Page 99 of Wings of Shadow
“It’s Kaisner!” I lean over the ruined balcony railing, voice cracking with desperation. “Stand down!”
The footsteps falter. Confused murmurs replace the battle cries.
I force my legs to move, to carry me down the winding stairs despite how they shake with each step. The cold stone bites at my bare feet, but I barely notice. All my focus narrows to the creature waiting in the courtyard—beautiful and terrible and mine.
He watches my approach with the stillness of a predator, but there’s nothing threatening in his posture. If anything, he seems... uncertain. Vulnerable, despite his size.
“Kai,” I whisper when I reach the bottom step.
His great head tilts at the sound of his name, ears swiveling forward like a cat’s. The gesture is so achingly familiar that tears blur my vision.
I take one more step. Another.
He lowers his massive head until we’re nearly eye to eye, close enough that I can see my reflection in those molten pools. Close enough to feel the heat of his breath on my skin.
My hand rises without conscious thought, trembling as it hovers inches from his snout. This close, I can see the scales, each one perfect and deadly sharp. One wrong move could slice me open.
I don’t care.
My palm settles against the warm obsidian of his muzzle, and the world shifts.
Power floods through the connection—ancient, vast, barely contained. It’s like touching a live wire, electricity singing through every nerve ending. But beneath the raw strength, I feel something else: the steady pulse of his heartbeat, the familiar rhythm that lulled me to sleep countless times.
He’s still there. Still mine.
A sound escapes him—part purr, part sigh, wholly content. The vibration travels through my bones, settling into the hollow spaces of my chest like coming home.
“There you are,” I breathe, pressing my forehead to his scales.
Without warning, he moves. One massive claw curls around my waist with impossible gentleness, lifting me as easily as picking up a flower. I don’t have time to protest before I’m settled onto the broad expanse of his back, hands scrambling for purchase on the ridge of scales along his spine.
“Kai, what are you?—”
His wings snap open with a sound like thunder. The courtyard falls away. My stomach lurches as we rocket upward, the ground shrinking to toy-soldier size below us. Wind tears at my dress, my hair, stealing the scream from my lungs.
And then, impossibly, his voice fills my mind.
“Trust me.”
The words don’t come through my ears but resonate directly in my thoughts, warm and familiar despite the strange method of delivery.
“I can hear you,” I think back, not sure if it will work.
His answering pleasure floods our link, rich as honey, sweet as wine. “Hold on, my love. Let me show you the world as I see it.”
We soar higher, until the air grows thin and cold. The city spreads below us like a carpet of stars, and above, the real stars shine with crystalline clarity. Wind rushes past us, but somehow I’m warm, protected by his heat and the curve of his wing.
Through our bond, I sense what he feels—the intoxicating freedom of flight, the power thrumming through his massive frame, the joy of finally being complete after years of carrying half a soul.
“This is who I am,” he tells me, vulnerability threading through the mental contact. “Can you love this too?”
I lean forward, pressing my cheek to the warm scales of his neck. “All of you,” I whisper aloud, knowing he’ll feel the truth of it through our connection. “Always all of you.”
His pleasure floods through me, warm and fathomless, a spiritual embrace of such depth I almost cry.
The sky lightens around us as we chase the dawn, painting the clouds in shades of rose and gold. We’re flying toward the sun itself, and for the first time since this began, I’m not afraid.
This is where I belong.
