"To what?"
"You. Breathing."
The words drop like molten lead between us.
I walk past him, pretending it doesn’t land. “Your camp’s a scrapyard held together with duct tape and threat levels.”
He snorts. “That’s generous.”
I pause. Lean against the wall. “They love you.”
His brow lifts. “They fear me.”
“No,” I say, voice low. “Theybelievein you. That’s worse.”
I sigh and lean into his touch.
But I don’t speak.
His breath fans over my lips, hot and laced with something primal. I feel it—not just on my skin, but deeper. Like a current humming through the air, tightening every nerve in my body.
“You’re trembling,” he murmurs, his voice more rumble than word. “Are you scared of me, little fire?”
“No.” My voice cracks like glass.
“Then what is it?” His thumbs press firmer into my jaw. “Say it. Give me something real, Jaela.”
“I don’t know if I can survive this,” I whisper.
Kyldak leans in, forehead resting against mine. “I don’t want you to survive me. I want you to burn with me.”
His mouth claims mine—not gentle, not patient. He kisses like a starving man. Like someone who’s waited too long and lost too much. I answer with my whole body, clinging to his massive frame as if it’s the only thing tethering me to gravity.
His golden-scaled arms wrap around me, pulling me off the ground like I weigh nothing. One arm, one leg gone—yet his strength is terrifying, godlike. I moan into his mouth, helpless, aching.
He carries me backward, until my spine hits the bulkhead. Cool metal. His heat. The contrast makes my thighs clench.
“Say it,” he growls against my neck, licking the pulse hammering under my skin. “Tell me you want this.”
“I want it,” I breathe. “I want you.”
He makes a sound—deep, guttural. Almost like pain. “You have me. All of me.”
His hand slides down between us, rough palm pressing against my breast. My nipple hardens instantly, the fabric of my top doing nothing to hide the way I arch into his touch. His claws are retracted, but his grip is possessive, demanding.
“You smell like desire," he murmurs, dragging his tongue along my collarbone. “Like need. You want to be fucked, little human?”
I gasp, fingers tightening in his shoulder scales. “Yes. Gods, yes.”
His hands are everywhere—on my hips, up my back, under my shirt. He tears the fabric over my head in one swift motion, baring my chest to the warm air. His red eye darkens, flickering with some internal light.
“You’re beautiful,” he says, voice low and reverent. “So soft. So fragile. I should be careful with you.”
He isn’t.
Kyldak lifts me, pinning me to the wall. His cock presses against my core through his pants—thick, hard, alien. I grind against him, desperate for friction, for anything that might ease the throbbing between my thighs.
“Touch me,” I beg.
