Page 140 of Pets in Space 10

Tyvaron

Icouldn’t take my eyes off her. The firelight painted her skin gold. Her short hair was tangled from sleep, cheeks flushed with warmth and dreams. Tonight, all her defences were gone, no sarcasm to hide behind. Only truth. Only her.

I reached across the space between us. My fingers brushed hers. She didn’t pull away.

“I don’t know what tomorrow brings,” she whispered. “But tonight… I don’t want to think.”

“You don’t have to,” I said, my voice low. “Let me think for you.”

I pulled her closer.

Her breath caught as my hand slid up her arm, slow, reverent. She felt fragile compared to my hard, tough scales – but I had learned fragility was not weakness. She was made of scars and softness. Both mattered.

She leaned in. Our foreheads touched. My wing arched behind her, sheltering us.

“I’ve never done this,” I murmured. “Like this. Not since I lost my body. My name.”

Her eyes searched mine. “Do you want to wait?”

“No.” I paused. “I want you. Crave you. I have ever since I first inhaled your scent in the forest. The beast in me didn’t know why it wanted you, but it knew it had to have you.”

I kissed her.

Her lips were soft, so very soft. She was all warmth and gentleness and home.

She melted into me. Her fingers curved against my bare back, exploring the contours of muscle and scale. I gasped against her lips, the sensation overwhelming – not just touch, but meaning. It had been lifetimes since anyone had touched me like this. Not in fear. Not in battle.

In trust.

My hands trembled as I guided her back, but I paused before laying her down. This was a cave – rough stone and shadows. She deserved better than rock against her spine.

“Wait,” I murmured, brushing her hair from her face.

She looked up at me, breathless and flushed, but didn’t protest when I gently tugged the makeshift skirt from her hips.

I laid it down beside the fire, then turned to the walls, ripping a thick patch of moss free – soft, dry, and faintly warm from the fire’s heat.

I spread it carefully beneath the blanket, creating a crude but passable bedding.

Her gaze didn’t leave mine once. She smiled – not at the makeshift bedding, but at the fact that I’d thought to make it for her. That I cared enough to try.

“You’re full of surprises,” she whispered.

“You haven’t seen anything yet.”

She sat down on the blanket and pulled her shirt over her head – slowly, sensually – baring herself to me without hesitation. Her skin was dusted with firelight, her curves impossibly perfect. Her nipples pebbled in the cooler air, and I couldn’t help but drink in the sight of her.

I swallowed hard.

“You’re beautiful,” I said huskily.

Her eyes softened. “So are you.”

I reached for the wide leather strap wrapped around my waist and loosened it. It slipped free with a soft sigh of fabric against scale, leaving me bare before her. I didn’t hide myself – not from her. She’d seen the worst of me already. Now she could have everything.

I knelt between her legs and let her hands roam over me, guiding my own to her body.

I cupped her breasts, brushing my thumbs across her nipples until she arched beneath me, her lips parting in a gasp.

Then I lowered my mouth, licking and sucking gently until she trembled, fingers tangling in my hair.

She arched into me, hands clutching at my shoulders, urging me closer. The sound she made when I took her nipple into my mouth – that sound would be etched into my bones forever.

She was so alive beneath me. So present. So real.

And she wanted me. Not the dragon. Not the beast. Not the weapon. Me.

“You feel…” she murmured, voice caught between wonder and heat. “Fuck, you feel incredible.”

I didn’t answer with words. I kissed down her belly, trailing fire with my lips. When I reached her thighs, I paused – inhaling her, savouring her – then buried my mouth between her legs.

Her gasp shattered the stillness. Her body jolted as my tongue found her, teasing her clit with slow, deliberate circles.

She was sweet and earthy, like the forest after rain, like something I had no words for – only need.

I licked deeper, drawing moans from her throat that stirred something primal in me. Something reverent.

I was worshipping her.

Her thighs trembled beneath my hands, slick and open to me, her body humming with trust. Her hands gripped my shoulders, her back arching as I licked deeper.

I felt her tense, then break apart around me, crying out my name – not my true one, not yet – but the name she’d known me by since the beginning. Tyvaron.

It still fit. But it wasn’t the whole of me. Not anymore.

I kissed her thighs as she came down, holding her close, breathing with her. My own body ached, blood burning through me like wildfire, every instinct clawing for release – but I waited.

I wanted her to see. To know.

When her eyes fluttered open and she pulled me up for a kiss, there was no hesitation in her. Only hunger. Only heat. She looked at me – really looked – her hand sliding around my cock, slow and reverent. I hissed through my teeth. The touch was too much, too perfect.

Then she paused. Her brows lifted slightly, lips parting in what I could only describe as fascinated concern.

“Stars,” she murmured, glancing from her hand to my face. “Are all dragon men built like that?”

A flush warmed her cheeks, but she didn’t pull away. If anything, her grip tightened. She gave me a slow stroke that made my hips jerk despite myself.

I tried to speak – to reassure her, tease her, something – but I was too far gone, too stunned by the feel of her skin on mine, the sheer intimacy of it.

Hazel tilted her head, eyes narrowing thoughtfully. “It’s… beautiful. And kind of terrifying.” Her voice dropped to a whisper. “Do you think it’ll fit?”

I let out a low growl, half-laugh, half-moan, pressing my forehead to hers.

“It will,” I promised hoarsely. “If we go slow. If you want me.”

“I do,” she whispered. “Gods help me, I really do.”

Then she drew me down into a kiss – and there was no more space between us, no more questions. Just heat, and trust, and the slow, sacred way we came together.

I braced myself above her, careful not to put too much weight on her body. My wings folded close, tail curled to one side.

“Tell me if I hurt you,” I said, voice rough. “Or if I go too fast.”

“You won’t,” she whispered. “I trust you.”

That word again. Trust. It shattered something inside me. In a good way.

I lined myself up, dragging the head of my cock slowly through her slick folds, just to feel her, to memorise every inch of this moment.

Hazel gasped, hips twitching. “You’re teasing me.”

“Yes,” I growled. “Because once I’m inside you… there’s no going back.”

“Good,” she whispered. “I don’t want to.”

I eased forward, slowly, carefully. Her body resisted at first – then welcomed me with a heat so intense it nearly broke me. She was tight. So tight. I had to grit my teeth to keep from losing control.

Hazel clutched at my arms, fingernails digging into my scaled skin. Her breath hitched.

“Still okay?” I rasped.

She nodded quickly, then pulled me down into another kiss. “More.”

I pushed deeper, inch by inch, watching her face the whole time. Her eyes fluttered shut, lips parted, cheeks flushed. Her thighs clenched around my hips, drawing me in. I bottomed out with a groan I couldn’t hold back.

“Hazel,” I said, my voice breaking on her name. “You feel like…”

“Like home?” she whispered.

“Yes.”

I moved inside her – slow at first, savouring the stretch, the pull, the way our bodies aligned like they were always meant to. She moaned, hips lifting to meet mine, her breath catching with every stroke.

The world narrowed again. Not to pain or battle or blood.

To her.

To this.

Her hands roamed over my back, over the ridges of my shoulders and down my spine. She traced the scars there, the places where metal had once been forced into me. And not once did she flinch.

“You’re perfect,” she murmured. “Every part of you.”

I buried my face in her neck, breath ragged. “I am trying very hard to believe you.”

We moved together, the rhythm building slowly, each thrust deeper, more desperate. The cave echoed with the sounds of us – breath, movement, need. I could feel her getting close, her walls fluttering around me, her moans growing sharper.

“I’ve got you,” I said, one hand sliding between us to stroke her clit in time with my thrusts. “Come for me, Hazel. I want to feel you let go.”

And she did – with a cry that turned into a gasp, her body tightening around me, pulling me with her. The heat, the pressure, the emotion – it tore through me like lightning.

Pleasure surged through every nerve, more powerful than anything I’d ever felt, and then –

Something shifted in me, deep inside my mind. And something else was revealed, rising through the fog.

My name.

Not the one they gave me. The one I’d lost.

Fallin.

Fallin of Clan Varrna.

My orgasm tore through me as the name echoed in my mind, in my soul. I groaned her name, buried inside her, shaking with the force of it. Hazel held me, arms locked around my back, anchoring me to this moment, this truth.

I was free.

And I was Fallin.

Hazel’s breath slowed beneath me, each inhale syncing with my own. Her fingers traced lazy circles on my back, grounding me in the aftermath. The cave, so cold and lifeless before, now felt like the heart of the universe – because she was here. Because we were here.

I rolled to the side carefully, bringing her with me so we remained tangled together. Her leg draped across mine. Her cheek rested against my chest.

“You’re trembling,” she whispered.

“I know.” My voice came out raw, reverent. “Not from pain. Not anymore.”

She pressed a kiss over my heart. “Then what is it?”

“I remembered.”

Her head lifted slightly. “What?”

“My name.” I cupped her cheek, tilting her face so I could see her eyes. “The one I had before the collars, before the masters and the blood and the fire. The name I was born with. The one they tried to erase.”

Hazel stilled. “Tell me.”

I swallowed. “Fallin. Fallin of Clan Varrna. That’s who I was. That’s who I am.”

She repeated it softly, reverently. “Fallin.”

Hearing it on her lips… it undid something in me. I hadn’t realised how much I’d needed it. How much I’d longed for someone to speak that name and know it meant me.

Hazel smiled gently. “Fallin. I like it.”

I leaned down, brushing my forehead to hers. “It means ‘sky-blood’ in the old tongue. I was named after my grandsire, and he after his grandsire. My people believed those with that name were destined to return from any fall. To survive. To rise again.”

“Then it fits you perfectly,” she said, curling closer. “Because you’re still rising.”

We lay there in the cave, the weight of the world held at bay. For a few breaths, there was no war. No past. Just her fingers tracing symbols across my chest. Just the warmth of her skin.

“I like this version of you,” she said eventually. “But I think I’d still want you, no matter what shape you wore.”

That nearly undid me all over again.

“I think,” I whispered, “that I was always meant to find you. No matter how long it took.”

And in the silence that followed, our fingers remained twined – two survivors remaking the world, one breath at a time.