Page 15 of Beast of Blood and Ash (Drakarn Mates #6)

OMVAR

My mate smelled of honey and my own release.

The scent clung to me. Her sweetness mingled with the musk of what we had done, soaking into the nest of blankets until I was sure it marked me as deeply as any scar. It was an impossible claim, and it seeped into every breath I took.

I watched her sleep, a tangle of bare limbs and shadowed hair, her body pressed close to where I sprawled on my side. In the hush of my quarters, with only the pulse of the heat crystal breaking the dark, a deep, possessive satisfaction settled hot and heavy in my gut.

This night wasn’t something I ever believed I’d have. Not truly.

Even now, with her heartbeat a steady thrum against my ribs and her scent a brand on my skin, I half expected to wake and find the world unchanged.

Her curled away from me, my own desperation a hungry, unspent thing, the city’s suspicions a poison thickening in the air.

But she was here. She chose this. For a few hours, there was no one else.

The taste of her was still a ghost on my tongue, and I was a different male for it.

One taste would never be enough.

Lying beside her was its own kind of torture.

She curled in close, trusting in her sleep, her thigh thrown over mine and her cheek pressed against my shoulder, as if she believed I could keep her nightmares at bay just by existing.

I ran a careful hand down the fragile arch of her spine, memorizing the specific heat of her skin, the small shivers in her muscles as she drifted deeper into dreams.

I wanted more. Always more. It was a hunger that never quit gnawing at me, an animal need to protect, to claim, to make her body answer to mine until I could finally believe this was real.

The city was silent on the other side of the stone, but my nerves were scraped raw, twitching.

My mind scoured every shadow for threats, even as I tried to drown myself in her warmth.

Every patch of darkness felt too deep. Every whisper of movement beyond these walls was a claw scraping against my instincts.

Thravena. She was mine. Mine to guard. Mine to keep safe.

Her breath hitched, that soft sigh that nearly undid me.

My hand stilled on her back, not daring to break the spell.

But the world outside pressed in, and the need to hunt, to eliminate what would hurt her, spiked until my muscles burned with it.

I couldn’t rest. Couldn’t close my eyes and pretend the threat was gone just because she was in my arms. Ignarath’s tendrils were out there, slithering through the city’s veins, watching and waiting.

I pulled myself away, the movement slow, careful not to wake her. The blankets shifted, and for a single, sharp heartbeat, I just breathed her in. The honeyed sweetness, the ghost of fear, the echo of pleasure.

I had to let it go.

Easing out of the bed, my claws made only the faintest scrape on the stone.

She mumbled something, rolling into the hollow I left behind, the loss of my heat making her curl tighter.

I pulled a blanket higher over her shoulder, a useless gesture that couldn’t shield her from anything. Only I could do that now.

The moment the door sealed behind me, the comfort of her presence flickered out, replaced by the oppressive stillness of Scalvaris before dawn.

I moved through the tunnels with the practiced silence of a predator, my senses honed to a razor’s edge.

The city breathed with a slow, suffocating rhythm, the air thick with tension.

Cool stone underfoot was slick with the ever-present dampness of this place.

In the walls, heat crystals bled a dim, yellow light that cast monstrous, dancing shadows at every turn.

These corridors sprawled, labyrinthine, their silence a trap.

I prowled a familiar patrol route where every corner was mapped in my muscle memory, every alcove a place where an enemy could lurk.

A place where a scent might cling. Where Ignarath infiltrators might slip in and vanish.

My nostrils flared, dragging in the city’s thick, acrid air, searching for a hint of foreign scales or the sharp, metallic tang of blood.

Nothing.

A trace of burnt musk at a crossroads was just old fear, an echo from my own skin.

A faint scuff of claw on stone, but it was only a fledgling, already gone.

I stalked deeper, the city’s pulse never quickening, only the hush growing heavier, pressing against my skull like a physical weight.

The silence was suffocating, worse than any cry in the dark.

No alarms. No foreign scent. No excuse to spill blood and call it justice.

I hated it. Hated that the only thing I could do was look, circle, and snarl at shadows. Was that all I was? An outcast with nothing to offer but nightmares and the memory of violence?

I circled back, each empty corridor feeding a fresh hunger for a fight that couldn’t be satisfied. The threat was still out there, coiled in every shadow. I found nothing. No Ignarath agent, no reason to strike. Just the city locked down tight, holding its breath.

Returning to my quarters, every bone in my body vibrated with the effort not to smash something just to prove I was still alive.

Reika slept on, curled so tightly in the tangle of blankets it looked like she was trying to disappear.

I sat on the edge of the bed and watched her chest rise and fall, my hands planted between my knees.

I wanted to join her, to let exhaustion finally swallow me, but I couldn’t.

Couldn’t let myself go soft. Not when one wrong moment meant she’d be gone.

I sat vigil. Waiting for the world to break.

Hours later, a sharp rap at the door cracked the heavy hush of the room.

I rose, my blood a hot surge in my veins, my jaw set.

That kind of knock signaled a summons. I should’ve expected it.

After yesterday, after volunteering for duty then vanishing and stalking the tunnels dripping Ignarath blood, I was already drawing too many eyes.

I eased the door open, careful not to completely block the view of the bed. A runner handed me a piece of paper stamped with Darrokar’s seal. The Blade Council wanted a word.

Perfect. Political theater before breakfast.

Reika stirred, blinking up at me with cautious eyes. Bleary, soft, and instantly wary. The sight speared something vital in my chest.

“Darrokar wants to talk,” I told her, my voice low. “You’ll be safe here while I’m gone.”

She propped herself up on one elbow. “Are you going to leave me locked up in your rooms every day?” Her tone was brittle, somewhere between a tease and an accusation, the real question hiding just underneath.

I hesitated. Did she want freedom? Or did she want me to stay? My own instincts screamed to keep her there, locked away from the world, but I’d seen her broken by cages too many times.

“Would you like to go to the human quarters?” I forced my voice to stay gentle, though it grated against my possessive need. “If others are there and I post a guard, it could be safe.” The thought of anyone else watching her made bile rise in my throat.

She’d been caged enough.

Her eyes flicked away. “I’ll be okay.” A lie, told for both our sakes.

We stood in that awful, awkward silence, the air thick with things we would not say. I was torn between the urge to reach for her and the certainty that if I did, I would shatter something fragile between us.

Our gazes caught. I didn’t dare press a kiss to her temple, didn’t trust myself to touch her without taking more. In the end, I just nodded and turned, walking out with her scent burning a path down my spine.

The city swallowed me. The tunnels were warmer now, the light flickering with the first hints of day.

I made my way to the Blade Council chamber, a vast space carved from volcanic rock where every step echoed with the weight of tradition and ancient violence.

Its heavy doors stood open, and the heat crystals set deep in the walls cast long lines of light like drawn swords.

Inside, the council waited.

Darrokar was a mountain of obsidian scales and coiled authority, his massive form radiating command even at rest. Khorlar, gray-scaled and blunt as ever, stood with arms crossed, watching me with unreadable eyes.

Nyx lounged nearby, his posture deceptively casual, but his gaze was sharp enough to flay a lesser warrior.

I squared my shoulders and crossed to the center of the floor, the battered insignia of Scalvaris tight around my arm, the only marker of my precarious belonging. The silence in the chamber was a physical thing, every heartbeat a drum against my ribs.

Darrokar’s voice was cold steel. “You brought a war to my city, Ignarath.” It wasn’t an accusation, just a statement of fact as heavy as a judgment.

“The war was coming whether I lived here or not,” I said, my voice a growl made careful by effort. My claws flexed at my sides.

Khorlar’s jaw worked, the ripple of suspicion and resentment never quite leaving his face. Nyx watched, a flicker of sharp curiosity under all that practiced indifference.

Darrokar’s gaze pinned me, blade sharp. “Why now? What does Skorai want? What makes these humans worth the risk?”

My chest tightened. I thought of Reika in her cage, of the way Skorai made a sport of breaking spirits. Of how he saw all things as property, as challenges to his supremacy.

“Skorai’s pride is wounded,” I said, spitting the words. I hated how close they twisted to the truth of my own failings. “He sees the escaped humans as stolen. As challenges to his power. He doesn’t care who bleeds, so long as he proves he cannot be defied.”

“Why would he risk open conflict for so few?” Nyx asked, his voice smooth as oil, his tail flicking with interest.

I faced them, rage simmering just under the surface of my skin. “To make an example. To terrify the rest. To remind us all that the cages aren’t ever empty.” Their questions were like prodding at old wounds, but I forced the words out, each one a blade.

The council circled me with words, with tactics and consequences. They spoke of risks and alliances as if this were a game of pieces, not flesh and blood. My teeth ached with the need to roar.

“There are others,” I cut in, my voice dropping to a low, rolling threat. “Humans still in Ignarath. In the cages.” I met Darrokar’s stare, holding it with the weight of everything I had lost. “Will you send a force? Will you bring them back?”

He had his own human mate. If he would do it for nothing else, he should do it for her.

Darrokar’s jaw tightened, a crack in the mask of his authority. Whatever he felt, he didn’t show it. “An assault on Ignarath is not a decision to be made lightly. Escalation would be unavoidable. We must have patience.”

The word burned, useless as water on hot stone. Patience. Politics. Words. All useless.

I thought of Reika, of what she had suffered, of the others still enduring it.

My fists clenched, claws digging hard enough to draw blood from my palms. I didn’t know how I could save them, but I knew something had to be done.

I would not stand by while this city debated itself into paralysis. Not again.

I left the chamber with their caution thick as oil in the air and my rage coiling ever tighter in my chest, a promise echoing in my bones.

I would not fail her again.

The hunt wasn’t over.

Not until every shadow was burned away.