Chapter 64 CONFLICTED
HAVEN
The stables smell of sweet hay, warm leather, and the faint metallic tang of healing salve. Lantern light swings gently from the rafters, casting long shadows across the wide stone stalls. Most of the wyverns sleep, their soft rumbles vibrating through the floor like distant thunder. But Lyle stays awake.
She lies on a thick bed of fresh straw in the largest stall, her massive body curled around the worst of her wounds. The gashes along her flanks—courtesy of the Hydra’s lightning head—remain stitched and packed with poultice, but the scales there still look raw and angry under the bandage wraps. One wing stays splinted and bound tight against her side. She looks smaller like this. Vulnerable. Not the fierce, sarcastic creature who carries me through fire and blood.
I kneel beside her, dipping a clean cloth into a bucket of warm water mixed with herbs. The cloth comes away stained pink as I gently wipe dried blood from the edge of a scale that has not quite healed.
“You are supposed to be resting,” I murmur, voice soft so I do not wake the others. “Not glaring at me like I personally offended your ancestors.”
Lyle’s golden eye cracks open. Her voice slides into my mind, dry as ever but threaded with exhaustion. I would rest better if my rider stopped treating me like a hatchling who needs her scales polished every hour.
I smile despite the knot in my chest. “You flew with two torn wings and a king bleeding out on your back. You earn the royal treatment.”
She huffs, a warm puff of air that stirs my hair. Flattery will not make me forget why you are really here, Little Flame.
I pause, cloth hovering. The nickname—Auren’s nickname—hits harder tonight. I swallow and keep working, moving to the deeper gash near her shoulder. The silence stretches between us, broken only by the soft drip of water and the distant crackle of the night watch fires outside.
Finally I sit back on my heels, wiping my hands on my apron. “I am leaving in a month.”
Lyle’s eye sharpens. To the Euron portal.
It is not a question. She already knows. Of course she does. Wyverns always know.
I nod, staring at the cloth in my lap instead of her face. “Tyren explained it. The seal has to close from the inside. Whatever leaks out—the monsters turning people, the corruption spreading—it ties to Auren’s curse. If I go in and bind it properly… his fire stabilizes. He lives. The realm lives.”
And you do not.
The words land like stones. I feel them settle heavy in my stomach.
“I know.”
Lyle shifts, scales scraping against stone. Pain flashes across her face, but she ignores it, pushing up slightly so she can look at me properly. Haven. No.
I keep my voice steady. “It is already decided. The fae need their flowers restored. My sister stays safe now. Auren… he wakes, he heals, he stays here. I will not watch him fade again because I am too scared to do what has to be done.”
He will never forgive you.
The words cut deeper than I expect. I laugh, but it comes out shaky. “He does not have to. He just has to live.”
Lyle’s tail lashes once, hard enough to scatter straw. You think he wants a life without you? You think any of us do? Amelyn would burn the sky. Imogen would tear the Library apart looking for another way. And Auren,Auren would follow you into that void the second he realizes what you have done. He would rip the realm apart trying to get you back.
I reach out and lay my hand on the smooth, warm scale of her snout. She does not pull away.
“I know,” I whisper. “That is why I am not telling him. Not until it is done. Tyren will handle the ritual. I will go while he is asleep. I'll sedate him if possible and by the time he finds out… the seal will stay closed. He will stay safe.”
Little Flame. Lyle’s mental voice softens, almost pleading now—the closest I have ever heard her come to begging. You are not just his mate. You are the fire that keeps this entire kingdom burning. Your mother’s blood, the fae awakening… all of it lives in you. If you walk into Euron, you are not only sacrificing yourself. You are sacrificing every future we could have had together. The children you and Auren have not yet imagined. The peace we have bled for.
Tears burn behind my eyes. I blink them back hard.
“I think of all of that. Every night since Tyren told me. I see Auren’s face when I close my eyes, his smirk, the way he says ‘Little Flame’ like it is a prayer. I see Lyra running through the gardens without coughing blood. I see you, healed and flying beside me again.” My voice cracks. “But I also see him dying in my arms on your back. I feel our bond flickering like a candle in the wind. I cannot… I cannot live in a world where he is gone and I do nothing.”
Lyle stays quiet for a long moment. Then, gently: There is always another way. We have not looked hard enough. The Library of Lost Souls—
“Is dying too,” I finish for her. “Just like the fae. Just like Auren will if I do nothing. I am the only one who can walk in and seal it from the inside. My blood is the key. Mother showed me that much when she came to me in the sky.”
I stand, brushing straw from my knees. My hands shake. I clench them into fists.
“I am not asking for permission, Lyle. I am telling you because… because you are my friend. Because you carry both of us when we cannot carry ourselves. And because if I do not come back, I need someone to remind him that I choose this. That I choose him. Every single time.”
Lyle’s eye closes slowly, as if the weight of my words hurts more than her wounds. When she speaks again, her voice stays quieter, almost broken.
He will hate the world without you in it. And I… I will hate flying it alone.
I lean forward and press my forehead to hers, the way I have seen Auren do a hundred times. Her scales feel warm against my skin.
“I know,” I whisper. “But he will live. And that is enough.”
I step back before I can change my mind. The lantern light catches the fresh tears on my cheeks, but I do not wipe them away.
“Rest, my fierce one. Heal those wings. When I am gone… look after him for me.”
Lyle does not answer. She simply watches me with that ancient, sorrowful gaze as I turn and walk out, heading to our bedroom.
I push open the heavy bedroom door and the warmth inside wraps around me like a living thing. The fire crackles low in the hearth, throwing golden light across the rugs and the massive bed where Auren sits waiting. He has his back against the headboard, one knee drawn up, a half-empty glass of wine forgotten in his hand. His golden eyes lock on me the moment I step inside, and something in them—sharp, and knowing—makes my stomach drop.
He already knows.
I close the door behind me with a soft click and force a small smile, peeling off my apron as if this is any ordinary night. “You are back early from court. I thought Draven would keep you talking until dawn.”
Auren does not smile back. He sets the glass down on the nightstand with deliberate care. “Come here, Little Flame.”
My feet carry me across the room before my mind catches up. I stop at the edge of the bed. He reaches out, catches my wrist, and tugs me closer until I stand between his spread knees. His thumb strokes the inside of my wrist once, slow, like he is memorizing my pulse.
“Would you have told me?” he asks, voice quiet. Too quiet.
I blink, trying for innocence. “Told you what?”
His grip tightens, not painful but firm. “Do not play games with me tonight, Haven. Draven cornered me the second I left the bedroom. The portal is leaking and someone has to walk inside and never walk out.” His eyes search mine, raw. “Would you have told me before you left me here with nothing but a note and an empty bed?”
I open my mouth, then close it. The lie sticks in my throat. I look away, focusing on the fire instead of his face. “I… I was going to. Eventually.”
“Eventually.” The word cracks like a whip. He stands so fast the bed creaks. Suddenly he towers over me, hands framing my face, forcing me to meet his gaze. “You were going to walk into that void and leave me behind without a single word. Like I would not feel the bond snap the second you crossed the threshold. Like I would not tear the entire realm apart looking for you.”
“Auren…”
“No.” His voice snaps, low and dangerous. The Dragon King is fully awake now, fire licking at the edges of his tone. “I forbid it. You are not going. We will find another way, Imogen, the Library, the fae archives, whatever it takes. I do not care how long it takes or how many monsters crawl out of that portal, or how many people fucking die. You are staying here. With me. Where you belong.”
I do not argue. I know there is no other way; Mother showed me that truth in the sky, and every night since then the certainty has settled deeper in my bones. But I say nothing. I simply lean into his hands, letting him hold me while my heart splinters.
He must see the surrender in my eyes because something in him breaks. A low growl tears from his chest. The next second his mouth crashes down on mine—hard, desperate, and claiming. His fingers slide into my hair, tilting my head back so he can deepen the kiss until I taste wine and smoke and the raw edge of his fear.
I kiss him back just as fiercely. My hands fist in his tunic, yanking him closer. We stumble toward the bed, shedding clothes in a frantic trail—my dress puddles on the floor, his tunic follows, then his belt. He lifts me like I weigh nothing and drops me onto the mattress. Before I can draw breath he is on me, mouth on my throat, teeth scraping the sensitive spot that always makes me arch.
“You are mine,” he growls against my skin, voice rough. “Say it.”
“I am yours,” I gasp as his hand slides between my legs, finding me already wet and aching. Two fingers push inside without warning, curling just right. I cry out, hips bucking.
He works me open with ruthless precision, thumb circling my clit until my thighs tremble. When I am right on the edge he pulls back, ignoring my whimper of protest. He flips me onto my stomach, yanks my hips up, and thrusts into me in one brutal stroke. The stretch burns so good I sob into the sheets.
He sets a punishing rhythm, one hand braced beside my head, the other gripping my hip hard enough to leave marks. Every thrust drives the breath from my lungs. The headboard slams against the wall in time with his movements. I push back against him, meeting every stroke, chasing the pleasure that coils tighter and tighter.
“Again,” he demands, voice strained. “Come for me again, Little Flame.”
I shatter with a broken cry, clenching around him so hard his rhythm stutters. He does not stop. He rides me through it, then flips me onto my back, hooks my legs over his shoulders, and drives deeper. His eyes never leave mine, golden, blazing, desperate.
We lose track of time. He takes me on the bed, then against the wall, then bent over the desk by the window where the night air cools our sweat-slick skin. Each time he wrings another orgasm from me until my voice grows hoarse and my limbs shake. When I finally cannot hold myself up anymore he carries me to the bathing chamber, the huge marble tub already steaming from the servants who must have heard us and prepared it.
He lowers me into the water first, then climbs in behind me. His chest presses to my back as he pulls me between his legs. The hot water laps at my breasts while his hands—so gentle now—soap my skin. He washes my hair with slow, careful strokes, massaging my scalp until I melt against him. My eyes drift shut. Exhaustion pulls at me like a heavy tide.
Just as sleep starts to drag me under, I feel his lips brush my temple. His voice is barely a whisper, raw and broken in a way I have never heard from the Dragon King.
“Please… do not leave me.”
The words sink into my heart like a blade. I want to answer, to promise, to tell him the truth that there is no other path. But my body has nothing left. Darkness folds over me, soft and heavy, and the
last thing I hear is his plea repeating like a prayer against my skin.
“Do not leave me, Haven. I cannot do this without you