Page 31

VEGA

I was walking with Zarvash through the walls of Scalvaris. It would have been shocking if I didn't want him so much.

This wasn’t a gentle hunger. It was sharp, edged with fear and desire. Every brush of his claws against my skin sent a jolt through me, my body alive with wanting.

If desire was a language, my body was speaking directly to him.

He led me around a final corner, and there it was: a massive door, carved and bound with iron, sigils from the Forge Temple etched deep in its surface. Zarvash pressed his palm against a glyph, and the door opened with a low groan. Once we stepped inside, he sealed it shut.

We were alone.

Finally.

The air was hot, heavy. Heat crystals cast shadows that danced along the walls.

The room was stark, honest: a battered platform for a bed, weapons mounted above, blades and spears that spoke of countless battles.

Silks and furs lay tangled on the floor, a riot of color against stone.

It smelled of him, of sweat and steel and something darker.

He stood by the door, chest heaving, claws flexing as if he were holding himself back. This wasn’t Zarvash, the reserved council member of Scalvaris. This was the beast inside him, barely contained. His eyes locked on mine, and I felt stripped bare. He didn’t see me as a threat, a weapon.

He saw me as his.

Thank fucking god.

Then he moved, crossing the space between us in a heartbeat. His hand shook slightly as he pushed my hair back, the tip of a claw grazing my cheek. Goosebumps spread across my skin.

“Vega,” he said, my name rough in his throat. It sounded like a vow. And then he kissed me.

There was no hesitation. His mouth crashed against mine, his tongue demanding, unyielding.

I tasted iron, felt the sharp edge of a fang against my lip.

I gasped, and he swallowed the sound, pulling me closer.

My body arched against him, desperate for more.

His hand tangled in my hair, tilting my head so he could take even deeper.

When he finally pulled back, we were both panting. His eyes burned into mine, and a single word slipped from his lips: “ Veshari .”

It wasn’t a question. It was a declaration, everything unsaid between us in that one word.

His hands found the hem of my tunic. “Let me,” he murmured, his voice careful, almost trembling. I nodded, lifting my arms. This wasn’t surrender. It was need, transformed into something else entirely.

Fabric parted.

Collarbone, then shoulder, then breast. His thumb brushed old scars, claws traced the shrapnel trail along my ribs.

Each new patch of skin catalogued, not devoured.

Reverence, not pity. He bent, pressed his mouth to scar tissue.

My bullet wound. The old burn. Each one a benediction in Drakarn, words I only half understood, but felt shiver-flush between us, deeper than fluency.

His tongue traced a scar just below my breast. I bit back a moan. Shame vanished, leaving only the heat skittering down my spine, nipples peaked to harsh points, his breath a meteor trail in the warm air.

This close, his scales pressed to my skin, heat rolled off bronze and copper as my fingers clawed at his clothes, clumsy with need. He caught my hands, stilled me with a laugh that fractured at the edges.

“Too slow,” he growled. The fabric ripped aside, discarded. His chest a battlefield map, muscle knotted over old wounds; fresh ridges erupting along his shoulder. I touched the biggest scar, a crescent, old, ragged.

He caught my hand, kissed the knuckle.

His wings trembled. Too close, veins showing, old scars black under crystal light. I ran my hands over his chest, doing my own star mapping. His gasp tightened my belly. I wanted to taste every wound, wanted to catalog him, memorize him, archive him into muscle memory.

He bent to suck my nipple into his mouth. Teeth grazed, tongue circled, heat spiked—each rotation ratcheted tension higher. I writhed, back arching, thighs squirming, skin rubbing hot against scale.

“More,” I gasped. Need, unfiltered.

He answered with teeth, deeper suction, tongue flicking sharp. Swollen skin desperate when he moved on.

His tail—devilish rope that it was—slithered between my thighs, circling, anchoring, tip pulsing like a second heart. He pressed me against his hips, I felt his cock, thick and burning, gouging my belly, smearing wetness across the bare skin there. I gasped, obscene, involuntary. My core ached.

I needed him.

Zarvash lifted me, effortless, arms under my thighs, hauling me up like I weighed nothing.

Not gentle, not cruel, just hunger incarnate.

He carried me to the platform, laid me among silk, my skin prickling, fever-bright, nerves sparking.

He knelt between my knees, wings mantled, intensity frightening. Focused. Worshipful. Possessive.

His bed was an altar, and I was his sacrifice.

He spread my thighs wide.

“You’re drenched.” His voice was gone to gravel. His hands shook as blunt claws dug into my hips.

His tongue was perfect. Alien. Too long, too hot, ridged and sensate.

He licked me slow, a surveyor testing new ground as if this was the first time.

My hips jerked, vision going fuzzy. He lapped, pausing only to groan.

The sound vibrated in my bones. He sucked and sucked, mouth greedy, chin wet with me.

My hands fisted in his hair. My hips rolled up, desperate. “Za—fuck—Zarvash!”

He hummed against me. Vibration climbed my spine—a tuning fork, set to my pleasure.

His tongue traced me, dove shallow, then deep.

Flick, flick, wriggle—no human mouth remotely this precise.

Each lap stole breath and logic. The ridges tormented, every drag of rough velvet, and somewhere deep: a spark that leapt the gap, half physical, half chemical. Our bond, alive and burning.

He fixed his mouth over my core. Suction, then a flurry of flicks, slow circles with the flat. I pleaded, high-pitched, almost a laugh: “Please, please, don’t stop—” My thighs shook. I was clawing at his skull. The orgasm came, sudden as a solar flare, convulsing everything.

I screamed, a sound ricocheting through the stone.

He kept drinking, didn't let go, a hunter at the well. When I shuddered, twitching, he pressed his face to my thigh, inhaled like he’d found a rare mineral vein. His eyes fluttered, drag-addled.

He traced me with his tongue, scraping up every drip. “You taste like fire.” Voice starved. “Like mine.”

His tail found my entrance and slipped in, stretching, thick, perfect. I keened, helpless. There was a burn, strange and delicious, almost electric.

“ Veshari .” He was pleading now, as if I could say no. “Your scent, your taste—it’s everywhere, inside me, in my blood.”

He drew up, chest heaving, lips glossed with me. “You need to see what’s yours.”

He knelt upright, wings wide. Body on open display: scales black-to-red studded at his hips, that ridge at his cock’s base.

The shaft: thick, nothing human—veins swelling like fault lines, the red flesh coated in sweat and more.

Foreskin—its alien shape, not just a layer but a living, flexible lip capping the crown, twitching, eager, twitching at the air.

I saw the glistening notch, the tongue, lapping for scent, almost sentient, the want built into biology.

Pre-cum shimmered at the tip, viscous, musky, impossible.

I inhaled smoke, salt, the blueprint of desire.

My hand lifted. I traced from scale-knotted base over the fever-hot shaft, feeling heat and heart and want.

The cock-lip nuzzled my palm, sucking, writhing, hungry.

I circled his cock with both hands; the lip clung, tongue seeking.

I pressed my thumb into the slit—the tongue curled to meet me.

Zarvash grabbed my wrist, bracing, not stopping.

His body rocked into my grip. “ Veshari —” His voice was a wrecked thing. “If you … keep …”

I bent to taste him. The head was velvet and hot, flavor star sharp, all smoke and salt. The lip at its tip flicked into my mouth—tongue, seeking. I let it. Zarvash’s tail thudded, wings snapped.

Fluid slid over my tongue, briny, alive; I could almost taste the mating bond in my blood.

“Enough.” Zarvash’s growl shook with effort and want. Command and plea, indivisible. “If you keep—” His desperation bled through. “Let me. Let me claim?—”

I slid back on trembling limbs. “Please.” Strange, how thin my voice was. How full of want.

He hovered over me. Cock flushed, dripping—the scent marked me already, musk and fire and a touch of ozone. He guided himself to my entrance, patient through agony. “Slowly,” he gritted, every word a brand new fracture of will.

I hooked my legs high, opening, inviting. The head pressed my slit, tongue whorled over my clit, gathering slick. I gasped, bucked. He dragged the crown lower, circling, until at last it pressed into my entrance.

I exhaled and bore down and invited him deeper. He groaned, sank in, a slow, torturous thrust, the fullness exquisite. When his hips were flush, I felt the scales of his base pressure my clit, the cock’s tongue twining inside me, that living lip teasing, tugging, coating me in him.

Marked. Occupied. Claimed.

He bowed his forehead to mine. “Mine. My mate. No one—” His voice failed, choked by feeling.

I found his wings, membranes trembling. I stroked along the veins; he shuddered, cock twitching.

He caught my wrists, pinned them overhead, caging me open.

His hips rocked slow, each stroke a seismic fault, vein after vein massaging my nerves, the cock’s tongue licking at my g-spot, a star’s pulse in the dark.

My sex squeezed, milking; my body painted in slick and musk and wanting.

His rhythm shredded. Tail lashed, curled tight around my hips, yanking me into every thrust. Jaw snapped. Drakarn curses spilled loose, words older than fire.

Instinct drove me, and I bit him on the shoulder, hard, nails raking his scales, leaving my own constellation of marks.

Fang grazed my neck, not to break, but to promise. Dangerous, but the threat only carved safety deeper.

Friction built. Each slap of skin catalyzed a new chemical reaction inside me, heat, tension, ache. The pressure inside wound tighter, his cock stretching, tongue working, tail holding, wrists bound, mind fracturing.

Release tore through me, no warning, only rupture. I convulsed, gripping his cock, milking. Zarvash threw his head back, howled, animal, ancient, shattered, hips driving, cock swelling, then the rush: his flood inside, thick, musky.

I shivered, starlight under skin, nerves jangled, skin streaked with sweat, and the undeniable evidence of us.

Zarvash fell atop me, weight caging me in, tail, arms, even wings enclosing. Still inside me, body still pulsing, leaking, his want embedded everywhere.

Our sweat merged, our scent blurred. His tongue slicked over my jaw, throat, ear, lapping up the mess, the salt of tears I didn’t remember crying. Each kiss a promise. Possession and worship, not mutually exclusive after all.

He murmured between kisses, words, rough as gravel, nearly broken: “Mine. You wear my scent. None will hurt you. You are home.”

My hands traced his spine, found the ridged valley there. I stroked; he twitched, bucked, nearly sobbed. “You’re trembling,” I whispered, voice barely there. “Did I?—”

He bundled himself around me, all tail, all muscle, all wing. His scales slicked up my thighs; our combined fluids still sticky-hot between. His tongue searched the bite mark at my shoulder, slow, careful, cleaning, soothing. Drawing out the hurt, making it a memory.

“Everyone will know,” he whispered, breath tangled in my hair, all possessive satisfaction. “No one can challenge what’s carried in your scent. You’re mate-claimed.”

I inhaled deep. My skin reeked of him, inside, outside, every gland rewritten, my own musk altered, burned new into memory. Pheromones as proof, as claim, as inheritance.

Hushed, only the rasp of breath, the quake of spent adrenaline, the biological signature of what we’d done. Then?—

“Did you ever imagine,” Zarvash asked, voice full of things I couldn’t read, “that it would ever end this way?”

I ghosted my mouth to his jaw, eyes closed against the hazardous hope. “Not in a million years.”

He tucked his chin over my crown, tension leaking out, weight flooding into the shelter of his body. Drakarn devotion, cocooned and complete. For the first time since falling to this violent world, my chest unclenched. I exhaled into the heat of belonging.