Except me.
I’m the fire that melds with his blaze. But I’m also ice, a battle in my gut raging between the desire he kindles and my dread at what this would do.
I’d be tying myself to a male bound to another. A bitch who will never let him go.
But I don’t step back.
“What are we doing, Wregen?”
“We’re finishing what I started in that cave,” he whispers, moving his hand to the back of my neck and squeezing it gently. “You want me to kiss you. Say it.”
I should step back. This can’t go anywhere good or healthy. I’ll regret it if I let it happen.
But I don’t.
Wregen leans forward, his lips almost touching mine. “Say it,” he rumbles. “Tell me to kiss you.” His tongue reaches out to lick my bottom lip, sending a shiver down my spine, even in the warm water surrounding us.
The pool’s surface jostles as others join us—keeping their distance, thank the gods—and I still can’t drag my gaze away from my mate. He’s right. I do want this, probably as much as him, but I’m terrified to take this little step. I have no idea where it could lead or if I’ll come out unscathed.
“It’s just a kiss, my skjaldmær,” he says as if he’s reading my mind. And maybe he is, in a way. Our emotions are a bridge between us, even without me accepting the mating bond. “We’re not alone. I may be many things, but I’m not such a cad that I’d take you here, much as I want to. You belongto me, and if I ever fucked you, your moans, your sighs, your screams would be mine alone. I’d kill anyone who tried to claim a single one of them.”
The flare in my core blossoms, burning all of my resistance with it. It is just a kiss, after all.
“Fuck it,” I mutter as the last bit of my restraint turns to ash. But I don’t ask for it. I take what I want, closing the distance between us to rest my lips against his. I feel his smile, a hint of a laugh rumbling up from his chest.
“Fuck, yes,” he responds. And then he takes control.
Wregen’s hand tightens around my neck as his other palm lands on the small of my back and tugs me closer, fusing our bodies together. His tongue plunges into my mouth, and the fire that burned through me at his touch becomes an inferno. He’s plundering my soul, licking and tasting every part of me, and myneedto own him—to claim the passion and yearning and obsession that are hurtling back and forth across our bond—would bring me to my knees if he wasn’t holding me up.
He's mine as much as I’m his. I can’t deny it and it’s time to stop trying.
Wregen breaks away from me, stepping back abruptly with a growl. “Don’t you dare,” he grunts, his chest heaving as if he’s run vikus. He moves farther away from me, his arm lifting like it disagrees with the rest of him, wishes it could tug me close, but his gaze never strays. He’s watching me as if I’ll disappear if he looks away.
“What happened, Wregen?” I demand, a flash of anger replacing the lust that consumed me with his kiss. “What are you doing?”
“I felt you reach for our bond,” he growls, eyes flashing. “But there’s no happy ending here.” The corners of his lips lift in a smile that’s full of remorse and empty hopes. “Make no mistake, my skjaldmær,” he tells me, “I belong to Hel. Don’t you dare bind yourself to me. I can’t give you what you need, what you deserve.”
“I thought you wanted this,” I whisper, bewildered by this male the fates gave me.
“I want nothing more,” he responds, closing the distance between us as he lifts his hand to my cheek, “except your happiness. We’ll go to the dragons and I’ll do what I must to free them, give you back your beast at last. And then you’ll leave here without me, find the sun, and live the life you deserve.”
“And you?” I hiss. “You’ll go back to Hel, without fighting for a chance to go with us?”
“There. Is. No. Chance,” he barks. “Her grip on me is permanent, indestructible. I know this, as surely as I know you’re my mate. And as surely as I know that Iwillgive myself back to Hel so you can have the life you deserve. You can’t be bound to me when I do.”
His words drop me in a cold bath, all of the heat spilling from my limbs as my chest grows heavy. “You’re going to give up?” I spit. “You didn’t say would, Wregen. You said will. You’re not even going to try to break free of her?”
Tell him to speak with my draikani.Panta’s voice slithers into my thoughts, barely discernible, as if she’s vikus away and throwing everything she has into her words.He must know the fates’ plans and his place in them.
For a moment, I’m too stunned to respond. Shaking my head, gaze still fixed on Wregen, whose eyebrow twitches up at the shift in my emotions, I plunge into my soul, searching for the link to my dragon. It’s there, but I have no idea how she found the strength to send her words to me. I’ve never been able to communicate with her across such a vast divide.
“What did she say to you?” he grunts, glancing at Ruxi for a moment and then back at me.
“Has Ruxi been trying to talk to you?” I ask as my hand lifts to rest on his, holding it against my cheek. He doesn’t want to have this conversation, but it’s time. We need to know what the dragons do.
He turns toward the purple dragon. “They’re always trying to tell me something,” he complains. “I shut them out. I don’t want to hear it.”
“It’s time to listen to them. The dragons know something, and you’re at the center of it, whatever it is.”
