Page 47 of Flameborne: Fury (Emberquell Academy #2)

~ DONAVYN ~

I’d been stabbed in the heart. Or struck by a snake.

One moment I held my mate, pleading with her to hear me, praying for wisdom on how to soothe whatever had frightened her.

I reached for her through the bond, pleading, echoing love and need and joy for her.

The next she shrieked and laid a blade against the cord that bonded us, snapping it like a mender’s thread.

The pain undid me.

In the course of my life as a Furyknight, I’d been stabbed. Speared. Flamed. I’d fallen from dragons, and broken limbs. Yet, I’d never felt pain the like of it.

She’d cut my heart out of my chest and now it lay in my hands like a dying animal, twitching, while the gaping hole in my chest pumped my lifeblood into the dirt.

I couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think.

I dropped to my knees, barely feeling the impact on the hard floor as I fell and she scrambled away from me, sobbing, whirling, stumbling, until she fell against the wall and turned to stare at me in horror, her fingers clawed into it.

My vision narrowed. I could only focus on small pieces— her hands, white knuckled with fear. Her fingernails scoring the mortar between the stones. Her eyes round as saucers. And the pain…

So much pain.

My lungs refused to inflate. My heart was dying.

Our eyes locked and I saw the flicker in hers, the moment she blinked—but then the cacophony began.

Outside in the thinning dark, the dragons screamed.

One roared. And the sound of it vibrated in the hole that had once housed my heart.

“Donavyn?!” she gasped, blinking, her eyes finally focusing just as mine began to blur.

I tried to speak her name. Tried to breathe. But nothing worked. I reached out, but my arm fell before I could grip her. My head buzzed and my chest felt empty, like snapping that cord had shoveled my lungs out from behind my ribs and they were no longer available to me.

“Donavyn!”

My vision tunneled.

“Donavyn! No! I didn’t mean to— Donavyn!”

She reached for me and I wanted to cling, but my limbs wouldn’t respond.

No heart.

No lungs.

No grip.

“Look at me, Donavyn! I didn’t mean it! I wasn’t trying… please. Look at me. Please!”

I opened my mouth, needed her to know I loved her. Needed her to hear it from my lips before I died. But my voice was gone too, and as I opened my mouth, a roar that shook the building to its foundations and dust from the rafters, left my ears deaf and my head ringing.

Bren shrieked and cowered as the ceiling above us trembled and creaked once, twice, then splintered as another almighty roar shook the air.

Dragon talons appeared in the shattered ceiling, clawing the roof back, tensing on the stone wall, then snapping the hundreds-year-old stone and mortar like a piece of pottery.

Darkness, air, and the glowing eyes of a dragon Primarch appeared in the gap, with a rush of steam and smoke and another roar that made the air shake.

Bren screamed and curled her arms over her head as the wall above her crumbled under his weight.

‘Kgosi! No! STOP!’

But my dragon was crazed, fangs bared and cavernous mouth billowing smoke, eyes glowing with fury, and those ever-present embers under his scales suddenly ablaze.

His great black head weaved, his roar shook everything as he clawed the wall and roof away and shoved his shoulders into the gap, reaching for Bren.

‘Kgosi, PLEASE!’ I screamed through the bond, recognizing the Primarch’s dominance and vengeance driving him, begging in that one word for his mercy as stone and mortar tumbled around us, thudding to the wooden floor, and dust and pebbles rode the night air.

Shrieking in terror, Bren fell, scrambling away—but Kgosi’s taloned foot shot out with the speed of a cat, to pluck her from the floor.

I tried to throw myself at my dragon, to reach her, to pull her back to safety, but only ended in a pile on the floor, mentally gasping for my dragon not to kill her.

‘Please, Kgosi—please. I’m begging you. She’s my mate!’

‘She betrayed the bond. She severed you. She doesn’t deserve the title —’

‘She was frightened. Kgosi, I don’t know what happened, but please! Help me! Help me breathe! Help me move. I can’t—’

‘She slayed the bond your heart was given to. Unless she heals it, your heart will die. And if she takes you from me, I will kill her, Donavyn. You’re my rider, and as the Primarch also, it is my prerogative to judge. Make no mistake, if she takes you from me, she will follow you.’

I tried to respond, but my senses faded, my mind clouding. All I could do was reach for her. Beg my dragon for mercy. And pray.

I lay on the floor, limbs twitching, chest hollow. Pain sang in my veins, and my vision blurred.

My eyes closed on the sight of Bren, clutched in Kgosi’s talons, screaming as my dragon lifted her out of my apartment like a child’s toy from a dollhouse.

~ brEN ~

‘Akhane! Help me! Help me! He’s going to kill me!’

‘I’m coming, Bren. But, Kgosi would never harm for no reason. What did you do, Little Flame? WHAT DID YOU DO?!’

Stars flashed in my vision as I struggled against the grip of those curled talons that pinioned my arms against my ribs and poked at my sides so deeply they drew blood.

“Kgosi, please!” I gasped. “I didn’t mean to—I didn’t—”

‘You discarded your mate. You severed the divine bond. In any Pair that is a desecration of the sacred. Yet yours is the deepest sin—against your mate and my human. My Chosen. I am Primarch. Judgement is mine!’ Kgosi roared in my head.

I sobbed and struggled, but couldn’t budge his grip on me. My heart sang with pain, and my lungs were hollow, each breath more shallow and gulping empty air.

“Please. Please, I don’t understand,” I gasped. “I didn’t mean to. I wasn’t trying to sever, only stop it pulling at me—”

Kgosi roared again and pulled me up, out of the building so I was level with his eye, and in that moment I saw death’s approach, certain he would drop me, and probably flame me as I fell. The fury in his amber eyes blazed hot enough to melt stone.

‘You wounded me and my mate, and severed your own. You lash out with fear and create pain for others, then plead for mercy. Well, your judgment has come. Plead your case, hatchling. The burden of the herd, and the future of your people have been given into my hands. Tell me now, Little Flame… Why should I let you draw another breath?’