Page 34

~Ariana~

“He needs you, Ari.”

That was what Kai had communicated through our mind-link just after I’d finished up erecting that special perpetual ward to protect the Chief Sanctuary Zone.

We walked side-by-side through the corridors of Maven Academy.

“It’s been hours,” Kai was uttering, his worry for Vorzyr coming through painfully.

I was right there with him there.

It wasn’t like our dragon at all.

He’d grown so close to us that it was no secret to me that he couldn’t stand to be away from us for very long. Certainly not hours at a time if it could be helped.

That was how much of a state he was in after what he’d viewed in Grandfather’s lab through the Stone of Recollection.

Kai had told me all about it the moment I’d teleported to the gates of Maven Academy to meet him, the place where he’d been casting a tracking spell in a bid to find Vorzyr.

And it was fucking brutal what had been revealed.

What Malrik had done… and with Draco, no less… betraying his own kind and altering the Titanus bloodline in such a way… it was beyond heavy.

“He’s here now. I can feel him,” I reassured Kai, slipping my hand into his.

“Me too.” He winced. “His power is pulsing from within. Volatile. Unstable. On the verge of all-out raging.”

We reached Vorzyr’s dorm room, and Kai knocked.

But then a strained, “Leave me be, Kai,” sounded from within.

“Leave him be?” Kai muttered, eyeing me incredulously. “After I’ve been searching him out for hours? After he’d cloaked himself, making it impossible for me to find him with a simple tracking spell? After he’d left that vault in a highly worrying state?”

“I know, baby,” I said, giving his hand a squeeze.

But it wasn’t quite enough to calm him after it had been building up for hours. And he eased from my grip, then called his magic and thrust it at the door.

It flew open, almost ripping off its hinges in the process, and then he was across the threshold and storming right on in.

I peered inside, needing to see how Vorzyr reacted, so I could gauge his state of mind.

He was leaning against the open window, his fingers digging into the windowsill, head hung, his body hunched over as he panted, clearly struggling for control.

Oh no.

Upon Kai’s aggressive entrance, he spun, eyes narrowing. “You can’t be here right now.”

“I can’t, hmm?”

“Kai, I’m not fucking playing,” he rumbled.

“Neither am I.”

He blew out a breath and shoved a hand through his hair. “I’m fine, okay? I shifted and flew in dragon form for hours, and now I feel better.”

“Is that right?”

A couple of beats passed before he managed to utter, “Yes.”

He could barely hold Kai’s gaze steadily. Not to mention, there’d been a break in his voice just from that one word.

And , more telling than anything else, he hadn’t sensed me hidden off to the side just outside the door.

My poor dragon. He was in so much pain.

I pushed into the room, making my presence known.

In spite of everything, he lit up. The moment his eyes met mine, something in him uncoiled. Like the dragon inside him had been thrashing against iron and suddenly found air. “Ariana,” he breathed. “I thought you were… I thought…”

“Kai told me that you needed comfort. So I’m here.”

His gaze flicked to Kai, softening a little as he realized what he’d done for him.

“ You should have reached out to me and mind-linked me,” I told Vorzyr.

“I didn’t want to interrupt your big day.”

“You matter more to me than that. You being in pain does. All three of you.”

“I know… I just… I didn’t want you seeing me like this either… in a state… barely in control, or—”

“You don’t need to be at your best to be with me, to be around me. I want the real you, all parts of you. Even your pain. And I want to be there for any of you, should you need me, need comfort, need whatever in the world from me. I care about you. So deeply. Do you hear me?”

“Yes. Yes, I really do.”

I turned to Kai and stroked his arm. “I’ll see to him. I was going to surprise Nyx and watch his big presentation, give him support.”

“Say no more. I’ll go in your stead. I’d really like to see it for myself anyway.”

I brushed my lips over his and a soft groan came from him, before he looked between Vorzyr and me, then he teleported away.

I flicked the door closed with a brush of my magic, then stepped closer to Vorzyr.

“Kai told me what you all saw earlier. Talk to me.”

“I… I’ll be fine. I’m calming down more with every moment that passes.”

I folded my arms across my chest and settled in. “Is that so?”

“Sure.”

“Okay, so if that’s the case, let’s discuss something else then, seeing as though I’m here.

” He went to respond, likely to brush me off again, but I followed up quickly, “How did you cloak yourself? You do possess magical abilities with your dragon magic, not just the fire, however that magical aspect isn’t enough to thwart Kai’s.

Not to mention mine, when I arrived here and employed a tracking spell as well in a bid to narrow down your whereabouts. ”

He frowned in thought. “I don’t know exactly… I didn’t want to be found and I… maybe I drew on my Primal Celestial Resonance ability subconsciously or something? I felt it roll through me, but only briefly.”

Wow. “It sounds like you may have channeled it.”

“Channeled it?”

“You drew out the Celestial power itself and weaponized it, fused it into a cloaking spell enhanced with Celestial might.”

“I… what? Really? That’s… I’ve never done anything like that before.”

“That can be said of both your Command of Beasts ability and the Primal Celestial Resonance. There was an accidental first time for each.”

“I… fuck.” He tugged at his hair and turned from me, stalking across the room, then pacing and spinning, his distress growing by the moment.

And then it happened.

He finally started to let it out, to give the truth of how he felt.

“This isn’t a gift ! It isn’t special! It’s a motherfucking curse!”

“I absolutely disagree.”

“How can you say that? Kai told you, right? What a demented monster my grandfather was?”

“He told me every detail, yes.”

“Well, that’s in my veins, Ariana. I’m tainted! I’m… damned! Him and Draco corrupted my bloodline to create more like them, like that twisted union of theirs made flesh!”

“Celestial power runs in your blood. That’s it. You’re not Malrik. You’re not destined to become him or share his fate. You’re not him. And certainly not just because you share similar power.”

“How… how can you be so sure?”

“Because Malrik was clearly a depraved megalomaniac. To an extreme level. Obsessive about it. He enjoyed inflicting pain and death.”

“I’m about power and might, too. You can’t deny that. No one can.”

“That’s your draconic nature.” I smiled, as I told him, “But as Kai has been so fond of telling me all our lives—we all have the ability to rise beyond our natures and even our upbringings, to carve out our own paths. They don’t define us in an absolute sense.

” I moved closer to him. “And you’ve demonstrated that.

More importantly, you’ve shown that you want to be more than that.

You’ve softened for me when I’ve needed it.

For Nyx, too. And even for Kai. Several times I’ve seen you not react on your baser urges or instincts and choose another option.

” I reached out and grasped his hand. “You are very far from being your grandfather.”

He stared down at my hand on his.

I jolted as his grip abruptly tightened.

His eyes flamed.

That was all the warning I got before he slammed his hands into my chest and knocked me onto his bed on my back with a force that would’ve terrified anyone else.

But not me.

Never me.

I only felt the thunder of his need—and the beauty of being the one he reached for.

In the next moment, he was climbing on with a predatory look in his eyes that sent a hot thrill through me that couldn’t be denied even for a moment.

His hands came down either side of my head, while his thighs caged my legs in. “Goddess… I… fuck, I need you so badly right now.”

I stared up at him. “I know. I know you do.”

“I need to unleash .”

I sucked in a breath. “I’m right here. Let go.”

He was all tension, all storm.

But he wasn’t actually unraveling anymore.

He was claiming comfort in the only way he knew how. And I was right here to help him take what he needed.

His smoldering gaze raked over me and he lifted his right hand and tugged at my wrap top.

But then he pulled back, his fingers just hovering there, hesitation, or more like him fighting himself, as he warned in a gravelly voice, “I’m not in control.”

“It’s not the first time I’ve experienced you like that.”

“This is different. In Meforian Forest that night, I still had more than this at the start. Much more.”

I reached up and slid my hands into his silky long hair. “Take what you need. Can’t you scent it? Feel it? I want you to.”

He needed me to see the beast in him.

And I did. Of course I did.

I just didn’t fear it.

That side of him called to me, just like all the rest.

A guttural sound broke from him—somewhere between a growl and a sob—and then his mouth was on mine, savage and claiming.

There was no slow build, no hesitation. Just teeth and breath and desperate need, like he had to consume me to remember who he was.

His fingers tore at the wrap top he’d only moments ago hesitated over, and I let him.

I let him strip me bare.

He dove down and destroyed my bra with his teeth.

Holy hell.

His mouth was all over my bare breasts then, licking, sucking, lashing and biting at my nipples until strained cries were spilling from my lips, need building so quickly, so fucking intensely.

I threw out my hand and fisted it in his white tee that stretched in that sexy way over his broad chest and all that delectable powerhouse muscle. With a rough tug of my strength, I had it stripped from his body in my desperation to feel him skin-to-skin.