Cara woke to warmth.
Not the sharp, suffocating heat of command.
Not the crackling tension of being watched.
This was different.
Heavy.
Enclosing.
She could not see.
Darkness pressed against her face, thick and close, and for one panicked breath she thought—
Then she felt it.
Feathers.
No.
Membrane.
The slow rise and fall beneath her cheek.
A wing.
Vyrisa's wing curved around her like a wall, the edge tucked against stone. The other pressed at her back, sealing her in. An arm lay heavy across her waist.
Tight.
Not violent.
But unyielding.
Cara did not move.
She listened.
Beyond the cocoon of heat, the cavern breathed. Distant claws scraped stone. A low rumble of voices drifted somewhere beyond the rock curve. The shift of scales against earth.
Other dragons waking.
But she was still enclosed.
Still held.
Still—
Safe.
The realization came slowly.
She was not struggling to escape.
She was not afraid.
The mark pulsed.
Not a warning.
Not pain.
A slow, warm throb beneath her skin.
Cara swallowed.
Vyrisa was asleep.
She knew it without seeing her. The weight of her was different. Looser. Less controlled. The grip around her waist lacked that ever-present edge of command.
Another pulse.
This one deeper.
Cara's breath hitched.
It was not just heat.
It was—
Breath.
Not her own.
Something vast and steady and slow beneath her skin. A current moving in rhythm with the chest at her back.
The mark was not burning.
It was listening.
And for the first time—
So was she.
Cara let her eyes close again.
Carefully.
Tentatively.
She reached inward instead of outward.
The pulse answered.
It was not words.
Not images.
But impressions.
Weight.
Exhaustion that ran older than stone.
YOU ARE READING
Ashes Embraced
FantasiA Dark Sapphic Romantasy A century ago, the Red Dragon Queen burned Frairdale to the ground. Now she rules from the cliffs above the lake-untouched, unchallenged, and unrepentant. When Cara steps into dragon territory, she expects death. Instead, sh...
