Lightning cracks across the sky in patterns too regular to be random. Once. Twice. Three times in perfect interval, illuminating something massive diving through the clouds.
Wings. Crimson scales catch lightning like they're made of fire themselves, each bolt highlighting the terrible beauty of a creature that shouldn't exist. The wingspan defies physics, wider than any aircraft I've studied, membrane stretched between bones thick as tree trunks. Claws extend from massive feet, each talon the length of my arm, designed to rend and tear. The dragon's head is all sharp angles and predator focus, eyes that glow even from this distance, locked on the cave entrance with single-minded intensity.
Relief floods through me so fierce it's painful. Finn. He came for me. He's going to save me.
Then terror crashes over the relief like a wave. He's flying straight into a trap. Mikhail planned this, prepared for this, built everything around this exact moment. The blood in the basin, the symbols glowing brighter with every second, the positioning of the cave—it's all designed to capture a dragon. To drain him. To kill him.
I strain against the ropes, ignoring the pain as they cut deeper into my wrists. My voice won't work but I try anyway, forcing air past my constricted throat in a soundless scream. Warning him. Begging him to turn back. Anything to make him understand he can't come here, can't try to rescue me, can't walk into Mikhail's carefully constructed death.
But the dragon doesn't hesitate. Doesn't slow. He folds his wings and dives toward the cave entrance with the inevitability of a storm breaking against the cliffs.
Finn.
The storm isn't approaching—he's bringing it with him.
CHAPTER 8
FINN
Her blood calls to me through the storm.
The mate bond pulls like a physical tether, dragging me through wind and rain straight toward the cliffs where Mikhail's scent burns like a beacon. Phoenix fire and fear and the copper tang of Lila's blood mixing into a scent signature that makes my dragon scream with rage.
The cave mouth opens below, hidden in the cliff face where tidal erosion carved chambers into volcanic rock. Flames flicker inside, visible even through the storm. Mikhail's not hiding. He's waiting.
I tuck my wings and dive.
The entrance is barely wide enough for my dragon form but I don't slow. Stone scrapes against scales as I crash through, momentum carrying me into the cave with enough force to crack rock beneath my claws. My wings snap open, filling the space, blocking the exit behind me.
Lila is bound near the back wall, blood dripping from a cut on her forearm into a stone basin. The symbols carved into the floor pulse with sickly light, fed by her blood, building power with every drop that falls. Her eyes go wide when she sees me, relief and terror warring across her face.
Mikhail stands beside her with one hand on her shoulder, casual as a man discussing weather. He smiles.
"Right on schedule, old friend."
I shift before the mist clears, my human form solidifying between one heartbeat and the next. I'm naked, unarmed, every line of my body coiled for violence. "Let her go."
"Or what?" He doesn't move his hand. "You'll kill me? You've had centuries to try. Yet here I stand." His fingers tighten on Lila's shoulder, not enough to bruise but enough to make his point. "And here she sits, exactly where I need her."
The symbols flare brighter. The air thickens with power I recognize, the kind that binds and drains and feeds on life force. Lila tries to move and can't. The ritual has her locked in place, held by magic stronger than rope.
"Your quarrel is with me. Let her go and we'll settle this."
"My quarrel is with your stupidity." Mikhail circles behind Lila, using her as a shield between us. "I'm trying to help you. Again. Just like I helped you with Saoirse."
Her name on his lips sends fire burning at the back of my throat. I swallow it down. The dragon fire would fill this cave, incinerate everything. Including Lila.
"You murdered her."
"I freed you from a weakness that would have destroyed you." He leans down, speaking near Lila's ear but loud enough for me to hear. "Mortals die, Dr. Mercer. Even claimed ones eventually tire of immortality, of watching everyone they knew turn to dust. Saoirse would have left him eventually, one way or another. I simply accelerated the inevitable."
Lila's jaw tightens. Her hands are moving behind her back, small movements I catch only because I'm watching for any sign she's hurt worse than the cut. "You're insane."
"I'm practical." Mikhail straightens, his gaze fixed on me. "And I loved Finn enough to make the hard choice when hewouldn't. I removed the attachment that made him vulnerable. Gave him freedom to be what he was meant to be—a dragon unburdened by mortal complications."
"I repaid you with hatred." The words taste like ash. "Destroyed your compound. Broke your wings. Left you bleeding in the ruins."
"And I've spent centuries waiting for you to understand I was right." His expression changes to something that might be genuine pain beneath the madness. "But you never did. So this time, I'll let you make the choice."
