Page 14 of Scorched by Fate (Drakarn Mates #3)

FOURTEEN

SELENE

His mouth tasted like promises and burnt honey.

Not the saccharine stuff people baked into pastries; this was darker. Charcoal bitter and still a bit sweet. I gasped into the kiss, fingers clawing the scales of his neck, their edges biting into my palms. His claws shredded the rock wall behind me, shards raining down around us. Heat radiated from his chest in waves, almost too much to bear.

His heat was a shield, pushing back the icy dread I carried for the healers back in Scalvaris. Just for a moment, I could forget the sickness, the uncertainty, and embrace what it felt like to feel safe.

To feel alive.

I didn’t know which was louder—the geysers vomiting steam below or the jackhammer of my pulse. My spine ground against the stone as his wings snapped open, blotting out the hellscape’s fading glare.

His tongue—long, relentless, perfect—flicked against the seam of my lips. I opened on a broken noise, letting him devour me like I’d been starved for this exact flavor of ruin. The growl vibrating against my mouth wasn’t human. Wasn’t gentle. His hips pinned me hard.

I wanted more.

Fear coiled low in my belly, a sharp reminder that I was playing with fire—a fire I wasn’t sure I could control. But it was a beautiful fire, and my better judgement could take a backseat for once.

The rumble in his chest deepened. One clawed hand let go of the wall to grip my hip, talons careful but the pressure bruising. His tail lashed, gouging fresh ruts into the mountainside.

His pupils were narrow slits, dark shards splitting golden irises. Nostrils flared, drinking my scent like I was the first clean air he’d tasted in forever. My hands shook where they clung to him, torn between shoving him back and dragging him closer until our bodies fused.

“Vyne,” I rasped, voice stripped raw.

His thumb brushed my jaw, calloused pad rasping over split skin. “You're shaking.”

“Adrenaline crash.” I bared my teeth in something too wild to be a smile. “Human thing. We don’t usually tongue-fuck walking furnaces when we're hanging off mountains.”

A muscle twitched along his jaw. His gaze dropped to my mouth, and I realized my lip had split. I didn't know if it was from the harsh air or his fangs. His growl returned, lower now, as he closed the distance. I braced.

He licked the wound.

The flat of his tongue dragged from my chin up to almost my nose. My breath hitched, nails carving trenches between his shoulder scales. He groaned, the vibration rattling my ribs, and did it again.

“Salt,” he murmured against flesh. “Sweet.”

It wasn't just lust now. It was possession, a claim. A shiver wracked me, not entirely unpleasant.

“Infection risk,” I choked, clinging to medic-mode like a lifeline. “Your mouth’s dirtier than a field medic’s—fuck!”

Blunt fangs grazed my earlobe. The hand on my hip slid around to grip my ass, hauling me flush against him. Every scaled inch scorched. The thick ridge of his cock pressed through our clothes, that unnatural fleshy tip writhing against me.

“Still scared, Zhyvarin ?”

The alien word rolled against my neck. I didn’t know it. Didn’t care. The ledge tilted or maybe my brain short-circuited as his tail coiled around my calf, tip stroking a path above my ankle.

“Terrified,” I lied, raking nails down the groove of his spine. “Can't wait to see how you devour me.”

God, I was terrified.

I was barreling headlong toward a disaster I wasn't sure I could avoid. But I couldn’t show it. Couldn’t give him that power. So I told him the truth in the voice of a lie, pushing him to the edge, hoping he’d pull me back. Or maybe that he’d push me over.

He laughed and reclaimed my mouth, and it felt like breathing after being held underwater. For once, I didn't care about anything other than him and me; that was what terrified me. The kiss was surrender and conquest, all teeth and dominance. I bit down hard and felt the metal of the barbell in his tongue.

He snarled, wings battering the cliff face as he spun us, pinning me against the heated stone his body had shielded.

Ash clung to the sweat-slick planes of his chest, collecting around shining nipple rings. My shirt hung in ribbons.

“Mine.” The declaration seared my throat.

The mountain quaked beneath us. I didn’t answer.

Didn’t need to.

His claws froze holding the shredded remains of my bra, the curved tip trembling millimeters from the clasp. The tremor in his hand would’ve been invisible if my chest weren’t flush against his, feeling the live-wire tension corded through his muscles. My smile felt like a blade—sharp, defensive, honed on decades of triage bravado.

“Need help?”

I dragged my nails down the ridged valleys between his back scales, savoring the full-body shudder it ripped from him. His green scales glistened under Volcaryth’s fevered glow.

Vyne’s growl quaked through my sternum. “Cease testing me.”

“Funny,” I breathed, rolling my hips to grind against the throbbing ridge of his cock still trapped under his pants. “I thought warriors lived for challenges.”

His gaze dropped to my exposed chest, pupils swallowing the last slivers of yellow. Sweat pooled in the hollow of his throat. My tongue darted out, traitorous, and his restraint shattered.

Blunt fangs scraped my collarbone—not a bite, a brand. Claws cinched my hips, lifting me until my legs locked around his waist. Sharp stone gnawed my shoulders, the bite dull compared to the furnace of his scaled torso.

“Don’t,” he rasped against my sternum, tongue lapping salt from my cleavage. The tip seared a path down my breast.

My laugh broke into a gasp as I felt his tail climb up my thigh. The ridged underside ground against my inner knee while the tip pricked a warning trail up my calf.

I fisted the dark hair at his nape, wrenching his head back. “Then quit treating me like I’ll shatter.”

Feral light ignited his gaze. A claw split the band on my chest, shredding the bra’s last threads. The material fluttered downward. His palms—scaled, searing—claimed my breasts, testing their give against his callouses.

“Yes,” he grated, reverence roughened by lust. A claw-tip circled my nipple, catching just enough to sting. I arched into the burn, and he groaned, canines gleaming. “Say it.”

I nipped at his neck, trying for anything I could reach. His hips pressed me harder against the cliff wall, tail teasing my legs wider. “Make me.”

His claws took care of my pants, exposing every part of me. Bitter air kissed my thighs as he shredded fabric.

Breath scorched my ear. “ Zhyvarin .”

That word. It sent a spike of heat through me.

His tail was a fucking menace. And I loved it. The ridged underside ground slow circles over my sex, each stroke making me shudder.

“More,” I begged.

Vyne’s snarl vibrated through me as he fell to his knees, and his tongue—fuck, that endless, wanton tongue and the metal nub within it—speared against me. He inhaled sharply, wings flaring, nose buried in the slick heat between my legs.

“Hot,” he growled, the word mangled by fangs. Claws pricked my waist, blunt tips threatening bruises. “You burn.”

I couldn't think beyond the feelings. His tongue flattened against me in one all-consuming swipe.

Lightning.

My spine arched, a shattered scream tearing free. He growled—possessive, feral—and continued the motion. Again. Again. The wet slap of muscle on flesh echoed off stone, rhythm syncopated by my ragged gasps.

“Fuck—Vyne?—!”

He jerked, a sound like splitting stone erupting from his chest. The tail and tongue at my core stroked harder, ridges snagging swollen flesh. I came apart with a choked wail, thighs squeezing against him as reality splintered into shards.

He didn’t relent.

The coil snapped again before I could breathe, his tongue now devoting obscene focus to my nerves. My nails found the membranous gap between his wing joints, gripping delicate tissue.

“Again.” The command left his throat raw.

I broke—body bowed, vision going white. The orgasm ripped through me, wringing a sob from my chest. Vyne finally withdrew, chin glistening, eyes void-black pits.

The fleshy hood of his cock twitched, weeping indecent pre-cum.

Where had his pants gone? I didn't care.

I stared at the scaled monster, vein-like ridges pulsing under strained flesh. Before fear could take root, I took hold of the base.

This was new. Something both alien and … intimate. Not just his touch, but seeing him so completely unleashed, so vulnerable. With the fear came a heady rush of power and ownership.

He froze.

The strange tip curled toward my grip, the alien appendage brushing my knuckles. Velvet-soft. Alive. Madness overrode survival instinct. He'd tasted me. Turnabout was only fair.

Vyne recoiled. “No.” The denial strangled itself. He tried pulling back, but I tightened my hold, thumb smearing slick across the slit. His tail spasmed around my thigh. “Can't be … gentle,” he rasped, jaw clenched hard enough to fracture. "Need you."

"Then fucking take me.”

He hissed, claws raking across rock above my skull. Then he grabbed only my hips and hooked one of my legs around him.

The first thrust shattered me.

He buried himself to the hilt, the alien girth of him stretching in ways no human anatomy allowed. I gasped out his name, nails tracing the scales between his wings. His cock pulsed—a living thing, veined shaft throbbing in me.

“Fuck—!”

He didn’t withdraw. Didn’t move. Just hovered, trembling, tail coiled around my thigh like a steel cable.

“ Zhyvarin .” That word, that special name for me, sounded like a prayer in his throat. Damnation. Worship.

I answered by driving my heel into the back of his knee. “Please.”

He growled and dragged out slowly. Agonizing. The scaled base of his shaft stroked against my sex, each ridge striking sparks. His cock’s swollen lip peeled away with a lewd pop, leaving the sensitized flesh throbbing.

“Need … you …” His claws cratered the ledge above my head.

“Try.” I locked my ankles at the small of his back, yanking him home.

He sheathed himself with a snarl, the snap of his hips rocking my spine against basalt. The fleshy hood fluttered against me, alive, as if it had its own rabid pulse. Pleasure scorched up my nerves, white-hot and vicious. I bit his shoulder, flesh and scales flooding my mouth, and he groaned, the vibration shredding my last tether to sanity.

“Look.” He wrenched my chin down.

His scaled hips pistoned. The tip of his cock arched upward with each withdrawal, glistening head questing for my clit like a starved beast. Alive. Ravenous. His claws nearly drew blood at my hips, the sting dissolving under the ache pooling in my gut.

“Vyne—I can’t?—”

“Can.” Fangs scraped my jaw. “Take it. Take me.”

The ledge quaked beneath us.

“Shit—!”

His wings thundered open, hauling us backward as stone crumbled. We slammed into the opposing wall, his forearm cushioning my skull. The impact drove him even deeper.

A supernova burst behind my eyelids. My spine arched off the rock as the orgasm tore through me, convulsive and raw. He roared, hips stuttering, release scalding my insides.

“ Zhyvarin .” His forehead pressed to mine, the word a fractured oath. “Mine.”

His tail coiled tighter, underside grinding that spot as he wrung my orgasm dry. I thrashed, oversensitive and broken apart, but his claws pricked my hips, forcing me to take every drop.

When reality staggered back, we were a knot of limbs and heaving breath. Vyne’s forehead pressed to mine, his purr vibrating through my marrow. His tail flicked against me, flexing lazily.

“Mine,” he rasped again, quieter. Surrender. Demand.

I laughed, the sound stripped to bone. My tongue was tied in too many knots to say anything in response.