The Ashborn Crown Chapter 5 | Where Even Dragons Tremble
Beneath chandeliers and ceremonial silence, Velara turns a diplomatic dinner into torture while Tharion realizes exactly who her father truly is: a power older than the stars.
Velara’s posture was flawless and her expression perfectly appropriate for a crown princess attending a diplomatic dinner. But beneath the table? She was a menace. Her leg pressed firmly against Tharion’s, heat radiating through silk and uniform. Her hand rested lightly on his thigh, stroking with slow, unhurried moves that sent fire curling up his spine.
Tharion stiffened so sharply that Loria glanced at him, looking concerned. He forced a nod, assuring her he was fine. In reality, he was not fine. Velara’s hand slid another inch along the muscle as she pretended to be listening to her mother. As she pretended to not notice him nearly choking on air as she pushed him right to the edge of losing all control in the most politically dangerous room in existence.
He swallowed hard, whispering out of the corner of his mouth, “Velara. Stop.”
In response, her thumb traced an idle circle through the fabric of his uniform pants.
Tharion nearly levitated out of his chair. “You’re torturing me,” he hissed, barely audible.
She smiled faintly, eyes fixed primly on the speaker across the table. “Am I?” she murmured, voice a warm ribbon under the noise.
Her fingers slid a fraction higher. “Strange. I’m simply sitting here.”
Heat pooled low in his abdomen, coiling and tightening with every pass of her hand. He was grateful for the tablecloth; otherwise the entire Council might have witnessed the effect she had on him. He tried to straighten, tried to breathe, tried to think about anything else. Nothing helped.
Velara pressed her leg harder against his, anchoring him to her, her breath brushing his ear when she leaned slightly to reach for her glass. “You’re very tense,” she murmured.
“Because of you,” he managed to whisper, not wanting her father, sitting right on the other side of her to overhear.
Veyrakh’s head turned to Tharion, his eyes pinning the younger dragon. Tharion inhaled sharply, grabbing the edge of the table to keep himself grounded. Velara returned her attention to the proceedings as though she had not just dismantled her new husband’s centuries of training with just a leg and a hand.
Tharion, Consort of the Heiress of the Obsidian Flight, feared no dragon alive. Except perhaps the one sitting beside him. Who was currently stroking his thigh in full view of the thirteen Courts.
And also her father, sitting on her other side. The former vanguard commander of Lucifer’s armies in the rebellion against the Great Usurper. A being whose very existence reshaped entire star systems. A being before even the oldest dragons in the hall are mere children.
And beside him, the only mate he had ever taken. Dareya. Flame-touched and war-sharpened. She was gentle, yet fierce. The one being in existence for whom Veyrakh had ever softened. The only person he ever allowed at his side and trusted with his heart.
Velara was not heiress to a throne passed down through eons and generations. At twenty-five, she was the eldest of the only living children Veyrakh had ever fathered. Tharion swallowed hard as that truth settled deeper into the atmosphere.
Velara leaned in, her hand still wicked on his thigh beneath the table, her presence grounding him even as it set him on fire. She whispered, “You’re doing well.”
Across from him, Dareya spoke softly to Veyrakh, their exchange warm and intimate. There was no stiffness between them, no ritual distance.
Tharion had feared dying before dinner. He’d feared being disgraced. He’d never once prepared to be sitting at the side of the first-born child of a being older than the stars.
Velara’s hand squeezed gently. Tharion inhaled sharply.
Across the table, Edric chatted quietly with Tharion’s nephew, who looked like he might either faint or ascend to a higher plane.
Loria asked Tharion, “Is the Crimson Scale Court always this tense at formal dinners?”
He blinked. “No. Yes. Not like this.”
She smiled slightly. “You’ll adjust.”
Then Veyrakh spoke. Every dragon in the room straightened.
Tharion’s heart nearly stopped. Velara’s fingers traced a slow, knowing circle on his thigh. The dinner began.
And Tharion understood he had stepped into the gravity well of primordial power itself.
Tharion barely noticed the plates sliding in front of him. The silverware gleamed and the crystal glasses refracted the chandeliers. His pulse had slightly slowed from the initial realization that Velara’s father was literally the Flight Lord. However, every small movement from Velara kept him on edge. He swallowed. Don’t flinch. Don’t drop the fork. Don’t vomit.
Tharion took a small bite of the carefully arranged entrée. It was a fine, well-prepared roasted meat, though he barely tasted it as he chewed on it mechanically. His mind was in knots so tight he wasn’t sure he could pull them free.
Velara’s hand traced a lazy circle on his forearm. “It’s only dinner,” she said, impossibly calm. “You’re doing fine.”
He froze mid-chew, realizing he hadn’t yet mentally rehearsed responding to a joke or toast from the Flight Lord as his father-in-law Tharion exhaled shakily. Fine so far, he thought. But the night is long, and I have to survive centuries of expectations before the hors d’oeuvres are even cleared.
And just as he thought he might regain a fraction of composure, Velara’s hand traced up his leg again, slow and deliberate, reminding him in the most distracting way that he was sitting next to the woman he loved. Right next to her father, the Flight Lord. His father-in-law…
Tharion’s thoughts were a storm, spinning faster than he could catch. Three seconds. That was all he hoped for. Three seconds in which the Flight Lord might glance at him, maybe even acknowledge him.
She nudged him slightly with her shoulder. “Relax. You’re doing fine. Just talk to me.”
Talk to her, he reminded himself. Not the Flight Lord. Not Father. Just her. But even that was complicated. Because every word, every glance, could be seen by anyone sitting in the hall. Fine, he thought again, though the word tasted like ash. Fine. He exhaled a shaky breath, hardly daring to believe it. The centuries of expectations, the nervous rehearsals, the agonizing focus on a fleeting moment. All of it had been overtaken by the impossibility of his current position.
“Why didn’t you tell me?” he murmured.
Her lips curved in a secretive, amused smile. “Would you have believed me?”
He opened his mouth to argue, but she shook her head, soft laughter brushing the air. “No,” he finally admitted softly.
“I wouldn’t have missed you finding out for the world,” she said, almost tenderly, almost teasingly. Her fingers tightened around his under the table.
Tharion’s pulse hammered in his ears. Every attempt at composure unraveled the moment Velara shifted again, the slow press of her leg against his under the table. His fingers, almost by accident brushed the soft skin at the top of her thigh, just where her dress slit opened. The realization hit him like a physical shock: she was wearing only her thigh-high stockings beneath the silk, nothing else. Heat flared through him, a wildfire of desire and adrenaline. The carefully maintained barriers of etiquette, protocol, centuries of expectation all seemed to crumble in an instant.
Velara’s hand had been teasing him subtly, slowly, and now, under the table, his own movements mirrored hers. A quiet, deliberate reciprocation that neither drew attention from anyone else at the table but left both of them acutely aware of the tension coiling between them. She’s daring me. She’s testing me, he thought, though the notion did little to temper the rush of sensation. And… I’m returning it.
His breathing deepened, and his grip under the table tightened just enough to match her slow, casual strokes. Every nerve ending screamed with the impossibility of the situation. The table, the titles, the centuries of expectations all faded to the background. There was only Velara, only the brush of her hand, only the tantalizing thrill of returning her attentions with careful, deliberate precision. Every second stretching, each subtle movement a dangerous, exquisite game neither could afford to lose.