Page 21 of Echoes of Fire (Drakarn Mates #2)

Vyne

The market buzzed—too loud, too alive. I hovered at the edge of the chaos, half-draped in shadows. The crystals in the walls seemed to burn, casting fractured light over the crowd. It made their faces sharp, jagged, almost unreal.

Yet her face, among the other humans, stuck out like a spark waiting to catch.

A burst of laughter, human and soft, carried over rattling carts and shouted negotiations. The sound hit me like a foreign blade, unfamiliar and fatally precise. My tongue ached, that strange sensitivity crawling up from the back of my throat and settling deep in my chest.

For days … longer than days, if I was being honest, I’d tried to ignore it.

I wouldn’t be Rath, drawn in like a moth to fire despite knowing how it would scorch. I was sharper than that. My sense of self-preservation still had teeth.

But when she laughed again, my body betrayed me, dragging my gaze toward their group. Four of them together, a tight-knit cluster navigating the crowd with cautious joy. They moved like a flock of sunglow finches, all darting movements and quiet giggles bound by instinctive camaraderie. They were softer than anything else in the market. Their fragility was jarring, delicate within the sharp angles of Scalvaris.

Delicate, but not weak.

Her hair caught my attention first. Light caught the strands as she tilted her head toward another of the women, listening intently to their whispered conversation. A smirk tugged at the corner of her lips. A quiet predator, watching and observing before striking with some dry quip, I wagered.

It wasn’t her beauty, though she had enough of it to snap a weaker male’s resolve. It wasn’t the way she tucked her hands close to her chest when the smallest Drakarn child ran past her clutching sticky scales of stolen candy. And it damn well wasn’t the slight upward curve of her jawline showing off the tension in her neck as her smirk relaxed back into something unreadable.

It was her scent—a phantom warmth that lingered on the smoke-filled air. Something sweet, slightly sharp underneath, like phoenix fruit steeped in herb oil. The scent tightened every nerve in my body, something wild yanking at my restraint.

My tongue tingled again, sharper this time, as if some unseen force had lashed it. It made me want to step forward, part the crowd surrounding them, and inhale until my chest finally stopped burning.

I retreated deeper into the shadows, claws twitching uselessly at my sides. What was this, exactly? Was it the same tethering madness that had dragged Rath through the hells for his human? That had made Darrokar act like a fool?

I clenched my jaws, the barbell in my tongue clicking against my teeth. Whatever it was, it needed to stop.

Rath had barely survived the upheaval caused by his bond. He’d fought tooth and claw against Karyseth and the vultures circling Scalvaris’s politics.

I didn’t have his patience or his recklessness. I’d spent most of my life artfully dancing just under the council’s scrutiny, dodging unnecessary risks and skulking out of the spotlight.

Her laughter cut through me again, raw as an open wound. It scraped away the pretense I clung to, the false calm I’d worn like armor for so long.

I was supposed to be good at ignoring stupid ideas. At looking through the fire and thinking about my next move. But suddenly, I was back at the edges of the market without realizing my feet had moved. The women were still there, farther ahead now, lingering near a vendor draped with polished obsidian necklaces. She stood apart from her companions, fingers pressed to a lichen-brushed gemstone, her expression thoughtful.

The ache twisted tighter. My tail jerked in protest, smacking a low crate behind me with a crack, forcing me to snap it, controlled again.

“Fucking idiot,” I hissed under my breath.

To her, from a distance, I probably looked no better than some hulking stalker with half a brain.

But she didn’t notice me. No one did—not even the vendor, who was preoccupied arguing with another Drakarn over the price of lava-lizard talons decorated in intricate painted patterns. It was easy to slip closer. Close enough to see the faint drag marks in the dust where her boots had scuffed the ground. Close enough to think about reaching out … for what, I didn’t even know.

The scent hit me harder now. Impossible not to notice when it wrapped around me like a second skin, pulling me in like the currents of an underground river. My tongue burned red hot, every sensitive tastebud lighting up with phantom flavor.

It would be so easy to close the distance. To press clawed fingers lightly to her shoulder so she’d turn. To watch as her wide, unfamiliar human eyes took me in. To speak—just one word, a name, her name. Or to say nothing at all and just let the silence stretch between us, burning this unnatural pull into the fabric of what could become …

Would become nothing.

I dragged the thought back, sharp as my blades. Nothing. No “could,” no “would.”

A mate—a human —wasn’t something I could claim. Not now, not ever. Karyseth’s schemes against Rath and Orla proved that truth well enough.

Why would I want to give her another opening? Rath and Orla had already survived enough. I wasn’t about to play with lava after their fragile truce.

Something in me hardened as I stepped away again, the ache in my chest twisting into something closer to a wound.

Self-inflicted. Necessary.

I turned, setting my path deliberately away from the market’s packed heart. “Be smarter than him, you idiot,” I muttered to the emptiness ahead. I repeated it like a mantra, the words as bitter as sand trapped under my tongue.

Be smarter than Rath. Be smarter.

But even as I turned my back on her, I swore I could still taste the way her scent lingered on the grit-flavored air.

And the burn wouldn’t subside.

What’s next in this series:

Scorched by Fate

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