The dragon rumbles satisfaction. I tell it to shut up.
Selene waitsin the courtyard with food and demands for details.
The two women disappear into the fortress almost immediately, Aisling’s quiet voice weaving through Selene’s exclamations as they walk. I catch one last glimpse before they vanish inside—Aisling glancing back, meeting my stare across the courtyard.
Her mouth curves. Just barely. Just enough.
Then she’s gone.
I stand in the empty courtyard as the sun sinks below the mountains. My skin still carries the ghost of her touch. The way she looked at me when she said I was unexpectedly insightful—like she’d found something she didn’t expect. Something worth finding.
Don’t,I tell myself.Don’t make this into something it isn’t. She’s recovering. You’re a distraction. When she’s healed, she’ll see you for what you really are.
But the words ring hollow.
Because for three hours in that clearing, I watched her save a life. Watched purpose light her from within, burning away the shadows that had dimmed her since she arrived. And I felt something I haven’t felt in centuries.
Not desire, though that’s there too—Aisling is striking in ways that have nothing to do with conventional beauty. Not protectiveness, though that’s present as well.
Something deeper. Quieter. The unfamiliar sensation of being seen—actually seen—and not found wanting.
I shake off the thought. Head inside to find something to eat, someone to spar with, anything to distract me from the inconvenient feelings stirring in my chest.
But I keep replaying that moment in the clearing. Her hand against my scales. Her laugh when I showed her the butterfly crash. The way she leaned into me on the flight home, trusting me to keep her safe.
Layers,I think.Like an onion.
Maybe she has layers too. Maybe underneath the walls and the trauma and the clinical detachment, there’s someone worth knowing. Someone worth staying for.
The thought terrifies me more than any rogue army ever could.
I bury it. Keep walking.
But I don’t forget.
EIGHT
AISLING
Istand at the edge of the gathering, spine straight, fingers laced behind my back. The Brotherhood’s inner circle fills the space around a massive carved table—Drayke at the head with Selene beside him, Auren studying maps with cold precision, Zyphon lurking in the shadows near the far wall. Rurik paces like a caged predator, all restless energy and barely contained motion.
Don’t fidget. Don’t show weakness. You’re a veterinary surgeon, for Christ’s sake. You’ve stitched arteries back together with steadier hands than this.
But I wasn’t a prisoner for three weeks when I did those surgeries. I wasn’t a blood battery for an ancient artifact. I wasn’t?—
“Her fire is unstable.” Drayke’s voice cuts through my spiraling thoughts. He’s looking at me with those amber eyes, and I force myself to meet his gaze without flinching. “That’s a liability we can’t afford.”
A liability. Clinical. Accurate. I’m a problem to be solved, a variable to be controlled. My jaw tightens, but I don’t argue. He’s not wrong.
“It’s time for Rurik to train you.”
Silence crashes through the room like shattered glass.
Auren’s head snaps up from his maps. “We’ve already discussed this.” The skepticism in his voice could curdle milk. “Rurik, teaching control?”
“Careful.” Rurik stops pacing, a dangerous edge slicing through his usual grin. “You’re going to hurt my feelings.”
“You don’t have feelings. You have impulses and poor judgment.” Auren’s attention shifts to Drayke, his expression carved from ice. “He’s the least controlled dragon in the Brotherhood. You want him teaching a traumatized Fire-Bringer how to manage volatile power?”
