Not metaphorically. His entire body erupts into flames hot enough to turn sand to glass, to slag rock, to make the air itself shimmer and warp. Phoenix fire doesn't just burn—it consumes. It unmakes. The heat slams into me like a physical blow, searing through scales that can withstand ocean trench pressure, cooking the flesh beneath.
I roar. The sound fills the cave, primal and furious, loud enough to shake loose stone from the ceiling. But I don't release him. I press harder, using my weight to crush him into the wall, to hold him in the flames he's generating.
The fire intensifies. My scales blacken. The smell of burning flesh—my own—fills my nostrils. Heat penetrates deeper, reaching muscle, threatening organs. Phoenix fire doesn't care about dragon hide. Given enough time, it will cook me from the inside out.
I release him and stagger back.
Mikhail's body collapses into ash and flame, the fire consuming him completely. For one heartbeat, there's nothing but glowing embers and smoke. Then the fire condenses, drawing back into itself, reforming into human shape a few feet away.
He stands there, completely healed, not even breathing hard. Eyes blazing with fury and something that might be satisfaction.
"You never learn."
Phoenix fire explodes from his hands.
I answer with dragon flame.
The two fires meet in the space between us and the cave becomes an inferno. Dragon fire burns hotter than anything natural—hot enough to melt stone, to boil seawater, to reduce bone to ash. But phoenix fire doesn't follow natural laws. It burns with supernatural heat, fed by immortal will, impossible to extinguish.
The cave fills with light bright enough to blind. Heat rolls off both of us in waves that make the air ripple. The bioluminescent algae on the walls dies instantly, flash-cooked by ambient temperature. Stone begins to glow cherry-red, then white-hot. Water in the tidal pool boils, sending up clouds of steam.
I can't maintain this. Not in dragon form. Not in this enclosed space with Lila twenty feet away.
I shift back to human, cutting off the flame. The transformation is faster this time, desperate, driven by the need to control my fire before it fills the entire cave. Dragon to human in seconds, and I'm fighting in human form again because dragon size is a liability here, because one misdirected blast of flame would incinerate Lila along with everything else.
Mikhail doesn't stop. His fire keeps coming, sustained and controlled, and I have to dodge. Roll. Put a stalagmite between us that starts melting under the sustained heat.
He's faster than he should be. Stronger. The ritual power he's accumulated feeds his flames, makes them burn hotter, last longer, gives him reserves that shouldn't exist. We've fought before, centuries ago. I know his patterns. His tells. The way he favors his left side, the way he drops his guard when he builds power for a big attack.
None of that applies now. He's been enhanced by weeks of ritual killings, by the accumulated life force of his victims. Every movement is precise. Every attack calculated. We're evenlymatched in ways we shouldn't be, in ways that tell me he's been planning this fight for far longer than I realized.
The Brotherhood arrives as I abandon caution to reclaim my dragon form.
Declan's wolf form crashes through the cave entrance first, massive and black, followed immediately by Kian's tiger and Grayson's bear. They spread out with practiced efficiency, surrounding Mikhail, cutting off escape routes.
Rafe's shadows pour through behind them, living darkness that wraps around Mikhail's legs and arms, trying to bind him in place.
They were already hunting him. The ritual magic flaring like a beacon must have drawn them straight here.
Mikhail laughs. "The cavalry arrives. How predictable."
He fights all of us. Phoenix fire explodes outward in a wave that forces Declan back, that makes Kian's tiger roar in pain, that sends Grayson's bear reeling. The shadows burn away like morning mist. He's stronger than he should be, the accumulated ritual power making him dangerous in ways I haven't seen in centuries.
I hit him from the side while he's focused on Declan, my dragon claws raking across his ribs deep enough to expose bone. The phoenix blood splashes across stone, hissing where it lands, and Mikhail screams.
Good. Let him hurt.
But phoenixes don't die easily. He sets himself on fire again, the flames consuming his body completely. Regeneration, not attack. When the fire dies, he's gone. Just ash and smoke and the lingering scent of burned magic.
His voice echoes through the cave from everywhere and nowhere. "This isn't over, old friend. Next time, I won't give you a choice."
The ash stirs in a wind that shouldn't exist underground, then vanishes completely. Teleportation through phoenix fire. A trick I've seen him use before when retreat was smarter than fighting.
Silence settles over the cave, broken only by heavy breathing and the crackle of dying flames.
I shift back to human form and turn to Lila.
She's on her feet near the cave wall, breathing hard, soot-streaked and bleeding but alive. Whole. Safe. The relief that floods through me is so fierce it's painful.
