Her vision swam. “Please bring him back to me. Whatever it takes. If there’s a price for this, I’ll pay it.”
“Then close your eyes. Think of your fondest memory of my brother and hold it dear. Whatever you do, don’t look until I tell you. Understood?”
“Yes.” She clenched her eyes tight and held on to Max as she thought back to the night they’d first met. To the sight of him stripping her clothes from her body as he kissed and caressed her in a wild frenzy.
She could still hear his deep, infectious laughter in her ear at the way she jerked his clothes from him to uncover more and more of his incredible flesh.
“Eager, are you?” he’d asked with a grin.
“Don’t waste your tongue with words. I’ve much better uses for it.”
Laughing again, he’d obliged her with a searing kiss that had left her breathless and weak. She’d barely loosened his pants before he was deep inside her, filling her to capacity and thrusting against her hips while he held her against the closed door.
With her legs wrapped around his lean waist, she’d met him stroke for stroke, growling and urging him on. She’d raked her hands through his hair, delighting in the sensual way it felt sliding between her fingers as he sated the ache inside her. Then she’d run her hands over his strong, broad shoulders and down his back so that she could savor the sensation of his muscles rippling while he pleased her even more.
It hadn’t taken any time at all for her to come, screaming as pleasure ripped through her body.
Then, in the tenderest of actions, Max had cupped her cheek and kissed her while slowing his strokes until he came, too. Still inside her, he’d shuffled backward along the floor, finally stepping out of the breeches that had been pooled at his ankles, until he reached the bed and then, laughing, had fallen onto it with her on top of him.
There his golden eyes had darkened as he slowly, carefully cupped her breasts in his hands and licked his lips. Her eyes had widened as she felt him growing hard inside her again.
“Still hungry?”
He’d expelled a deep, sexy sigh. “For you? Famished. Gods, woman, your breasts are ample and supple enough to shame any woman I’ve ever seen.”
“Then lay back, my lord. I intend to make sure you are well sated this night.”
For years, she’d considered him her one knight stand that had seriously skidded off the rails. Now…
“Open your eyes, Sera.”
Hoping and praying for a miracle, she obeyed Falcyn.
Max still wasn’t moving. And now there was a grayish cast to his scales.
Worse? Falcyn was now as pale as Blaise. His hair had gone snow-white.
Concerned, she dropped her gaze from his face to the small bowl he held in his hand that contained blood. “Are you all right?”
Sweat beaded on his forehead and upper lip. “Tell me what do you love most about my brother.”
“The way he makes me feel.”
“And that is?”
She swallowed hard. “Like I can fly. Even when I’m in this body without wings, he makes me feel like I’m in the clouds, looking down on the world.”
“Then breathe into him. Let your breath be his.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Embrace the dragon, Seraphina. Breathe into him.”
Cupping Max’s snout, she did what Falcyn said. Then waited…
And waited.
Her heart clenched tight as Max remained still and pale. “Nothing’s happening.”
His hair darkening, Falcyn touched Max’s body and the moment he did, a deep, dark crimson light shot through his cells, illuminating them like a flashlight through skin on the darkest night. Translucent and bright.
Before she could move, Max drew a deep breath and opened his eyes.
Sera gasped. “Max?”
He blinked slowly. “What happened?”
“Do you remember anything?”
Groaning, he laid his head back, then cursed. “Falcyn…” He immediately shifted to his human body to stare up at his brother. “You broke your oath.”
His gaze went from Max to Sera. “Sometimes it’s worth it. We are brothers, after all.”
And with that, Max knew that Falcyn had finally forgiven him. “Thank you.”
Falcyn inclined his head to him. “Remember the cost I’ve paid for your life today. Don’t ever waste it and don’t make me regret it.”
Max held his hand out to him. “Never.”
Falcyn tucked his hand into his and shook it, not as a man, but as a drakomas. Then he cupped Seraphina’s cheek in his hand and kissed her forehead. “May peace and happiness be with you, only.”
As he withdrew, she caught his arm. “You’re not leaving after this, are you?”
“Drakomai are creatures of solitude.”
She glanced to Max before she turned back to Falcyn and smiled. “But they can learn another way. And I’d like to get to know my brother-in-law.”
He met Max’s gaze with an arched brow.
“You are always welcomed at my nest. Especially since we’ve lost Illarion.”