Page 26 of Forged in Fire (Dragonblood Dynasty #5)

R iven

Pain is a language I speak fluently.

The Guild made sure of that during my early training—taught me to treat injury like inventory, assess damage without emotion, function through trauma that would leave most people catatonic.

Useful skills when your profession involves getting shot at, stabbed, and occasionally thrown through windows.

Less useful when those same skills keep you conscious through systematic torture.

My left shoulder throbs where they dislocated it—twice. Blood crusts my split lip, the taste of iron coating my tongue. The restraints holding me upright bite into my wrists, dragon-forged steel that hums with containment magic. Professional-grade bondage designed to hold supernatural strength.

They know what they’re dealing with.

I hang suspended between two steel posts in what Guild terminology calls a “conditioning chamber.” Clinical name for a torture room. White walls, surgical lighting, drain in the center of the concrete floor. No windows. No clocks. No way to mark time except by the rhythm of my own breathing.

I’ve been here long enough that the adrenaline’s faded. Long enough for my dragon fire to bank to coals instead of flame. Long enough to think past the immediate pain and start calculating.

Escape options: minimal. The restraints respond to magical pressure by tightening. The door requires biometric authorization from the other side. No tools, no weapons, no allies within reach.

Tactical assessment: I’m fucked.

But alive. Which means they want something.

Footsteps echo in the hallway beyond the door. Measured pace. Confident. Two people—one light, one heavy. The heavier steps fall back as the door hisses open.

Veyra enters alone.

She looks exactly like she always does—tall, elegant, silver hair pulled back in that signature knot. Life in the Guild has left its mark in the precise way she moves, the calculated assessment in her pale eyes.

I’ve worked with her long enough to know her reputation. Clean eliminations. Zero tolerance for mission failure. The kind of handler who views operatives as tools to be used and discarded when they break.

“Riven.” She stops three feet away—close enough to project authority, distant enough to avoid retaliation if I somehow break free. Professional spacing. “You look terrible.”

“Feeling fantastic.” The words scrape my throat raw. “Guild hospitality never disappoints.”

Her smile carries no warmth. “Always did have a mouth on you. Most operatives learn to curb that particular tendency after their first conditioning session.”

“Most operatives don’t have my charming personality.”

“Indeed.” She circles my position slowly, heels sharp against concrete. “Shall we discuss your recent career decisions?”

“Which ones? I’ve made so many questionable choices lately.”

She stops directly in front of me, eyes tracking the damage and probably approving.

“The Kieran Asguard contract,” she says.

“Signed three weeks ago. Payment transferred. Mission parameters clearly defined.” Her voice drops, taking on the tone she probably uses to explain basic concepts to new recruits.

“Kill the target. Confirm the elimination. Return for debrief.”

“Sounds familiar.”

“Yet here we are.” She spreads her hands in mock confusion. “Target alive. Operative compromised. Mission status: catastrophic failure.”

The words hit the way they’re intended. Mission failure isn’t just professional embarrassment—it’s identity destruction. Everything I was trained to be, everything I believed about myself, reduced to two words.

Catastrophic failure.

“The contract specified elimination parameters,” I say, falling back on technical language. “Circumstances required adjustment.”

“Circumstances.” Veyra’s lip curls. “You mean the sister.”

My pulse spikes despite my efforts to stay calm. Admitting connection to Iris would give the Guild another weapon against me. But lying to Veyra’s face seems equally dangerous.

“The mission environment proved more complex than anticipated,” I say carefully.

“Complex.” She moves closer, studying my battered face. “That’s an interesting word for emotional compromise.”

“I wasn’t compromised.”

“No?” She pulls out a tablet, fingers tracing across the surface. “Would you like to review the surveillance footage? The monastery. The cabin. That charming little cafe in Ra?nov where you bought her breakfast?”

Heat builds under my skin—dragon fire responding to fury I can’t quite suppress. She knows about Ra?nov. About everything.

“Professional interest,” I lie.

“Of course it was.” Her smile turns sharp. “Decades of exemplary service, Riven. Zero mission failures. Perfect completion rate. And then you meet Iris Asguard and suddenly develop a conscience?”

The way she says Iris’s name makes violence coil in my chest. Like she’s discussing a problem requiring elimination.

Which, I realize with cold clarity, she is.

“Had to happen sometime,” I mutter.

Veyra heaves a heavy sigh. “So much potential,” she says, looking me over. “All wasted on feminine eyes and a pretty smile.”

The casual dismissal of everything between Iris and me as mere physical attraction makes my jaw clench. But arguing would only confirm Veyra’s assessment.

“What do you want?” I ask instead.

“Your loyalty,” she says, surprising me.

“I think we’re beyond that, don’t you?”

“Not if you redeem yourself. Choose another path.” She tilts her head.

“And what would that be?”

“Completion.” She moves to a small table I hadn’t noticed before, lifting a cloth to reveal the tools underneath. Not torture implements—those have already done their work. My torn skin is proof of that.

These are different.

Professional-grade ceramic knife. Untraceable ammunition for my preferred sidearm. Field medical kit for post-mission cleanup.

Mission gear.

“The original contract remains active,” Veyra explains, running one finger along the knife’s edge. “Kieran Asguard requires elimination. But given recent complications, we’re expanding the parameters.”

I go so still that I’m sure even my blood has stopped pumping. “To include?” I ask, even though I know the answer.

“His sister.” She says it like she’s discussing the weather. “Miss Asguard’s involvement has classified her as a security risk requiring immediate termination.”

I narrow my eyes on her. Not just Kieran on that contract—Iris, too. Both of them now marked for death because I couldn’t pull a trigger when it mattered.

“The contracts are separate,” I lie, desperately searching for angles. “Different payment structures—”

“The contracts are whatever we say they are.” Veyra’s voice carries absolute authority. “And right now, they specify dual elimination. Kieran and Iris Asguard. Clean kills. Professional execution.”

She picks up the ceramic knife, testing its balance. “The question is whether you complete the mission, or we send someone else.”

The threat hangs in the air… unmistakable. Someone else. Someone without my restraint, my precision, my—

My feelings for the targets.

“Who?” I ask, though I already have my suspicions.

“Kozlov volunteered.” Veyra’s smile turns ugly. “Enthusiastically.”

Kozlov. Guild enforcer with a reputation for creative interrogation and slow kills. The kind of operative who views torture as artistic expression. If he gets the contract…

“Kozlov doesn’t do clean work,” I say.

“No, he doesn’t.” Veyra sets the knife down carefully. “He finds that prolonged interrogation often yields valuable intelligence before elimination. Days, sometimes weeks of careful questioning.”

The image forms—Iris strapped to a table like the one behind Veyra, Kozlov working through his techniques while she screams. My dragon fire surges in response, scales trying to break through skin.

“Of course,” Veyra continues, watching my reaction carefully, “if you were to complete the original mission parameters, we could ensure swift, professional termination. Minimal suffering. The mercy that comes with competent execution.”

There it is. The psychological hook, wrapped in false compassion. Accept the mission and become Iris’s executioner, or refuse and condemn her to something infinitely worse.

“She cares about you,” Veyra observes, voice soft with false empathy.

“We’ve seen the surveillance footage. The way she looks at you.

Trusts you.” The words turn cruel. “Imagine her confusion when Kozlov introduces himself as your replacement. How betrayed she’ll feel learning you chose to let her suffer rather than grant her a clean death. ”

My restraints creak as my body tries to lunge forward. Everything in me screams to tear her throat out, to burn this place down around us, to do anything except listen to this bullshit.

“You’re a professional, Riven.” Veyra moves closer. “Your career has been extensive. You understand the mathematics of mercy.”

The mathematics of mercy. Guild terminology for choosing the least painful way to kill someone. Making murder sound like compassion.

“Quick blade between the ribs,” she continues, voice taking on an almost hypnotic quality. “Instant death. No fear, no prolonged suffering. The kindest gift you could give someone you claim to care about.”

Claim to care about. Like my feelings for Iris are pretense rather than the most real thing I’ve experienced in my entire life.

“Alternatively,” Veyra says, stepping back to give me space to consider, “Kozlov’s methods involve keeping subjects conscious throughout the process. He finds that genuine fear enhances the interrogation experience.”

The casual evil of it—using my feelings for Iris to make me complicit in her murder—makes bile rise in my throat. This is Guild psychology at its finest. Take the operative’s emotions and weaponize them.

Make him grateful for the opportunity to kill someone he cares about.

“How long do I have to decide?” I say, hating myself for asking.

“One hour.” Veyra checks her watch. “Enough time to consider your options and reach the correct decision.”

Correct decision. Like there’s any choice that doesn’t end with Iris dead.

“The mission kit will remain here.” She points to the table. “When you’re ready, you’ll be free to go.”

She moves toward the door, then pauses. “Oh, and Riven? In case you’re considering some form of heroic sacrifice—” Her smile turns arctic. “Just remember that refusing the mission won’t save her. It will simply ensure she dies badly instead of well.”

The door closes behind her, leaving me alone with the echoes of her words and the tools of my trade.

One hour to decide whether to murder Iris or condemn her to worse.

The Guild’s definition of mercy.

I test the restraints experimentally, feeling for weakness in the construction. The wards hum stronger, pushing back against my fire.

There’s no way to escape, and even if I did, I’d be dead before I reached the hallway.

I have to think.

And I have one hour.

Sixty minutes to find a third option in a situation designed to offer only two.

Sixty minutes to save Iris without becoming her executioner.

The “mathematics of mercy” can’t be my only option.

They fucking can’t.