Page 9 of Scorched by Fate (Drakarn Mates #3)

NINE

SELENE

The wind hammered at my face, sending a wild snarl through my hair and a hot spike of terror through my stomach. My arms tightened around Vyne’s neck—not because I didn’t trust him, but because trust wasn’t about to overrule every screaming survival instinct raging in my chest.

The ground plummeted away beneath us like it hated me personally, and for one long, dizzying second, I swallowed the sharp, indignant protest of a species that had never been meant to leave the ground.

Vyne’s hold didn’t falter. One arm braced across my back, the other curved beneath my thighs, anchoring me against the unshakeable heat and strength of him as his wings unfolded and snapped open with merciless precision. The sheer size of them—dark, rippling planes of muscle and membrane stretching impossibly wide—made the clipped edge of awe lurking beneath my anxiety harder to shove down than I liked.

I was trying not to think about the tail wrapped around my legs. Judging from the blushes I’d seen from both Terra and Orla, Drakarn could be wickedly precise with their tails.

Volcaryth unfurled beneath us, a hellscape alive with fire and stone and smoke. Crimson sands twisted into blackened cliffs, their jagged spines punctuated by menacing veins of rivers that glowed molten-bright against the scorched ground. Steam hissed from unseen rifts below, curling up into the shimmering waves of heat that distorted everything into a feverish haze. The air cut sharp and sour in my throat, tinged with sulfur so thick it clung to the back of my tongue no matter how carefully I breathed.

It was hell. And somehow … it was beautiful.

I glanced down, curiosity overriding my better judgement for half a second. Mistake. My stomach flipped violently as I registered how far we already were from the tunnels of Scalvaris. The cliffs were tiny teeth now, sharp and impossibly far away. I squeezed my eyes shut before the lurch in my stomach could claw its way up to my throat.

“You sure you’ve got me?” The words escaped before I could think about stopping them. I tried to make the question sound teasing, but it came out tighter than I liked.

Vyne’s voice cut through the chaotic wind, rough around the edges but maddeningly calm. His tone held no sense of strain despite the sheer size and weight of me that he carried as easily as breathing. “Do you think I’d bring you this far just to drop you?”

It was the dry precision in his words—not teasing, but not quite cutting—that had me snorting despite myself. “No.”

His wings adjusted, catching a rising thermal draft with an expert, calculated shift that had the cruel audacity to make me feel momentarily weightless.

Without meaning to, I was noticing things about him again. Details I didn’t want to focus on, like the ripple of his muscles beneath my legs and the press of heat through the smooth hardness of his scaled skin where it touched mine. Even his scent beneath the sulfuric sting of Volcaryth was distractingly, infuriatingly distinct—something rich and scorched and impossible to name.

It was too much. Too close.

My jaw clenched against the strange coil of unease threading low in me, and I resettled my grip on him like that would do something. His heat washed over me, unrelenting even against the hot currents of air buffeting us higher.

“You can relax,” he said. His voice dipped into something low and firm. “You’re safer in my arms than you would be on the ground.”

“Tell that to gravity,” I retorted, though not even sarcasm could steady my voice.

His wings snapped outward in a subtle tilt that sent us gliding on a slower descent now, the currents catching waves to lift us against the searing sky. “Humans need to adapt if they want to survive here,” he replied, the blunt, matter-of-fact cadence of his words landing heavier than they needed to.

I aimed a sharp glance upward at him, my lips twitching despite myself. “Wow. Thanks for that astute insight.”

He didn’t respond. But there was something almost deliberate in the flicker of his wings again as he settled further into the air current, arms shifting at my waist like the motion was every bit as natural to him as breathing.

By the time his wings cut into a sharper angle upward again, I could feel the strength in his frame flexing with every shift of the flight. It was natural, fluid in a way that couldn’t quite be called effort. His focus was sharp and unnerving, but there was never hesitation. Not in the way he moved. Not in the way he latched his hand tighter at the closest pull of hot wind, his claws brushing just barely against my skin.

The world blurred below, marked by endless fractured spines of rock glowing faint with the veins of lava that scoured the surface. The heat pushed harder and harder against my body with every fucking mile. And I hated it—hated the way I could feel the rhythm of his wings aligning quietly with the pounding pulse in my ears, hated the strange steadiness it offered when my instincts wanted chaos.

I sighed. “Is it always this goddamn hot?”

“It can freeze at night,” Vyne responded, his clipped reply carrying just enough authority to kill any expectation of sugarcoating.

“Hell of a tourism ad.”

One wing shifted just slightly, setting the wind curling close enough to rattle the strands of hair clinging to sweat at the side of my face. “We don't get many tourists.”

A hot wind slammed against us, fierce with its timing. His grip tightened briefly, just enough to keep me steady as he adjusted in a single motion. That seamless control—sharp and effortless, even as the gust clawed at us—set something coiling low in my stomach. I ignored it. Tried to. But it lingered, sparking against frayed nerves and tuning me too closely to the heat of his body pressed to mine.

We flew on like that, stretched tight between the hovering nowheres of earth and sky. The weight of his closeness grated against my already shredded composure, impossible to shake. By the time the broken peaks of volcanic cliffs rose beneath us, cracks against the sky, my muscles felt stitched together with something fragile and thin.

“Hold on,” Vyne said, his voice cutting through the thick air.

Instinct tightened my arms around him. Before I had the chance to second-guess, his wings folded in, angling us into a dive so sharp it seemed to pull the breath right from my chest. The wind churned around us, violent and hot, testing his control, but his hold didn’t falter—not once. Just before we hit the outcrop where rock jutted out from the cliffs, his wings snapped open. The force of it caught us, slowing us just enough for what should’ve been a smooth landing.

For him, at least.

My knees immediately tried to quit on me the moment my boots hit the ground. Adrenaline licked through me in waves, raw and unsteady, but his hand stayed firm on my arm, keeping me upright until I finally found my balance. Blood pounded in my ears, tangled up with the burn in my chest and the heat soaking into my skin. When he let go, slowly, it was almost too careful. Like he wasn’t sure if I’d crumple or not.

I didn’t. Not physically, at least.

A breath rattled through me, but it scraped too harsh, nearly sticking to the thick heat swallowing the plateau like a second atmosphere. My hands drifted to my knees as I leaned just far enough to keep the vertigo at bay.

“That,” I said between gulps of air, my voice cracking at the edges, “was objectively terrifying.”

A low sound escaped him—not quite a laugh, but close enough to knock my focus off-center. “You held up better than I expected.”

“You’re lucky I didn’t …” I trailed off. No way I was about to admit I’d been five seconds away from losing my lunch all over his armor. “Forget it.”

Vyne’s gaze lingered, heavy enough that I didn’t need to look up to feel it. It was the silence that got me more than anything—the weight of what wasn’t being said. Loud and crushing, louder than any words ever could’ve been. I straightened, swallowing hard against the dryness clawing at my throat.

A shadow flickered in my periphery, and I turned to see him holding out a small canteen. Its surface gleamed against the distorted light—dented and scuffed, as though it had survived more miles of this harsh terrain than I had any hope of matching.

I hesitated, just briefly.

Then I reached for it.

Our fingers brushed.

The contact was so small, barely enough to count, but it sparked through the noise of everything else. The heat of his hand—too warm, somehow even hotter than the blasted air around us—touched the clammy bite of mine, and something inside me jolted. My spine stiffened, my lungs turned traitor, choking my breath into a brief, stuttering hitch before letting go again.

He flinched first.

Just barely, but it was there. The canteen passed into my hand, but his fingers pulled back like he’d touched live flames. A sharp, gruff sound slipped from him, as if he’d meant to smother the reaction but hadn’t quite managed to rein it in. His wings twitched, a tension barely breaking through before snapping back under tight control.

I looked down, pretending I hadn’t noticed. Pretending my hands were busy with something as ordinary as unscrewing the cap of the canteen and not still trembling.

"Thanks," I said, my voice scraping against the dryness in my throat as I uncapped the canteen. I focused wholly on the cool stream of water sliding past the harsh burn of the sulfur-thick air. For a moment, it was the only relief in the oppressive heat pressing on every part of me, carving its way through the metallic taste left there by Volcaryth’s unrelenting assault.

Capping the canteen, I tossed it in his direction—not out of recklessness, exactly, but out of some base-level frustration that had hitched itself to my nerves and refused to let go. Vyne caught it so cleanly he might as well have anticipated my motion, his claws folding around the dented metal without a word.

“Rest.” The command was impassive, his focus barely darting toward me before it turned to survey the ridge surrounding us. “We’ll camp here for the night.”

“You don't have to tell me twice,” I said, retreating to a wide, flat rock hugged tight to the plateau’s central ridge. The surface burned against my skin when I perched on it, but I sank into the contact anyway, resisting the urge to lean back fully for fear my shirt might melt into the stone.

Vyne moved with sharp efficiency, every step precise. His tail snaked behind him, shifting grains of stony grit as he crossed the edge of the plateau to comb its perimeter. His body remained taut with focus, though nothing about it telegraphed alarm. It was a rhythm of constant readiness, practiced and almost predatorially smooth—the kind of presence that demanded awareness even when it didn’t actively threaten.

I hated that he drew my focus the way he did. His movement, the way the dark gleam of his scaled form swallowed every trickle of heat shimmering between the molten landscape below and the rock pressing beneath me. With each measured turn, his arms adjusted their balance against his armor, claws flexing—not in unease but in idle control, as if each sharpened edge had been designed down to its smallest detail for lethal purpose.

He wasn’t handsome, not really. That word was for softer things. Safer things.

What Vyne was … it didn’t fit into anything soft or safe.

And that dip in my stomach as my gaze moved along his line another fraction farther?

Definitely the heat.

Darkness descended on Volcaryth in a slow, simmering fade, turning the molten glow of the landscape into something ember lit. Even the heat withdrew, leaving a sharp breeze behind. I huddled against a wedge of stone, arms wrapped around my knees, trying to ignore the clammy cling of my sweat-drenched clothes.

Vyne settled across from me, rummaging through the pack by his side. Weariness seeped into my bones after the day’s flight, but it was the gnawing anxiety over the healers that kept me restless. I watched him produce a few strips of dried meat, and my stomach knotted. When he offered one, I accepted, chewing carefully.

His tail drifted in a lazy arc behind him, but there was nothing lazy about his vigilance as he scanned the sky every so often for threats. Even so, he placed a canteen of water beside me with a gentle motion. For a moment I resented that kindness, how it stirred a raw, unfamiliar ache.

“You’re worried,” Vyne said at last.

No shit. I swallowed the dry hunk of meat, trying to gather my thoughts. “The healers—the sickness.” My throat tightened, forcing me to reach for the water. “I keep picturing them, waiting … running out of time.”

His eyes searched mine. “We’ll find this blasted plant,” he said. “They’ll hold on until then.”

“You can’t know that,” I whispered. Fear and guilt twisted in my chest.

Vyne exhaled, his tail brushing once against the stone before it fell still. “What use is it to fear otherwise? Now eat.” He handed me another strip of meat.

I forced it down.

Later, Vyne beckoned me toward a slab of rock that formed a partial windbreak. I glanced at the sky’s bruised purple glow, night swallowing the last thread of daylight.

“You should get some sleep.”

The dropping temperature made me shiver even harder, and I wrapped a cloak around my shoulders and settled in, my knees pulled tight against my chest as the wind hissed over the ridge. My mind felt too loud for sleep, every half-formed worry fixating on Scalvaris and its ailing patients.

Time slipped.

It could have been minutes or hours of half-dream, half-wake, when the rustle of wings startled me. Vyne knelt close, his face caught in shifting shadows, the draconic lines seeming even more alien in the faint light.

“You’re trembling,” he said. “Are you cold?”

“I’m okay,” I muttered, but I couldn’t hide the way my teeth were practically chattering.

“Suffering will do neither of us any good.” He hesitated, then extended one wing around my side. The great, leathery span shut out the wind and was almost shockingly warm.

A ripple of heat spread through me. I breathed in, trying to collect my wits as the sudden contrast—bitter cold on one side, radiant heat on the other—made my awareness spike. Who was I kidding? Awareness and Vyne went hand in hand. Every time he was near, it was like my entire being was attuned to him.

Still, I shifted closer, letting my shoulder rest against him.

He lowered himself so that we lay side by side, not quite touching beyond the drape of his wing. His wing formed a canopy, deflecting the punishing wind, and gradually, my shivers calmed. I hovered in that strange half-sleep again, the day’s exhaustion pulling me under with awkward, uneven surges of rest.

At some point, I must have drifted into sleep. If I dreamed, I couldn't say of what, only that the shadow of a Drakarn warrior stood over it all.

When dawn finally came, it snuck in on a faint, pewter glow. My eyes blinked open to discover the cloak had been pushed aside in favor of something warmer—Vyne. My cheek tucked against his shoulder; one of his arms curved around my waist, claws splayed over the hem of my shirt. His other arm was beneath my head, his fingers near my ear in a loose, almost protective grip. Even more startling, his tail coiled possessively around my calf.

My pulse thudded in my ears. This was too close, too comforting. His body heat soaked into me, each breath measured and slow. I knew I should recoil, should disengage from the intimacy that threatened to tip over the line if I so much as breathed too hard.

But I didn’t. Not right away. I relaxed a fraction, letting the lingering chill recede a bit further. There was no time to waste, but for just one moment, I let myself steal the comfort.