Page 70 of Heartflame

“You’re going to be a symbol, dragon,” she said, crouching low again so her masked face was level with mine. “A message to everyone who thinks the old ways can protect them. The Elder Council. The society. Widdershins. All of it, crumbling because they refused to see what was coming. And you, precious Pyre heir, will be the final straw to bring it all tumbling down.”

I roared again, thrashing with every ounce of strength I had left, ignoring the way the chains tore fresh wounds into my scales. I didn’t care about the pain anymore. All I could think about was Quill, about getting to him, about somehow finding a way to break free before whatever she had planned could happen.

“Tire yourself out, by all means,” she said again, almost bored now, rising to her full height and turning away from me. “We’re just making preparations. It will still be some time before everything is ready. The whole paranormal world needs to be watching when we begin, after all. Can’t have a message like this go unnoticed.”

She moved toward the center of the foyer, where several of her witches had gathered. But she only got halfway there before the magic in the air shifted. It was subtle at first, then unmistakable. I felt it prickle against my scales, the same sensation I’d felt when the wards at Widdershins had first begun to weaken.

Morgana went still.

“What is it?” one of the witches asked, noticing her sudden stillness.

She tilted her head, and though I couldn’t see her expression behind the mask, I could hear the smile creeping into her voice when she finally spoke.

“He’s here,” she said softly. “Finally.”

The doors at the far end of the foyer groaned open, and every head in the room turned. I strained against the chains, lifting my snout as high as the restraints allowed, desperate to see who or what had arrived. My heart hammered against my ribs with a wild, foolish hope that maybe, just maybe, my grandfather had found a way through the wards after all.

But then I saw him.

Elder Thaddeus Pyre strode into the foyer with all the calm authority of a man walking into his own drawing room, not a den of undead and corrupted witches. His golden scales caught the dim light, his spiraled horns casting long shadows across the marble floor. Relief crashed through me so violently that I nearly choked on it, a strangled sound tore free from my throat despite the chains crushing my jaw.

Grandfather. He’d come. He’d found a way in. We were saved!

I saw the same desperate hope flicker across Quill’s face as he was dragged back into the room by the thin, hollow-eyed witch, his wrists bound in front of him, his hair disheveled, blood still staining his sleeve. His eyes found mine first, wide with fear, and then landed on my grandfather, and I watched something like relief bloom across his features too.

“Thaddeus,” Morgana said, and there was no surprise in her voice. No alarm. Just something almost fond, almost warm. “You’re late.”

The words didn’t register at first. I was too busy trying to catch my grandfather’s eye, trying to silently beg him to do something, anything, to end this nightmare. But he didn’t look at me. He didn’t look at Quill either. His golden eyes were fixed entirely on Morgana, and there was no shock in his expression. No fury. No righteous anger at finding his own grandson chained on the floor of his ancestral home.

“The Elder Council is long-winded, as usual,” he said dryly. “You know how they are.”

Morgana laughed, that horrible glass-shattering sound, and extended her hand toward him.

He crossed the foyer, stepping over a fallen chandelier and around a cluster of undead who parted for him without a hint of aggression, without so much as a growl. They knew him. They weren’t attacking him because they’d been told not to.

My mind refused to process what I was seeing, even as my body understood it long before my heart could catch up.

Thaddeus took Morgana’s hand in his and shook it.

The world tilted sideways. I heard Quill make a small, broken sound behind me, and I wanted to look at him, wanted to say something, anything, to make this make sense. But there was nothing that could make this make sense. There was no version of reality where my grandfather, the man who’d raised me, the man who’d promised to protect the paranormal world with solemn oaths, was standing here shaking hands with the monster who’d captured and tortured me and my mate.

“Grandfather,” I managed to choke out around the chains, the word coming out as barely more than a growl. “What... what are you⁠—”

“I see you managed to capture the boy,” Thaddeus said, finally sparing me a glance. There was no warmth in his eyes now, no affection, nothing like the man who’d raised me. “Good. We’ll need him for what comes next.”

“You...” I couldn’t even finish the thought. Every certainty I’d built my life on was crumbling in real time, the floor falling away beneath me even though I was already lying flat against it.

“Do you think it’ll be enough?” Morgana asked. “To convince the Council?”

“I do,” Thaddeus nodded, a small grin spreading over his lips. “A dragon, one of the rarest in our world, killed by a witch in front of the whole world? That will make it very easy to convince the Elder Council to separate them permanently.”

Behind me, I heard Quill’s ragged breath catch. “What are you talking about?” he cried. “You’re going to let them kill your grandson?!”

“Not one of them,” my grandfather smiled, turning to face Quill fully. “You.”

Chapter 30

Quill