Page 37 of Beast of Blood and Ash
16
REIKA
I was his mate.
His mate.
Some sick, cosmic joke, right? My body should have been screaming to run. I should have been sprinting for the door, back toward the river, clawing my way through six tons of rock just to escape the ancient, brutal certainty in his voice.
But I didn’t. Not even close.
My hands were steady as I lifted them. I uncurled my stiff fingers one by one. The tension that had become my body’s default setting, the constant readiness to fight or flee, finally just … unspooled.
I traced the angle of his jaw, slow, greedy, memorizing the texture of scales beneath my fingertips. They were surprisingly smooth, a mosaic of hard, living warmth. Each one bowed around the line of bone, a specific, textured heat that radiated into my palm.
He was all edges and ridges, a creature forged for battle, but I wasn't afraid.
My fingers ventured upward, skimming over a scar that split the scales, a raised seam of memory. He could have snapped thatjaw shut, could have drawn blood in a blink, but he held perfectly still.
A mountain, letting me touch him, letting me claim every part I dared.
His eyes shut, lashes a dark, thick fringe against red skin. Vulnerable. Reverent. For once, the monster from my nightmares looked like a man stripped of his armor, letting me see the monumental cost of his surrender.
For a long, breathless stretch, I just watched him, letting the moment settle, letting myself drown in the impossible security of it. The stone walls, once a cage, were now a sanctuary. It pressed in close, holding me up instead of burying me.
I wanted him.
The truth crashed over me, raw and scorching as magma. I wanted him to claim me. I wanted the way his presence burned through the terror, the way it felt to shed my old skin, even for a heartbeat, and go up in flames in his arms.
God, it was terrifying. The risk of it. The sheer, gnawing need.
But it was mine. Not fate’s. Not his. This was mine to reach for. Mine to take.
My body moved before my mind could find a reason to stop. I curled my fingers around the thick muscles of his neck and tugged him down until our lips collided.
It started as a brush, featherlight, his mouth barely moving against mine. His heat rolled through me, not the scorching pain of memory, but a living warmth that grounded me, burning away the chill lodged deep in my bones. It was a careful dance, neither of us willing to be the first to devour the other.
But the hunger built, slow and tidal.
His hands came up to cradle my jaw, so carefully, as if my bones might turn to dust beneath his touch. My own hands splayed along his skull, memorizing ridges, the slickness of scale along the sharp arch of his cheekbones.
Every nerve ending in my body was awake, screaming for more as his mouth molded perfectly to mine.
The kiss turned greedy, gnawing at the ragged edges of something deeper, something wild and dangerous that lurked just beneath my skin.
Our first real kiss.
The one in the training grounds had ended with that panicked flight from everything I wanted and everything I feared. Now there was only this. Only the taste of his heat and the answering bite of my own need as our mouths slanted together, tongues tangling, the ghost of honey passing back and forth between us.
Omvar let out a guttural sound, half growl, half moan, and the vibration carved its way through every level of my being.
He scooped me up, his enormous arms pinning me to his chest. The stone of the doorframe dug into my shoulder blades. I wrapped my legs around his waist on instinct, locking us together at the hinge where desire and terror and hope met. My calves bracketed the iron bands of his hips, thighs trembling with the effort.
We pressed together, a mess of mouths and limbs. The only music was the sound of my ragged breaths. His body caged me in, but it wasn't the kind of cage I wanted to escape.
The solid wall of his chest was a barricade. His hand cradled the back of my head, shielding me from the impact. I noticed with a savage sort of gratitude that his tail stayed away, curled safely behind him. He was giving me every inch of control. I knew, with a certainty that settled deep in my gut, that if I pushed him away, he would let me go.
Instead, my hips rocked into him, greedy and wild. The friction sent a jolt of pure fire through me, every clumsy grind stoking a bonfire at the base of my spine. I expected panic. Some part of me waited for terror to clamp down, for old memoriesto drag me under. But sensation flooded me, pure and bright and all-consuming. The solid feel of him pressed against me, the safety in the strength of his arms, the electricity of his mouth moving on mine.
