Page 40 of Forged in Fire (Dragonblood Dynasty #5)

R iven

The silence in the SUV cuts deeper than any blade I’ve wielded. Two feet of leather and tension separate us, but it might as well be an ocean. Every breath Iris takes registers in my peripheral vision. Every shift of her body against the seat sends heat rolling through my chest.

The strange new connection between us pulls tight as piano wire, vibrating with unspoken need.

I should focus on the road. On the rain streaking the windshield, the familiar weight of the Sig against my ribs, the details that keep people alive. Should do all of the things I’ve been trained to do.

Instead, I’m taking in the way fire flares in her hair under passing streetlights. The small sound she makes when she shifts position. The scent that clings to her that’s become as familiar to me as my own.

Nearly lost her. Nearly lost this before we understood what it was.

My hands tighten on the steering wheel until the leather protests.

“Riven.” Her voice rips through the static in my skull.

I don’t answer. Can’t trust what might come out if I open my mouth.

She doesn’t push. Just lets the silence stretch while Seattle blurs past us, neon reflections splattered on wet asphalt.

The city looks different now. Sharper. More vivid.

Everything looks different when you’ve felt someone’s pain echo in your bones, watched them nearly die while every instinct you possess screamed to protect what’s yours.

Mine.

The thought shakes me, makes scales threaten to surface along my shoulders. I’ve never belonged to anything except the Guild. Never belonged to anyone. But sitting here with her scent in my lungs and her pulse synced to mine, belonging doesn’t feel like weakness.

It feels like coming alive.

The Aurora Collective headquarters rises ahead of us—uncompromising lines that speak of power held in check. Security teams sweep the perimeter. Normal protocols for abnormal people.

I kill the engine in the underground garage, muscle memory guiding the SUV into a slot between concrete pillars.

The sudden quiet amplifies everything. Her breathing.

The electric tension that’s been building since we walked out of those caves.

It’s been killing me to wait. To have this thing hanging unfinished between us.

“Iris…”

She turns toward me, and the look in those beautiful eyes stops whatever I was going to say. Hunger. Recognition. The same desperate need that’s been clawing at my chest since I felt her terror and couldn’t understand how her emotions could feel like my own.

“Where?” Her voice is husky with want.

I don’t ask where what. Don’t pretend this is anything but inevitable.

“Your quarters.”

She nods. We move.

The elevator ride lasts forever and no time at all. Iris stands close enough that her shoulder brushes mine when the car shifts, and each contact sends lightning through nerve endings that seem to be firing all at once. Her fingers twist together, betraying nerves that don’t show in her face.

Good. This should be terrifying. What we’re about to do changes everything.

The third-floor corridor stretches empty ahead of us, lights casting hard shadows between doorways. Our footsteps are in sync as I lead her to the room we shared together just nights ago.

Everything is different now.

She pushes the door open, and I take a brief look around. Comfortably appointed but impersonal, like the rest of Aurora’s facilities. I saw it briefly when I came to her that night, but my attention was elsewhere. On her.

It’s on her again now.

Iris steps inside, and the air changes. Becomes charged, electric, dangerous in the best possible way.

She locks the door behind us, and the message in the decisive gesture is clear. Whatever happens now, nobody can hear us. Can’t interfere.

Can’t stop this.

She turns to face me, and time stands still. And then moves forward in a rush.

The space between us disappears before I can think about what I’m doing.

Her back hits the wall beside the door with force that should hurt, but her laugh against my mouth says she doesn’t care.

My hands frame her face, fingers tangling in burnished silk while I devour her mouth like it’s been years instead of hours.

She tastes like shadows and magic and coming home.

Her hands tear at my jacket, nails scraping leather as she pushes it off my shoulders. The garment hits the floor with the soft thud of concealed weapons striking tiles. I should care about weapons maintenance, about protocol, about a dozen practical considerations.

Instead, I focus on the way she fits against me. How her curves align with hard muscle and scar tissue, like we were designed for this. How her shadows reach for my fire without conscious direction, power recognizing power, completion recognizing completion.

“Riven,” she moans.

I don’t reply. I can’t form words. Can only show her what she does to me—hands sliding under her shirt, fingertips tracing the ladder of her ribs while she gasps into my mouth.

Her skin burns under my touch, dragon heat calling to dragon heritage in a feedback loop that makes scales shimmer across my forearms.

Her shirt vanishes, fabric whisper-soft as it pools at our feet. Then mine joins it, baring scars and muscle to her exploring fingers. She traces damage I’ve carried for years—the curved blade mark on my left arm, the thin line over my eyebrow, dozens of smaller stories written on flesh.

“Beautiful,” she breathes, lips against the hollow of my throat.

No one’s ever called me beautiful. Dangerous, efficient, lethal—those I understand. But the way she looks at me, touches me like I’m worth something instead of just a weapon that kills for money… it rewrites everything I thought I knew about myself.

We stumble toward the bedroom, hands and mouths never breaking contact. Her jeans hit the floor beside the bed, mine following seconds later. When she stands before me wearing nothing but moonlight, something shifts in my chest.

Perfect. She’s perfect, and somehow, she’s mine.

The bed gives under our combined weight as I settle over her, supporting myself on forearms that shake with restraint.

Need claws at my control, begs me to claim and be claimed, to seal this bond that’s been building since the moment I failed to pull that trigger.

Chose to step away from the only life I’d ever known.

But this matters too much to rush.

I worship her with hands and mouth, reveling in every gasp that escapes her lips, every arch of her spine that presses her closer.

Her shadows dance around us both, cool against overheated skin while my fire answers in kind.

Power flows between us, dragon calling to dragon in a harmony that shouldn’t be possible.

She returns the attention with interest, fingernails tracing paths down my chest that leave fire in their wake. When her mouth finds the scar across my ribs, when her tongue follows the mark left by a blade meant to kill me, I lose what’s left of my famous control.

“I need you,” I rasp against her ear. “Need to feel you alive.”

Her response is to guide my hand between her thighs, to where heat and wetness wait. She’s ready for me, has been ready since we stumbled through the door driven by desperation and instinct and something deeper than either.

I let my dragon rise to the surface, scales glimmering on my shoulders, the shimmer of gold in my eyes answering to the flames in hers.

She arches up against me, nails biting into my lower back.

Slipping my hand between us, I guide my cock to the wet heat of her core and slide into her, inch by inch, surrounded by her slick tightness.

Her hands dig into my back, and her hips tilt up to take me deeper, a low cry escaping her throat. My muscles stand out with strain as I push forward, deeper, wanting to possess her fully.

Then she’s there, her inner muscles fluttering around me as her walls embrace me, a sensation so perfect it steals my breath.

I hold myself still for the barest second, both of us feeling the connection of body and soul.

Her legs wrap around my waist, and she arches up, hitting that sweet spot that makes her cry out, eyes going wide and unfocused.

I pull back just a bit and thrust again, and she goes wild under me, demanding more.

Our bodies move together, answering the driving rhythm of the mating dance. The room fills with the scent of dragonfire, bodies sliding in perfect rhythm, flames reaching higher with each stroke. Her walls clench around me, a velvet caress that breaks my control.

“Now, Riven!” she gasps. “Please, now. Come with me!”

“Yes,” I hiss. My body tightens, pleasure pouring through me, before I release myself into her, a pulsing rush that empties my mind of everything except this perfect, flawless joining.

Soul to soul. Fire to fire. Dragon to dragon.

Perfect. This is perfect, and it’s ours.

But the bond demands more than physical union. Demands the claiming that makes a mate bond permanent.

The urge builds as we continue to move together, as her nails rake down my shoulders and her breath comes in short gasps against my throat. Instinct older than conscious thought, deeper than training, stronger than any force I’ve ever encountered.

“Iris…” I groan her name, not sure how to voice this overwhelming need.

She understands without explanation. Turns her head, bares the column of her neck in an offering that makes every predatory instinct I possess roar to life.

“Do it,” she breathes. “Mark me. Make me yours.”

The last thread of my restraint snaps.

My teeth find the join of neck and shoulder, piercing skin that tastes of fire and magic and everything I’ve ever wanted. Blood flows across my tongue—hot, sweet, branded with power that makes every cell in my body sing recognition.

She cries out, back bowing as the bond flares to life between us. Not just physical pleasure now, but connection that transcends flesh. I can feel her heartbeat as if it were my own, taste the emotions flooding through her system—love, need, completion… mine.

Her own teeth find my throat seconds later, claiming me with the same desperate hunger. Pain and pleasure blur together as she marks me permanently, seals what we’ve begun with blood and shadows and dragon fire burning between us.

The bond snaps into place with physical force that makes the walls shudder.

Power floods through us both—her shadows amplifying my fire until flames dance through darkness like living things. Our separate abilities merge into something new, something that belongs to neither of us individually but both of us together.

When the feeding frenzy of sensation finally crests, when we collapse against each other, breathing hard and marked with each other’s blood, the silence carries a different quality.

Permanent. Sacred. Unbreakable.

I roll to my side, pulling her with me so her head rests on my chest. Her fingers trace the bite mark she left on my throat—a perfect crescent that will scar, that will mark me as claimed for anyone with eyes to see.

Good. Let them see. Let everyone know I belong to her now.

And always.

“How do you feel?” I ask, voice still rough from what we’ve shared.

She tilts her head to look at me, and I can see the bond reflected in her eyes—gold threads woven through copper, connecting us in ways that go deeper than blood.

“Different. Connected.” Her lips curve in a smile that makes my chest tight. “Complete.”

I understand. The hunger that’s been eating at me since Romania is gone, replaced by satisfaction that settles into my bones.

She’s here, alive, mine in ways that transcend legal or social bonds.

The mate bond ensures we’ll always be able to find each other, feel each other’s emotions, share strength when one of us weakens.

Her fingers continue to trace the mark on my shoulder, and I feel the echo of her touch through our new connection.

“No going back now,” she murmurs.

“No,” I agree. “No going back.”

The admission should terrify me. I’ve spent my adult life avoiding attachments, keeping connections superficial and temporary. But lying here with her heartbeat steady against my ribs and her shadows twined with my fire, forever doesn’t feel like a trap.

It feels like freedom.

“I love you,” I tell her impulsively, realizing these are words I’ve never said to anyone before. Never had reason to.

“I know,” she whispers. “I feel it…” Her lips curl up. “I love you too.”

Her hand slides down my chest, fingernails grazing sensitive skin, and heat stirs again despite everything we’ve just shared. The mate bond ensures we’ll always want each other like this—not just physically, but with every cell, every breath, every beat of our hearts.

“I want you again,” she whispers.

“Already?” I ask, but my body’s already responding to her touch.

“Dragon metabolism,” she says with mock innocence that doesn’t hide the hunger in her eyes. “We might be here a while.”

My laugh turns into a groan as her mouth finds my collarbone, teeth grazing the mark she left there. I can feel her satisfaction at my response, taste the desire building in her system to match my own.

Outside, the world continues its business—normal people living normal lives without mate bonds or magical obligations or the weight of forever settling onto their shoulders.

But in here, surrounded by wards and shadows and the woman who’s rewritten everything I thought I knew about myself, forever feels exactly right.

I roll her beneath me again, capture her mouth in a kiss that tastes of blood and promises and the rest of our lives.

Let the world wait. We have claiming to finish.