Chapter 1: Claws and Kisses
The air in the valley was cold and clean, carrying the scent of wet earth and pine. Sapheria shrugged off her traveling cloak, the heavy wool landing in a heap on the grass. Below, the town was a pustule of flickering torchlight and ugly noise.
“They’re getting louder,” she said, not looking back.
A shift in the darkness behind her, the rustle of feathers and the subtle clack of scales. “They are drunk. They always are, the night before.”
She turned. Faelan was a silhouette against the star-specked sky, a mountain of white and cream and bloody red. Moonlight glinted off the scales of his arms, his long, silent tail. His ear-wings were pressed flat, a sign of unease.
“The night before we bleed me for their coin,” Sapheria corrected, her voice softening. She walked toward him, the tall grass whispering against her leathers. “Come here. Let me look at you.”
He lowered his massive head, his cat-like eyes catching the light, glowing like liquid gold. She reached up, her gloves already discarded, and ran her fingers through the messy blond hair that fell over his brow. He let out a shuddering breath, warm and humid, that ruffled her ginger waves. Her other hand found the junction where the soft, pale skin of his neck met the first raised edges of red scale. His pulse thrummed under her fingertips, a deep, slow drum.
“You’re tense,” she murmured.
“I hate it when they look at you,” he rumbled, his voice a low vibration she felt in her chest. “I hear what they say. What they want to do.”
“They’re just noise. They’re nothing.” She pressed her forehead against the warm hollow of his throat. “You’re everything.”
His large, taloned hand came up, the black claws retracted, and he cradled the back of her head with impossible gentleness. He could crush her skull with a thought. He held her like she was a bird’s egg.
She pulled back, her green eyes fierce in the dark. “I need you, Fae. Not the act. Not the show tomorrow. I need you. Now. Make me forget them.”
A low growl started in his chest, a sound of pure want. His ear-wings flicked outward, then quivered. He bent, his powerful avian legs lowering his torso, and he nuzzled into the space between her neck and shoulder, inhaling deeply. His nose was cool against her sun-warmed skin.
Her hands went to the buckles of her leather armor. He watched, his breath hitching, as she stripped off the practical gear, piece by piece, letting it fall to the grass. Soon she stood in only her thin linen undershirt and trousers. The night air pebbled her skin.
“Saph,” he breathed, the word choked.
“I know,” she said, and pulled the shirt over her head.
Her breasts were pale in the moonlight, her nipples tight from the cold. He stared, a shudder racking his whole frame, from the crest of his head down the length of his scaled spine to the tip of his twitching tail. One clawed hand, shaking slightly, reached out. The back of one scaled finger traced the curve from her collarbone to the swell of her breast. The contrast was absurd—the razor-edged limb, the brutal strength, touching her with a reverence that bordered on worship.
“You’re so soft,” he whispered, as if he’d never touched her before.
“And you’re not,” she said, a sly grin touching her lips. She stepped into the space between his lowered chest and his folded legs, pressing her bare skin against the hot, feather-covered plane of his body. The feathers were surprisingly soft, downy against her nipples. She ground against him, feeling the evidence of his desire—a thick, heavy length, partly sheathed and now emerging, hot and silken against the scaled underbelly of his avian form.
She gasped at the heat of it. “Fuck, Faelan.”
That broke his control. His arms wrapped around her, pulling her tight against him, his face buried in her hair. “I can’t be gentle,” he warned, his voice rough.
“I don’t want gentle,” she fired back, her hands scrabbling over the scales of his back. “I want you. All of you. However you come.”
With a sound that was half-roar, half-keen, he lowered her onto the bed of their cloaks and the crushed grass. His wings mantled around them, blocking out the sky, the town, the world. It was a cave of white feathers and heat. His taloned hands were everywhere, peeling away her remaining clothes with careful, desperate precision, his claws never once scratching her.
He loomed over her, his massive form supported on his arms, his glowing eyes devouring her. She spread her legs, welcoming him. “Now.”
He needed no other invitation. The broad, smooth head of his cock nudged against her, and she was wet, ready, aching for him. He pushed in.
She cried out, a sharp, punched-out sound as he filled her, the stretch a perfect, burning bliss. He was huge, inhuman, and he fit her like he was made for her. He stilled, trembling, letting her adjust.
“Move,” she commanded, her nails digging into the scaled flesh of his arms.
He obeyed. He drew back and thrust in, a deep, rolling plunge that had her seeing stars. The rhythm was relentless, powerful, each stroke punching the air from her lungs and drawing a filthy, gratified moan from her throat. The sounds were obscene: the slick slap of their joining, his ragged breaths, her choked pleas.
“Harder,” she gasped. “Don’t you dare hold back.”
A snarl tore from him. He hooked his hands under her thighs, lifting her hips, and drove into her with a force that shook his entire frame. The world narrowed to the point where their bodies met, to the overwhelming sensation of being taken, claimed, known by something so powerful it chose to be careful with her.
She could feel the coiled tension in his feathered haunches, the way his tail lashed the air for balance. She met every thrust, her heels digging into the scales of his lower back. Her own climax built, a tight, screaming coil in her gut.
“Look at me,” she begged.
His glowing eyes snapped to hers, holding her gaze as he pistoned into her. The intimacy of it, the raw trust in his monstrous face, shattered her. Her orgasm ripped through her, violent and silent for a second before a long, broken wail was torn from her lips. Her body clamped around him, milking his length.
It tipped him over the edge. He threw his head back and roared—a deep, earth-shaking, draconic bellow of release that echoed through the silent valley, drowning out the distant tinny music from the town. His seed flooded her, hot and copious, as his great wings shuddered and collapsed around them.
For a long time, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing. He slowly, carefully, withdrew and gathered her against him, his wings curling around to keep her warm. He licked a stripe up her neck, a tender, cleansing gesture.
Below, the town had gone quiet for a moment. Then a new, louder wave of shouts rose up—fearful, excited.
“They heard you,” Sapheria mumbled into his feathers, spent and boneless.
“Let them hear,” Faelan murmured, nuzzling her hair. His voice was satiated, peaceful. “Let them fear their monster. They have no idea what he’s really doing.”
She traced the line of his jaw. “We have to be at the gates at dawn.”
“I know.” He held her tighter. “A few more hours. Then I get to pretend to try to kill you again.”
She smiled, a tired, real smile. “And I get to pretend to slay you. For a bag of their gold.”
“A good lie,” he said.
“The only one that matters,” she whispered back, as the torches in the town below began to blink out, one by one, leaving them alone in the silver dark.