Total pages in book: 74
Estimated words: 69119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 346(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 69119 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 346(@200wpm)___ 276(@250wpm)___ 230(@300wpm)
“But if you die and don’t revive…”
I hooked my leg tighter around his, anchoring us both in the words he’d once said to me. “I love you too much to die forever in your fire.”
The silence that followed was thick as tar. His fist clenched and unclenched. Breath sawed from his lungs. I could feel the dragon pacing inside him, snarling, wanting out.
I pushed, soft but sure. “They thought they destroyed us with that bond-breaking tonic. To make us part. Let’s prove them wrong. They didn’t ruin us. They reforged us.”
In the fire, I would be remade. Immortal and transcendent. Maybe still a queen. Maybe something else entirely. Honestly, I didn’t know what I’d become. But I knew who I wanted to see waiting for me on the other side.
At last, he barked, “Yes. I’ll burn you.”
Triumph exploded through me like a second heartbeat.
“But understand me,” he added, tone turning lethal as his arms tightened around me, holding me in place. “If you die, I will rage. I can feel it brewing already. Bad things will happen. What I do will become a cautionary tale told in ashes and screams about what happens when someone takes a queen from the man who loved her too much.”
A shiver raced down my spine. My grin came slow and sharp. “See, that’s the energy I like. Very vengeful. Very hot. Let’s put it to good use, shall we? We can finish our game after I’ve revived and we’ve slaughtered our enemies.”
He smiled at me, a little sad, a lot scared, and he rose to his feet to offer me his hand. I took it, wincing slightly as he pulled me up.
Noticing my flare of pain, he scowled. “I hate that you’re hurting. Where do you want to…” Torment contorted his features, his voice rough. “Burn?”
“Here,” I said, sweeping a hand around the cell. “It’s not romantic, but it’s practical. And I don’t wish to have an audience for this particular deed. Let’s just give everyone the big announcement afterward. How about, ‘Attention, subjects. Your queen lost her dragon, her king consort is the dragon, and his firebrand is now officially fireproof. All hail and carry on.’”
He huffed a laugh, though it cracked at the edges. “I’m taking over the speechwriting.”
“Whatever you want, professor,” I told him with a jaunty salute.
His gaze darkened. “I want you.”
And then he was kissing me. Deep. Hard. Desperate. A man starved for his woman. Or a dragon who’d finally found his flame. His mouth claimed mine, and I kissed him back with equal hunger, utterly ravenous. We consumed each other with zero hesitation. No breaking for second thoughts. I poured myself into him. My fears, my hopes, my defiance, my love. All that I was, all that I would become.
He tore away with a roar that echoed throughout the stone chamber, rattling the very foundation. I met his gaze with no doubt. No fear. For a single breath, our world held still. Then I nodded, giving him my acceptance. Gifting it to us both.
Ready, I stepped fully into our future.
He unleashed his fire.
The flames hit me with the power of a living beast, throwing me back. In seconds, I was engulfed. The inferno spread and devoured me whole. There was no gentle lead-in, no slow burn, only consumption. A searing heat that stole my breath, robbed me of thought, stripped me to the marrow of my soul.
I tried not to scream. Oh, I tried. I didn’t want Taron to hear it and carry the memory for the eons to come as I had with his ancestors. But it ripped from me anyway, raw and broken, dragged from my deepest depths.
The fire never stopped. It melted my flesh. Turned muscle to molten ruin. Boiled my blood until it shrieked through my veins, then turned to steam. Bone cracked, blackened, then ashed. I should have lost consciousness or faded, but I didn’t. I was there for all of it.
The agony reached its crescendo, then snapped into silence. A void without flame or sound. No pain, either. Just smoke and cold with the ghost of heat, swirling around the space where I'd once stood.
Nothingness came bit by bit. But before the last of it claimed me, I remained aware. I sensed when Taron collapsed to his knees. Felt the anguish churning in his soul. Knew his body heaved with silent sobs, his head bowed in prayer, or mourning. Experienced the clench of his fists as his knuckles drained to white. Heard a horn blast, announcing the enemy’s arrival.
Then I was gone, a final thought brushing my mind. I will have my forever with Taron, and not even death will stop me!
Chapter
Twenty-One
So you unraveled. So you fell. Now it’s time to rise.
-Humaning for Beginners: A Dragon’s Tale of Human Management
Ash.
Ash was all I was at first. Ash and memory. But an ember of myself remembered how to exist—and answered. Slowly I gathered, clinging and fusing, stitching together until I became whole. Life threaded through me until I finally, finally drew breath.