Page 30 of She Who Was Severed (The Ashen Chain Trilogy #1)

The square stinks of fire and collapsed magic.

You can taste it in the air—burnt stone, scorched metal, the brittle afterbite of something that tried to rewrite a city and only half-finished the sentence.

Most of the onlookers have scattered, but a few linger at the edges of the ruin, too stunned or too foolish to move.

They watch like the story hasn’t ended yet. Like it might still break open.

I walk forward anyway.

The cobblestones grind beneath my boots.

Loose ash shifts underfoot, tracing the paths of what’s already been lost. The wind doesn’t stir.

Doesn’t breathe. Just hangs like it’s waiting for someone to make the next mistake.

The Chain tightens at my wrist—not warning, not threat.

Just… presence. Awareness. Like it’s bracing with me.

Kellen stands across the square, half-shadowed by his dragon.

He hasn’t moved since the landing. Neither has the beast. Smoke still rises in thin trails from its shoulders and ribs, heat shivering in the space between scale and air.

The curve of its wings blocks out most of the skyline behind him. It doesn’t feel like protection .

It feels like a line.

He sees me. That’s the first thing I know for sure. Not because he calls out, not because he steps forward. Just the way his shoulders shift—slight, controlled—like my movement has weight again. Like I’m real again.

I stop in front of him. Not close enough to touch. Just close enough that the silence starts to feel dangerous.

He breaks it. His hand lifts, slow, measured, fingers open—not hesitant. Careful. The kind of careful that says he doesn’t know what version of me he’s reaching for.

His touch finds the spot just under my ribs. The place where the Chain broke me once. The place where the lie landed.

It’s not soft. It’s not romantic.

It’s a test.

And gods help me, I fail it.

My breath jerks in. The Chain floods my veins with heat and response, threads wrapping up my forearm like it’s remembering him too—like it never stopped. I should flinch. I should shove him back. I don’t. I just stand there and let him find the truth of me in the spot that still aches.

And maybe I lean in. Just enough to feel it. Just enough to remember what it was like before everything cracked.

Then—

“Ah, young love,” a voice drawls. “Touching, yet vaguely nauseating.”

Owen.

The moment fractures.

He strolls into the square like a man arriving late to his own funeral and delighted by the turnout.

His robes don’t match—one sleeve velvet, the other is coated in what looks to be blood.

A half-burnt match spins between his fingers.

His eyes scan the aftermath like he’s judging the destruction for artistic merit .

Kellen moves before I can say a word. Just a step, but his dragon feels it too. Smoke thickens at the nostrils. The pressure in the bond shifts, not hostile—ready.

I don’t blame it.

“Owen,” I mutter, low and flat.

He beams like I’ve complimented his shoes, which, to be clear, he isn’t wearing. “Am I interrupting? You two had that lovely tense silence going. I thought maybe we were mid-foreplay.”

Kellen’s voice drops. “Who the fuck is this?”

“I didn’t invite him,” I say tightly. “He just… keeps appearing.”

“Like herpes,” Vale offers, strolling in from the side with one knife already spinning between her fingers. She jerks her chin at Owen. “You know—ex-priest, superiority complex, chronic meddler. Thinks he’s clever enough to rebuild the world and insane enough to try.”

Owen places a hand over his heart. “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s said to me all week.”

“She’s not joking,” I tell Kellen, eyeing the dragon as its tail tenses. “He’s dangerous. But he hasn’t hurt me.”

“Yet,” Vale adds.

Kellen doesn’t ease off. “And he just… shows up?”

“Herpes, remember,” Vale says, flipping the knife once, then catching it by the hilt. “Can’t get rid of him.”

“Can I help you?” Kellen asks Owen directly, not polite.

“Oh, you already have.” Owen drifts toward the dragon, gaze bright. “You brought her.” He whistles low. “She’s magnificent.”

Before anyone can blink, he plucks a scale.

Just—reaches out and takes it.

The dragon’s growl isn’t decorative. It’s deep and grounded and personal. The air tightens around us like it’s waiting for a choice to be made .

Kellen steps in front of Owen fast. His hand hovers near his weapon—not drawn, not needed yet, but his eyes are locked in. Ready. Cold.

Owen holds the scale up like a trophy. “Relax. One scale. For science. I’m not going to summon anything.”

“Yet,” Vale mutters again, watching the tension brew like she’s got popcorn somewhere.

Owen turns the scale in the light. “Honestly, you should thank me. Most dragons don’t get properly cataloged.”

“Do it again,” Kellen says, voice quiet. “See how well that goes.”

Owen doesn’t blink. “Noted.”

Vale looks between the three of us and snorts. “Well, this isn’t emotionally complicated at all.”

I rub my temple. “Kellen, just… don’t kill him. Yet.”

“That’s a lot of yets,” he says.

Vale grins. “Welcome to Ashmere.”

And for one sharp second, I wish it wasn’t funny. Because it’s too true.

Too damn accurate.

Because now they all know.

Kellen, Vale, Owen—the dragon itself.

I’m not alone anymore.

And nothing about that feels safe

- x -

Kellen

The bottle is already open.

I sit with my back to the stairwell, spine pressed against the warped stone lip that rings the edge of the rooftop, and let the bottle hang from two fingers. It’s not good liquor. Not even strong. Just enough of a bite to remind me I still have a throat, still bleed like a man and not a myth.

Ashmere sprawls below me in crooked lines and slanted light. Buildings held together by stubbornness and sin. Smoke rises where the rain hasn’t won. From here, you’d think it was peaceful. Quiet. A city catching its breath after someone set fire to the gods.

I don’t feel peaceful.

I feel like ash still clings to the inside of my lungs.

I don’t hear the Chain, but I can feel it. Like someone’s whispering across a canyon I can’t see. Freya’s here. I know it in my marrow. But she hasn’t come up.

Yet.

The rain starts slow. Barely a mist, more promise than presence. It beads against the ridgeline of my shoulder, slides down the curve of my spine. Cold. Grounding.

Good.

Because the heat in me hasn’t gone out. It’s banked low in the chest, that simmering burn of having done something irrevocable. Virelle still smells like dragonfire and molten copper. The palace tower is gone. The Council’s compound gone. A surgical burn, clean and total.

I thought it would make me feel lighter.

But all I feel is waiting.

Then the stairwell creaks.

I don’t move. Don’t turn. I just drink. One long pull .

She comes into view like a storm behind the eyes—quiet at first, then all at once. Hair rain-dark and curling. Cloak heavy with mist. Her eyes find mine, and they don’t flinch.

Freya Thorne does not flinch.

She walks across the rooftop like she’s always belonged here.

The rain’s soaked through her tunic, the fabric clinging where it shouldn’t—lining the curve of her breasts, catching just beneath.

It sends something sharp through me. Immediate.

Uncontrolled. Like a nerve I didn’t know was exposed just got touched.

She doesn’t speak. Just folds herself down beside me, close but not touching, and takes the bottle straight from my hand.

Drinks.

Then passes it back.

It’s the first moment I’ve felt calm since I left her.

“I thought I’d lost you,” I say, barely a breath.

She stares ahead, jaw tense. “You did.”

A pause. Heavy with more than pain.

“And still—” I begin.

She leans in before I can finish the sentence I wasn’t brave enough to say.

There’s no hesitation. No sweetness. Just the hard, desperate press of her mouth on mine like something breaking loose.

She fists my coat with both hands, dragging me down like gravity’s suddenly working only for us.

The breath punches out of me—not from pain, but from the jolt of knowing she still wants me. Still chooses me.

Rain lashes harder. Slicking the stone under our feet, streaming down the line of her throat. Her tunic’s soaked, clinging to her spine, molded tight over the curve of her ass like it was stitched there on purpose. It hits low—sharp, visceral. I’m hard before I take my next breath.

But it’s not just arousal .

It’s older. Deeper. A hum behind my ribs that feels like a vow I didn’t know I’d made. Something that only answers to her.

I push her back against the roof’s edge. Not rough—just certain. Her breath hitches. Her hands are already on my coat, yanking it open like it’s a cage she refuses to leave me inside.

I kiss her like I need to memorize the shape of her defiance. She answers like it’s survival. My hands move—waist, ribs, the shaking center of her chest—and I feel the heat of her through soaked fabric.

She pulls her tunic over her head.

Tosses it to the stone without flinching.

Lightning cracks somewhere distant. I see her bare in the flash—rain-wet, shivering, fucking radiant—and it knocks the breath from me.

Then I’m touching her. No hesitation. Palms flat to her ribs, thumbs brushing the underside of her breasts, fingers slipping down to the lines of her hips. She grabs the hem of my shirt and pulls. We don’t speak. We just strip each other down like the storm demanded it.

When our bodies finally meet—skin to skin, rain-slick and trembling—it’s like the world exhales. Her breath catches. My name tears loose from her lips, not said, but gasped, like I’m the first safe place she’s found in weeks.

The Chain moves.

It slides from her wrist to mine—not possessive, not urgent. Just… there. Threading heat under my ribs, winding slow up my spine. It doesn’t bind. It claims. Like it recognizes this, recognizes us.

And I let it.

Because this isn’t want.

This is worship.