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“The dragon is raging. His human side is trying to fight the natural instinct to devour you.”

I looked out at Nyx as he eyed me worriedly, while reporting that via our mind-link.

“You don’t understand. The primal, animal part of me has been on overload lately. It’s been difficult to control.”

“And you’re not used to even having to entertain controlling yourself at all.”

“Yeah. Well, you saw me in class that day. That’s my approach to everything.”

“Not so. Not to me. It never has been. You’ve been very careful with me, respectful. You even told me that after our first kiss, you wanted to take it further, but you held yourself back. You are capable of control, and you did it for me.”

“I…”

“But you don’t have to. Not in this sense. Not in being with me.”

“Although, I wouldn’t shift into full dragon form,” Kai said. “Biologically-speaking, it’s just not possible tobe with herwhile you’re in that form.”

There was humor in his words, and it actually had the corner of Vorzyr’s mouth turning up, amused by it. “I’m aware,” he told him. He stared at me then. “Even so, if I unleash the way my primal side is pushing me to, I could still hurt you, damage you, break you. Like I told Kai, I fucked you, I was inside you, it wasclose to staking a claim for me. I tasted your blood. All of that… youcallto me in a dangerously animalistic way.”

“A lot of this buildup and increasing strain is because you couldn’t get what you wanted when we were together in that alley. It didn’t possess the intimacy and intensity that you desired so deeply. We’re going to remedy that now.”

He swallowed hard at the sight of the dress, then looked away, shaking his head. “My strength when I’m like this, if I even actually let go… the damage it could do…”

Words weren’t working.

It was clearly time for a demonstration then.

“Kai,” I spoke, and he took my cue just from that, throwing his hands up and out and creating a shimmering rose-gold ward in the form of a dome around the entire forest.

Vorzyr started in surprise.

But he didn’t have time to do more than that, as I was suddenly right in front of him in a single burst of strength and speed.

He barely got time to blink at me in surprise before a sound like thunder being sucked in cracked the air. Light bent. A ring of silver energy exploded out from my palm the instant I connected with his chest.

He went flying, slamming backward at rapid-fire speed. Dust and air erupted outward in concentric circles, clipping tree after tree as he went, the distorting heat in the air like a sonic boom had passed through reality itself.

The shockwave ripped through everything around us like a divine pulse.

I didn’t move, watching as the air shimmered around me.

Hundreds of feet it sent him into the distance, before he came to a jarring stop thanks to Kai’s dome being in effect.

Vorzyr ricocheted off it and landed on his hands, before springing back to his feet.

Awed eyes blazed across the distance at me.

And then his lip curled.

Message received.

21

~Vorzyr~

Holy. Hell.

The wall had come crumbling down.