Page 4 of Scorched by Fate (Drakarn Mates #3)

FOUR

SELENE

One Week Later

It smelled like sickness. Like death.

My boots scuffed against the stone floor as I darted from one makeshift quarantine area to the next, eyes scanning for any signs of change in the afflicted healers.

Drakarn who had once stood tall and composed now sagged against stone benches, their scaled bodies limp and marked with angry, festering sores. Most barely moved. Some didn’t move at all. The only sound they made was a wheeze, too weak to cough or cry out.

A creeping ache settled low in my gut at the sight, but I pushed it down. I'd been learning Drakarn healing ways for weeks, and now …

Focus .

The murmurs and steady rhythm of the healing caverns were gone. Instead, rushed footsteps, clipped voices, and the scraping of trays across stone replaced normalcy. My throat tightened from the acrid sting in the air, something chemical and wrong that we couldn’t identify. The healers were dropping like stones, and nothing seemed to be stopping it.

"Kaiya, double-check the gear for all the humans. Vega, I need this entire section cordoned off—no one without protection gets near it. Rachel, go through the patient notes again. We must’ve missed something."

I wasn't a doctor, and I'd never felt it more than now. But as a combat medic, I understood triage.

And some of the Drakarn definitely wouldn't make it.

Kaiya’s anxious nod and Vega’s sharp grunt of acknowledgment were quick—exactly what I needed. They moved, figures cutting through the flickering light of the caverns. Rachel hunched over Mysha, her hand hovering over the elder’s still form before quickly moving to assess her vitals.

The head healer hadn’t stirred in hours.

I crouched beside a young Drakarn who had collapsed earlier, inspecting the inflamed sores spreading along his throat. My gloved fingers pressed near the edge of one on his neck. The swollen lump gave slightly beneath the pressure, and a thin trail of yellowish fluid leaked out. It was wrong.

It didn’t behave like anything I’d seen before, but it also reminded me of far too many things. This was an alien disease on an alien planet. I wished for a computer, a research book, anything that might give me a clue to what we were dealing with.

"We need to keep them hydrated," I said quietly, the words more for myself than anyone else. I turned to Rachel. "This isn’t just lethargy. None of them have shown a real thirst response, even now."

"We’re handling fluids," Rachel replied steadily, but the tightness around her mouth betrayed her apprehension.

In another area of the hall, Orla was trying to rig brighter lighting using salvaged human tech. Her muttered curses reached me even from here. Every single human on Scalvaris, all ten of us, as if that was anything, was involved in trying to keep the healers alive. I didn’t want this disease spreading to the Drakarn in the city. So far, us humans seemed immune.

Movement from the perimeter caught my attention. Vega pushed back a Drakarn warrior who had ventured too close, her hand planted firmly against his chest. I stood just as her voice rose, clear and firm.

"Stay back," she snapped, her posture rigid. "We don’t know what’s causing this yet or how it spreads. Do you want to risk carrying it through the city?"

The warrior growled something low, his tail flicking in agitation, but he didn’t argue when Vega jabbed a gloved finger toward a nearby guard post. He backed away with a sharp lash of annoyance.

"Good," I called out tersely. "Keep it that way."

Vega glanced at me over her shoulder, and I could see the tension in her. She trusted exactly no one right now, and I couldn’t say I blamed her. But aggression wouldn’t help, either. I walked toward her as I pulled off my gloves to swap them for a fresh pair from the kit at my belt.

"Don't be too hard on them," I muttered as I passed her. "We’ll get better cooperation if you’re not threatening to shank anyone who breathes near us."

She crossed her arms. "Cooperation isn’t going to help if this spreads."

I paused but only for a moment. "Noted."

Kaiya was carrying a tray of cleaned medical tools repurposed from both Drakarn and human supplies. The hybrid assortment made my stomach twist. Most of these were improvised; none of them were right for what we needed there. I examined the tray, my movements brisk, but the frustration gnawed at me.

Too clunky. Too wide. Scalpel edges dulled. Forceps too large for precise work. The designs of their tools weren’t suited for the nuanced procedures we needed to treat a condition like this. They were weapons repurposed for healing, without the finesse required for something this delicate. My hands hovered over the instruments, imagining the strain of trying to use these on something like infected glands or necrotic tissue. I forced down a sharp exhale.

What we had wasn’t enough, and what we needed … Damn it.

"I'll be back," I told Kaiya before stalking towards the decontamination station and out of the caverns.

The forge wasn’t far. Its heat seeped into the tunnels leading there, wrapping around me with the oppressive weight of the magma that flowed through the heart of Volcaryth. I was practically running, Drakarn dodging out of my way as I took corners too fast and nearly flung myself into a wall in my haste.

We needed better tools to stand a chance against whatever this thing was.

A disease? Poison? Parasite?

When I stepped into the forge’s main chamber, the world tilted. The air was thicker there, throbbing with the energy of molten metal and the clanging of hammer on steel. Forge masters worked in silence, their movements fluid. But it wasn’t them that drew my focus.

It was him.

Vyne stood at the far end of the forge, his back to me. Broad shoulders framed by wings flexed as he adjusted the angle of his anvil.

He worked with a focused intensity, his clawed hands guiding a thin blade under the precise heat of a Drakarn forge light. Shadows flickered across the lines of his emerald scales, giving them a deeper shine that caught coppery hues buried beneath the green. I didn't have time to notice, but my body didn’t care what my brain was trying to do.

His scent hit me like a caress—subtle, warm, and irritatingly familiar even though we barely knew each other. But now, in the thick heat of the forge, it surrounded him like a second skin.

My tongue tingled, and I swallowed hard, pushing the feeling away, even as my body burned from more than the heat of the forge. My fingers ached to reach out for him. Clearly, exhaustion and stress were getting to me.

This wasn’t the time or place.

"Vyne," I called out, keeping my voice steady as I stepped into the sweltering forge chamber.

His back was to me, broad and unyielding, but his movements faltered for the briefest moment. The metallic ring of his hammer paused mid-strike before picking up again, slower this time, as if he were deliberating something. He didn’t turn.

"What are you doing here, human?" he said, his voice gruff, like gravel scraping against steel. “I had an apprentice deliver everything you asked for.”

I crossed the stone floor, ignoring the heat clawing at my skin and the prickle of awareness under it. The Drakarn had a way of making you feel like you didn’t belong, but I wasn’t about to let him push me out. Not when lives were at stake.

"The healers are collapsing," I said bluntly, cutting past any pleasantries. "Mysha’s sick. Whatever’s hitting them is spreading fast, and we have nothing precise enough to work with. I need tools that aren’t clumsy, that fit human hands. I need you."

His hammer froze mid-strike, the unfinished blade glowing beneath his claws.

Slowly, he turned, towering over me even across the modest distance between us. The flickering glow of molten fires caught the ridges of his scaled face, sharpening every detail—the scar cutting through his left brow, the flick of his tail that betrayed his thoughts more than his stoic expression did.

His yellow eyes locked onto mine, and it felt like the air in the forge shifted. Heavy. Different.

"You need me ?" he repeated slowly, with just enough skepticism to make me grit my teeth.

"I need your tools," I corrected, stressing the word. This wasn’t time for games. "You’re the best forge master in the city, aren’t you? I’ve seen your work. You’re … precise. Fast. And that’s what I need right now."

If my words flattered him, his face didn’t show it. That cold, assessing gaze stayed fixed on me, searching, like he was looking for the real reason I had walked into his forge and demanded his skills. The silence stretched a little too long, the heat of the room pressing down on me harder by the second.

"I don’t know what’s causing it," I continued, softening slightly, "but I know we can’t treat it with what we have. I need finer instruments."

His jaw tightened, and for a second, I thought he’d sneer and shrug me off. But then his gaze shifted, lingering on me just a beat too long before he finally exhaled through his nose.

"What exactly do you need?" he asked curtly, moving toward a nearby workbench without waiting for me to answer.

The tension in my chest loosened, and I stepped closer, the air between us feeling too charged and strangely fragile.

"Fine-tipped forceps, micro-serrated scalpels, tools precise enough to work between scale and muscle without damage," I said quickly, listing off items as I pictured the mess in the healing halls. "Retractors shaped for Drakarn anatomy, articulated probes?—"

The faintest quirk of his brow stopped me mid-word. His eyes glinted with something unreadable—sharp, calculating, and maybe a little irritated.

"You speak like someone who’s spent too much time thinking about my blades," he muttered, grabbing a chunk of heat-resistant alloy and turning it over in his hand.

For a moment, my tongue tied. The way he said it, quiet and under his breath, made something in my stomach twist.

"I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about saving lives," I corrected, shaking off whatever weird feeling tried to crawl up my spine. I clenched my hands into fists at my sides. "You can forge these, can’t you?"

He snorted, almost amused, as he dropped the alloy onto the workbench and reached for another. "I can forge anything. Question is whether your humans know how to use what I make … or if you're just wasting my time."

I bristled, taking another step forward. "It’s wasting time to talk like this when people are dying. You want to sit here and mock humans while the sickness spreads through your kind?"

The flare of defiance in my own voice caught me off guard, but I didn’t step back.

Finally, Vyne’s gaze softened—barely. Just enough for his brow to furrow instead of sneer as his claws dragged across the table’s surface with a sharp rasp.

"You’ll have them by dawn," he said, finally. Then he turned back to the forge, dismissing me entirely.

Even as relief coursed through me, I didn’t move right away. I couldn’t, not with the crackling heat of the room lingering in my lungs and his scent digging into senses I didn’t know could react so strongly.

I exhaled sharply, ripping my attention back to the reason I’d come here in the first place.

The healers. Focus on the healers.

"Good," I said stiffly, already angling back toward the exit. "Don’t make me chase you down for them."