Crushed the stem.
Rage coiled through him—white-hot,unrelenting.
Amateurs.
They didn’t understand her.
Didn’t see her.
But he did.
Arden Rivers wasn’t soft.
She wasn’t meant to be coaxed or controlled.
Little Fire.
She wasn’t some delicate thing to be warned away.
She wasn’t just fire.
She was a goddess of ruin.
And these fools?These cowardly, scrambling hands that dared touch what was his?
All they’d done was make her burn hotter.
Let Gideon stand beside her.
Let him bask in her glow while it lasted.
He’d never earned the heat she gave so freely.
Soon,Gideon would know what it felt like to lose everything.
To watch the fire turn on him.
And Arden?
She’d see it.
She’d feel it.
The truth she kept running from.
The one written into her bones.
She was his.
Not Blackwell’s.
Not anyone else’s.
Only his.
And when shefinally woke up to that truth?
She’d thank him.
