Jim Gem's Arc

Chapter 13 of 23

That night the loft was warm and dark. Jim lay in the tavern bed with Lena curled against him. Rain tapped the roof. He had flown all morning as the dragon, and his body still hummed from the effort. Now he only wanted her close. Lena traced the black scale on his chest with one finger. She kissed it, then his jaw, then his mouth. Jim kissed her back. She climbed half onto him and laughed low against his lips. "Quiet," she whispered. "Ire's right below us." She bit her own lip to keep from making noise, and it made him grin. "You're the loud one," he said. "Am not." She kissed him harder to prove it. Jim's heart sped up. He felt it thump under her hand, right where the scale sat. He had trained for months to control this. But control was easy at the waterfall, alone. It was harder here, with Lena warm and moving over him and her mouth on his neck. The scale flared. Purple light bloomed across his chest. Lena pulled back an inch, watching it glow between them. "Jim." Her voice went flat and careful. "Your chest." He looked down. The single scale had gone bright, but he couldn’t stop wanting her. Lena didn't flee. She never did. She flattened both palms over the scale and pressed down and parted their lips. "Baby, look at me," she said. Jim stared at her brown eyes and breathed. The new scales climbed toward his shoulder. He felt his ribs want to widen. Lena kept her hands on him and matched his breath, slow and steady, the way she calmed his wolf a hundred times before. "Stay human," she whispered. "Stay here with me." His heartbeat dropped, beat by beat. The purple light dimmed. The two new scales sank back into his skin and closed over. Only the first one remained, dull now, its glow gone quiet. Jim let out a long breath. Sweat cooled on his back. "It came without warning," he said. "Not the wolf. The dragon. From wanting you." Lena lay her head on his chest, right over the scale. "You held it back," she said. "We held it back."