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“What? Of course it has to be me. I just told you that it’s Celestial-borne.”

“When it… grabbed me… it… I felt it… calling out for you. It can’t know… can’t feel you.” He choked and spewed up blood over the grass.

“Motherfucker,” I uttered.

“It’s killing him!” Nyx cried.

“The infection is driving too deep, too fast,” Ariana determined. “Fuck this, I’m healing you.”

Kai weakly grasped her hand. “No.It’s… against… my wishes. I know you… value… free will.”

“Dammit, Kai!” Nyx yelled.

I saw it in Ariana’s eyes. Kai had gotten to her. She couldn’t violate his free will, what he wanted. She’d never do that to anyone, and it made sense given her situation.

“Argh!” Ariana ground out. “Even on your deathbed, you’re utterly maddening.”

Kai spluttered out a raspy laugh. “Aww… love you, too, sweetheart.”

Ariana jolted at his words.

He was in a state, though, his eyes glazed and his body sweating and shaking from the infection. “He’s entering delirium from the infection,” I told Ariana, trying to take the edge off for her. And, maybe for me, too.

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” Nyx spoke, frowning down at Kai as he stroked his hair, his whole body trembling with his worry for him.

I fought to push past the emotion of it all, something that had ramped up because of Kai’s apparent confession that might not actually be rooted in delirium.

“Let me try,” I said, pushing forward and settling down beside Ariana as she gazed at Kai forlornly, caught between wanting to save him and respecting his wishes.

“I don’t think dragon healing can overcome Celestial Light,” Ariana warned me, trying to be diplomatic and respectful about it, rather than being anything even resembling arrogant given the fact that she had goddess-level abilities. The truth was,nothingshould be able to overcome that sort of thing. It wasn’t a matter of “think”, she knew it for a fact.

And so did I.

Or, I should have.

But, just like the strangeness that had occurred inside the Unity Council building, where I’d been able to break Kai free, an instinctual sensation was rolling over me, pushing me to act, telling me that Icouldwhere this was concerned.

And as I touched Kai’s destroyed arm, it surged with a primal ferocity.

My magical red flame—not the destructive white-hot dragon fire—burst into being in the form of a violent glow, almost of its own accord as soon as it felt the infection.

I latched onto the feeling and pushed harder, and I watched, fucking stunned, as my red glow seeped into Kai’s arm andsparked against the black, charred damage that had spread toward his chest now, too.

In moments, it started to recede.

I held it steady, my whole body shuddering from the assault of what I was doing, which shockingly, seemed to be executing dominance over the infection and forcing it to back down and leave Kai’s system.

That same white smoke from earlier rose from his arm and spread out and up before me and Ariana, swirling there and forming a spiraling sphere. It kept drawing out, until there was no more that I could sense within Kai, and Nyx and Ariana’s gasps sounded around me as all that was left in its wake were second-degree burns on Kai’s skin. His skin—no longer that charred mess it had been.

As I pulled back, breathing heavily, I looked to see Ariana absorbing the ball into herself, until it snuffed out between her palms. She grunted, then slapped her hands to the ground, panting like me.

We exchanged a look and I saw her shock at my actions, at what I’d been able to do.

“You said you possessed abilities beyond other dragons.”

“This wasn’t one of them. I didn’t know aboutthis,”I told her.

My focus was on Kai’s still wounded arm then. Although he was no longer at risk of death, it was still a nasty burn and we knew it had been created by something that regular magic couldn’t heal.