And I’m falling.
Faster than I can stop. Deeper than I can control. Every moment with her peels back another layer of the walls I’ve built, exposes another piece of the heart I’ve kept guarded for four centuries.
I wanted to protect her from a distance. Wanted to keep her safe without letting her get close enough to destroy me.
Too late for that now.
The dragon doesn’t howl anymore. Doesn’t demand.
It simply waits. Patient. Certain.
Because we both know the truth.
Running was never really an option.
NINE
SELENE
The poison takes three days to fully leave my system.
Three days of sleeping more than I’ve slept since childhood. Three days of Drayke hovering—bringing food, checking my wounds, watching me with an intensity that would be suffocating if it weren’t also strangely comforting. Three days of feeling the fire inside me shift and grow, responding to my recovery with an eagerness that borders on sentient.
On the fourth morning, I wake up hungry. Actually hungry, not the weak, watered-down version I’ve been managing. My shoulder aches where the scars are still healing—three parallel lines that have faded from angry red to pale pink—but the bone-deep exhaustion is gone.
I push myself upright, testing my body’s limits. Arms work. Legs work. The wound pulls when I stretch, but it’s manageable pain—the kind that reminds you you’re alive rather than making you wish you weren’t.
The cabin is empty. Drayke’s been doing that—giving me space during the mornings, patrolling the territory, checking in with his brothers. I should probably feel abandoned. Instead, I’m grateful for the privacy.
Because I have experiments to run.
I start with the candles. Six of them arranged on the coffee table, wicks fresh and waiting. Before the attack, I could light one with concentrated effort. Now...
I think about fire. Just think about it—the warmth, the light, the dancing hunger of flames.
All six candles ignite at once.
“Holy—” I jerk back, nearly falling off the couch. The flames are steady, controlled, burning exactly as candle flames should. But I didn’t focus. Didn’t concentrate. I barely even tried.
I stare at my hands. They look the same as always—freckled, slightly calloused from sword training, nails bitten short. Nothing about them screams supernatural fire-wielder.
But the power simmering beneath my skin tells a different story.
I spend the next hour testing limits.
The kettle on the stove heats to boiling with a touch—no flame beneath it, just my palm pressed against cold metal until steam rises. I try it again with a bowl of water, then with a damp cloth. Both times, the heat comes easily, almost eagerly, as if my fire has been waiting for permission to play.
I can shape the candle flames now, bend them toward me or away, make them dance in patterns. When I focus hard enough, I can create a small sculpture of fire in my palm—a bird, a flower, a tiny dragon that makes me laugh despite myself.
The dragon shape holds longest. Figures.
The power responds to emotion. That much is clear. When I’m calm, the flames are steady. When frustration creeps in—when I fail to hold a shape for more than a few seconds—the fire flares unpredictably.
And when I think about Drayke...
The candle flames triple in height. I have to smother them with a thought before they catch the ceiling.
Okay. Note to self: don’t think about the dragon while playing with fire.
