Page 19 of Beast of Blood and Ash (Drakarn Mates #6)

REIKA

I was his mate.

His mate .

Some sick, cosmic joke, right? My body should have been screaming to run. I should have been sprinting for the door, back toward the river, clawing my way through six tons of rock just to escape the ancient, brutal certainty in his voice.

But I didn’t. Not even close.

My hands were steady as I lifted them. I uncurled my stiff fingers one by one. The tension that had become my body’s default setting, the constant readiness to fight or flee, finally just … unspooled.

I traced the angle of his jaw, slow, greedy, memorizing the texture of scales beneath my fingertips. They were surprisingly smooth, a mosaic of hard, living warmth. Each one bowed around the line of bone, a specific, textured heat that radiated into my palm.

He was all edges and ridges, a creature forged for battle, but I wasn't afraid.

My fingers ventured upward, skimming over a scar that split the scales, a raised seam of memory. He could have snapped that jaw shut, could have drawn blood in a blink, but he held perfectly still.

A mountain, letting me touch him, letting me claim every part I dared.

His eyes shut, lashes a dark, thick fringe against red skin. Vulnerable. Reverent. For once, the monster from my nightmares looked like a man stripped of his armor, letting me see the monumental cost of his surrender.

For a long, breathless stretch, I just watched him, letting the moment settle, letting myself drown in the impossible security of it. The stone walls, once a cage, were now a sanctuary. It pressed in close, holding me up instead of burying me.

I wanted him.

The truth crashed over me, raw and scorching as magma. I wanted him to claim me. I wanted the way his presence burned through the terror, the way it felt to shed my old skin, even for a heartbeat, and go up in flames in his arms.

God, it was terrifying. The risk of it. The sheer, gnawing need.

But it was mine. Not fate’s. Not his. This was mine to reach for. Mine to take.

My body moved before my mind could find a reason to stop. I curled my fingers around the thick muscles of his neck and tugged him down until our lips collided.

It started as a brush, featherlight, his mouth barely moving against mine.

His heat rolled through me, not the scorching pain of memory, but a living warmth that grounded me, burning away the chill lodged deep in my bones.

It was a careful dance, neither of us willing to be the first to devour the other.

But the hunger built, slow and tidal.

His hands came up to cradle my jaw, so carefully, as if my bones might turn to dust beneath his touch. My own hands splayed along his skull, memorizing ridges, the slickness of scale along the sharp arch of his cheekbones.

Every nerve ending in my body was awake, screaming for more as his mouth molded perfectly to mine.

The kiss turned greedy, gnawing at the ragged edges of something deeper, something wild and dangerous that lurked just beneath my skin.

Our first real kiss.

The one in the training grounds had ended with that panicked flight from everything I wanted and everything I feared.

Now there was only this. Only the taste of his heat and the answering bite of my own need as our mouths slanted together, tongues tangling, the ghost of honey passing back and forth between us.

Omvar let out a guttural sound, half growl, half moan, and the vibration carved its way through every level of my being.

He scooped me up, his enormous arms pinning me to his chest. The stone of the doorframe dug into my shoulder blades.

I wrapped my legs around his waist on instinct, locking us together at the hinge where desire and terror and hope met.

My calves bracketed the iron bands of his hips, thighs trembling with the effort.

We pressed together, a mess of mouths and limbs. The only music was the sound of my ragged breaths. His body caged me in, but it wasn't the kind of cage I wanted to escape.

The solid wall of his chest was a barricade.

His hand cradled the back of my head, shielding me from the impact.

I noticed with a savage sort of gratitude that his tail stayed away, curled safely behind him.

He was giving me every inch of control. I knew, with a certainty that settled deep in my gut, that if I pushed him away, he would let me go.

Instead, my hips rocked into him, greedy and wild.

The friction sent a jolt of pure fire through me, every clumsy grind stoking a bonfire at the base of my spine.

I expected panic. Some part of me waited for terror to clamp down, for old memories to drag me under.

But sensation flooded me, pure and bright and all-consuming.

The solid feel of him pressed against me, the safety in the strength of his arms, the electricity of his mouth moving on mine.

For the first time in what felt like forever, I wasn't afraid. Omvar didn't trap me.

He sheltered me.

He pulled back, breath rough, his golden eyes blazing with a potent longing. His chest was a living furnace against my ribs, the mate-bond a hum between us. It was sharp, real.

This was my mate.

Holy. Crap.

His voice came out thick, words dragged from a cracked, dangerous place. “We don’t need to go any further.” His tone quivered at the edges, a thread of control about to snap. “Only what you want.”

The scramble of internal panic screamed for me to run, but it was drowned out by the ache low in my belly, and the way my skin buzzed under the weight of his gaze. I met his eyes, swallowing the fear one more time.

“I want this,” I said. The voice was mine, but it sounded like someone else, someone reckless and utterly starved.

Relief hit his face, a wave, instantly bleeding into hunger.

He crashed into me again, claiming my mouth in another bruising kiss, a wordless surrender to the gravity between us.

My hands found his shoulders as he lifted me, carrying me as if I weighed nothing toward the sleeping platform that dwarfed my body.

He set me down with impossible care, every movement a negotiation between his raw strength and my human fragility.

The platform’s surface was warm, and I felt grounded, pinned to a new axis of pure sensation.

His hands, callused and lethal, skimmed my sides.

They never threatened, always waited for an order.

Omvar knelt beside the platform, muscles coiled so tight he looked like he was fighting an urge to tear himself apart.

“I want to see all of you.” The words slipped out, surprising me with their sudden need. But it was the truth. I wanted to see every inch.

Omvar straightened, chest swelling. For a moment, he just stared at me, pride and a bashful hope flickering in his gaze.

Then he reached for the knot at his waist. I watched, helplessly mesmerized, as he stripped: first the battered wrap, then the tunic, peeling it away to reveal a body forged by violence and survival, both alien and beautiful.

Every scar was a path leading to the core of him.

And then he laid a hand on the waistband of his trousers, his eyes fixed on me, asking for permission.

I nodded, sharp and helpless, my pulse frantic against my ribs.

He bared himself without hesitation.

His cock was alien and obscene and utterly hypnotic. Red scales glinted at the base in the yellow light of the room, fading to crimson flesh streaked with thick, black veins. At the tip, a mobile, fleshy lip flexed, twitching as if tasting the air—or waiting to taste me.

A bead of fluid gleamed at the opening, slick with anticipation. Beneath the strange sheath was a heavy weight that made my throat tighten, awe and disbelief warring inside me.

I’d felt it, fumbled with it in the dark, but seeing it in the open, seeing every impossible detail, was a challenge. This was not human. This wasn’t even pretending.

I didn’t hate it. Not even close.

My skin flushed with a want I couldn’t name. Heat pooled between my thighs, a hunger that tore through the fear. I pressed my knees together and shivered.

Omvar’s gaze went molten. The head of his cock dipped when he saw my reaction, the fleshy lip curling ever so slightly, as if begging for my attention.

“Touch yourself,” I ordered, stunned again by the sound of my own voice.

A look of pleased surprise twisted Omvar’s face. His hand wrapped around the thick, scaled base. He stroked, slow at first, then harder, the mobile tip rippling and flexing with each pass of his thumb. The alien rhythm of it was brutal and graceful all at once.

I watched, rapt. Absolutely fascinated. My fear dissolved under the onslaught, replaced by a breathless, needy, aching want. I wanted to taste him, to ride him, to claim him in a language older than names.

He caught my eyes, holding me in the furnace of his longing. “Can I see you?”

Shyness warred with the fierce ache in my chest. I swallowed, my pulse thudding a heavy beat, and reached for the hem of my shirt.

My hands trembled, but his gaze never left my body, tracking every inch of pale flesh as I bared it to the strange, hungry air of Scalvaris.

When my shirt was gone, Omvar made a sound.

It was low and wrecked, the kind of sound that made me feel powerful.

Admired. Wanted.

It made me bold. I shimmied out of my pants and bared myself completely, letting him see every scar, every imperfection. Every mark that had made me who I was. His pupils flared, bright and sharp. He hummed a note of desperate approval, his claws scraping softly against his own thigh.

Something wild possessed me.

I crooked a finger, beckoning him closer like some vixen from ancient media, the kind who took what she wanted and never looked back.