Page 21 of Davoren
Through it all, our hands remained pressed together, blood continuing to mingle and feed the contract that had gone from parchment to pure light. I felt the exact moment it settled intocompletion—a click in reality itself, like a lock engaging that could never be picked.
The light died. The pain receded. The transformation finished with a gentleness that seemed impossible after such violence.
I found myself on my knees on the chamber floor, gasping, shaking, but whole. More than whole—complete in a way I'd never realized I wasn't. My body hummed with new strength, new possibilities. The dress I'd been wearing hung in tatters, unable to survive the transformation, but I felt no shame. This body was mine and his and ours, marked by magic that went soul-deep.
"Perfect," Davoren purred, helping me stand on legs that felt newly made. His eyes traced the golden lines that now decorated my skin, following their paths with a possessiveness that made me shiver. "Absolutely perfect."
I looked down at myself, at the artwork the bond had made of my flesh. The lines weren't random—they told a story. Our story, written in a language older than words. Here, where the mark originated, flowing down to where we'd first touched, spreading to encompass everything I was and would become.
Scarlet had stopped chanting. When I looked at her, she was smiling—actually smiling, not her usual controlled expression. "Welcome, Lady Lyris, to your true existence."
True existence. As if everything before had been pretense, waiting. Maybe it had been.
"How do you feel?" Davoren asked, his hand coming up to cup my face with that devastating gentleness he wielded like a weapon.
"Different." I tested my voice, relieved it still sounded like me despite everything else that had changed. "Stronger. More." I paused, searching for the right word. "Yours."
His thumb traced my cheekbone, and the simple touch sent cascades of sensation through my new nerve endings. Everything felt more intense, more immediate, more everything.
"Mine," he agreed, and the word carried weight that would have crushed my human self. Now it just made me want to kneel, to submit, to discover what this new body could experience. "Now then, little one. Time for your first proper discipline."
The words sent liquid heat straight to my core. In the haze of transformation, I'd almost forgotten his promise. My eyes widened.
"You did enter a room marked private, after all." His smile was dark honey and promised consequences. "The bond may be complete, but lessons still must be taught. Come. Let me show you how dragons discipline their treasures."
Chapter 5
Thestonebeneathmybare feet sang a different song now—not the cold indifference I'd known as human, but a warm recognition, as if the keep itself acknowledged what I'd become. Each step away from the ceremonial chamber sent new sensations cascading through my transformed body, the golden lines traced across my skin pulsing with their own inner fire. Every breath brought more information than my mind could process—the lingering ozone from the transformation, Scarlet's amber-and-linen scent fading as she departed through a different passage, and underneath it all, Davoren's presence like smoke given form.
He moved ahead of me with that predatory grace, not looking back, knowing I would follow. Had to follow. The bond hummed between us, a living thing that made disobedience feel like trying to tear off my own skin. But it was more than magical compulsion—my new body craved his proximity with an intensity that made my human desires seem like pale shadows.
We descended through corridors that seemed older than the rest of the keep. The walls here were rough-hewn, bearing themarks of claws rather than tools. Dragon work, from before he'd learned or cared to shape stone with precision. My fingertips traced the gouges as we walked, and I swore I could feel the fury that had made them, centuries of loneliness carved into volcanic rock.
"Here," Davoren said, stopping before what looked like an unbroken wall of volcanic glass. The surface reflected us both—him still perfectly composed despite what we'd just shared, me naked except for the tattered remains of silk that clung to my hips, the golden lines of my transformation glowing like embedded stars.
He pressed his palm against a section that looked identical to every other, and the glass began to melt. Not shatter, not slide—melt, revealing a space behind that couldn't exist according to the keep's architecture I'd memorized. The lift that waited there was barely large enough for two, its walls made of that same volcanic glass, polished to mirror-smoothness.
"After you, little one." The words rumbled through the bond as much as the air, and my body responded before my mind could form opinions about the wisdom of entering such a confined space with him.
The moment he followed me in, I understood my mistake. Or perhaps it wasn't a mistake at all, but another form of the discipline that had already begun. The lift was small enough that avoiding contact was impossible. His chest pressed against my back, solid and radiating heat that made the golden lines on my skin flare brighter. Every breath I took brought his scent—smoke and spice and underneath it something wild that my new senses recognized as fundamentally dragon, fundamentally mine.
The lift began to rise with a violence that surprised me, acceleration pressing me back against him fully. My body, still learning its new sensitivity, interpreted the contact as lightning made flesh. Every point where we touched sent cascadesof sensation through nervous systems that hadn't existed an hour ago. My nipples hardened to painful points, and wetness gathered between my thighs with embarrassing immediacy.
"Your body knows what it needs," Davoren murmured, his breath stirring my hair, sending shivers down my spine that had nothing to do with cold. His hands came to rest on my hips, steadying me against the lift's movement, but the touch felt like brands even through his controlled temperature. "Already so responsive. The transformation made you exquisitely sensitive, didn't it?"
I couldn't form words, could only nod as the lift continued its rapid ascent. Through the bond, I felt his satisfaction at my response, his arousal building to match mine. But underneath it ran something else—intent, purpose, the focused determination of a predator who had already caught his prey and was now deciding how best to devour it.
"You trespassed in my private sanctuary, little one." His voice had dropped to that register that bypassed thought entirely, vibrating through the bond directly into my core. One hand moved from my hip to trace the golden lines that spiraled down my arm, the touch light but devastating. "Entered spaces meant only for my bonded mate before the bond was sealed. The Pact is complete now, but the rules of our dynamic must be established."
"I didn't know—" I started, but his finger pressed against my lips, silencing me.
"Ignorance doesn't negate the transgression. And if I'm honest—" his voice carried amusement now, dark honey poured over steel, "—I left that door open specifically so you would trespass. So I would have reason to show you exactly how discipline works between us. Disobedience requires correction, even when it's orchestrated."
The lift shuddered to a stop, but he didn't move immediately, letting me feel the solid wall of him against my back, letting the anticipation build until my skin felt too tight, too hot, too everything.
When the doors finally opened, the scent hit me like a physical force. Jasmine and musk, the same oil I'd sampled earlier, but warmed now, intentionally prepared. The air was thick with it, making my head swim and my core clench with need I couldn't fully understand. We stepped directly into the dual-natured chamber I'd explored, but it felt different now—charged, waiting, alive with possibility.
"The discipline side first," Davoren said, guiding me with a hand on my lower back toward the wall of restraints. Each step made me more aware of my nakedness, of the wetness between my thighs, of the way the golden lines on my skin seemed to pulse in rhythm with my heartbeat.
