Page 38

V anya

My scales catch the torchlight as I tower over the ritual platform, the weight of my dragon form pressing against stone that’s witnessed countless atrocities.

Below me, Hargen lies chained to blackened metal, his dark hair matted with blood, his chest rising and falling in measured breaths that tell me he’s calculating escape routes even now.

He doesn’t know there are none.

“Proceed with the execution.” Vex’s voice cuts through the chamber. He stands twenty feet away, close enough that I could incinerate him in seconds, far enough that Ember—my daughter, my everything—remains within reach of his guards’ weapons.

She kneels behind him in the shadows, chains glowing with suppression magic wound around her wrists and throat.

Her hair hangs in her face, but I catch the flash of her brown eyes as they meet mine.

She doesn’t understand. How could she? All the years of careful lies, and now the truth explodes in the worst possible moment.

Kill Hargen Cole, and I’ll consider sparing your daughter…

The words echo in my mind, Vex’s earlier ultimatum delivered with the cold precision of a man who’s eliminated innocents without flinching. I’ve seen his handiwork. Bodies drained of magic, left as husks. The Ivory League doesn’t make empty threats.

My dragon consciousness wars with what remains of my humanity. Ancient instincts scream to protect my offspring, to eliminate any threat to her survival. But the woman buried beneath scales knows exactly what I’m being asked to do—murder the only man I’ve ever loved while our daughter watches.

“Vanya.” Hargen’s voice reaches me, steady despite his circumstances. “This isn’t you. Fight it.”

Fight what?

The bitter irony burns as purely as the fire I’m about to breathe. He thinks I’m being controlled, that some spell or compulsion drives my actions. If only it were that simple. If only I could blame magic instead of cold, calculated choice.

I lean closer, hoping he’ll see something in my dragon eyes that explains.

Some hint of the desperation clawing at my insides, the way my heart breaks with each breath I take.

But all I see reflected back is his unwavering faith that the woman he loved still exists somewhere inside this scaled monster.

“I love you,” he says softly, words meant for me alone. “Whatever they’ve done, whatever they’re making you do—I love you.”

The confession drives pain deeper into my soul. He doesn’t know. Doesn’t understand that every choice I’ve ever made has led to this moment. That loving him means destroying him, that saving our daughter requires his death.

Forgive me.

I draw breath, feeling fire build in my throat like molten metal. The chamber falls silent except for Ember’s muffled sobs and the whisper of air filling my lungs. Time stretches, each heartbeat an eternity as I aim for his chest, knowing exactly how much fire it will take, how long he’ll survive—

I release the flames.

“Mom, please don’t do this!” Ember’s voice cracks across the space between us. “Please, there has to be another way!”

But there isn’t. There never was.

Dragonfire erupts from my throat in a concentrated stream, white-hot and merciless.

It engulfs Hargen completely, turning his form into a writhing silhouette against the blaze.

His scream tears through the chamber—raw, agonized, the sound of flesh meeting fire—and something inside me dies listening to it.

The scent hits me next. Burned skin, charred cloth, the copper tang of blood flash-boiling in an instant. My dragon instincts recoil even as I maintain the flow of flame.

How long? How much?

Each second stretches his suffering, but stopping too soon means Vex will demand I continue.

“Dad!” Ember’s shriek pierces the roar of fire. “Mom, no, please no!”

I force myself to keep breathing flame, to watch the man who held me through countless nightmares burn because I’m too much of a coward to let our daughter die instead. The chains holding him glow red hot, but they don’t melt. Syndicate steel, designed to withstand dragonfire.

Designed to make him suffer longer.

Finally, mercifully, Hargen’s body goes limp. The screaming stops. I cut off the flames and stare at what I’ve done—what I’ve had to do.

“Excellent,” Vex purrs from his safe distance. “You served your clan well, and—”

The words die in his throat.

Pressure builds in the chamber like the moment before lightning strikes. Magic crackles along the walls, making my scales. I spin around just as the first chain around Ember’s wrist shatters with a sound like breaking glass.

Her eyes glow molten gold. Not dragon-gold. Something else.

Something more .

“You’ve made your last mistake,” she says, and her voice carries harmonics that shouldn’t exist—dragon resonance layered with witch-song, power given vocal form.

Another chain snaps. Then another. The guards flanking her step back, hands moving to weapons, but they’re already too late.

Vex’s face goes white. “Impossible. The suppression chains were designed specifically for—”

“For dragons. For witches.” Ember rises to her feet, the last chain falling away like discarded jewelry. “But not for both.”

Power erupts from her in visible waves. Her form shifts—not the clean transformation of a purebred dragon, but something unprecedented. Scales shimmer across her skin in patterns that follow witch-line tattoos I’ve never seen. Her eyes burn with twin flames, one dragon-gold, one witch-silver.

The nightmare every purist faction has spent centuries trying to prevent stands before us in all her terrifying glory.

“Abomination!” Vex stumbles backward, gesturing frantically at his guards. “Contain it! Kill it if you have to!”

Ember’s laugh sends ice through my bones. “You think you can stop me now?” There’s murder in her eyes. “After what you’ve done to us? You think anything can stop me?”

She moves too fast for human eyes to follow. One moment she’s twenty feet from Vex, the next she’s in front of him, claws wreathed in witch-fire tracing across his chest. He screams and falls, his ceremonial robes smoking where she touched him.

The room explodes into chaos.

I roar with rage, the sound reverberating through the chamber loud enough to shake the pillars.

Syndicate guards pour toward my daughter from every direction.

In dragon form, I sweep my tail across the floor, sending the first wave flying like scattered pins.

My wings create buffeting winds that knock others off their feet as I position myself protectively near my child.

Two elite guards reach my daughter before I can intervene, their weapons glowing with anti-dragon runes.

I prepare to lunge, but Ember doesn’t need my help.

She spins between them like a dancer, one hand trailing dragon-flame, the other weaving spells I don’t recognize.

Where her fire touches their enchanted armor, it doesn’t just burn—it unravels the protective magic woven into the metal.

Her magic is unlike anything I’ve ever witnessed. Where dragon meets witch, new possibilities emerge. Fire that doesn’t just destroy but deconstructs magical barriers. Spellwork that flows with dragon strength. She’s not just powerful—she’s evolved .

I use my massive form to clear a path through the chamber, claws ripping through metal and stone alike.

Ember moves in perfect coordination with me, using my bulk as cover while she targets the mages supporting the Syndicate forces.

We fight as though we’ve trained together for years—dragon power and witchcraft amplifying each other.

But the Syndicate has armed security teams with years of battle experience behind them. A squad of specialized dragon-hunters emerges from hidden chambers, wielding a huge dragon-forged net. I shriek in rage as I feel the weight of it over my wings. Another tangles around my neck, constricting me.

As I roar in pain and fury, more guards descend on Ember, whose attention is split between her own attackers and my predicament.

We end up cornered against the back wall, my massive form partially restrained, Ember’s magic flickering as fatigue sets in.

For one desperate moment, I think this is how we die.

Together, finally, but too late for anything else to matter.

And then suddenly, unthinkably, the eastern wall explodes inward with a crash that shakes the foundation.

Stone and mortar rain down as figures pour through the breach. Two massive males lead the charge in partial dragon form—golden scales rippling along muscled arms, claws extended, faces twisted in snarls that reveal too-sharp teeth.

I take in the smooth power, the identical features, and immediately I’m certain that I know who I’m looking at. The Craven brothers.

Holy shit! They came!

The assault hits like a tidal wave. A wolf bounds through the opening, all silver fur and flashing fangs, tearing into Syndicate guards with animal ferocity.

Behind it come two dark-haired women—witches, by the emerald fire dancing between their fingers.

They don’t move like military units I’ve seen before; there’s something wilder, less regimented in how they spread through the chamber, but they’re still as effective as hell.

More figures emerge from the dust and debris. Some wear insignias I don’t recognize ; organized fighters moving with the confidence of people who’ve faced combat before. Others seem to operate alone, raw power compensating for any lack of tactical cohesion.

A man partially shifted into dragon form moves too fast for human limits, cutting through three guards before the first body hits the floor. Nearby, a redheaded woman flickers between forms, copper scales shimmering across her skin one moment, melting into shadow the next.

Through the center of the chaos strides a silvery figure surrounded by unnatural blue flame that parts around allies but consumes enemies without discrimination. Not dragon fire; something older, something that makes my scales tingle with recognition, though I’ve never seen its like before.

They don’t fight as a single unit—I can see at least two distinct groups with different tactics—but their sheer numbers and combined power overwhelm the Syndicate forces like a storm hitting a sandcastle.

The tide turns in seconds.

I watch Ember hold her own against three attackers simultaneously. Her hybrid nature gives her advantages none of them expect. Dragon strength combined with witch versatility, scales that turn blade edges while her magic tears through their defenses.

Vex tries to crawl away from the battle, his ceremonial robes trailing blood. Ember notices him moving and breaks away from her current opponents, pursuit written in every line of her transformed body.

“Going somewhere?” she asks, her voice carrying that same impossible harmonic resonance.

I don’t see what happens next. The crash of battle surrounds me, and I have more immediate concerns.

Hargen.

I fight my way back to the ritual platform, horror growing with each step.

The man chained there barely resembles the Hargen I knew.

Burns cover most of his visible skin. His hair is gone, singed away in the first seconds of flame.

His clothes have fused with flesh in places I don’t want to examine too closely.

But his eyes—those beautiful brown eyes—still hold recognition when they focus on my face.

His lips part around a sound that comes out too broken to be decipherable.

But I know it’s my name.

“I’m here.” I drop to my knees beside the platform, reaching for the chain locks with trembling fingers. “I’m so sorry. I had no choice.”

His breathing comes in short, pained gasps that rattle in his ruined chest. When I finally get the chains off and gather him into my arms, the extent of the damage becomes clear.

Second and third-degree burns across sixty percent of his body.

Internal injuries from the heat. The scent of charred flesh that will haunt my nightmares for whatever life I have left.

“Lila!” I call out, spotting the witch near the eastern breach. “I need help!”

She appears at my side in seconds, her gray eyes taking in Hargen’s condition with clinical assessment.

“His injuries are severe. We need to get him out now.”

“Can you—?” I start to ask, but she’s already shaking her head.

“Not here. Not with this much damage. I need proper supplies, a sterile environment. And even then…” She doesn’t finish the sentence. She doesn’t have to.

Oh God. Please God…

The battle is winding down around us. Most of the Syndicate guards are down or fleeing. I look up to see Ember approaching, her shape gradually settling back toward human, though traces of scales still gleam along her arms.

“Is he—?” She can’t finish the question either.

“Alive,” I tell her, though the word tastes like a lie. “Barely.”

My daughter—our daughter—kneels beside me, her transformed features beautiful and terrible in equal measure. For the first time, the three of us are in the same place before everyone. A family, finally revealed.

The price was almost everything.

“We need to move,” Caleb’s voice cuts through my paralysis. “Syndicate reinforcements will arrive soon.”

I look down at Hargen, at the ruin I made of the only man I’ve ever loved. His eyes are closed now, his breath rattling in a way that makes my stomach roil. He’s a fighter. Always has been. But even fighters have limits.

Was survival worth this price?

The question follows me as we prepare to evacuate, as willing hands help me carry my broken lover toward safety. I’ve kept my daughter alive, revealed the truth, found allies I never expected.

But as I watch Hargen’s labored breathing, as I feel the weight of Ember’s confused stare, I wonder if some victories cost more than defeat ever could.