Page 28 of Entwined

But I ignore him—not really capable of coherent thought right now. The second I clear the apartment and reach the small room outside the elevator bay, I drop into a dead run and leap through the window, shifting into Azar as soon as I’m clear of the building, between one breath and the next, and then I’m flying.

Space.

I need to put space between Liz and me or I might kill her when I explode. The only thing I can think as I fly as high and as fast as I can is that there’s no way I’m going to survive tomorrow if mating for humans is more than that kiss just was.

Not without murdering a lot of other creatures in a terrible deluge of fire and flame.

Where are we going? Hyperion drops into the airspace alongside me. This looks like fun.

Go away.

You’re not being very friendly, he says. I’ve been helpful and accommodating, you know. I didn’t have to volunteer when Dad said someone had to follow you.

He’s right, and that just pisses me off more. Any other brother of mine would have forced a fight for dominance. Dad’s actually trying to encourage me, and if I hadn’t bonded Liz that day. . . But as it is, it doesn’t matter whom he sent. We’re headed for a confrontation either way.

The futility of our attempts, the collision course I’ve been flying down, Liz kissing Gideon, all of it has me so angry that an explosion is imminent. In that very second, I realize that finally, there’s a target in front of me that can take the heat.

All of it.

So I inhale deeply, and I release a pillar of flame that would decimate Houston’s city line if we weren’t clinging to the edge of the atmosphere. Up here, there’s barely enough oxygen to sustain the flame as long as I’m releasing it.

Even so, the force of it slams into Hyperion, hitting him right in the center of his chest and blowing him far, far off my trajectory. It would make me laugh if I weren’t so upset.

Easy there, brother. We’ve never quarreled.

In spite of everyone’s attempts to force us to it. I should apologize, but I’m still too angry. The person who’s making me the most angry can’t withstand the heat, so I throw even more at Hyperion.

This time, he comes back at me, eyes sparking. Remember. You started this. As the fire erupts from his mouth, arcing through the space between us, I remember the first lesson my father ever gave me.

You’re flame blessed, Azar, he had said. Fire’s a chemical reaction between oxygen and fuel. It’s a powerful force that destroys, across the whole of the known universe.

I had blinked up at him, my entire body smaller than his front foot.

For everything, except for our kind. We’re different than everyone and everything else. We’re creatures of flame, made to destroy and remake anything in the world that defies us.

I had looked around his chamber—a large stone cavern, devoid of anything comforting or comfortable, and I asked what only a hatchling would ask. What if I don’t want to destroy things?

I can still hear the bitterness in his laugh. You don’t have a choice, son. You are what you are—death and flame will follow you all your life.

As the vibrant blue flame spewing from Hyperion’s mouth punches into me, I can’t help remembering what I am.

Death.

And flame.

What I am not is comfort. Protection. Happiness. Fulfillment. I’m none of the things Liz needs. I am none of the things she wants. I can never be those things, because at my most basic, I’m a destroyer. I’m everything she hates and everything she fears.

So finally, I do what I do best.

I attack.

I incinerate.

I destroy.

And as Hyperion and I claw at, blast, and attempt to disembowel one another, my rage starts to ebb. The fire inside of me that has been boiling over since Hyperion brought the news that I must go to Dad or that he will come for me begins to recede.

Not all the way.