When did I learn this?
No time to question.
More operatives pour through the entrance. Five. Seven. Ten.
Too many for the villagers’ hunting rifles.
Not too many for me.
I stride toward them, feeling my skin start to tighten. Scales start to form.
“K!” Mara’s voice, distant. Terrified.
I risk a glance. She’s pressed against the wall of Dragana’s dwelling, twenty yards away. Exposed. Vulnerable.
An operative sees her. Raises his weapon.
“No!” The word tears from my chest.
Heat erupts beneath my skin. Not gradual. Explosive.
Fire pours from my hands—not conscious, not controlled. Pure instinct answering threat to what’s mine.
The operative’s rifle melts. He screams, dropping the molten metal, and scrambles back.
But more are coming. So many more.
They flood the square from three directions. Coordinated. Professional. Moving like a well-drilled unit.
And they’re carrying something else. Not just rifles.
Devices. Cylindrical. Emitting a low hum that makes my teeth ache.
One operative activates his. The hum intensifies.
Pain lances through my skull. Sharp. Immediate. Like something pressing against my mind.
The heat beneath my skin gutters. Flickers. Fades.
“Suppression field active,” an operative reports into his communication device. “We have his abilities contained at sixty percent.”
What—?
I try to summon flame again. Feel the power there, coiled and ready. But accessing it is like pushing through tar. Possible, but harder.
They knew. Came prepared.
Came for me.
The realization takes shape. They’re not here for Mara. Not specifically.
They want the dragon who tore through their strike team.
They want me.
“Back!” I shout to the villagers. “To the central buildings! Now!”
Andrei and the others retreat, providing covering fire. I move with them, keeping between the operatives and the civilians.
