Page 20 of Echoes of Fire (Drakarn Mates #2)

NINETEEN

ORLA

I leaned over the low table, sketching rough lines across my notebook while my tongue caught on the inside of my cheek. My notes were all around me, half-chaotic, held together by a tenuous thread of logic I might lose if I didn’t finish this diagram tonight.

Across from me, Rath sprawled lazily on the bed, one wing draped off the side and a faint smirk tugging at his mouth. His brooding had melted away, replaced instead with the kind of loose relaxation that made him dangerous. His focus shifted between his claw—idly balancing one of my pens—and me, his golden eyes glinting with some private amusement.

You would never guess that two weeks ago we’d been limping out the Mating Challenge, skin burned and scales bleeding. My ankle would be scarred forever, but thanks to Selene’s mending and some Volcarian healing herbs, we were both almost as good as new.

“You’re scowling again,” he said, his voice like gravel warming under flame. “I almost pity whatever you’re planning to conquer.”

I didn’t look up from the page, instead using the edge of my graphite to shade another section of the proposed geothermal grid system. “I told you, this isn’t for war. It’s energy distribution.”

“Which is also conquest,” he drawled, flipping the pen in a slow arc. It clattered to the floor when his claws misjudged the catch, but he didn’t bother retrieving it, his gaze homing in on me now. “Sweeter when your enemy is tradition, no?”

I snorted, finally meeting his eyes. “Tradition as an enemy? I’m sure that would make any Blade Councilor faint just hearing it.”

“Not me.” His tail flicked once, the spaded end curling around the chaise’s base. “But I’m less faint-prone than most. Go on, tell me how this marvel of yours will upend generations.”

I leaned back, pushing away the hair that always fell into my face when I was working and leaving a faint, unintentional charcoal streak down my temple. “Right now, Scalvaris relies too heavily on heat crystals and lavaforges. They’re inefficient for consistent power. The underground geothermal vents could provide scalable energy storage—enough to keep the city’s entire infrastructure running without burning through resources.” I jabbed the pencil against the edge of the diagram in emphasis. “It’s basic science.”

“Basic for you,” he corrected, his smile deepening. “Try explaining ‘scalable energy storage’ to Nyktral from the River’s Teeth. I think I saw him lick a rock once just because it was shiny.”

Laughing, I tossed my pencil onto the table and stretched my arms, sore from hours of scribbling. “You’re not wrong. I doubt they’d listen to anything I said even if I dumbed it down. Humans are still aliens. Outsiders.”

His expression flickered, something darker passing over his features before he banished it. “Humans may be new arrivals,” he said, voice low, “but ideas are not species-bound.”

“It’s not the ideas they’ll fight—it’s me having them.” I exhaled, frustration churning my thoughts. “I’m still hearing whispers about whether I ‘earned’ my place.”

Rath shifted forward, leaning his elbows onto his knees until his massive frame made my cramped work area feel even smaller. The hearthlight carved shadows into the planes of his face, highlighting scars I was still learning to trace with my fingertips. “They won’t dare call me weak. Not to my face,” he said, and though his voice was calm, there was steel hidden beneath the embers. “And they won’t call you less than worthy once I’ve reminded them how valuable you are.”

I was getting used to the possessiveness in his tone—it still caught me slightly off guard. Another part of me, the part that had already learned how unwavering he was in his loyalty, found comfort in it. He didn’t consider me a weakness; he called me his equal, his strength. And yet …

“I don’t want this to be about you having to defend me. Again,” I said, curling my fingers against the edge of the notebook. “I want them to respect me on my own terms.”

Rath tilted his head. His amusement returned in a flash. “Foolish mate,” he murmured, something softer threading through the words. “You think tearing down centuries of rigid thought happens in a single strike? Lay the foundation for now. I’ll keep the others too occupied to sabotage it.”

The sudden, delighted laugh that bubbled out of me startled us both. “So your plan is to just distract Scalvaris while I sneakily modernize it?”

“Exactly.” He leaned back again. “Swords clash loudly, shyrarva , but it’s the quiet forge that alters their edges.”

I shook my head, fighting a smile as I returned to my diagram. “God, you’re impossible,” I muttered, but there was no heat in it.

“And you’re brilliant.” His rumble chased warmth up my spine, his voice wrapping around my resolve and bolstering it in a way no plan or blueprint could.

His tail coiled and uncoiled lazily as he watched me return to my work. His presence was a strange paradox—calming in its weight, but always charged with the potential for motion, for violence, for some deep and electric possibility. I’d seen him fight, seen the beast in him unleashed, but there, in the privacy of our chambers, he was something entirely different.

When the hiss of his shifting weight broke the quiet, I glanced up to see him rising from the bed with his usual predatory grace. His wings flexed once in a low sweep before folding close to his back, sharp edges catching the firelight. He crossed the room, his broad size shrinking even our spacious quarters, and began rummaging in one of the storage compartments carved into the volcanic rock walls.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

He didn’t answer, at least not vocally. His tail flicked in what I’d come to recognize as either amusement or mischief—possibly both—before he pulled something from the compartment and hid it behind his back.

“Rath,” I said, skeptical. His eyes caught mine, a slight glint of smugness visible in their depths. “What are you hiding?”

Instead of answering, he crossed back to me, his movements deliberate, and crouched just close enough for his heat to bleed into my space. The sharp planes of his features softened slightly as he tilted his head, studying me, something achingly gentle shimmering just beneath the habitual intensity of his gaze.

“Close your notebook,” he murmured.

I blinked, thrown off by the sudden and quietly commanding tone. Then I folded the paper closed, placing it to the side without comment. “Alright,” I said slowly. “What’s?—”

His hand came forward, producing a roll of parchment with a flourish. The edges were worn—coated with soot and age, its once-dark ink faded to a muted charcoal. He placed it carefully in front of me, sliding it closer before stepping back to observe my reaction.

Curious, I gently unfurled the scroll. My lips parted as the full scope of it came into view: a star chart, impossibly intricate, the precise marks of constellations spiraling outward from a central axis. I wasn’t just looking at a map of Volcaryth’s night skies—it cataloged movements and highlighted solar alignments with precision that should’ve been impossible for such an old artifact.

“This,” I breathed, running my finger just shy of touching the delicate ink. “This is incredible, Rath. How … how did you find this?”

“The archives beneath the Blade Keep,” he replied, his voice quieter than usual yet brimming with hidden significance. “Forgotten, abandoned in storage with documents no one cares about anymore—old star maps from times long gone.”

I swallowed hard, the enormity of it sinking in. “Why now? Why … why show me this?”

He didn’t hesitate. “Because I know your mind, Orla. Your eyes always watch fractured things—the cracks between stone, the marrow in what others throw away. You follow patterns no one else sees.” He crouched again, heavy gaze pinning me in place. “You’ll see more in this map than anyone else has for centuries. And I wonder what you might uncover.”

His words struck something within me, leaving me disarmed. I looked back at the star map, tracing its curves. Part of me wanted to devour it with analysis, to pull its meanings apart and piece them back into a constellation of discovery.

“It’s beautiful,” I said finally, my voice catching against the lump in my throat. My gaze darted upward. “You’re full of surprises.”

His lips tugged into a faint smirk, but his tail’s restless flick betrayed his satisfaction. “Only for you,” he said, his voice dipping into that dangerous warmth that had undone pieces of me before.

I couldn’t suppress the smile spreading across my lips as I carefully rolled the star chart back into its delicate form, gripping it tighter than I needed to. It was more than ancient parchment filled with forgotten starlore—it was trust, belief, and an unspoken promise etched in the gesture of giving it to me.

“Rath,” I whispered, unable to find words fitting enough for gratitude or depth. Instead, when I lifted my gaze to him again, every unsaid thing burned in the glance we exchanged, a gravity like twin suns aligning.

His hand reached out, the claws soft as they skimmed along my jawline. His wings arched outward slightly, the tension there not from threat but something raw. “I wanted you to have something worthy of your vision,” he rumbled, thumb brushing along the hollow of my cheekbone. “And let it remind you, I see in you what others cannot.”

My heart was thundering. Not from fear, though the intensity in Rath’s gaze could incinerate lesser nerves—but from the overwhelming sense of being known. Of being seen.

I swallowed hard, my tongue darting out to wet my lips. His thumb stilled on my cheek, the motion not lost on him. Of course it wasn’t. When I finally managed to speak, my voice emerged softer than I had intended. “You … you do that a lot, you know.”

His head tilted just slightly, his pupils narrowing in curiosity. “Do what?”

“See me.” My hand strayed upward, resting lightly on his forearm. “Really see me.”

His scrutiny deepened. “Because you are worth seeing, shyrarva ,” he said, his voice dropping into something dangerously tender. “Worth everything.”

The air between us shifted, like the faint rattle just before a storm unleashes itself. My breath hitched, but there was no holding back the words now scrambling over one another to escape my throat.

“I love you.” The admission sounded almost foreign, like it had been sitting just under the surface of my skin, waiting for this precise moment to escape.

Rath froze. Not in shock. It was something quieter, something deeper. A pause as though the very world had stopped to allow his next breath to find its way into his chest. The tension in his jaw eased first, then his wings, which curled protectively inward as he leaned ever so slightly closer.

“Say it again,” he growled, low and rough, his tone making the space between my ribs tremble.

A strange, soft laugh bubbled out of me, more exhale than sound. “I love you,” I repeated, each word deliberately climbing its way through whatever walls still existed between us. And now that I’d said it, I found I wanted to say it forever.

His broad frame stretched taller, his shoulders loosening like some invisible weight had finally lifted. He sank to his knees in front of me, tilting me forward as his hands—which could shatter steel but touched me like glass—came to rest on either side of my hips.

Rath’s gaze burned, the liquid fire of his pupils expanding, engulfing every hesitance in their way. “And I—” His voice faltered, cracked like rock encountering a river, and he paused before adjusting with deliberate clarity, quieter now, but no less powerful for it. “And I love you, shyrarva . More than you understand.”

There it was. Plain, simple—except none of it was simple. It existed like an avalanche, unstoppable now that it had begun. My chest felt both weightless and bursting, filled by the thunder of his truth clasping itself to mine.

I smiled. “There’s not much I don’t understand.”

His answering grin was slow. “Good,” he murmured, his lips brushing my temple as he rose to tower over me, never letting his hands stray farther than my frame.

His lips lingered at my temple, the warmth of his breath sweeping over my skin. My eyes drifted shut as every sharp-edged worry fell away, replaced by a sense of boundless heat and safety. His hands, one resting on my hip and the other at the curve of my lower back, tightened almost imperceptibly, their claws careful crescents against my body.

“ Shyrarva ,” he murmured, pulling back just enough to match my gaze. His voice was a fire-fed growl, but there was no urgency in it this time—just depth and need. “Will you let me show you?”

“Show me what?” The question barely left me, not because I doubted, but because his intensity rendered words almost secondary.

His tail coiled gently around my ankle, claiming the space between us as his claws flexed slightly. “What it means to be mine . ”

Heat flared in my chest, his unsaid promise an all-consuming weight. I couldn’t have defied that pull if I tried—and stars above, I didn’t want to try. My fingers lightly traced the ridges along his forearm as I nodded, my pulse loud enough in my ears to drown out everything else.

“Always.”

Rath held me carefully, my ribs pressing against the solid weight of his chest as his wings arched slightly. For a creature designed to bring a battlefield to its knees, he carried me like I might shatter if he held on too hard.

He stepped backward until his claws grazed the edge of the raised sleeping slab in the center of the room, its surface draped in silks.

Rath laid me down, one hand bracing the line of my spine while the other adjusted my shoulders into place until the silks cradled my weight. His wings spread fully for balance before he joined me, the rumble in his chest steady as the earth itself.

“You are …” His voice hitched, his golden eyes awash with something both worshipful and predatory as his claws curled around one of my thighs. “You are fire itself, shyrarva , and you do not know.”

“You keep calling me fire,” I murmured, my hands sliding up his shoulders until they curled around his neck, fingers grazing the seam where muscle and scale met. “What does that make you?”

“Fuel,” he answered, his fangs catching on the word like a vow. “Heat without direction will devour everything it touches. But with purpose?” His tongue flicked along his fangs, his tail brushing over my calf in slow, deliberate arcs. “It sustains, binds, creates.”

His mouth captured mine before the quiver in my breath could answer him, his kiss measured and slow at first, then hungrier when I pressed up into him. His claws skimmed just under the hem of my shirt, tracing the faint lines of muscle where the burn scars were beginning to fade.

He broke away just long enough for his fingers to tug delicately at the fabric. “Off,” he commanded, his gaze nearly black. His claws rested against the edge of my skin. “Let me see everything.”

My clothes joined the folds of silk beneath me, but his lips didn’t follow immediately.

Instead, his fingers skimmed over my exposed skin, tracing over burns, scars, and the star tattoos he’d come to know better than I did. His tail looped farther across my legs, pinning me gently in place as his claws caught at the line of my ribs. “They’ll know,” he murmured, lips finding the hollow just beneath my collarbone. “Every mark etched here is proof of a strength they can never question. Never challenge.”

I would have laughed if his thumb hadn’t caught on the corner of my hip bone, stopping the sound with a sharp inhale. “You think scars impress them more than schematics?”

“I know,” he said simply, his lips skimming lower, tongue brushing just shy of the lines between silk and skin. Every nerve in my body sang under his touch.

“Rath, I—” The words stumbled into the space between us, more reflexive gasp than command as his mouth found the edge of mine again.

Fingertips against my hip flexed, claws hidden away for just the barest press of intention—Rath’s reverence was fire made flesh, devouring without destruction. And when his tail dragged higher, the heat at its core left no confusion: He wasn’t asking if I understood.

He was showing me.

Claiming me.

Loving me.

I arched into him, the heat from my own need melding with the furnace of his scales as his claws dipped in places that made me shiver. His hips pressed flush with mine as his tail curled tighter—a possessive pressure rather than restraint, his voice lurching into a quiet growl.

Mine.

The word echoed silently as he consumed me, entirely his own.

Shyrarva.

His breath drew short against my ear, claws flexing protectively across my ribs, but his thrusts slowed with effort. His rhythm stuttered before settling—he intended it to, his movements deliberate and languid. No hurry here, not when it was just us.

Just this undeniable pull.

“Rath,” I gasped, my hands clawing at him as he brought me to the edge, forcing me to hover there.

He shuddered, his lips at my neck as his pace faltered. “Burn for me, shyrarva .”

He didn’t have to ask. The sensation he wrung from me was already fire itself, but his command set something loose that raged and devoured until there was nothing left.

He joined me in an all-consuming wave, his chest pressed flush to mine, his wings folded tightly over both of us. His breaths came deep and hard, the satisfaction in them unmistakable. When he finally spoke, his voice was a low rumble.

“Never forget who you are,” he murmured, his fangs glinting even as his grip softened.

I turned my face against his neck, breathing in the scent of him—charred cedar and embers—as I smiled into his skin. “You can remind them every time I forget.”