30. Arianna

The smell of woodsmoke was etched upon her skin with his tongue and teeth. He drew long, delightfully painful lines with his canines. He followed with his mouth, his tongue, his tender kisses and delicate ministrations upon them while they healed.

Again and again, he repeated. They were a room on fire, cedar on smoke. Pain and pleasure made comfortable bedmates, etching his caress upon the steel of her memory with an endless amount of determination.

She wanted him. They had crossed every line and traversed every seemingly impenetrable barrier to arrive with him between her legs. But she yearned for every moment. She yearned for his firm grip on her hipbone, his mouth on her shoulder, his attentions bordering on the meticulous.

There was a broken-ness to their passion, a ritual sacrifice of everything they were for something they could be. Let them dive into the acidic fatalism that would forever be splashed upon their memories. They were going to dissolve into each other until there was nothing left.

She arched off the bed, his hand smoothing across her ribs and onto her back, holding her in place, his mouth upon her breast. She had forgotten the feeling of being vulnerable. Control had fought against its tether, cutting into her palms, and now she let the beast go free.

Arianna’s claws trailed up his arms and shoulders, into his blood-orange hair. She watched how it splayed across her chest when she held him upon her.

“You have magic here,” he mumbled into her bare stomach. His breaths ran ragged laps around her navel.

“I do.” She was already stripped bare before him. There was little else to hide now.

“Where else?” He propped himself over her.

Arianna had seen his bare chest dozens of times; the Dragons weren’t exactly fond of clothing. But it looked different now. Hovering just far enough for her nipples to brush his skin, it seemed to take on a different shade, a more appealing curve.

“You know the other places.” Arianna slid her palms to the chest she had just been admiring. “Though, I wouldn’t mind lungs…”

“You wouldn’t.” He pressed his mouth upon her.

Arianna sucked his tongue between her teeth, biting hard. Blood poured into her throat and she sucked hungrily, magic exploding once more. She was well and truly drunk off the man—the taste, the feeling. It was better every time and worse each passing second after it faded. She wondered what it would be like to give into every desire and lie here with him until the end of days.

Arianna smiled faintly into his mouth. What an idealistic notion. The things the man had done to her…

A growl rose from the back of his throat, which she also eagerly consumed. Arianna flipped them on the small cot, mounting him like one of their flying birds. His erection pressed against her and she, shamelessly, ground herself upon it.

“You witch,” he groaned when she finally returned his lips to him.

“Wraith, actually.” Arianna pressed forward, kissing up along his ear to the point. “And don’t doubt me. There is very little I wouldn’t do—especially to you.”

He pressed his thumbs into her thighs, holding her in place, pushing her down. Arianna met his demands willingly. It was a war for dominance that was punctuated by winning and losing battles of submission. They took turns allowing the other to be the victor and alternated the joys and struggles of relinquishing control.

She felt the waver in his magic, the fear taking over again. He was thinking too much. The man who seemed to care for nothing but beauty and ease was giving in to the dangers of contemplating all they were and what they were doing. She appreciated the irony of wanting to tell him to let go, to let them have the moment they’d encased themselves in.

Arianna kissed him lightly, absorbing the emotion. She forfeited words for action. She slid onto him and felt that stretching, pressing, pushing, filling sensation once more.

It was for the best. He should be afraid of her—of them. The idea of him and her becoming a “they” would be the worst thing that could happen to either of them. She would consume him. She would use him for her own delight. But if it ever suited her, she would break him. She would cast him from the pinnacles of pleasure upon the cold and lonely world below.

It made her afraid of herself.

Arianna had never let herself go so far. Even with Eva, an understanding and logic had pulsed between them. They had begun as partners, scientific equals, and evolved into something more. Arianna had yearned for the woman. She had embraced the throes of passion with her now-dead love.

She had admired the woman’s tenacity and determination. Similar things attracted her to Cvareh, but they stemmed from different sources. There was no logic to Cvareh. Man, woman—Dragon or Fenthri—he was not someone she should find herself with. Arianna snarled, driving her hips harder, faster, as if she could force out the conflict. She hated him. She wanted him. Shades of gray, rainbows of color—they blurred and smeared into gold.

Cvareh pulled her down and she acquiesced. She let him have her mouth, her tit, her shoulder. She heaved her moans into the pillows like curses, or prayers.

Nothing made sense, and she would have him until it did.

They peeled apart an hour, or a minute, later. Time no longer mattered. She would burn it on the passion pyre they’d been immolated upon all afternoon. With it burned her principles and her self-respect. She had coupled with a Dragon as if her life depended on it. But luckily, she had exhausted her ability to care alongside every other muscle in her body.

The ceiling came into focus; it had never been more fascinating. It was the only thing safe to look at. The room was a mess from their tumbling. Things had been broken, furniture had been moved and scratched. Blankets made mountains on the floor, the warmth of their body heat more than enough.

Cvareh didn’t move either. Arianna closed her eyes. Already the feeling was returning, the want to place her mouth on his again. It had been so long since she had last touched and been touched—since she had even wanted to be touched by anyone. She had clearly yet to find satiation.

“Why?” Cvareh’s voice was still deep and thick. It had a purr to it like a well-oiled engine that set her hand to moving, her knuckles brushing against where they’d fallen on his thigh.

“Why what?”

“Why me?”

Arianna laughed. Her voice was hoarse and raspy. “Really? That’s your question?”

“I have more.”

“As do I.”

The pillow shifted next to her and Arianna turned toward the sound, meeting his eyes. The understanding that had always been there had deepened. It shone brighter, as if she could see his very magic in the air around him.

“So, why?”

“I don’t know,” she confessed to both of them.

“You don’t know? Something the infallible Arianna doesn’t know?”

“I will bite off your tongue. Don’t think this changes anything.”

“This changes everything.” Cvareh sat. “What we are was not what we were.”

She watched the muscles in his back stretch. His skin had a certain pallor in the dim candlelight. Flickering shadows danced in lines and muscular curves. Lean and strong. Strong enough to hold her up. Strong enough to support her if she chose to let him shoulder some of her burdens.

“Nothing has changed,” her mouth insisted. She spoke lies, to herself, to him, to everything they were. Her body may have been ready, long overdue even, for a lover… but her heart. Her heart was another matter entirely. “We are two people merely filling needs.”

He placed a hand between her arm and side, leaning toward her. His fingers brushed the line of her jaw but the touch was different than before, without haste. And yet it still possessed fire. They had not been a flash in the pan. Something burned deeper, more determined. A small flame, but a white hot and relentless one.

“You don’t believe that.”

“I do.”

Cvareh smiled knowingly. She rose upward and kissed the expression. He’d given her no choice. There was only one way to expunge that look from between his cheeks. Still, it persisted when she pulled away.

She kissed him again. She kissed him harder. He tasted suddenly of longing and salt tears her eyes had stopped spilling years ago.

“I know you, now,” he muttered upon her. “I know you, Arianna.”

Resistance was futile. The man could think what he would; the more she objected, the more he persisted, the more she slid down into him like quicksand. She could hardly breathe if the air wasn’t sweetened with the tang of his scent.

“I want to show you something.”

“What?” She let his hands tangle in her hair, a mess from the fight and their sex.

“It’s not on Ruana, so we’ll have to travel.”

“Where?” The idea of venturing into the unknown with him was not as frightening as it should’ve been.

His fingers coaxed out the knots he’d made. “Do you trust me enough to let me not tell you?”

She hated him for the question. She hated him more for the answer that already leaped from her tongue. “Yes.” Arianna pressed her eyes closed. How had she arrived at that answer? It was like adding two and two together and getting yellow. “And I will kill you for it.”

“I will not give you a reason to.” Cvareh stepped away, hunting for his clothes. He made no effort to smooth them, only enough to patch them back together from where she’d torn at them. His shoulder pieces were hopelessly lost. Fortunately, Dragons wouldn’t think twice about him walking around in next to nothing.

Arianna followed without instruction, picking through what was salvageable. She was still too Fenthri to stomach the notion of walking in nothing, even with her illusion. Still, the most important piece was the splint that helped her hold her illusion in place.

“Head upward, and tell me if you have trouble finding the departure platform. I’ll saddle the boco.” His palm fell on her hip, and his magic surged at the touch. It wrapped her up in a familiar embrace, already intertwined before his lips fell on her ear.

“Arhoncedov,” he breathed.

It was a sound just for her and it sparked off his tongue with sheer power. He’d cast forth a tether, and now it fell on her to take it.

Arianna took a half step closer, her own arm wrapping around him. Cheek to cheek, she leaned for his ear. It had been a long time since she’d last established a whisper link. The silence that had filled her mind upon Eva’s death should have been enough discouragement to ever do it again. She’d vowed not to.

“Ranhoftantu,” she replied.

Magic pulled taught with a twang. Another line holding them together under tension. A step closer, when she should’ve taken a step further away. A yes that should’ve been a no. And a want indulged before a thought could be applied.

They were drunk on each other still. Their magic was still fresh, and new, and desired. But eventually, they would sober. They would wash away the sweat of sex and the heat of each other’s skin. When the time came, what would they find?