KORO’S POV The Training Pits had left me breathless, and the high of the violet fire had burned through me, leaving behind a bone-deep ache that felt like my body, replaced with cooling ice.
Every step back was a struggle against a gravity that felt three times stronger than it had an hour ago.
My shifter beast was crashing; the Wolf wanted to hibernate, and the Vampire was screaming for a replenishment I didn’t know how to provide.
Rujin was silent at my side, and he didn’t use the tether to drag me this time.
He walked with majesty, slower than before but deep in thought.
When the doors to the suite hissed shut, sealing out the prying eyes of the Syndicate guards, the darkness of the room felt like a physical weight.
“You are shaking,” Rujin pointed out.
“I’m…
fine,” I lied, my teeth chattering.
The sweat from the fight was turning to ice on my skin, and the rebound was hitting me, the terrifying drop in temperature that happened when a Varg-Kyrie overextended.
“You are a damn bad liar, Koro.” A small chuckle escaped from his mouth.
Rujin moved toward the center of the room, his jacket already discarded on a chair.
He didn’t turn on the lights, and the only light in the room came from the orange veins beneath his skin, casting long, flickering shadows that danced like demons against the obsidian walls.
“Come here.” He whispered.
I stayed by the door, my hands clutching my elbows.
“I need…
a heater.
Or a blanket.
Just leave me alone.” “A heater won’t fix you,” Rujin said, his voice dropping to that low, resonant vibration that bypassed my ears and went straight to my spine.
“You didn’t just fight twelve men, Koro.
You acted as a transporting power for a High-Mountain Dragon, and your internal temperature is dropping to lethal levels because your body thinks it’s still venting.
If you don’t stabilize, your heart will stop before midnight.” I looked at him, the orange glow of his eyes the only thing visible in the gloom.
He was right.
I could feel the ice crystallizing in my lungs, the slow, heavy thrum of a heart that was losing the will to beat.
The Thermal Lock gave a sharp, insistent tug, and I stumbled forward, my legs feeling lost, and I didn’t stop until I was three feet from him.
The heat rolling off him was no longer a threat; it was a siren song.
It was the only thing in this frozen hell of a city that felt like life.
“Closer,” he commanded.
I took another step.
Then another.
Until my chest was inches from his, and the air between us was thick with the scent of ozone and the faint, metallic tang of blood.
Rujin reached out, his hands wrapping around my upper arms.
His touch was a shock, not the searing burn of the throne room, but a deep, penetrating warmth that made my knees buckle.
“Look at me,” he whispered.
I lifted my head, and my vision was swimming, the violet rim of my eyes pulsing in time with the agony in my chest.
Rujin wasn’t looking at me like an asset.
He wasn’t looking at me like a king.
He was looking at me with a desperate, terrifying hunger that mirrored my own.
He pulled me flush against him, and I let out a broken, jagged gasp as the contact hit.
It wasn’t just skin on skin; it was a collision of worlds.
The Dragon’s fire poured into me, not as a blast, but as a flood.
It filled the hollow spaces in my bones, melted the ice in my veins, and silenced the screaming of the Wolf.
My hands, acting on an instinct older than my hatred, slid up his chest, clutching at the silk of his shirt.
I buried my face in the crook of his neck, breathing in the heat, the power, the sheer survival of him.
“That’s it,” Rujin murmured, his breath hot against my ear.
His arms went around my waist, pulling me so tight I could feel every ridge of his muscle, every beat of his overcharged heart.
“Drink it, Koro.
Take it all, I can feed you forever.” It was a toxic promise, but in the dark, with my life-force fading, it was the only truth I had.
We stayed like that for a long time; two monsters locked in a desperate embrace in the middle of a glass palace.
I felt the shift before he did, and the Vampire in me, finally fed, began to change the nature of the intake.
It wasn’t just taking the heat anymore; it was seeking the source.
My lips brushed against the pulse point in his neck, the place where the orange glow was brightest.
Rujin stiffened, and a low, guttural growl vibrated in his chest, the Dragon reacting, but he didn’t pull away.
He tilted his head back, exposing the line of his throat, his grip on my waist tightening until it was almost painful.
“Do it,” he rasped, his eyes snapping shut.
“Take the soul of the fire, little wolf.
See if you can handle the taste of a god.” I opened my mouth, my fangs sliding out with a crystalline click, and sank them into the glowing skin of his neck.
The taste was…
exotic!
It was the damn taste of a thousand summers, of molten gold, of a power so pure it should have incinerated me on the spot.
I felt the Dragon’s essence surge into my mouth, a direct line of fire that bypassed the tether and went straight to my core.
Rujin let out a choked, melodic sound, half-agony, half-ecstasy.
His hands moved to my hair, his fingers tangling in the white and brown strands, pulling my head closer.
He wasn’t fighting me.
He was surrendering.
For the first time in his life, someone was taking the burden from him, and he was letting it happen.
The violet frost in my veins erupted, and the wave of energy slammed into us, knocking us back against the obsidian wall.
We didn’t break the contact.
Rujin pinned me to the stone, his body a heavy, burning weight against mine, his mouth finding my shoulder, his teeth grazing the skin.
The Thermal Lock flared a brilliant, blinding white, the golden thread between us expanding until it encompassed the entire room.
I could see into him, really see into him.
I saw the small boy locked in the dark, the weight of the crown, the fear of the day the fire would finally win.
And he saw me, the cold, the hunger, the little girl in the cryo-pod who was the only reason I hadn’t jumped from the Spire years ago.
The intimacy was more terrifying than the fire, and I pulled back, my fangs slick with his glowing essence, my breath coming in short, ragged sobs.
My heart was thundering, no longer slow and cold, but racing with the frantic energy of a star.
Rujin stared at me, his eyes wide, the orange veins in his face pulsing with a frantic, beautiful light.
He looked wrecked.
“You…” I whispered, my voice trembling.
“What have we done?” Rujin didn’t answer with words and instead reached out, his thumb tracing the blood-gold smear on my lip.
He looked at it for a long second, then brought his thumb to his own mouth, tasting the mixture of our lives.
“Sleep,” Rujin commanded, though the toxic edge was gone, replaced by a strange, heavy weariness.
“The Board will have heard about the Pits by now, and tomorrow, the games get deadlier, and I need you fully focused.” CREATORS’ THOUGHTS Anna_Baibe Now that Koro has fed from Rujin, what do you think will happen to his powers?