Chapter Thirty-Six

Callum

T he pain was too great.

Howling in agony as I pulled on the scale to try to free it from my body, I stumbled backward, losing my balance.

The bright white light faded only slowly, leaving me on one knee, gasping for air as the spikes of pain that had driven themselves deep into my brain eased.

“Callum, what are you doing?”

Madison was there at my side, holding my arm. The sound of her raspy voice drove me wild with a fury I could only contain because Cleye was already dead. If he weren’t, he would’ve been in that moment. Nothing would have spared him from my wrath.

How dare he lay a hand on my woman!?

My dragon backed the sentiment up, snarling and hissing with impotent anger. It flashed the thought of incinerating his body with fire, but that wouldn’t solve anything.

“Are you okay?” she asked, grabbing my jaw, forcing me to look at her. “What on Earth was that all about?”

“The scale,” I said through the breaths. “Has to come off. Has to go. Only way to move on.”

“You’re going to kill yourself,” she said. “It can’t come off. You told me that yourself.”

“Has to,” I repeated. “I’m ready.”

“Ready to die?”

I cocked my head at her. “No, Madison. I’m ready to live .”

Her throat bobbed as she swallowed, and I held back a fresh spike of anger at the sight of the bruising already showing itself where Cleye had attacked her.

“It’s okay,” she said at last. “You don’t have to hurt yourself just to prove that to me. I believe you.”

I watched her eyes, her face, searching for any sign that she was saying that just to get me to stop.

I couldn’t find anything. All I saw looking back at me were genuine care, trust, and, most important of all, belief.

Belief in me. In what I was saying and what I’d done. For her.

“You do?” I asked, longing to hear it again anyway.

“I do,” she said, nodding, a half-smile tugging at her features. “Just look into my eyes and tell me everything. That’s all you ever have to do with me, Cal.”

So, I did that. I stared into her eyes, deep in them, past the surface layer and into the very depths of her soul, that part of people that was kept from everyone but that one special person.

It was like that day on the battlefield not so very long ago. A day that I’d once cursed but was now beyond grateful for because it had shown me a light, even if I hadn’t recognized it at the time.

The world around me fell away as I was transported to a new world, one full of hope and laughter. One filled with a love that burned brighter than anything I’d seen before.

“I was a fool,” I told her, embracing that warming light. “I didn’t know what I had in you, and so I wasn’t willing to be what you needed. But my eyes have been opened now, and I never want them to close again. Not when I have you on the other side. I want you to be the only thing I see. Ever.

“You were right to be suspicious at first,” I continued. “I wasn’t ready to love. I needed a swift kick in the ass for that. You can thank my mom. Now, though, I know the truth. I’ve loved before and that won’t change. But right here. Right now. And for the future, I choose you , Madison Page. You, and only you. I choose you now, and I will choose you every day going forward. If you’ll have me.”

There was no hesitation in her answer.

“I love you, Callum, my dragon,” she whispered.

I kissed her. Hard.

Seconds turned into minutes into eternity. We kissed and parted and kissed again. Tongues darted and danced, warm and erotic against one another as heat grew between us, billowing sheets of warmth that reached out to wrap themselves around us.

Light followed the heat. We barely noticed, too caught up in one another. Only when it began to burn the eyes, washing out the room around us, we realized it was real and not just in our minds.

“Cal?”

“Maddie?”

I could still feel her. Still touch her.

Then the light congealed into a spark in my chest, and I gasped as it extinguished itself with a snap.

“What the hell was that?” Maddie asked, looking around wildly.

“I don’t know,” I said. “I …”

I felt something move on my chest, and after reaching into my shirt, I froze.

“Cal? Is everything okay?”

I stared at her. “I think it’s better than okay.”

“What do you mean?”

I smiled at her as I pulled the object from beneath my shirt. “I think we’ve just been given a blessing by fate.”

Maddie stared in surprise at the emerald green scale in my hand, perfectly hard and formed as if it had never been melded to my skin.

I closed my eyes.

Thank you .

Sending the words out into the world, I smiled at Maddie.

She smiled back.

At some point, one of us laughed.

The laughter quickly became tears, but they didn’t last long. The catharsis of what had just happened was strong.

But the desire to leave that room and begin our life together was even stronger.