Chapter 4: The View from the Tower
The wind on the balcony was a living thing. It clawed at them with icy fingers, whipping Eli’s hair across his face and drawing an immediate, violent shiver from his bare skin. After the contained heat of the bedchamber, it felt like falling into a void.
“Idiot,” Drakon muttered, but there was no real heat in it. He shrugged out of his own heavy, fur-lined cloak—a dark, worn thing that smelled overwhelmingly of him—and wrapped it around Eli’s shoulders in one smooth motion. The weight was immense, still warm from the alpha’s body. Before Eli could fumble with the clasp, Drakon did it for him, his large fingers surprisingly deft on the cold metal.
Then he pulled Eli back against his chest, front to back, his arms crossing over Eli’s torso, locking him in place. The wind died instantly, blocked by the massive wall of Drakon’s body. Eli was enveloped in heat, in fur, in alpha.
“Better?” Drakon’s voice rumbled against the back of his skull.
Eli could only nod, his breath leaving him in a white plume. He was trapped, but for the first time, the feeling wasn’t suffocating. It was shelter. He let himself lean back, just a little, accepting the solid support.
Together, they looked out.
The world below was a painting in monochrome and slow-fire. Deep, serrated valleys were choked with mist, like rivers of milk. The mountains were claws of black stone tearing at a sky that was just beginning to bleed color at the horizon. The air tasted of ice and distant, subterranean fire.
“It’s… huge,” Eli whispered. The scale of it diminished him to nothing. His old life, his family’s cramped manor, seemed like a faded sketch from a child’s book.
“It’s lonely,” Drakon corrected, his tone matter-of-fact. His chin rested on top of Eli’s head. “Big, empty, and lonely. The villages are far down in the valleys. They send their tributes and their terrified envoys and pray the beast on the mountain doesn’t wake up hungry.” He gave a short, humorless laugh. The heat of it washed over Eli’s ear. “They have no idea the beast is mostly bored.”
Eli frowned, staring at the spreading stain of sunrise—amber bleeding into rose-gold. “Then why stay up here?”
“Where else would I go?” Drakon’s arms tightened slightly. “This is what I am. The mountain. The solitude. The fire in the blood that makes everyone, even my own guards, tread lightly.” He was quiet for a long moment, watching the light conquer the dark peaks. “It’s not always a rut. Sometimes it’s just… a constant burn. It never goes out.”
The confession was as vast and bare as the landscape. Eli thought of his own quiet loneliness, the kind that came from being unseen in a crowded house. This was different. This was the loneliness of being seen only as a monster, from a distance, by everyone.
“Did you know?” Eli asked softly. “That I was coming?”
Drakon nodded, the stubble on his jaw catching in Eli’s hair. “A seer, decades ago. Crooked old crone, stank of mildew and prophecy. Said an omega with the scent of rain-drenched slate and something sweet would come when the southern lords grew desperate. That he wouldn’t fight. That he’d just… take the bite.” He shifted, turning Eli slightly in his arms so he could look down at him. His eyes were a deep, molten amber in the dawn light, searching Eli’s face. “She said he’d soothe the fire. I thought it was poetic nonsense. Until the day your escort crossed into my territory. I smelled you from three miles off. It hit me like a landslide.”
Eli remembered the terrifying, breathtaking tension in the throne room. The king’s stillness. The hunger in his eyes that had seemed personal, even then. “You waited for me.”
“I ached for you,” Drakon said bluntly, no romance in it, just raw truth. “It was a physical pain. The burn got worse, waiting. I almost flew down and took you from the road myself.” His thumb brushed over the cloak, where he knew the mark lay on Eli’s shoulder beneath the fabric. “Then you walked in. You looked at the floor. You trembled. But you didn’t scream. You didn’t beg. You just… took it.”
“I was terrified,” Eli admitted, holding that intense gaze.
“I know.” A faint, almost-smile touched Drakon’s mouth. “But you’re here now. And the fire…” He paused, as if assessing an internal gauge. “It’s not gone. But it’s banked. For the first time in thirty-eight years, it’s quiet.”
The words unspooled something in Eli’s chest. He was a sacrifice, a political pawn, a vessel. But to this man, he was also a relief. A respite. The concept was too enormous to hold. He looked back out at the sunrise, now blazing across the peaks, turning the mist to gold.
“What do I do here?” The question was practical, born of a lifetime of needing to know his place, his utility.
Drakon seemed surprised by it. He shrugged, a rolling movement Eli felt through his own back. “Whatever you want. Stay in the rooms. Roam the upper halls. The library’s a dusty mess—could burn it for all I care. Just don’t try to go down the mountain. The paths will kill you, and if they don’t, I will.” He said it casually, a simple statement of fact.
“A library?” Eli’s interest, a frail but persistent thing, flickered.
“Full of books my ancestors stole,” Drakon confirmed. “Probably has spiders the size of your fist.”
A soft, incredulous laugh escaped Eli. It felt strange on his lips. “You’re not very good at selling the amenities, Your Grace.”
The title made Drakon’s nose crinkle. “Don’t call me that. Not when we’re like this.” He nudged Eli with his hip. “Drakon is fine. Or ‘hey, you.’ Or ‘bastard.’ I’ve been called all of it.”
Eli tested the name in his mind. Drakon. It fit the man—hard, ancient, powerful. “Alright,” he whispered.
They lapsed into silence, watching the day properly begin. The throbbing in Eli’s shoulder had settled into a warm, persistent hum, synchronized with the pulse he could feel where Drakon’s wrist rested against his stomach. It was no longer just a pain. It was a connection. A tether to this lonely mountain and this complicated, violent man.
The wind shifted, carrying a new scent up from the valleys—pine, and the faint, earthy smell of waking villages far below. Life, carrying on. Eli took a deep, shaky breath.
For the first time since the heavy doors of his family home had shut behind him, he didn’t feel like a thing being sent away. He felt, impossibly, like someone who had arrived.
He lifted a hand, hesitated, then placed it over Drakon’s where it lay against his belly. The alpha’s skin was furnace-hot, even in the cold. Drakon went very still behind him. Then, his fingers shifted, tangling with Eli’s in a clumsy, fierce grip.
“Cold,” Drakon grumbled, his mouth close to Eli’s ear. But he didn’t move to go inside. He just stood, holding his omega against the endless sky, and let the sun climb.