“Sloane.” I grip her shoulders, pulling her focus to me. I send calm pouring into her, control, discipline, every hard-won lesson from millennia of taming the monster inside me. “Not like this. Not when you’re learning. Your power… if you lose control now, you could level this building. Kill everyone inside. Isthatwhat you want?”
Her eyes are pure molten gold, the crimson swallowed by rage, and for a heartbeat, I think she might try it. Might let the Voice loose, damn the consequences.
Then she blinks, and the gold recedes slightly.
Just slightly.
“No,” she whispers. “But Crave, he’s destroying you. He’s going to get you killed, and I can’t… I won’t—”
“I know.” I gather her against my chest, her heartbeat hammering into me through the bond, panicked, furious, alive. “But we’re not acting from rage. We’re acting from strategy. From—”
And while I am trying to calm Sloan, suddenly Scorch explodes.
Not metaphorically.
His dragon fire erupts in a pillar of flame that punches through the ceiling, sending chunks of concrete raining down around him. His veins aren’t just glowing, they’re burning, molten channels of fire visible beneath his skin.
“Strategy?” His voice is a roar that makes the walls tremble. “He’s out there right now, turning humans, exposing us all, and you want to sit here andstrategize?”The flames surroundinghim pulse higher, hotter, and where they touch the floor, stone begins to melt. “I say we find him. We burn him. We burn everything he’s ever touched until there’s nothing left but ash and screaming.”
“Scorch—” Rogue moves toward him, but the heat drives him back.
“Don’t!” The dragon shifter’s eyes are fully reptilian, pupils slitted and burning like coals. “Don’ttell me to calm down.Don’ttell me to control it. I’ve been controlling it for five hundred years, and I’m done! Done hiding. Done containing. Done pretending I’m anything other than what I am… fire, fury, and destruction.”
His rage, so different from Sloane’s or mine, but just as ancient, erupts again. This time, it’s tinged with gold and orange, true dragon fire that burns hot enough to melt steel, and I watch furniture ignite just from proximity.
“Oracle!” I shout. “Help him.”
But Oracle is already moving, his flames reigniting as he approaches Scorch. Phoenix fire meets dragon fire in a collision of heat and light that makes everyone shield their eyes.
“Brother,” Oracle warns, his voice carrying that ancient wisdom that comes from dying and being reborn multiple times. “Fire consumes everything, yes. But you know what fire also does?” His flames are gentle, cooling from white-hot to simmering gold. “It purifies. It illuminates. It guides when controlled properly.”
“I don’t want to be c-controlled!” Scorch’s voice cracks, and I realize he’s not just angry. He’s terrified. Terrified of what he might do. Terrified of losing himself to the beast inside. “I want to burn. I need to burn, Oracle. It’s what I am.”
“No.” Oracle’s hand finds Scorch’s shoulder, and somehow his phoenix flames don’t hurt the dragon. They soothe. “You are what you choose to be. Fire, yes. But also brother, family,guardian of something worth protecting.” His flames pulse, and the heat in the room begins to recede. “Your rage is righteous, Scorch. Viktor deserves to burn. But Crave is right, acting from rage alone will get us all killed. The Coven won’t care about justification. They’ll only see more chaos. More exposure.”
Scorch’s flames flicker, and for a moment I think he might listen. Then his eyes find the television screen, where the footage is being replayed in slow motion, and his jaw sets.
“Three days,” he says, his voice still carrying that dragon’s rumble. “Oracle said three days until the Coven comes. That’s not enough time to plan. It’s barely enough time to dig our own graves.”
“Then we don’t wait for them.” The words leave my mouth before I’ve fully thought them through, but as soon as I say them, I know they’re right. “We go to Viktor first. End this before the Coven arrives. Cut off the head of the snake and present them with a solved problem instead of an ongoing crisis.”
“That’s suicide,” Hades says flatly. “Viktor won’t be alone. He’ll have his army, his shapeshifter, and every advantage.”
“Then we take those advantages away.” I turn to Hex. “Can you track the shapeshifter? Find where Viktor’s hiding?”
“Give me an hour.” Hex’s fingers are already moving. “Maybe less. The illusion magic leaves a signature. I can trace it.”
“Do it.” I look around at my brothers, my family, seeing their fear, fury, and desperate determination. “Rogue, start mobilizing combat teams. Hades, I need every death ward and bone construct you can create. Grizz, Reyna, fortify this position in case we fail and they come here. Ronan, bend probability in our favor. We’re going to needeveryedge we can get.”
“And me?” Sloane asks, her voice steadier now but still carrying that layered quality.
“You train.” I meet those molten eyes. “Because when we face Viktor, when we face the Coven, you need to be ready. Yourpower could be the thing that tips the balance. Butonlyif you can control it.”
Her understanding threads into me, soft but sure. Her acceptance follows, settling deep. And beneath it all, bright and unbreakable, lives her absolute certainty that we’ll survive this.
Together.
“Crave.” Rogue’s voice cuts through the planning, and I turn to find my VP standing rigid, every muscle tensed. His eyes are pure gold now, his lycan rising to the surface in response to instincts I’ve learned never to ignore. “Something’s coming. My wolf feels it. It’s not just Viktor. It’s…” he trails off, nostrils flaring. “It’s the Coven. They’re not waiting three days. Oracle’s prophecy, the three days, it’s not a warning. It’s a countdown that’s already started.”
