Page 12 of Scorched by Fate (Drakarn Mates #3)
TWELVE
VYNE
I stopped myself.
The edge of my tongue scraped against my fangs, heat surging up my throat as something inside me howled at the thin, slipping leash I’d kept anchored around the truth.
Her expression hardened again—a flare of defiance. “I’m not something to be?—”
“Gods.” My hand shot forward—not sharply, not in anger, but steeped in the raw frustration she pushed into every space between us. My claws brushed against her shoulder, feather-light, then froze when I felt her flinch beneath the soft but unyielding pressure.
Every ounce of me recoiled, a surge of self-control wrenching through my chest. But before I could pull back fully, her own movement stopped me. She leaned, imperceptibly but undeniably, just barely toward me. When my grip stilled—steady but quiet along the curve of her arm—she didn’t step away.
I couldn’t stop looking at her. At the fragile tremor carved into her jawline, at the roughness blooming over her cracked lips, at her lashes dusted with the ever-present ash streaking the rest of her face.
Her scent—fates above, her scent—threw every part of me into restless chaos. I burned brighter than the veins twisting deep through Volcaryth’s blackened heart.
Krysfruit. Smoked salt. Her. Always her.
“Selene,” I murmured, without meaning to. Her name cracked through my throat, more growl than word. “You don’t get to carry it alone.”
She stiffened a little beneath my touch, her gaze flickering over my expression like she was trying to read something there. “I do. I have to. I?—”
“You don’t,” I ground out, cutting her protest short. My head dipped lower, the motion instinctual, undeniable. The words I needed wouldn’t come—couldn’t. Nothing could bridge the aching space threatening to splinter everything. “Not from me.”
Her lips parted as if to argue or push me back into whatever tactical distance she thought she needed for logic to breathe between us. But nothing came.
And the sound of that silence was shattering. Deafening. Ripping whatever restraint I had left into useless fragments.
Her scent sharpened against me in unbearable waves.
I lowered my head without thinking. Closer. Dangerous. Every part of me screamed at once—not just desire, not just instinct, but something brighter, terrible in its force.
Her knees dipped, shifting her weight forward, closer to mine. And her breath—ragged and too quick—hitched just enough to shatter the careful tension strangling the ridge.
“Selene,” I growled again, hoarse and rough, a surrender wrapped in her name.
Control was gone. Fully. Terrifyingly.
I kissed her.
It wasn't careful. It wasn't soft. The moment was too raw for any of that. My lips crushed against hers before I could think myself around it; before I had time to stop and consider what it might cost.
Her warmth bled into me; her taste hit the back of my fangs—salt and heat and something maddeningly sweet beneath it all—and everything unraveled.
She gasped against me, surprise giving way to something low and startled, but she didn’t pull back. She moved toward me instead. Her lips, soft but cracked, parted beneath mine, not yielding, but answering.
Her hands—uncertain and shaking from adrenaline—caught the edge of my armor, trembling before curling tighter. The heat of them—small, human, too fragile—seared through even the thick, fire-forged metal, cutting into me sharper than any clawed strike ever had.
My claws flexed briefly. Just enough to linger near her sleeve and then tighten ever so slightly, careful but protective, just shy of helpless.
Her taste.
It built heat behind my ribs and poured tension into every inch of me I couldn’t anchor. My tongue flicked against her bottom lip—primal, entirely unbidden, entirely maddening in its sensitivity—and that was it. The last thread of restraint frayed itself to ash.
I angled my head, deepening the kiss until her breath hitched sharply against mine, a trembling gasp escaping her throat as her hands tightened against my scales. Not resistance. Not anymore. Her grip wasn’t something born of fear or hesitation; it was something closer to instinct, to need, raw and unfiltered in its desperate hold on me.
Her lips moved tentatively beneath mine, uncertain at first, but growing bolder. Her body tipped infinitesimally closer, shoulders rising with every fractured breath racing between us. The brush of her fingers clinging to the scaled edges of my neck made something deep in my chest curl tight, heat sparking low and dangerous where her nails raked against flesh.
Gods below, she wasn’t pulling away.
Sensations poured into me in waves. The tremor in her frame as it eased closer. The scent of her, impossibly rich and sharper now with her sweat. The sound she made, a soft, involuntary noise escaping her throat, when my claws shifted, just barely, to ghost along the curve of her neck.
My restraint wasn’t just fraying—it was disintegrating.
What was left of the logical side of me screamed to pull back, to stop giving in to the raw instinct and rein in control before everything tipped past the point of no return. But the connection between us was already burning too bright, too consuming. Her scent invaded every inch of my senses. Her taste lingered on every edge of my tongue, more potent than any flame Volcaryth had ever birthed into existence.
I couldn’t think.
Only feel.
My claws, still trembling from restraint, flexed where they cupped the slope of her shoulder. It wasn’t enough. Couldn’t be. The undercurrent pouring heat straight into my blood demanded more.
I slid one hand lower until my claws hovered delicately at the edge of her waist, the thin fabric of her shirt a useless barrier against the blistering heat growing between us. Her breath stuttered as soon as she felt the shift, her chest rising sharply against mine before melting into the pull of my weight anchoring her closer.
Her lips parted farther, and the brush of her tongue sent electricity sparking up my spine, setting fire to every thread of self-control I still had.
I growled—low, deep, possessive—a sound I barely recognized as mine.
Her response? She trembled, yes, but not from fear. Instead, her body leaned forward, tipping against me as though drawn into the same unbearable pull threatening to unmake me. Her nails dug against the curve where my neck met my shoulder, testing the edge of my scales, and the subtle scratch of it sent another shudder rippling through me.
Something feral clawed its way to the surface. Buried for too long, ignored for longer. The sheer rightness of her against me—of her taste, her touch, her breath threading into mine—forced every sharp edge of my instincts into blinding want.
She fit against me too perfectly.
I broke the kiss, though it felt more like wrenching myself out past the event horizon of something unstoppable. My lips dragged away slowly, reluctantly, while every inch of my body fought the loss. I stopped when only the smallest space separated us, our shared breaths still mixing in shallow, uneven rhythm.
My wings trembled, the strain of holding them tight against my back just as agonizing as the distance I now forced between us. Her scent—gods, her scent swarmed my airways, still heavy, still drowning me in her.
Her lips—kiss-swollen and perfect—parted as though she wanted to say something. But the words didn’t come. Only her breath emerged, soft and battered, her chest rising too fast and too unevenly as her heartbeat thumped loudly enough for my heightened senses to catch all of it.
Her eyes burned into mine, wide and searching, her expression wide with an emotion I was too afraid to name. Confusion. Need. Awe. Fear. All of it swirled beneath the ash-dusted surface of her gaze.
“ Zhyvarin ,” I rasped.
It wasn’t just a word. It was the name I'd dreamed up for her in the nights when I couldn't ignore what she truly was to me, when the dreams wouldn't let me go. It was lightning, scoring its way through my chest—a sound shaped by fate, dragged from the deepest corner of whatever I was becoming beneath her touch.
She blinked. Once. Twice. Then something sharp sparked in her expression again—less confusion now, but caution. Her brow furrowed as realization caught up to the shock threatening to carve its way through every sharp edge between us. Slowly, her hands loosened from their grip on my scales, her fingers trembling as they hovered, uncertain, in the burning air between us.
“What—” Her voice broke, soft at first, then sharper, biting out against the searing quiet surrounding us.
A thousand answers burned on the tip of my tongue.
None dared leave my mouth.
Instead, I reached for her wrist, careful to catch it lightly, my claws brushing just barely over the fragile edge of her pulse. One step closer. Just one. Just enough for my gaze to find hers again, unflinching.
“ Zhyvarin .”
The word slipped out again, unbidden but undeniable, soft and soaked in reverence.
Her brow furrowed again, the bite of defiance curling over her lips. “What?”
I couldn’t explain. Couldn’t risk it. Not now. Not with every nerve in me still locked between the ache to hold her and the fear of breaking something irreparable.
“Never mind,” I muttered, though the weight in my voice betrayed the words as a lie.
It did matter. More than anything. And the way her gaze lingered then flickered back to my lips, her own still trembling, told me she knew it, even if she couldn’t say it.
The silence between us coiled tighter, broken only by the distant hiss of geysers erupting against the ridge. My claws loosened reluctantly against her wrist, slipping back into the void that lingered between warmth and absence.
She didn’t move right away. She stayed there, shoulders caught between tension and uncertainty, her frame too frayed to dare finishing whatever storm of thought hung in her expression.