Page 14 of Beast of Blood and Ash
"Yes," I whispered instead.
Omvar moved with the same methodical care he'd shown when picking up my herbs. Two steps forward, slow, giving me every chance to change my mind. He stopped an arm's length away.
I was so cold. And he looked so warm.
Another step, and he was there, right in front of me. Huge. Impossible. His scent reached me, not unpleasant, oddly familiar. Like hot metal and woodsmoke, with something underneath I couldn't name. My mouth watered, and my tongue felt strange, like I'd just eaten a chili but it wasn't spicy—just … tingly.
Slowly, Omvar opened his arms. His wings unfurled, creating a sheltered space between us. I hesitated, heart hammering so hard I thought it might explode. Then, with the last scrap of my courage, I stepped forward. Into his space. Against his chest.
Heat radiated from him like a forge, instantly warming the air around us. I stood stiff, uncertain, hands clasped tightly around my satchel, in between us like a shield. This close, I could see the pattern of his scales, the way they overlapped like living armor. The scars that mapped his body, silvery against the red. Some looked intentional, ritual markings, maybe. Others were clearly the result of battle.
Omvar moved his arms slowly, so slowly, until they nearly encircled me. Not touching. Just … there. I could feel the power in him, even without contact. The strength held carefully in check.
I shivered again, a full-body tremor.
"May I?" he asked.
I nodded, beyond words.
His arms closed around me, and his wings followed, wrapping me in a cocoon of crimson membrane and living heat. I tensed, waiting for the panic, for the horrible sense of being trapped.
It never came.
Instead, something in my chest unraveled, a knot loosening for the first time in … I couldn't remember how long. Omvar was solid, immovable. His embrace didn't trap; it anchored.
He smelled of safety. Of shelter. The hard planes of his chest were a wall between me and a world that wanted me broken.
Without really deciding to, I let go of my grip on the satchel and let myself lean into him. Just a little. My forehead rested against scales that were smoother than they looked, warm as sun-baked stone. I expected them to feel alien, repulsive.
They didn't.
One of Omvar's hands, so large it nearly spanned my entire back, settled carefully between my shoulder blades. The gesture was tentative, as if he expected rejection. Ready to withdraw at the slightest sign of discomfort.
"Better?" he asked, the word rumbling through his chest.
I nodded against him. The shaking had subsided. In its place was something dangerous, the desire to stay there, wrapped in living armor, protected from everything.
"I’ve got you," Omvar said quietly. "I promise."
In the arms of a monster who should have terrified me, I believed it.
5
OMVAR
I stompedthrough the marketplace and glared at anyone who had the misfortune to stumble into my path. The air in the River Market was always thick, a miasma of sulfur, damp stone, and the thousand unnamable scents of a city carved into the planet’s heart. It clung to my scales, a film of foreign sweat and unfamiliar spices I could never scrub clean.
I cared about one person in this Forge-forsaken city, and she wasn’t there.
But the imprint of her touch still scalded my scales. I’d stayed up half the night, body primed for more, chest burning, tongue tingling with the ghost of her nearness. The memory of her, small and shivering, fitting against my chest, was a brand.
She was mine, but she trembled in my presence like a frightened animal.
My own form was a torment to her. She’d let me hold her, though. In that one moment of desperate need, she had stepped into my arms. Would she let me again? Could I touch her without the specter of violence rising between us? I couldn’t let the thoughts cascade, a torrent that would drown my control.
Control was all I had left.
The market thronged with life under the oily pulse of the heat crystals overhead. Drakarn of every color bargained over lavaforged blades and shimmering bolts of fire-resistant cloth. The sound was a deafening clang and hiss, a symphony of life I would never truly be a part of.
