#85 So Close

So Close
Ryanna POV

She studied me. Really studied me, those cold fire eyes reading every flinch and fight I’d learned to hide. “Consent, then,” she said softly, and the way she said it made my bones sit up. “You’re the queen. You’re allowed to want.”

I swallowed. “I do want damnit.” Her smile went wicked and slow. She stepped into my space, her hands bracing on the stone beside my head, caging me without touching. The move was calculated, room to breathe, room to bolt. I didn’t move an inch.

“Say it,” she murmured. “Tell me what you want from me.”

“I want you to kiss me,” I said, my voice wrecked and honest. “I want to see if the moon was right.”

She didn’t rush. Gods, she made me feel every second. She leaned in and nuzzled first, rubbing the bridge of her nose along the line of my jaw, scenting me, slow and thorough, the hybrid half of her unapologetically feral. When she reached my throat, the scrape of a fang barely grazed my pulse. Heat punched through me so hard my knees softened.

“This is where I’ll mark you mine,” she growled, so quiet it was almost a thought. A helpless sound clawed out of me. “Veyra..”

“Shh.” Her mouth hovered a breath from my skin. “I won’t break your bond. I’m not here to take. I’m here to join.” A beat. “If you want me.”

I let my hands find her waist, her leathers warm from sun. “I want you.” Her smile hit me in the gut. Then she kissed me.

Not gentle. Not cruel. Precise, like she’d mapped this in the moonlight and had come to prove it true. Her mouth crushed mine and I met her in kind, sharp and hungry, the garden spinning. She tasted like winter and wine. She kissed like a vow and a challenge and the first bite of a forbidden fruit. My fingers flexed at her hips; hers slid up to my jaw, thumbs tipping my face to angle me where she wanted. I let her. I also nipped her lower lip in retaliation. She laughed against my mouth, pleased and feral.

The bond inside me sparksnapped, hot and bright. Not the detonating firestorm of a claiming, but a flare of alignment, a star blinking on in a constellation that hadn’t finished drawing itself. Syrene purred in my head, shameless. "There it is, Queen. The pattern completes when you stop pretending you’re smaller than your fate."

Veyra deepened the kiss, slow now, coaxing. The kind that said I will not rush this. Her thigh slotted between mine, my body betrayed me with a helpless press. She exhaled a laugh that was mostly a groan. “Gods, you smell like yes.”

“You’re not exactly subtle,” I breathed, feeling dizzy.

“I’m not trying to be.” Her lips brushed my cheek, my jaw, the fluttering base of my throat, never landing on that pulse again, though she ghosted it just to watch me shake. “I want to know how we do this without breaking the world.”

“Carefully,” I said, and then snorted. “Or not at all. We don’t have a lot of careful in stock.”

She grinned, then sobered, searching my face. “Tell them soon.”

“I will.”

“And if they say no?”

“They won’t.” A beat. Honesty: “And if they do, I’ll fight them on it.” Her smile went soft and lethal. “There she is.”

A sound broke the air, far off, but sharp. A horn from the flight yard, answered by three pack whistles in different pitches. Movement rippled across the estate like wind over wheat. Veyra flicked a glance toward the noise, then back to me, not moving her hands from the wall, not giving me space unless I took it.

“Duty calls,” she murmured

“Duty can wait thirty more seconds,” I countered and dragged her down for another kiss, quicker and filthier. She made a pleased sound in her chest and smiled against my mouth.

“Dangerous little queen,” she said, finally easing back an inch. “Text me where to meet after briefing. Bring that dagger. Leave the lipstick.” Her eyes heated, her fangs flashing. “I want to ruin it myself.”

“Promises, promises,” I said breathlessly.

She stepped back, finally. The sudden absence of her body heat made the garden feel colder. She rolled her shoulders, reset her posture, soldier again, and offered me her hand. I took it. We walked out side by side, every brush of our fingers a private scandal.

Halfway down the path, a shadow peeled from the hedge and became Lucien.He leaned one shoulder into stone, silver gaze cool, mouth doing that lazy, dangerous curve. “Having fun, ladies?

Veyra didn’t flinch. “Tremendous amounts of fun.”

“Mm.” His shadows licked across the flagstones, tasting the air. “We’re convening in the war room. Dragons landed, packs staged, Ze wants a word about ward overlays. Kaelan’s trying to charm a dragon captain. It’s working. Unfortunately.” His eyes slid to my mouth and lingered on the smeared edge of my lipstick. The corner of his lip kicked higher. “You missed a spot, regina.”

“I’ll fix it,” I said, not bothering to blush.

“I’ll fix it,” Veyra echoed, shameless.

He huffed a laugh, then sobered. “This is going to be interesting." He purred, fixing an appreciative glare on Veyra. I felt my cheeks flush. If the guys want Veyra too, that just makes this that much easier. I grinned wickedly at him.

Veyra’s smile was all teeth as she admired him right back. "Indeed it will be."

“Good,” I said, exhaling. “War room in five.”

We moved. The castle breathed us along corridors bright with new banners and brighter purpose. Far above, dragons screamed a greeting. Below, four packs beat their hearts in unison. Beside me, a hybrid’s knuckles brushed mine, casual like sin. Ahead, my men waited with questions they deserved to have answered.

At the war room doors, StarFury’s lanterns flared white, once, twice, then guttered to a warning blue.

Aedryos’s voice crashed into the bond, steady and cold. "Positions. Now. Wards tripped on the eastern ridge."

Outside the high windows, the day dimmed as a shadow passed across the sun, a shape too large to be a single dragon, too coordinated to be a storm.

Veyra and I traded one glance, hot, hungry and battle-ready.

“Later,” she said.

“Later,” I promised, drawing my blade.

And the war room doors swung open onto whatever the gods thought they were sending next.