Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 69119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 346(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 346(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Every instinct ached at the sight of him. Bound. Feral. Burning beneath the surface. I knew it all intimately. The new human part of me demanded I flee. Survival lay in distance, chains and locked doors. But this wasn’t a series of tests like the gathering of ingredients for an unbinding tonic or a challenge of a curse. This was life. My life. My future. And even afraid, my future was him.
At the moment, he was hurling his body into the reinforced bars…and they were bending. But the second he spotted me, he went motionless.
“Lyssa. You live,” he breathed and reached out, tracing his fingertips over my cheek. Then he scowled and drew back, as if he feared harming me again. Regret and anguish radiated from him. “I cannot apologize enough. The look on your face as you fell…the blood. I will never forget it. And all of that, after I had harmed your people all those months. What I did to you was unforgivable and—”
“I’ve already forgiven you,” I interrupted, giving him the same words he’d given me yesterday. “I’m going to open the door and enter. All right?”
He widened the distance between us. “I want you close, but I don’t trust myself…”
“You won’t hurt me again.” The lock was coded to me and required only a print scan, which I initiated, even as I wobbled on my feet. Hinges whined, and the bars slid apart. I stepped inside the cell. Taron stepped toward me, only to wrench away, horror contorting his features.
“You need to leave,” he snapped and turned his back on me. I don’t think he meant to do it, but he huffed and a stream of fire sprayed from his mouth. The flames climbed the walls before dying, leaving more soot behind. A new dragon unused to his power.
“We must—”
“Leave!” he roared, and another stream of fire escaped. “If you stay, I will burn you. Already the desire is nearly uncontrollable.” He swallowed hard and shuddered. “I don’t know how you resisted. How you held at bay this hunger to flame me alive.”
My jaw dropped, hope igniting. Ja! We may have found a way to reverse this situation. Well, not reverse, but rectify in some small manner. I might have lost my dragon, but I could still be made immortal. In Taron’s fire.
What if I were the phoenix?
Did I have a pure heart? Nein. But as Adelaide once said, legends sometimes got things wrong. Here was hoping.
Chapter
Twenty
If ever your flame snuffs out—don’t let your flame snuff out.
-Humaning for Beginners: A Dragon’s Tale of Human Management
“Go,” I told Adelaide, my voice low and firm.
She looked like she wanted to argue, but in the end, she nodded and slipped away, the faint patter of her footsteps filling my ears long after her departure. Finally, though, I stood alone with Taron, the air thick, tasting of soot and smelling of ash.
He didn’t turn to face me.
The bars stood open—Adelaide’s doing, no doubt—inviting disaster. As I stepped into the cell, the muscles across his back rippled beneath bruised, bloodstained skin. A quiet tension coiled around us, heavy with things unsaid. But I couldn’t stay away. Not when a battle loomed. Not when we were running out of time.
“You don’t want to be near me right now, Lyssa,” he croaked.
“I don’t want to be anywhere else.”
“I won’t burn you. Don’t ask for it.”
A tide of compassion surged up and broke inside me. I knew the war that raged within him. And now I understood what he’d endured every time I told him no. Every time I fought what blazed between us.
“Taron,” I rasped, my voice cracking. “Love.” The endearment came unbidden, but it was right. Obvious and undeniable. Love for Taron shone as bright as the sun, all shadow and doubt gone.
Without fear clouding my judgment, I saw the truth so clearly: he wasn’t just someone I’d fallen for by circumstance. He was the love of my life. Terrible, perfect and inevitable. The storm I’d fought, but the anchor I’d needed.
Piece by piece, day by day, I’d ceded my heart to him. Now, there was no turning back.
“I’m not leaving,” I whispered. “But I am going to touch you. All right?”
He didn’t speak, just bristled, his shoulders rising. But he didn’t pull away, so I crossed the final distance between us and pressed my chest to his back, wrapping my arms around him, delighting as his heat enveloped me. For the first time since waking in my bed, I warmed up.
He drew in a sharp breath as I held him close and steady.
“Did Adelaide tell you my father is approaching with an army?” I asked, petting the hard-packed muscle under velvet skin.
He hissed. “Yes. We gave him exactly what he hoped for.” Bitterness tinged each word.
I kissed his shoulder, but relaxation never came to him. Guess I’d have to ramp this up a notch. “Will you play a game with me?”