Page 19

NINETEEN

SERAPHINE

T he fire burned low that night.

It wasn’t just the kindling that struggled—it was the space between them all, pulled taut and brittle like a blade waiting to snap.

Cassian hadn’t spoken since the fight. Hadn’t looked at her, either.

He sat on the outskirts of the camp, a shadow lit faintly by firelight, his back to the others. As though if he didn’t see them, they didn’t have to see what he’d become.

What she had known he might be.

The others had said nothing. No one knew what to say. Lira and Brann made quiet, awkward talk. Alek stood watch, but even he cast glances at the man in the dark.

As for Seraphine?

She sat alone with the weight of too many truths pressed into her spine.

She hadn't meant to hurt him. But she had.

Now she wasn’t sure if what they had could survive the storm coming for them both.

She found him near the path just after midnight.

The forest behind them rustled with whispering leaves and unseen things. The ruins of Skyforged loomed ahead, carved into the mountains like the ribs of a buried god.

Cassian didn’t move as she approached.

“Come to finish the argument?” he said, not turning.

“No.” Her voice was soft. Tired. “I came to say I’m sorry.”

He looked over his shoulder, brow raised. “That’s new.”

“I don’t offer it often.”

“I noticed.”

She stepped closer.

Moonlight bathed the ruins in silver, casting long shadows that seemed to echo every buried feeling neither of them had the language to speak aloud.

“I knew something,” she admitted. “Not everything. But I suspected.”

He turned to face her fully, his expression unreadable.

“And still you let me burn in ignorance.”

Her jaw tensed. “You think I wanted to? And I only just had the confirmation recently. I was afraid, Cassian.”

Seraphine took another step, until the space between them was a breath.

“I didn’t know how to tell you,” she whispered. “Because I didn’t want it to change how I looked at you.”

“And has it?”

She met his eyes.

“No.”

That one word held the truth neither of them had dared admit. But she was done hiding that she was feeling something for him. Something more than she could control.

They stood there, caught between the ruins of what was and what might be.

Seraphine turned her gaze to the stone arch above them, the crumbled pillars etched with timeworn glyphs.

“Skyforged was the last place the blade was whole,” she said. “Before the Drakar shattered it. Before we turned on the ones like you.” She took a step around to face him. “And I thought,” she added, “maybe something broken can be made whole again here.”

He looked at her, like he wasn’t sure if she meant the blade or herself.

She wasn’t sure either.

Before she could overthink, she closed the space between them and pressed her hand against his chest, feeling the erratic thrum beneath.

Cassian didn’t flinch.

He stepped forward and kissed her like he had been waiting a lifetime. Like the world might tear them apart come dawn and he didn’t care.

It was messy. Urgent. Real.

Seraphine didn’t hesitate.

She dragged him down with her, pulling at his collar until his weight settled above her—solid and scorching and real.

The ground beneath them was cool, packed with dust and moss and crushed petals from the ancient vines that crept along the broken foundation of Skyforged.

Overhead, the stars spun above the ruin’s skeletal archways, each constellation a witness.

Cassian kissed her like a man who’d been dying quietly for years. His storm-gray eyes were wild when he pulled back to look at her, breath ragged, chest rising against hers.

“Are you sure?” he rasped, voice low, but tight with restraint. “Because once I start—I won’t stop.”

She reached up, threading her fingers into the silver-streaked black at his nape. “Then don’t.”

His mouth crashed into hers again, hungry and reverent. She felt the brush of his tongue, the sharp scrape of his teeth as he groaned into her mouth—and she gave him everything in return.

Seraphine’s hands moved over his body, tugging at the straps of his battle-worn leathers, pushing aside the layers until warm skin met her palms. His muscles flexed beneath her touch—he was all strength, the body of a weapon honed by years of war.

She dragged her nails down his back, feeling the ridges of old scars and heat rising from just beneath his skin—the ember-blooded dragon beneath.

Cassian kissed her jaw, her throat, the place where her shoulder met her neck. “You smell like wildfire,” he whispered, voice shaking. “Like the moment before the sky cracks open.”

She laughed, breathless. “And you smell like storms.”

He pulled back just enough to yank her tunic over her head, his hands reverent as they traced the shimmer of scales along her ribs.

Her bronze-toned skin caught the moonlight, and with each breath, her magic stirred beneath the surface—glinting along her collarbones, flaring in her gold-flecked eyes.

“Fuck, Seraphine…” His voice broke. “You’re glowing.”

“You bring it out in me,” she murmured, chest heaving.

She reached for the clasps at his waist, but he caught her wrists and pressed them into the grass above her head. “Let me,” he said, fierce and tender.

He undressed her like she was sacred.

Piece by piece, her battle leathers fell away, revealing the powerful lines of her thighs, the curve of her hips, the long expanse of her ember-black hair trailing like smoke around them.

He kissed each new patch of skin he revealed—shoulders, sternum, stomach—until she was bare beneath him, heart thundering like a war drum.

When his mouth moved lower, when his tongue slid between her thighs and he groaned at the taste of her, Seraphine arched with a gasp.

“Cassian—gods?—”

He licked her pussy slowly, thoroughly, as if he could memorize her through taste alone. His tongue circled her clit, teasing, until she was writhing beneath him, thighs trembling on either side of his head.

“You’re already so wet for me,” he murmured, dragging his mouth across her slick folds. “You were ready before I even touched you.”

She moaned, gripping his hair as her hips bucked. “Don’t stop—fuck—please”

He didn’t. He sucked her clit gently, then firm, letting his tongue flick and press until her body coiled tighter.

She shattered with a cry, her orgasm tearing through her like flame through parchment. Her back arched, her hands fisting in the grass as her pussy pulsed and clenched.

Cassian kissed her thigh, then pressed his forehead to her abdomen while she came down, breath shallow and wrecked.

“I’m not done,” he said, voice gravelly.

He sat back on his heels, shedding the last of his gear—broad shoulders flexing, his chest marked with ancient runes and battle scars, dragonsteel talismans clinking softly against his skin. His cock was hard and heavy, flushed at the tip, veins prominent along its thick length.

Seraphine’s mouth went dry.

She reached for him, pulling him down until he hovered over her again, their bodies flush.

“I want to feel you,” she whispered, legs parting. “I want your cock. Inside me. Now.”

His eyes burned silver in the dark. “I’m going to ruin you for anyone else.”

“You already have.”

He gripped the base of his cock, guiding it between her folds, rubbing it through her slick heat before pressing in—slow and steady. The stretch was delicious, almost too much. He was thick, and she was still pulsing from her orgasm, her pussy clenching around him as he filled her inch by inch.

“Fuck,” he hissed through his teeth. “You feel—gods—you’re gripping me like you never want to let go.”

“I don’t,” she moaned, wrapping her legs around his waist. “You feel so good—so full”

He bottomed out, hips flush to hers, and stilled, his chest heaving as he kissed the hollow of her throat.

“I’ve never wanted anything more,” he murmured. “You, like this. Wrapped around me. Yours.”

He began to move.

Slow at first. Deep, deliberate thrusts that dragged his cock along every nerve inside her. She gasped with each one, body arching into his.

“You’re going to make me come again,” she panted. “You’re hitting something—*fuck—*right there?—”

He adjusted his angle, gritting his teeth, then slammed into her again—harder, faster now. The sound of their bodies colliding echoed through the ruins, joined by moans, whispered curses, breathless pleas.

She cried out as another orgasm ripped through her, her walls fluttering around him, her nails digging into his back.

Cassian groaned, hips stuttering. “Seraphine—I’m close?—”

“Come in me,” she gasped. “I want all of it.”

With a growl that was nearly a roar, he thrust one last time and spilled inside her, cock pulsing as he came deep and hard. His whole body trembled, sweat slicking their skin where they pressed together.

They collapsed together in the grass, wrapped in one another like armor.

He kissed her temple, then her shoulder, murmuring something in the old tongue that she couldn’t translate—but felt in her bones.

Something like worship.

Later, when the stars were fading and the ruins quieted, she lay beside him with her head on his chest, listening to the fire in his breath.

“We shouldn’t have done that,” he murmured.

“We shouldn’t have done a lot of things.”

“And yet…”

“And yet,” she whispered, fingers tracing the scar on his ribs, “I don’t regret it.”

He didn’t respond. Because regret had no place in a moment borrowed from a fate neither of them controlled.

But even as she drifted to sleep, warmth cocooned in him for the first time since childhood, Seraphine knew that they were on borrowed time.

The debt would come due soon.