Page 34 of Fated by Fire (Dragonblood Dynasty #1)

The Next Chapter

Dorian

The forest is too quiet. No owls. No fucking crickets. Just the creak of pines bending under the weight of this goddamn rain and the crunch of pine needles under my boots. I stare at the pyre, its cedar logs stacked too neatly, too dignified , like a shrine for someone who deserved better than a dragon’s send-off.

Juno lies on top, wrapped in linen the color of cream. The clan says it’s traditional. Bullshit. She hated white—said it reminded her of sterile hospitals and stale coffee filters. She hated hospitals. Too much connection to the night she lost her parents. She’d have picked red. Blood-red, bold and unapologetic, just like her shitty latte art.

But no one asked me. I simply had to be grateful that they allowed this ceremony at all.

“She didn’t have family.” My voice cuts through the silence. Behind me, Caleb shifts—the fucking empath all of a sudden since he found love. Elena’s quieter, but I feel her stare like a branding iron. “No one to miss her. No one but me.”

The elders don’t answer. They stand in a hollowed circle, silent, their disdain a living thing. A human on a dragon’s pyre. Even in death, she’s breaking their rules.

Lydia steps forward. Mud squelches beneath her feet, steam curling around her ankles. “This isn’t our way, Dorian. Fire is for our kin. Her soul won’t find peace in ash.”

I whirl on her. “You think her soul was peaceful ? She spent her life serving burned coffee to monsters. She died shoving me out of the way of a collapsing building. She didn’t get to be peaceful .” My claws slip free, slicing my palms. “But she gets this. She gets fire .”

Elena touches my arm. I shake her off, reaching for the flaming torch. I need to get this over with.

The torch feels too light in my grip. Juno’s face is pale under the moonlight, her hair fanned out around her. It’s an unremarkable color; sandy, she’d called it. I told her I thought it was beautiful. She’d thrown a biscotti at my head.

Two weeks ago.

“You stupid, reckless—” My throat locks. The torch trembles.

Caleb’s voice, low behind me. “We can do it.”

“Fuck. Off.”

I thrust the flame into the kindling.

Fire devours the pyre in seconds. Dragonfire would’ve been cleaner. Hotter. But Juno was human. Mortal. So I gave her mortal fire. Let it be slow. Let it hurt for me to watch. Let it linger , like the ache in my ribs where her name is carving itself into bone.

The heat blisters my cheeks. I don’t step back.

She’s not here.

I know that. The clever mouth, the eye-rolls, the way she’d hum Patsy Cline off-key while steaming milk—gone. All that’s left is meat and memory.

The clan murmurs, their silent judgment seeping into the dirt as they trickle away. Caleb and Elena stay, but their pity is worse.

Leave. I want to scream it. Leave me with her.

But sinners don’t get wishes.

The flames gutter out first. Then, the voices. One by one, they vanish into the pines until it’s just me, the rain, and the pyre’s skeleton.

I sit.

I sit until my knees fuse to the sodden earth. Until my breath fogs and stills. Until the embers fade from crimson to gray.

“You’re a shitty tipper,” she’d said the day we met. I’d spilled coffee on her apron, and she’d threatened to ban me from the cafe. “But you’ve got sad eyes. I’ll allow it.”

A sob claws up my throat. I choke it to death. I’ve never cried in my fucking life. I don’t plan to start now. Even if she died for me. Even if she made me laugh… truly laugh, for the first time in my life. She doesn’t deserve my tears. She deserves my laughter. She earned it. But I can’t bring myself to do it right now.

I sit in the vacuum created by my own determination to stay stoic. Until the silence is broken.

Footsteps.

A figure emerges from the tree line, a silhouette wavering in the smoke. Too tall. Too still.

Malakai?

I lurch up, sparks igniting in my palms. But the figure steps into the moonlight, and my pulse stutters.

A woman. No— not a woman. Her skin glows faintly gold, eyes twin coals, hair a ripple of shadow and flame. She walks into the embers, barefoot, trailing through the ash.

“What the hell—?”

She kneels, sifting through Juno’s remains. My guts twist.

“Hey!” I stride forward, flames wreathed around my fists. “You don’t touch her.”

The figure lifts her head.

Juno’s face. Juno’s smile.

But her voice is layered, ethereal, unnatural. “She’s not here, dragon.”

Her hand closes around a glowing ember in the ashes. It pulses like a heartbeat.

“But she will be.”

I stare at her for a moment before backing away. She’s not real. My mind’s playing tricks. Too much pressure. Too much pain.

I turn and walk off. As I reach the line of trees, I cast a look over my shoulder. She’s not there. Just as I suspected. Just an illusion my mind made up to fill the void.

Juno’s gone. And she’s never coming back.

Read Dorian and Juno’s story in “ Born in Fire .” Book 2 in the Dragonblood Dynasty series is available on this on April 15, 2025.