Page 33 of Risen (Love and Revenge #6)

Robin

T he fire that made me who I was didn’t come back gently.

It tore through me like a tide of molten lava, crawling under my skin, pressing into my bones until they burned with it.

My breath hitched, every inhale and ragged exhale a searing agony as I fought against the angry beast inside me, and lost. I stumbled, clutching at my ribs in the brief seconds I possessed arms, as if I could cage it, contain it, but the flames of my dragon magic were stronger than I was, passed down from something ancient, primordial.

The emperor’s body hadn’t even cooled. His death still echoed in the fractured runes above.

Smoke still curled from the rubble around me.

I could hear the court gathered nearby, but keeping their distance, fearful, waiting.

I could feel their eyes pressing against me as I lost my mind—and my control over my body.

The dragon raged against my attempts to regain human form. She had been denied for too long, and refused to be tucked away and made small again, shattering my human bones before I could even finish forming them, relentlessly driving me back to my dragon body again, and again, and again.

I tried to will the beast to understand that it was done, that the magic racing through us—the missing part of our soul that had been returned—would never be stolen from us again.

It was no good. I tried to warn my court to stay back, to keep the vulnerable omega away from me, even as I felt her creeping closer.

But all that came out was a roar of flame that scorched the air, licked across the shattered wood of the stage and the ballroom floor, and threatened to consume our mate.

This didn’t feel like victory. There was no relief. Only chaos and pain.

Then she touched me, her magnetic omega aura and her heady scent filling my senses, demanding I return to her.

The dragon wouldn’t listen to me. Wouldn’t trust me enough to let me force her back inside.

But at the sound of our true mate’s voice, begging us to come to her, the beast inside me paused long enough to take notice.

Mine, the fire inside me hissed as it coiled through my soul. All mine.

I gritted my teeth, fighting to breathe through it.

“No,” I rasped, though no one heard me, my voice a pained wheeze that was swallowed by a growl.

Not like this. Ruya would hate me forever if my instincts won.

She’d be under my control. She’d cower and bow and scrap, desperate to please her alpha.

And I would not see her broken. Anything but that.

And yet… “Please,” she said, her voice full of longing and her warm healing energy patching me back together over and over as the siren’s song of her omega nature called to me. “Please.”

My strong, beautiful, glorious true mate should never have to beg.

We can’t hold her, can’t pull her close and never let her go, without a human body.

I wasn’t sure if I voiced the words aloud, or only thought them.

But Ruya echoed the sentiment. I managed to see through the haze of pain and magic, my eyes riveted on the sight of her, kneeling at my side, her hands stained with the blood of my enemy, her sparkling silver hair framing her perfect face, her crystal blue eyes filled with tears as she begged for what we had both wanted since the moment my court dragged this stunning woman into my life.

You can only hold me with human arms. The dragon inside me scoffed. We could place her atop a pile of gold, curl around her and keep our hoard to ourself just fine without a human body.

But… You can only mate me with a human body. That stopped the crazed lizard in its tracks. Mate her. Now? Could we finally stop denying what nature had demanded of us for months, for what felt like centuries ?

Suddenly the dragon’s will and my own merged once more, the severed parts of my psyche glueing themselves back together so we could give our omega everything she asked for.

“I’m here,” I said in a human voice. My arms shook and my body felt like it had been run over by a very large, very angry semi-truck. But I reached for her, sank into the warmth and softness of her, crawled into her lap as we tumbled to the broken floor.

I was done trying to deny myself. I couldn’t even remember all the stupid reasons I had for so stubbornly denying the mate bond.

My hold on my mind and my body still felt tenuous at best, and Ruya felt like shelter.

Like home. Not willing to waste another second, I sank my fangs into her perfect skin, letting my alpha power surge through the connection and claim her. Mine.

The mating bond I had feared for so long coursed through me, settled into my bones, into my soul .

And I cursed myself again for my stupidity.

For my fear. Because this… this was what I was meant for all along.

To serve her. To protect her. To treasure her and provide for her every desire.

She was a part of my very being, and I had been incomplete without her.

The beast inside me settled, like a smug, contented cat in the back of my mind.

I sat up, pulling Ruya into my arms. Flames still rippled over my skin, and they danced harmlessly around her shoulders when my hands came to rest there.

I studied her wide, sparkling eyes. Waited for fear or revulsion to cross her features as the weight of what I had just done sank in.

But those emotions never came. Instead, she gave me a bittersweet, heartbreaking smile as tears spilled from those beautiful eyes, leaving trails in the dust on her cheeks.

Her lips brushed mine, soft and certain, and the fire inside me purred instead of roaring.

I could sense her emotions now. Her intentions.

I could feel the unbelievable, staggering love and trust she had in me.

And it was earth shaking. I hoped she could also sense what I felt for her.

And how I would spend the rest of my life trying to make up for all the time we had lost to my blind, pig-headed stubbornness and fear.

I dragged my gaze away from my mate to look around me, taking in the destruction. We had won. The emperor was dead. The court was bloodied, bruised, but standing. My birthright was mine again. And my true mate was cradled in my arms.

It had almost cost me everything. But for the first time in sixty years, I was whole.