Page 19

Cool, soothing, intimate. She glances up, her breath ghosting over my collarbone.

"Careful, Dragon Queen," she murmurs, her voice like velvet and sin. "You might enjoy this."

I should push her away.

I don’t.

Her nails trail lightly down my abdomen, teasing, just enough to make my breath catch, just enough to make something coil low in my stomach.

"You swore to help me defeat the king," I say, my voice rougher than I intend.

She nods, slow, deliberate.

"And when that’s done…" She leans in, her lips inches from mine, her breath cool against my skin.

"I’ll claim my reward."

A warning rumbles in my chest, low and edged with something almost dangerous.

"Try anything, siren, and you’ll regret it."

Vaela laughs, soft, husky, taunting.

"Oh, Nyxara," she purrs, her voice slipping through the air like silk laced with poison. Her nails trail lightly over my ribs, the barest touch, but it’s enough to make my breath hitch. Not from pain. From something far more treacherous.

I keep my face blank, but my body betrays me.

She notices. Of course, she does.

Her icy white-blue eyes gleam with amusement, catching the flickering candlelight, reflecting it in a way that makes them look almost unnatural. Ethereal.

She is beautiful. Dangerous.

Something otherworldly, crafted from the abyss itself. Her luminous, pearl-like skin catches the dim candlelight, reflecting a soft, iridescent sheen that makes her look almost unreal—otherworldly, as if sculpted from the ocean itself. The cool undertones shimmer faintly, shifting with every movement, as if her very skin holds the whisper of the tides. The pearls laced through her hair shimmer like stars caught in the sea, glinting every time she moves, every time she breathes.

My jaw tightens.

I have never been drawn to someone before. Not like this. Not with this slow, creeping pull that coils in my gut and tightens with every brush of her hands against my skin.

I tell myself it’s the siren’s magic.

Her kind was made for seduction, for deception, for luring unsuspecting prey to their doom.

And yet—there is something different about this. She tilts her head, watching me like she knows exactly what I’m thinking, exactly how my body betrays me in ways my mind refuses to accept.

"Do you think so little of me?" she muses, her fingers tracing just outside my wound, pressing lightly into my skin as she maps the ridges and dips of my body.

I swallow hard, ignoring the way her touch sends a slow trickle of heat pooling in my stomach.

This is nothing.

This is her magic.

This is—

"We made a deal," she continues, her voice as smooth as the water she bends to her will. Her hands drift lower, exploring, teasing, lingering at the sharp edges of my hips as though she has every right to touch me.

She doesn’t.