools. Close enough to feel the heat of his breath on my skin.
My hand rises without conscious thought, trembling as it hovers inches from his snout. This close, I can see the scales, each one perfect and deadly sharp. One wrong move could slice me open.
I don’t care.
My palm settles against the warm obsidian of his muzzle, and the world shifts.
Power floods through the connection—ancient, vast, barely contained. It’s like touching a live wire, electricity singing through every nerve ending. But beneath the raw strength, I feel something else: the steady pulse of his heartbeat, the familiar rhythm that lulled me to sleep countless times.
He’s still there. Still mine.
A sound escapes him—part purr, part sigh, wholly content. The vibration travels through my bones, settling into the hollow spaces of my chest like coming home.
“There you are,” I breathe, pressing my forehead to his scales.
Without warning, he moves. One massive claw curls around my waist with impossible gentleness, lifting me as easily as picking up a flower. I don’t have time to protest before I’m settled onto the broad expanse of his back, hands scrambling for purchase on the ridge of scales along his spine.
“Kai, what are you?—”
His wings snap open with a sound like thunder. The courtyard falls away. My stomach lurches as we rocket upward, the ground shrinking to toy-soldier size below us. Wind tears at my dress, my hair, stealing the scream from my lungs.
And then, impossibly, his voice fills my mind.
“Trust me.”
The words don’t come through my ears but resonate directly in my thoughts, warm and familiar despite the strange method of delivery.
“I can hear you,” I think back, not sure if it will work.
His answering pleasure floods our link, rich as honey, sweet as wine. “ Hold on, my love. Let me show you the world as I see it.”
We soar higher, until the air grows thin and cold. The city spreads below us like a carpet of stars, and above, the real stars shine with crystalline clarity. Wind rushes past us, but somehow I’m warm, protected by his heat and the curve of his wing.
Through our bond, I sense what he feels—the intoxicating freedom of flight, the power thrumming through his massive frame, the joy of finally being complete after years of carrying half a soul.
“This is who I am,” he tells me, vulnerability threading through the mental contact. “ Can you love this too?”
I lean forward, pressing my cheek to the warm scales of his neck. “All of you,” I whisper aloud, knowing he’ll feel the truth of it through our connection. “Always all of you.”
His pleasure floods through me, warm and fathomless, a spiritual embrace of such depth I almost cry.
The sky lightens around us as we chase the dawn, painting the clouds in shades of rose and gold. We’re flying toward the sun itself, and for the first time since this began, I’m not afraid.
This is where I belong.
With him.
Forever.