Page 79 of Waves
Sent my own pulse racing.
Our eyes locked and I felt our breathing synchronize. That pounding, driving need within my veins thumped harder with the knowledge it was within his too.
Our joint heartbeat was an unyielding force that whipped through us like the wind thrashing around the globe.
Unseen but wild.
Forceful.
Unstoppable.
So potent that my body ached to bend to its will.
The dragon’s wings flapped, and Raj edged closer. My hand wavered and the ocean pushed me forward until we were so near I saw every stripe of color in the beast’s eyes and he saw the tremble running across my skin that had nothing to do with the rain pelting down on both of us.
He was panting.
So was I.
My vision grew white hot as we stared at one another, volatile with violence and lust, with a need stronger than anything I’d ever felt before.
One flick of my wrist, that was all it would take. One flick of my wrist would harden all those tiny water droplets under his scales into icy needles that could stab him through a thousand times over.
But my hand was frozen.
Above, golden lighting suddenly crackled through the cloud, and I saw it fracture… and then arc right for us.
Chapter 34
Raj
Watching as Avia realized she was in love with the fight—realized that her blood lust and her physical lust were linked—was the most glorious thing I’d ever seen. She was the epitome of violence and femininity, her lips parted in sensual rage.
It made me burn for her and if I’d have had any control at all, I’d have shifted into myself and grabbed her right then and?—
Shock widened her amethyst eyes, the tiny scales decorating the tops of her cheeks gleaming from a bright flash behind me.
I turned my head, only to feel the spikes on my spine stiffen like hairs on the back of one’s neck.
The heat sizzling past me hardly rattled my scales at all. But her golden hair rose around her, lifting and floating as the energy buzzed through the sky and a jagged bit of lightning break away and soar straight toward my Avia.
No!
A blindingly fierce male instinct rose inside of me. The need to conquer nature and deny fate, but most of all the tender needto protect…a need so fierce that it was cracking and dripping from my very bones. The marrow of me.
Though the wish magic still felt like shackles, weighted me down like chains, I stretched my limbs, spanned my wings, screamed internally at it, “I’ll be the death of her. Not this! Not this!”
And when the searing fire hit my back with a heat more powerful and intense than the fire in my throat, sadness and satisfaction collided within me.
But one final look at Avia—her soft skin, those long lashes, and the universe contained within those eyes, a universe where kindness and cruelty walked hand in hand—made regret impossible.
I braced myself, muscles stiffening for the incoming charge.
Avia’s eyebrows lifted and her lips trembled as she screamed, furiously and (I wanted to believe) brokenly, “No!”
Her fingers twitched.
The entire world flashed white as a thunderclap blasted through my ears. A shockwave rolled through me, shoving my wings down and forcing me to raise them back up slowly as they were pelted with tiny pebbles of ice.
