Page 6 of Davoren
He didn't enter so much as manifest, seven feet of controlled power that made the air itself burn hotter. The small space, which had seemed adequate for hiding, shrank to nothing in his presence. Every surface caught the light that seemed toemanate from his skin—copper-dark and marked with patterns that shifted like cooling lava.
Davoren. The Fire Master. Lord of the Black Glass Keep.
Not Drake.
Dragon.
He spoke to the hatchlings first, his voice a physical force that made my bones vibrate with harmonics no human throat should produce. The language was all smoke and music, rises and falls that bypassed my ears and spoke directly to some primitive part of my brain that remembered when we all cowered before greater predators.
The hatchlings responded with chirps and whistles, gesturing with their wings toward my huddled form. Telling him about the intruder. The bleeding, chain-wrapped creature that had invaded their sanctuary.
His attention shifted like the weight of mountains turning. Eyes that burned ember-bright found me in the shadows, and the world tilted on its axis.
"So." The word rumbled through stone and air and flesh. "The runaway bride."
He knew.
Of course he knew.
The Dragon Masters knew everything that happened in their lands.
I tried to speak. Tried to explain or plead or something, but my voice had disappeared along with my ability to breathe normally. He filled the cave entrance completely, blocking any hope of escape, and the heat rolling off him made the afternoon's furnace temperatures seem like winter's kiss.
I stood frozen, like a mouse caught in the gaze of a hungry serpent. Davoren's presence was overwhelming, radiating power and danger in equal measure. His eyes, the color of molten gold,bore into mine with an intensity that made my heart race with equal parts fear and fascination.
Impossibly attractive, impossibly fierce. Like a terrible god in human form. He moved closer, each step deliberate and controlled, as if every movement had been calculated over centuries. The heat of his body washed over me, raising goosebumps on my skin despite the oppressive warmth of the Fire Wastes.
Then his shoulder erupted in golden fire.
Not true flame—something deeper, older, written in the language of creation itself. Runes spiraled across his skin, each symbol burning bright enough to leave afterimages on my retinas. A contract written in light and magic, spelling out terms that predated human memory.
The Bond Mark.
It had to be.
To my horror, my own shoulder answered in agony and ecstasy combined. Heat bloomed under my skin, tracing patterns that matched his mark for mark, line for line. The chains around my wrists grew hot enough to burn, but that pain was nothing compared to the fire beneath my flesh. I gasped, arching against the stone as foreign desire flooded my system like molten gold through my veins.
My body recognized its match even as my mind screamed in terrified denial.
"No." The word came out as barely a whisper. "No, I'm not—I can't be—"
"The mark does not lie." He stepped into the cave properly, and I pressed back until stone threatened to split my spine. "Though I admit, I did not expect to find my mate bleeding and chainbound in a drake nursery."
Mate.
The word hit like a physical blow. All those lessons about dragon biology, about their ancient bonding customs, about the magic that tied souls together across species and sanity—academic theory suddenly made flesh and fire and inescapable truth.
"Please." I didn't know what I was begging for. For him to be wrong. For the mark to fade. For this to be a nightmare born of blood loss and terror. "I'm engaged. To Lord Solmar. There's a contract—"
"Human contracts mean nothing to the mark." He moved closer, each step deliberate and predatory. The hatchlings scattered to give him room, their earlier alarm transformed into curious chirping. "You wear my fire now, little bride. That is the only contract that matters."
The bond pulsed between us, a living thing that turned fear into wanting and resistance into need. My traitorous body leaned forward even as my mind recoiled. Every instinct screamed to run, but there was nowhere to go. Only stone at my back and dragon before me and magic rewriting my very existence with each thundering heartbeat.
"I don't even know you," I managed.
His smile revealed teeth too sharp for his human seeming. "You will."
The mark flared brighter, and I cried out at the sensation—like being filled with starlight, like drowning in honey, like every nerve ending suddenly remembering joy. My carefully constructed walls, built from years of disappointment and duty, crumbled like sand castles before the tide.
