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H argen

The mountains look peaceful from here. Purple shadows stretch across the valley as the sun bleeds out behind jagged peaks.

I stand at the window, rolling my shoulder where the last of Vanya’s healing magic sealed skin over ribs that should have been powder.

The burn scars have faded to silver lines across my chest and arms.

Everything’s changed. Viktor’s people treat me like an actual ally now instead of a convenient asset. Ember’s been working with their trainers, learning to control powers that shouldn’t exist. And Vanya…

She hasn’t left my side for more than a few hours since we got here. Not that I’m complaining. We have a lot of time to make up for.

The door opens behind me. I don’t turn—I know her footsteps, the particular way she moves through space like she’s claiming territory just by existing.

“How did the meeting go?” I ask as her arms slide around my waist from behind.

“Viktor’s satisfied with our intelligence reports. The Shadowhand’s network is proving useful.” Her forehead rests between my shoulder blades. I sense her inhaling my scent. “He’s offering us permanent sanctuary right here at the outpost, if we want it.”

“Do we?”

“That depends on you.”

I turn in her arms. The stress lines around her eyes are softer now, but she still carries tension in her shoulders like armor she can’t take off. Three weeks of safety haven’t been enough to undo all the time she spent playing the enemy.

“You look stronger today,” she says, fingers tracing the silvered burn marks along my forearm. Her touch sends electricity under my skin—has since the day we met; apparently, some things don’t change.

“I feel stronger.” The truth of it surprises me. Not just physically, though the pain’s mostly gone. Something deeper. Like the parts of myself I’d compartmentalized for decades are finally allowed to exist in the same space.

Her fingers pause over a particularly ugly scar near my throat. “I’m sorry. If I’d—”

“Stop.” I catch her hand, bring it to my lips. “You did what you had to. End of discussion.”

She looks up at me with those eyes that go molten when she’s feeling something she doesn’t want to name. There it is—that flicker of gold around the edges. Her dragon surfacing.

“I almost lost you again.”

“But you didn’t.”

The space between us charges with something that’s been building for weeks. Careful touches while I healed, stolen moments when Ember’s training kept her occupied, the weight of everything unsaid pressing against the boundaries we’ve maintained.

I cup her face in my hands, breathing her in like she’s air. “Vanya.”

She rises on her toes, meeting me halfway. The kiss starts gentle—comfort, reassurance—but her lips part under mine and suddenly it’s hunger. Hot and all-consuming, just as it’s always been.

Her hands fist in my shirt, pulling me closer. I back her against the wall, needing the contact, the proof that she’s real and here and mine.

“I never thought we’d have this again,” she whispers against my mouth.

Neither did I. The admission stays locked in my throat where it can’t complicate things. But she reads it in my expression anyway—she always could see through my walls like they were made of glass.

She takes my hand, leads me toward the bed. No ceremony, no discussion. Just two people who’ve been separated too long finally admitting what they want.

My shirt hits the floor first. Her fingers trace the network of scars across my chest, mapping damage and healing with equal fascination. When she looks at me like this—like I’m something precious instead of broken—it does things to my control I’m not prepared for.

Her own shirt follows. Pale skin marked with faint scales along her shoulders, catching the light from the window. They often surface when her emotions run high. Dragon traits she’s always hidden, always controlled. But she lets me see them now.

“Beautiful.” I run my thumb over the shimmer of scales beneath her collarbone. They’re warm, almost hot.

Her exhale shudders. “Hargen…”

The way she says my name almost undoes me completely.

I pull her down to the bed, desperate to touch every inch of skin she’s offering.

She straddles my hips, hair falling around us like a silvery curtain.

The scars on my chest press against the softness of her stomach and I forget how to breathe properly.

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” Her hands brace against my shoulders, eyes searching my face for pain or hesitation.

“Are you seriously asking me that?” I say, pressing my hips up so she can feel the hard ridge of my shaft.

She laughs, but it breaks in the middle. Tears threaten at the corners of her eyes. “God, I missed you.”

“Show me.”

She does. Slowly at first, learning the new map of my body where burns healed and muscle rebuilt itself. Every touch careful, tender. Like she’s trying to store this moment in case it disappears again.

But careful doesn’t last. Not when I arch into her hands, not when her breathing goes ragged, not when the gold in her eyes spreads until they’re pure molten fire. The scales along her shoulders darken, spreading down her arms in intricate patterns.

She’s gorgeous like this. Dangerous and perfect and completely mine.

“There’s something I want to ask you.” She pauses, hands flat against my chest, her body still intimately connected to mine as she presses her mound against my throbbing erection.

“Ask.”

“Among my kind, there’s a way to make this permanent.” Her voice drops, husky with desire and something deeper. “A marking that binds us beyond blood, beyond magic. Something no one can break, not even death.”

I know exactly what she’s talking about and it thrills and terrifies me in equal measure.

My pulse hammers against my throat. “What are you saying?”

“I’m asking if you’ll accept my mark. Be my mate in the eyes of dragonkind.” Her eyes search mine, vulnerable in a way I’ve never seen her. “It’s not something I can take back, Hargen. Once I mark you, you’re mine. Forever.”

Forever.

The word sends my mind into a tailspin. It’s the thing we’ve never been allowed to have.

“I’ve been yours since the moment we met.”

Relief transforms her expression. She leans down, kisses me with desperate gratitude, and I feel her dragon rising fully. Scales cover her shoulders now, her spine. Her skin burns against mine.

“When we reach the peak together,” she whispers against my lips, “I’ll mark you.”

The promise sends fire through my veins. I need this—need her claim on me, need the permanence, need something that can’t be broken by circumstance or politics or time. Half sitting, I reach for her, eager to make this real at last.

“Let me,” she whispers, gently pushing me back against the pillows. “You’re still healing.”

I start to protest, but her finger against my lips silences me. With deliberate slowness, she sinks down until she’s grinding against my cock, her weight a delicious pressure. The last of our clothing falls away under urgent fingers.

My breath catches at the sight of her, just as it always does. Pale skin covers soft curves that beg to be touched, full breasts tipped with cherry pink nipples that demand attention from my mouth, the triangle of pale curls that cover her mound.

“Fuck, I’ve never seen anything like you,” I murmur, hands sliding up her thighs to grip her hips.

“You’re beautiful too,” she sighs back as she rocks against me, the slick heat of her core sliding along my length without taking me inside.

A teasing, torturous friction that makes my hips buck involuntarily.

When I reach down to guide myself into her, she catches my wrists, pinning them gently beside my head.

“Patience,” she commands, eyes flashing gold at the edges. “I won’t risk hurting you.”

“You won’t,” I growl, but surrender to her pace, entranced by the sight of her above me.

She releases my hands to trail her fingers down my chest, careful around the healing scars.

Her touch lights fire beneath my skin, magic and desire intertwining until I can’t separate them.

When she finally raises her hips and positions the head of my cock at her entrance, I have to grit my teeth against the need to thrust upward.

The first slow slide of her body taking mine draws groans from us both. She’s impossibly tight, slick heat gripping me like a fist as she sinks down inch by careful inch. Her head falls back, throat exposed in a graceful arch as she seats herself fully.

“God, Vanya,” I breathe, hands returning to her hips, feeling the subtle texture change where scales begin to emerge along the curve of her waist. The contrast of smooth skin and silken scales under my palms is intoxicating.

She begins to move, rising and falling in a rhythm that starts achingly slow. Her hands brace against my chest, still exquisitely careful. With each roll of her hips, more scales shimmer across her skin—not a full transformation, but her dragon nature surfacing in response to pleasure.

I watch, transfixed, as gold bleeds into her irises, consuming the blue until her eyes burn like twin suns. Her control is slipping, and nothing has ever been more erotic than watching this powerful creature lose herself while joined with me.

“You feel…” she gasps, inner muscles clenching around my shaft as she grinds down harder, “…perfect.”

My hands roam higher, cupping her breasts, thumbs circling nipples that harden under my touch. She moans, movements becoming less measured, more instinctual. The careful pace dissolves as pleasure builds between us.

“Don’t hold back,” I urge, lifting my hips to meet her downward thrust. “I won’t break.”

Something primal flashes in those golden eyes.

Her movements quicken, the slick slide of our bodies creating obscene, perfect sounds in the quiet room.

Scales ripple down her arms, across her breasts, catching light like gems. The dragon in her is rising closer to the surface with each roll of her hips.