Page 18

VEGA

Alone. Finally.

The echo of violence still buzzed in my blood. Every time I watched Zarvash take a hit, I clenched around a cold spike of terror; every time his claws raked or he landed a blow, heat surged, primal and fierce, beneath my sternum. I was exhausted and wired, shaking with the relief of it all.

I dragged myself to the battered ceramic basin beside the rickety window, the water inside splashing around my shaking hands. The rag was almost clean and rough enough to score skin. Zarvash was in the middle of the room, broad back turned to me.

Bronze scales dulled under a crust of arena sand were scored by fresh blood. The air between us was thick: copper tang, scorched iron, the wild ozone scent that was all him.

“Sit.” It should have sounded gentle, but it was scraped bare with hunger and fatigue. I nodded at the sleeping platform; there was nowhere else for him to go.

He hesitated, that proud line of his jaw tightening, chin lifting a fraction as if deciding whether to take orders from a fragile human. Then, movement. Minimal, efficient. He lowered himself until I imagined the stone groaning beneath his weight.

“Your leg,” I said, knees already hitting the floor. But this wasn't about submission. Not in there, with no prying eyes.

The wound streaking his calf was an angry gash, long and oozing, sand and blood glittering in the gloom.

My fingers hovered before the first touch, knowing it would hurt.

He didn't flinch. He just watched with those disconcerting, gold eyes.

Despite the stillness, he seemed coiled, restraint wound tight enough to snap.

I pressed the rag to his skin. My own heart thudded faster, stupidly, irrationally, as if blood and dust and brutal beauty were a new form of oxygen.

“You fought—” I swallowed the word “well”; it was too small for what he’d done in the pit. “You’re still here.”

“Harkon was tenacious,” he ground out.

“But you were smarter.” My voice was too high, the last dregs of worry not quite faded. “That feint with the damaged wing? Inspired.”

A huff of breath, almost a snort, brushed the hair at my temple as I leaned in, dabbing at a cut above muscle so thick I could barely dent it. “Not a feint,” he muttered.

I kept working, rag turning the water a muddied red-brown. I tried for detachment, but the scent of him invaded my senses, dizzying, too much. My fingers, traitorous, lingered an impossibly long beat tracing the wound on his forearm. Testing the edge of hurt, or perhaps, invitation.

“Did you find anything?” he asked, eyes unblinking, unreadable.

“They move the humans between holding cells during the main events. There’s a window of stupidity, and the guards get distracted by the fights.”

“We'll keep that in mind,” was his only response.

At last, I’d cleaned what I could. I was no medic, but I was pretty sure the cuts were superficial. “Turn,” I said, voice steadier than my hands. “Your wing.”

“It’s functional,” he bit out.

“Is it?” If that wing didn't heal, we'd be trying our luck out of there on foot, and I didn't like our odds.

He resisted. Pride was not decorative with Zarvash; it was carved deep into his bones. But then there was another sound, somewhere between a grunt and the click of a tongue. He presented the wounded wing, the gesture a surrender and a dare.

I unwound the binding carefully. The membrane underneath was ugly, swollen, inflamed, scales an oil-slick sheen that was worryingly dark. My own shoulder tingled in sympathy, imagining old injuries lit by pain.

“God, Zarvash.” My touch skimmed along the edge, feather-light, afraid of shattering more than just pride. “Does … this …?” I pressed, just shy of the most discolored joint.

Air hissed between his teeth. “Karys’s flaming breath, yes.”

I jerked back, palm stinging from the memory. “You can’t keep ignoring this.” Soft, but the threat of fury was there, coiled inside helplessness. “I think this is infected. We need to find a healer. If you want to survive?—”

“I am aware.” He growled it, but softer, pain, not anger, vibrating through each word. “I do not require a human to tally my failures.”

I could have snapped, spat back an arsenal of barbed retorts. Instead, the exhaustion won out. “Fine. Lose it. Die spectacularly. Let someone else mop up your mess.” I rose, and water sloshed and splattered my boots.

He caught my wrist, lightning fast. Not bruising, just undeniable. Those claws thrummed under my pulse, a reminder of what he could be. What he chose not to be.

“I did not mean …” His jaw jumped, a muscle ticking. Eyes molten gold and troubled. “Weakness. It is not … permitted. Here.” A confession forced through teeth. The kind of thing I’d seen break men and monsters alike.

Something twisted in me. Anger gone, replaced by longing or dread, I couldn’t tell them apart anymore. “We’re both in the fire.”

I went back to his wing, wrapping it in fresh strips torn from my own faded tunic, soft, worn, heavy with the ghost of soap and sweat. It was the most I could give. When I finished, silence thickened, hot, expectant, like the space before lightning.

“Try not to lose it tomorrow,” I managed, attempting a smirk.

A dry, half-chuckle rattled his chest, the sound ghostly after so much violence. “Your concern is noted.”

“Self-preservation. I’m not breaking out without my seven-foot death machine.” The joke hurt, familiar and barbed.

He turned. The eyes that found me were shadowed, but the gold sparked, hunger, longing, need, or simply the certainty that neither of us were immune. “Is that all I am, Vega? Death?”

The question landed between us like a dropped weapon, fatal, if you hesitated too long. My logic supplied all the right reasons to turn away, but it was already too late. My body was drawn, hooked on the current of him, and I didn’t want to swim free.

“What else,” I whispered, closer now, “would you be to me?”

He moved, a predator’s grace in every inch. The heat of his body spilled into mine, breath hot with the promise of fire. Spice and metal. Lightning in a bottle.

“You know,” he rumbled. No room for doubt in his tone.

My heart battered my ribs like a hawk on volcanic updrafts. My reflexes screamed turn back , abort , retreat . I shut them up with a single breath, closing the gap.

His mouth on mine was nothing like the hunger I’d imagined, sharp and bruising.

No, this was a question, a prayer. Lips scorching-soft, sliding over mine, salt and copper and dark honey, tasting of blood and iron and everything I didn’t have a name for.

A tremor licked through me, equal parts terror and awe.

He pulled back, only enough for his forehead to rest against mine, the air charged and wild. His claws cupped the back of my neck, impossibly gentle, somehow. “Do you want me to stop?”

The word hovered at the back of my throat. Stop. This is madness. This is?—

“No,” I breathed instead. Not surrender. Command.

Something in him loosened. Before I could regret it, his mouth was back on mine, demand rising with the kiss. More pressure, more hunger: tongue tracing, requesting, tasting. I parted, heat and want dissolving caution, and he slid inside, a question that answered itself.

The world shrank to the fire burning along that line, mouth to mouth, chest to chest, pain to want.

I felt a rumble begin deep in his chest before it was heard.

He shifted, pulling me up and over, until I straddled his lap.

His hands, big enough to crush me, settled at my hips—cool scales losing their chill with each heartbeat.

His chest, all hard planes and ancient scars, pressed to mine.

My hands moved by instinct to his shoulders—mapping each patch of scale, cataloguing every uneven seam and battle worn ridge.

“ Veshari ,” he ground out against my mouth, a word, a vow, a wound refusing to close. “I have wanted?—”

“Shh.” I pressed my forehead to his. “No words. Just?—”

He understood me perfectly.

He shifted, gentle, inhuman strength turning me, lowering my body until the stone of the sleeping platform met my spine and his weight caged me in.

My battered dignity should have screamed protest, but his weight felt like armor.

His hands skimmed my sides, scaled, calloused, stopping at the hem of my tunic.

He waited, asking permission in the tilt of his head.

My nod was shaky but real. He peeled the cloth away, every inch of drag broadcasting need, the thrill of exposure. When at last the fabric pooled at my arms and neck, his breath caught on a barely concealed invocation.

“You are …,” he managed, then faltered. His hands hovered as if he was afraid to dishonor, to presume.

“Different,” I finished for him, a shuddering laugh, half-mortified, half-exhilarated.

“Beautiful.” It landed like a hammer against the anvil of my fear. His mouth pressed to the hollow of my throat, tongue drawing a molten line to my collarbone, searing pleasure in its wake as he journeyed even lower.

His tongue, hotter than any human’s, shockingly agile, circled one nipple, the sensation a jolt straight between my legs. My gasp was needy, desperate, shame and want tangled together.

This wasn't supposed to happen. Not with a Drakarn. Not with him. But nothing could make me stop. Not now.

Fumbling fingers found his tunic, wrestling clumsily with unfamiliar fastenings. He helped, until he was bare to the waist, scars crisscrossed his chest, glinting silver in the room’s half-light. I traced one along his ribs, felt him shiver at the featherlight touch.

I wanted to remember this, every mark, every story written in his flesh. His hands found the waistband of my pants, claws large, careful. “May I?” he asked, voice softer than the cell deserved.

I nodded, lifting my hips. The fabric scraped away inch by inch, dragging heat across skin. I swallowed, acutely aware of my thin underwear, of skin prickling where his gaze followed fabric’s retreat.