Below, I hear the second rogue moving. Circling. Stalking.
Stalking her.
MATE IN DANGER.The dragon roars, thrashing against my control.PROTECT. KILL. BURN THEM ALL.
I try to break away from the aerial fight, to get to Selene, but the rogue is relentless. Every time I disengage, he attacks again,driving me higher, keeping me occupied while his partner closes in on the real target.
“Fire-Bringer.” The second rogue’s voice drifts up from below—a wet rasp, amused and cruel. “The Guardian King can’t save you now. He’s rather busy, isn’t he?”
I hear Selene’s response. Steady despite the fear she must be feeling. “Funny. I don’t need saving.”
The rogue laughs. “Fire-Bringer will burn so prettily. Our master can’t wait to see your flames.”
The aerial rogue slams into me from above, driving his claws into my wing membrane. Pain lances through me—sharp, bright, distracting. I twist, breathe fire directly into his face, but he jerks away at the last second. The flame only grazes him.
Through the smoke and chaos, I catch glimpses of the forest floor. The second rogue has cornered Selene against a rock face. She’s holding her knife—that pitiful human blade—and her stance is good, balanced, exactly as I taught her.
But the rogue is twice her size in human form. In dragon form, he’d crush her without effort.
He’s not shifting. He’s savoring this. Playing with his prey.
Get to her. Have to get to her.
I feint left, then dive right, trying to slip past the aerial rogue. He anticipates, slashes across my flank. More pain. More blood. But I’m through, plummeting toward the ground, toward Selene?—
The ground rogue lunges.
And Selene’s hands erupt in flame.
It happens in an instant.
One moment, the rogue is reaching for her—claws extended, mouth twisted in a predator’s grin. The next, fire explodes from her palms in a torrent of white-gold flame.
Not the careful, controlled flames she’s been practicing. This is raw power—primal, devastating, the kind of fire that exists at the heart of stars. It engulfs the rogue completely, pours into his mouth when he screams, burns him from the inside out.
Even from above, I can feel the heat. Can smell the char of scales and flesh. Can hear the rogue’s shriek cut short as fire consumes his lungs.
He doesn’t even have time to shift.
Within seconds, there’s nothing left but ash drifting on the wind.
Selene stands frozen, hands still raised, flames still licking at her fingers. Her face is pale. Her whole body is trembling.
“What the hell was that?” Her voice cracks. “What the HELL was that?”
The aerial rogue chooses that moment to dive.
Not at me. At her. He saw what she did to his partner, and now he’s abandoning strategy for rage—plummeting toward her with claws extended and murder in his eyes.
I slam into him from the side.
We crash through the trees, scales scraping bark, wings tangling in branches. I don’t bother with finesse. Don’t waste time on strategy. My claws find his throat and I rake deep, pouring fire into the wounds, letting the white-gold blaze that only a Guardian King commands consume him from within.
He burns.
I let him fall—ash and embers scattering through the canopy—and bank hard toward the ground.
Selene is still standing. Still trembling. The flames on her hands have died, but smoke curls from her fingertips.
