Page 19 of Flameborne: Fury (Emberquell Academy #2)

SOUNDTRACK: Fix You by Tommee Proffit, Stanaj, and Staarz

~ brEN ~

I’d woken, bleary-eyed from what I thought was a dream of Donavyn, only to find him tangled with me in the furs of my bedroll, his rugged features slack and soft in sleep, the stubble of a day’s growth shadowing his jaw.

I’d never woken up next to a man before. Not like this. Not where the air between us had been warmed by our bodies, and the scent of him was on my skin. It was touching. Thrilling.

And terrifying.

The longer I lay there watching him sleep, the more confused I became.

My body, my heart, my soul wanted to curl into his chest and cling and rest, surrounded by the iron of his arms.

But my mind screamed danger. Knew he’d wake and the awe that had been present in his gaze the night before would turn to caution, then shuttered darkness. Excuses. Aversion. His eyes no longer glowing with admiration, but disgust instead.

I couldn’t bear it.

Convinced that when he woke he’d wish I wasn’t there, I had to leave.

But there was nowhere to go. My clothing was still wet, so I only pulled on the chilled cotton shirt and my boots, then slipped out into the morning while there wasn’t a lot of rain.

As soon as I was far enough away from the cave to have no need for quiet, I started to jog, looking for a place to wash and hide and…

And none of it worked.

Not getting my body clean.

Not clearing my head and waking properly.

Not feeling Akhane wake up and immediately curl into Kgosi’s embrace.

When the dragons began to mate again, my head and heart went to war. My soul was convinced that the only way to relieve the fear was to go back, to find Donavyn, to fall into those steel arms and iron strength. The more I sought safety, the stronger the urge to return to him.

But when I envisioned it, all I could imagine was that unassailable authority. Even in his smile, even in his casual stance, the man owned his space. And everyone else’s.

Ruin had been a charmer, and physically strong, yet still by comparison, a boy. Donavyn was a man. A Commander . Carrying authority that could belittle me, or raise me to heights with a single word.

Which would it be?

The question made me flinch. Even aside from the desperate need growing with every step as the dragons began their mating dance again, I wanted nothing more than to be close to Donavyn.

To me, he had always—inexplicably—felt like the safety of thick walls and a warm fire in a storm. And this was the darkest and deepest of storms.

He’d come for me, sought me, found me, owned me. Taken my body—given freely in the throes of need and the drive of the bond. Even vowed himself. But now that the insanity of the mating rush was subdued…?

Was it subdued? I asked myself with a grimace. Could I trust his response to me, even now?

I wanted him with a fire that I feared would burn me to the ground.

Ruin. Ruin had done that. Made my body want, then used it to manipulate me. He’d proven that when I wanted, my heart could not be trusted.

Impossibly, even after his betrayal, I’d somehow convinced myself that Ruin still wanted me. Even when every sign pointed to the contrary, I’d been so enamored that I’d put myself in a position to be humiliated.

Then I had wanted to die.

My spine crawled with self-loathing at that memory, even as my heart beat with frustrated strength.

I couldn’t go back to that.

I couldn’t let any man do that to me again. I wasn’t that girl anymore!

I was Chosen. I’d passed two of the trials. Soon it would be three. Donavyn had come to assess me, and instead…

My feet turned without my permission, pulling me back towards the sense of him. And even though I argued with myself, the moment I stood on the edge of that pool and saw him touching himself, his head back and throat bared, his body tense and thrumming…

God, I wanted him. I wanted him with a fire that would burn me from existence.

I knew I should fight it. I tried. But no matter how I questioned him, he reassured me— something Ruin had done in the early months, too, I reminded myself.

But then Donvayn, grieved by my fear, touched me with such tenderness his fingers seemed to stroke straight to my soul. And he stared at me with such pleading in his eyes, I was left breathless.

“Bren, I am here. No regrets. You’re mine, and I’m yours. Please, tell me.”

“Tell you what?” But I knew. I knew.

“Who did this to you?” His tone promised volcanic rage towards the offender. “Who made you believe you couldn’t be wanted? Needed? Tell me. I swear, I will remove that bastard from this earth and make you safe if it’s the last thing I do.”

And I broke. I broke.

No man had ever asked me that. No man had ever cared enough to think it. Even my father spoke of those days as an accusation, and my mother as a shame.

I broke down. Fell into his chest, clinging, pleading with him not to abandon me. And he didn’t. He didn’t.

“Bren,” Donavyn rasped, one hand cupped over my head as he held me tightly.

“Bren,” Ruin said through his teeth, hands gripping my arms hard enough to leave bruises.

My breath caught, but Donavyn only squeezed harder. “I’m here. Tell me.”

“Stop being so fucking childish. I thought you were better than this—”

I squirmed, desperate to escape the memories, to return to that trembling bliss in Donavyn’s arms.

“No good man will ever want you—”

I pulled away from my father’s voice, turning my face from Donavyn when he caught me and leaned down.

“Tell me, Bren. Please. I’ll kill the bastard.”

I made myself look up, meet his eyes. Donavyn leaned down, holding my face with both hands, his intensity breathtaking.

No derision. No shame. No turning from me…

And in response, that place in my chest that held him, the part I’d been gripping, soothing, desperate to keep, bloomed open in the sunlight of his tenderness.

Frantic, I grabbed for his hair, holding him there when he tried to straighten, shaking my head. “I don’t ever want to go back to that, Donavyn,” I breathed, begging him to understand. “I want to go forward. With you. If you’re real, if this is true, please, don’t walk away from me—”

“Never,” he growled, his eyes flashing with the dark promise.

My sob of hope was caught by his deep, penetrating, devouring kiss.

I inhaled sharply, relief flooding my body when his arms circled me and pulled me tightly against his chest as he growled my name. We both trembled, fueled by the dragon’s mating. I wanted nothing more than to flee any darkness, including memories of my past.

Don’t ask me to talk about it. Don’t make me see the horror in your eyes.

But then Donavyn’s fingers gripped my hair and pulled my head back. My eyes flew open and I locked on, half-thrilled, half-frightened.

Donavyn loomed over me, his jaw tight, and muttered through clenched teeth.

“Tell me that you want this, or if you don’t,” he hissed. “I won’t hurt you, Bren. I swear it.”

“I want you,” I sobbed, almost laughing through my tears because it was so true. “I’ve never wanted anyone the way I want you.”

He descended on me, and I was lost.

Lost in the heat of his skin. The steel strength of his body. The intoxication of his kiss.

Lost in his hands that painted my body in his need. Lost in the shadow of his bigger, stronger form that could overwhelm me with ease, yet touched with such tenderness.

He walked me backwards, stumbling with me as he had that first night in the stable when I’d wanted him to so badly and he’d run from me. I clung to him, gripping the back of his neck, terrified he’d run.

But he only walked me back to the trunk of one of the wide trees at the edge of the clearing, pressing me into it, hands shaking as he fumbled at the buttons of my damp shirt, then slipped inside the cotton to place his hot palms on my skin.

I swore steam rose from my skin under his touch. I opened my mouth and arched into his palm as he teased the hard peak of my nipple until I twitched with every pass of his calloused thumb.

Then he brought the other hand that had slipped under the hem of my shirt around to slip fingers between my legs and tease me there.

I gasped. My head thunked back against the tree and I braced on his chest, panting, as he entered me first with one finger, then two, beckoning inside me in slow, firm strokes that set my body shivering and jolting.

I couldn’t take the sight of him. It was too much.

I closed my eyes and let my head sink back.

And when I breathed his name, he kissed his way down my body, first my neck, then between my breasts, sucking at one nipple, then the other, before slowly easing down.

And just as I would have stopped him, when I grew overwhelmed, he removed his fingers and planted that hand on my hip, pressing me into the tree and shifting my weight as he cupped his hand behind my other knee and lifted, hooking my leg over his shoulder where he knelt before me, and slid his tongue against me, sipping at me and sucking so that my body never stopped trembling.

I cried out. My knees trembled. If he hadn’t kept my hip pinned and my leg over his shoulder, I might have fallen. But he growled against my heated flesh, then flicked his tongue over and over, sending my body into spasms.

“Donavyn—I’m… Donavyn!”

Moments later, my shriek rose over the trees to meet Akhane’s cry as I bowed and bucked, the orgasm spearing through my body with such intensity I could only grip his hair and cry out.

And the moment I breathed again, the moment I slumped, he muttered a curse and dropped my knee—catching my weight when I sagged—and lifted me so my hips were higher than his, urging me to curl my legs around his waist.

I grabbed for his precious face and pulled his chin up, kissing him with all the desperation and tremulous hope that had taken root in my heart.

When he slid me down his body and took me to the hilt in one thrust, I gasped again, and he bellowed as we joined in an explosion of everything I wanted.

I was a mess, shaking, whimpering, my body spasming, clenching on him, so that his thrusts became a hammering insistence that ratcheted my pleasure up and up, until I barely had the strength to hold on.

I clawed his hair back from his face and panted down at him, gasping and bewildered by the chaos in my body—and the incredible, tumultuous bliss.

Then, with teeth bared and gritted, he looked up at me and seeing him so desperate, something flashed between us—that hole in my chest that was him , swelled, crackling with electric need.

He gave a guttural rasp of my name, as somewhere to the west, Kgosi roared, startling birds from the trees.

Then I was treated to the sight of the strong, oh-so-disciplined Donavyn Arsen falling apart in my arms, and in my body. I clawed my fingers into his hair and held him there, gazing down on the beauty of his twitching, rippling body, gasping his joy as he came.

And as we slumped against the tree together, he dropped his forehead to my chest, panting against my skin, and I smiled through my tears of relief.

He’d never looked away. Not when I came. Not when he did.

He’d stayed with me.

And there was no shame in his gaze. No shadow in that warm swell shaped like him in my chest.

“Mine,” he said in a guttural rasp. “You’re mine , Bren. And I’ll make sure every motherfucker alive knows it.”