Page 69 of Beneath Scales and Shadows
The implications crashed through Sora’s mind with stunning force. “You bound us?”
“The ritual joins life forces,” Zalaya explained, arranging healing herbs beside the bed. “Not a full mating bond, but something almost as profound. His strength flows into you when needed. Your pain is his. His emotions yours to sense.”
“And mine his?” Sora asked, suddenly conscious of the tangle of feelings coursing through her—confusion, gratitude, and something deeper she wasn’t ready to name.
Zalaya nodded, wings shifting as she prepared a tincture. “The bond allows you to sense one another, to draw strength across distance. It can never be severed.”
Asher pressed a cool cloth to Sora’s forehead. “You’ll notice increased sensitivity to magical energies, enhanced awareness of your surroundings. These are side effects of sharing draconic essence.”
“Like my dream,” Sora murmured, remembering the shrine, the statue, the blinding light.
Ignis’s head lifted sharply.“What dream?”
“We were flying. You took me to a shrine in a lake—a statue of an elf surrounded by wulfkin.”
Asher nearly dropped his healing supplies. “The Weeping Shrine,” he whispered, exchanging a shocked glance with Zalaya. “A sacred place known only to clan elders.”
“The blood bond deepens your connection to Artania itself,” Zalaya explained, her voice softening with something like reverence. “The Moon Goddess speaks to you through visions.”
After the healers finished their examination, promising to return later, Sora found herself alone with Ignis. The scale at her side pulsed with warmth, responding to his proximity.
Ignis shifted to his dragoon form, scales flowing like liquid fire until he stood beside her bed in his half-human state. The change brought him closer to her size but did nothing to diminish the power radiating from his form.
“I had no choice,” he said, voice rough with emotion. His crimson gaze wouldn’t meet hers. “You were slipping away. The poison had nearly claimed you.”
Sora sat up carefully, testing her body’s strength. The movement should have caused pain, yet she felt only a dull ache where the wound had been. “You saved my life.”
“At what cost?” His tail lashed behind him, betraying his agitation. “I swore I would never take your choices from you. That all decisions would be yours to make.” His jaw clenched, scales darkening with shame. “Yet when faced with losing you, my selfishness prevailed.”
Something softened in Sora at the raw vulnerability in his confession. This powerful being, this king who commanded legions with a thought, stood before her laid bare by fear of her rejection.
“Is that what you believe?” she asked, remembering the devotion she’d felt flowing from him. “That saving my life was selfish?”
“Binding you to me without consent?” His wings folded tighter against his back. “Yes.”
Sora reached for his hand, her fingers small against his scaled palm. “I stepped between you and that blade by choice, Ignis. I chose to protect you.” The warmth of his skin against hers sent ripples of awareness through their newfound bond. “Would you have me regret that choice?”
His fingers closed around hers with exquisite gentleness. “Never.”
“Then don’t ask me to regret yours.” She tugged him closer, guiding him to sit beside her on the edge of the bed. “You gave part of yourself to save me. That’s not selfishness—that’s sacrifice.”
His thumb traced circles on her palm, each motion sending sparks of heat up her arm. Through their bond, she sensed his relief mingling with lingering doubt.
“You don’t hate me for binding you?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
Sora shook her head, a small smile forming. “How could I hate the one who gave me part of his heart? Literally?”
Something shifted in his expression—tension melting into cautious hope. His free hand rose to her face, talons carefully retracted as he brushed a strand of hair from her cheek. The touch sent a current through their bond, his desire flowing into her awareness with startling clarity.
Want. Need. Restraint.
Her breath caught as the intensity of his emotions washed over her. The bond amplified everything, transforming what might have been subtle attraction into consuming hunger. His scent—midnight stone and ancient fire—filled her senses, calling to something primal within her.
“I can feel what you feel,” she whispered, her own desire building in response to his.
“Not everything,” he murmured, eyes darkening. “I shield the worst of it.”
“Why?”
