Page 12 of Davoren
Those words, that approval in his inhuman voice, shattered the last of my resistance. I ground down hard, finding the perfect angle, the perfect pressure, and let the sensations crash over me like a wave of liquid fire.
The orgasm hit with the force of a lightning strike. My back arched, pressing me harder against him as pleasure exploded through every nerve ending. I cried out, the sound torn away by wind but the emotion carried through our bond. His satisfaction echoed mine, amplified it, sent aftershocks rolling through me until I couldn't tell if I was coming once or continuously.
My thighs trembled with the effort of gripping him. My fingers had gone numb around his spine. Every breath brought another wave of sensation as his scales shifted against oversensitized flesh. I collapsed forward, cheek pressed to the impossible heat of him, feeling his pleasure at my release thrumming through the connection between us.
"This is only the beginning," his words promised dark delights I couldn't begin to imagine.
Through the haze of aftermath, I became aware that we were descending. The landscape had changed, volcanic glass giving way to the lower slopes of a mountain that rose like a crown fromthe surrounding devastation. And there, perched at its peak like a fusion of nightmare and dream, rose the Black-Glass Keep.
Chapter 3
Theworldsolidifiedbeneathme with a jarring thud that sent shockwaves through every abused muscle. My legs, already trembling from gripping Davoren's scales, buckled the moment they touched the platform's surface. I caught myself on hands and knees, palms slapping against volcanic glass polished to mirror-smoothness by centuries of dragon landings.
Behind me, Davoren's massive form shifted, scales sliding against each other with that sound like armor plates grinding. The absence of his heat left me shivering despite the platform's warmth beneath my palms. When I tried to stand, my torn feet screamed their protest, and I watched with detached fascination as bloody prints appeared on the obsidian, steaming and evaporating within seconds.
The platform itself jutted from what must be the Keep's eastern face like a tongue lapping at empty air. No rails, no barriers—just a disc of black glass suspended over a drop that made my merchant's mind calculate terminal velocity beforeI could stop it. Dragons, apparently, had no need for safety measures.
I forced my gaze upward, and my breath caught.
Black-Glass Keep didn't just rise from Mount Kerynthos—it grew from it, as if the volcano had dreamed of becoming architecture and made that dream manifest. Spires of fused crystal twisted skyward in impossible spirals, their peaks disappearing into the perpetual steam clouds that crowned the mountain. The main structure seemed carved from a single piece of volcanic glass, but as my eyes adjusted to the scale, I saw the truth: thousands of individual obsidian blocks fitted together without mortar, held by some magic or craftsmanship beyond my comprehension.
Seven levels of galleries had been carved directly into the mountain face, each one connected by bridges that cascaded between them like frozen waterfalls. The bridges themselves defied logic—too thin to support their own weight, let alone foot traffic, yet they gleamed in the volcanic light as if mocking mortal understanding of physics.
I’d seen the keep from a distance, but people were forbidden from ever visiting or even coming within five miles.
My merchant's training kicked in automatically, cataloguing wealth with the same instinct that made me count coins in my sleep. Those windows set into the Keep's face—dragon-glass, each pane worth more than my father's entire warehouse. The perpetual-burn torches that lined the galleries weren't filled with oil but channeled directly from magma flows, an engineering feat that would bankrupt a kingdom to replicate. And everywhere, everywhere, dragon scales.
They'd been embedded into the platform's perimeter in decorative patterns that hurt to follow with human eyes. Each scale was the size of my palm, iridescent black shot through with veins of gold that caught the light and threw it back transformed.Shed naturally, I realized with a scholar's certainty—the edges were smooth, not torn, and they radiated a contentment that spoke of willing gift rather than forced tribute.
The air itself told stories. Sulfur from the volcano, yes, and the metallic tang of dragon-worked stone. But underneath, like a song barely heard, came something impossible: jasmine and heated honey. I turned, searching for the source, and glimpsed terraced gardens through archways carved into the Keep's lower levels. Actual gardens, thriving in this place of fire and stone. The extravagance of it—the sheer impossibility of maintaining delicate blooms in a volcanic environment—spoke of power that treated the impossible as mundane.
I became acutely aware of my own state. The dress that had been my wedding finery hung in tatters, more suggestion than garment. Silk strips clung to my sweat-dampened skin, offering modesty in only the most theoretical sense. My elaborate braids had come completely undone during the flight, leaving my ash-brown hair in wild tangles. My feet—I didn't want to look at my feet. The numbness was fading, replaced by a throbbing that promised impressive damage.
I was about to enter this monument to draconic power looking like I'd been dragged through the Fire Wastes. Which, technically, I had.
The mark on my shoulder pulsed with warmth that had nothing to do with embarrassment. Through it, I felt Davoren's amusement at my catalogue of his wealth, his appreciation for how quickly I'd assessed value and power. He knew I was calculating, measuring, trying to understand the magnitude of what I'd bound myself to through columns of figures and comparative worth.
But no amount of merchant training could truly capture it. This wasn't just wealth—it was centuries of accumulation by a being who could take whatever he desired. Every dragon scalerepresented a moment of Davoren's existence. Every impossible bridge, every gravity-defying spire, every bloom in those gardens existed because he willed it.
How many dawns had he watched from these spires, knowing his match existed somewhere but not knowing where?
How many times had he landed exactly here, the mark on his shoulder as quiet as death?
And now I knelt on his threshold, blood painting the glass, dressed in ruin and defiance and the echo of pleasure I still felt from our flight.
I pressed my palms flat against the warm obsidian and tried to find my balance in this new world. The blood from my feet had already vanished, absorbed or evaporated by whatever forces kept this platform pristine. Even my blood wasn't allowed to mar the perfection of his domain.
She emerged from an archway that someone with too much time and pyromaniac tendencies had carved to resemble a dragon's gaping maw, complete with obsidian teeth that caught the light like promises of consumption. The woman who stepped through those jaws moved with the kind of measured precision that spoke of absolute authority wrapped in silk constraints.
“A pleasure to meet the Lord’s bonded mate. I am Lady Scarlet D’Arnisse.”
She wore her beauty like armor and her deep burgundy dress like a weapon. The silk was so fine I could see the volcanic light through it, creating patterns of shadow and fire that shifted with each step. Her auburn hair was swept up in an architectural marvel that probably required a maester’s knowledge of engineering to achieve. Everything about her radiated control, from the measured click of her heels on obsidian to the way her amber eyes catalogued my destruction without a single muscle shifting in her face.
I forced my spine straight, summoning every lesson in deportment my governess had beaten into me. Literally, in some cases—she'd favored a thin rod across the knuckles for poor posture. That training served me now, let me meet those amber eyes with something approaching dignity despite standing there in tatters.
"You're his seneschal." Not a question—I recognized the type immediately. The power behind the throne, the one who ensured the great lord's wine was properly chilled while managing three different crises and a budget that would make treasurers weep.
Her lips curved in what might have been approval. Or amusement. With women like her, the two often merged into something sharp enough to cut.
