Page 7 of Scorched by Fate (Drakarn Mates #3)

SEVEN

VYNE

The council chamber smoldered. Not with fire but with something sharper and far less controlled. Anger. Fear. Weakness masquerading as strength.

Darrokar loomed in the center of the room, the weight of Scalvaris balanced on his shoulders like it was carved there the day he rose to the role of Warrior Lord. His voice bit through the thick tension with the precision of a freshly honed blade.

“It has to be you, Vyne.”

I almost laughed, but the flick of my tail was the only visible reaction I allowed. Restraint took effort. “You can't be serious,” I said sharply, my voice low but steady. “Send a scouting team. Trained wings accustomed to Harrovan. Not?—”

“You.” Darrokar’s voice cut through every word I hadn’t yet said, leaving no cracks for debate. He stepped forward, his wings stretching in a silent warning. “I need someone I can trust. Mektar's causing trouble, and I don't know what in the hells Zarvash is up to. If they put their soldiers on this …”

My claws curled, dull against the curve of my palms as shadows danced across the blackened stone walls. “Send someone else,” I said evenly, though beneath the surface, tension coiled hotter than the nearby forge tunnels. “A group. Resources. You’re asking one to accomplish what you need a team to do.”

“Two,” he corrected.

The room seemed to gather more heat, though perhaps it was just me. A hiss escaped my teeth before I could bury it. “You can't mean one of the humans.”

“Yes,” Darrokar said simply, his gaze meeting mine without a flicker of doubt or hesitation. It almost made me hate him. “Selene.”

Heat crawled beneath my scales. The mere mention of her name made the ache I’d kept chained in the shadows push harder against my ribs. Her scent threaded its way through memory, brighter than the fires in the forge.

I dug my claws into the stone of the table hard enough to leave divots. “She’ll die out there.”

Darrokar sighed. “She won’t. She's resilient. She was a soldier, just like my Terra. And a medic. She is uniquely suited to this mission.”

“Resilient is not immortal,” I snapped. “Do you want to give this city another reason to distrust her kind if we fail?”

“She is necessary.” Darrokar’s words were calm but heavy, clearly chosen with care. “She’s been working with the healers for weeks. She knows their ways, their methods. She’s already proven her value tenfold. If anyone can identify and handle the vyrathis when it’s found, it’s her. And I'm sending you with her so you don't fail.”

“And when the predators out there smell her blood?” My wings shifted, pulling tighter against my back as I spoke.

Darrokar stepped closer, his gaze locking onto mine with that unreadable steel he kept sheathed until moments like this. “Do you doubt me so much, Vyne?”

The air thickened between us. My tail flicked, carving a line through the heated silence. “I don’t doubt you,” I said finally. “I doubt the wisdom of this.”

Darrokar tilted his head, the movement as deliberate as every measured step he’d taken until now. “Do you?”

I hated how clearly he could see through me. Beneath my objections, my resistance, the truth pulsed too close to the surface: It wasn’t just the danger of the Harrovan mountains that made my chest tighten with every second of this discussion. It was her. Selene. The thought of spending days—and nights—alone with her, her scent driving every instinct to places I couldn’t afford to go. I doubted myself more than I did the world beyond Scalvaris.

But some truths wouldn’t be spoken here. Darrokar didn’t press further, though his gaze stayed sharp.

“I trust you,” he said instead, his tone deceptively simple. “So will you trust me?”

“Trust doesn’t make mountains less deadly.”

“And doubt weakens resolve,” he countered, his arms crossing over his broad chest. “Which will you carry into this mission?”

I closed my fist against the stone table, letting the heat seep deep into the muscles of my arm before I finally forced the words from my throat. “Fine.”

Darrokar gave a single nod, one that somehow carried more weight than the anvil in my forge.

“Good,” he said simply. “You leave at dawn. Report to Selene tonight and ensure she has what she needs. I’m trusting you with this.”

I didn’t respond beyond the sharp lash of my tail against the stone as I turned toward the chamber’s exit.

As I stalked into the tunnels, the heat of the council chamber faded behind me. But the ache in my chest—sharp, heavy, and distinctly hers—burned hotter still.

The air outside the healing caverns clung to me like ash settling over scorched earth. This small alcove, cut into the outer wall of the tunnels, was a place meant for reprieve—a moment of peace amid chaos. The world here didn’t burn; it breathed. Quiet. Cool. Patient.

And yet, the tension in my chest pulled taut as I took in the figure sitting against the ledge.

Selene.

She was curled in on herself in the way someone does when fighting sleep too long, her legs drawn up, arms hooked loosely around her knees. Her dark hair, usually pulled back tight like she was braced for battle, hung limp in loose waves over her shoulders.

The lines of her posture screamed weariness, but her eyes, locked on some unseen point in the dim haze beyond, glinted with a determination I doubted even her own body could quench. Shadowed though they were above the pale hollows of her cheeks, they burned, defying everything around her, even herself.

Her head tilted, her shoulders stiffening an infinitesimal amount. It wasn’t defiance, just awareness. Preemptive defense, perhaps. This woman was carved of sharp edges and blunt truths.

“What are you doing here?” she murmured. Her voice was low, roughened at the edges, yet calm. Steady. Like someone who wasn’t surprised anymore by disappointment circling back for another hit. “Come to give more bad news?”

The bitter edge under her tone cracked something in my chest I hadn’t realized was fragile in the first place.

“I come with orders,” I said, stepping fully into the meager light.

Her lip quirked, the shadow of that sharp humor pressing through exhaustion. “Figures.”

Her head peeked to the side, sparing me a glance cut from steel and smoothed by something too soft for either of us to name. Whatever she was bracing for—criticism, dismissal, more endless pressure—it sat coiled behind that glance, an invisible wall built brick by goddamn stubborn brick.

I lowered myself to the stone beside her without asking. My tail curled once, instinctively tucking to the side so it wouldn’t crowd her space. Selene shifted, not away but inward, crossing her arms like she had to build another barrier between herself and whatever weight she’d been forced to carry all day.

I waited. She would speak when she wanted to and not a moment before.

It didn’t take long.

“One of them died.” Voice flat. Heavy. Not cracked or broken, but brittle, like glass about to shatter under its own strain.

Every muscle in my body stiffened. “Who?”

“A young one. Yaris.” She exhaled hard, fingers dragging briefly through her hair before falling limply at her sides again. “He wasn’t … he wasn’t doing well by the time we got to him, but I thought—I thought maybe …” Her voice trailed off, unfinished, swallowed by the vast emptiness carried in her too-quiet breath.

She shook her head sharply, but not to erase what she’d said. Just to shove it somewhere else, some dark corner she wasn’t going to look at long enough to let it sink fully in.

“Barely old enough to be here,” she muttered, quieter now but no less sharp. “He had this laugh. Quick and stupid and bright—damn near drove Kaiya insane this past week.” Her lips twisted, as if memory could still find humor in agony. “Then he just … stopped.”

Guilt flashed across her eyes. The kind that left scars deeper than any blade could carve. I knew the weight well; it lived in my own chest some nights with wounds I’d long since buried.

“You did what you could.”

She barked a laugh—not cruel, not humorless, but something sharp and self-deprecating. Her head tilted down briefly. “I couldn't do shit."

The air tightened around us—not choking, but charged. I wanted to reach out, to tug that weight from her shoulders and crush it under my claws before it swallowed her whole. But my hands stayed where they were, clenched against my knees. Her scent was sharp in the stillness, krysfruit wrapping around the ember-smoke of grief laced in her skin. Everything about her pulled against the ache in my chest I’d tried—and failed—to quench since the first time I’d met her.

I should have left. Should’ve delivered my orders and gone to deal with the rest of the mission’s logistics. But the thought of walking away while Yaris’s shadow still lingered in her expression made my claws curl hard enough to bite into my own palms.

“He wasn’t on you,” I said finally, my voice low enough it barely carried across the space between us. “None of this is.”

She didn’t look at me. But her lips pressed into a tight line as her hands curled at her sides, nails dragging against the fabric of her pants.

“Harrovan.” My voice shifted deliberately, the single name slicing into the quiet between us, though the tension in it made my stomach twist.

That made her finally look at me. “What?”

“That’s where we’re going.” The words left me heavy as the stone beneath us. “Darrokar ordered it. You and I leave at dawn.”

Her reaction wasn’t what I expected. Not anger or frustration. Not even the exhaustion driving everything else. It was just stillness. Like she hadn’t registered the words yet. Like her mind was playing catch-up with her defenses.

Her lips parted once, then snapped shut. She shook her head, faint and definite. “No.”

I blinked. “No?”

“I mean no. As in, not happening. As in, my place is here,” she said, steel sparking through the weariness clogging her voice. “You can’t just … Hell no. I’m not leaving the healers now. They need me.”

“They need you to retrieve the cure.”

Her frame stiffened, her arms raising to cross tightly over her chest as though bracing against me—or perhaps herself. “They need me now.”

“They’ll need you more if they’re still alive when we return.”

The response silenced her, but her eyes cut dangerously toward mine, a flicker of heat beneath both her defiance and grief. “You’re so sure we can even find it?”

“Yes.” I meant it, even though the rough trek through Harrovan clawed over my mind like a poorly woven net. Her mortality against its dangers would haunt me every step beyond the city’s barriers, but here, now, watching her try to climb a wall made of her own stubborn will and bruised instincts—I wouldn’t let her crumble only to chain herself to failure’s corpse.

Selene’s jaw twitched, tension tracing her frame as she exhaled sharply through her nose. “You’ve been up there, then? Harrovan?”

“No.” My tone stayed steady; it softened only where her shoulders stiffened further. “But I’ll make sure you’re not left to face it alone.”

Her lips almost curled into a smile before her eyes dropped again, low and far away from the dim blue glow of the river.

The silence pressed down again, heavy but not the same weight as before. It shifted too much, too soon. Too clear. Above the grief thick in the air, something else edged closer, closer to the space we’d left untouched since the moment we first crossed paths.

I crossed it before I could think better of it.

My hand moved first—not grabbing, not holding, but hovering above her shoulder as my wings shifted open, slow, deliberate. The tip of my left one curled toward her back, brushing her upper spine like a shield offering itself where words would always fail. “Let me give you strength,” I murmured, my voice low and rough-edged against the quiet.

She didn’t jerk away. Didn't move at all, in fact, as my claws hovered against her, hesitant to thunder through whatever fragile thread she was clinging to here in this little alcove. After too many suspended heartbeats, her body softened, muscles easing toward the contact.

Her voice barely breached the quiet, but when it did, it refused to waver. “Just for a little while.”

Something in me cracked wide open. It wasn’t a break, not really, but a fracture deeper than I cared to name. As her weight shifted just slightly against my wing, I felt her warmth leeching through the fragile space we'd allowed between us.

I let it happen.

The world around us drew quiet, as if Volcaryth itself had decided to hold its breath. Her exhaustion had a gravity of its own, pulling everything close into its orbit, me included.

Her hair brushed against the curve of my wing, barely a whisper, but even that little touch sent my instincts reeling. Every sinew of restraint I held threatened to fray as her scent wrapped around me—smoke, krysfruit, and something sharper, tinged with sadness.

I exhaled through my nose, steady and slow, while my claws curled against the stone beneath us. “We will make it back,” I said, breaking the stillness between us. My voice was rougher than I intended, lower, but steady. “To the healers. To this place. I won't fail you.”

Her head tilted, her cheek brushing the edge of my wing, whether consciously or not I couldn’t tell. She let out a soft, humorless laugh, the kind that didn’t belong to someone who fully believed what they’d just heard. “And what if we do?”

Her question wasn’t meant to challenge. It wasn’t defiant. It was quiet and jagged around the edges like a blade that hadn’t been polished properly.

“You and I don’t fail.” I said it again, slower this time, stronger, hoping she could pull the weight of those words into her chest and carry them with the same intensity I felt.

Selene raised her head just enough to glance at me. The shadows of her exhaustion and stubbornness waged war in her eyes, dark and cutting but too human for her to conceal entirely. For a moment, I could see the soldier in her fighting the medic. The part of her that wanted to move forward, to push and charge and fix, battling the part that had known loss and carried it far longer than anyone deserved.

“That easy, huh?” she said, the faintest flicker of dry humor threading her voice. “Why don’t you package that up for the rest of us mortals?”

I snorted softly—the sound rough and unpolished even to my own ears. “Mortals?” I echoed, the word rolling over my tongue like there’d been a joke buried in it once. “Hard to believe you think of yourself that way.”

Her brow quirked, a spark of something sharper flashing in her tired gaze. “Oh, don’t worry. You Drakarn don’t let us humans forget where we fall on the food chain.” The corners of her mouth twitched upward, though not quite into the shape of a smile.

That humor was enough to kindle something warmer, brighter than the ache underneath. It was enough to anchor me against the instinct clawing beneath my scales.

“Harrovan isn’t the food chain you need to worry about,” I said, though my tone stayed lighter than the words themselves. “But if it helps, I’ll make sure any predators out there know exactly where they fall.”

Her lips tugged upward a little more, though the weariness in her expression still weighed her features down. “Big talk.”

I leaned back, letting the tilt of my wings shift just so, not enough to pull away but enough to cut the sharp edges of what still lingered between us. “Big claws.”

That earned a small laugh—real but wry, edged with disbelief but unharmed by it. She shook her head but leaned forward again, her breath soft and even as she stared past me.

For a while, neither of us said anything.

Her scent lingered in the alcove, threading through the cool air like a constant reminder of things I had no right to think about. The warmth of her shoulder, so close to brushing mine—and the quiver of her resolve beneath it—snared my focus in a way I hated but couldn’t seem to shake.

No predator worth its fangs ignored what was right in front of them, but this was something else entirely.

I shifted against the stone. The scrape of my claws filled the silence, breaking it just enough without fracturing the fragile calm that had settled. “We leave at dawn,” I reminded her, my tone softer, less edged now. “Get some rest.”

Selene turned her head a little, her dark eyes cutting upward to meet mine. There was no sharpness in her stare this time—no challenge, no defiance. Just tired steel. And beneath it, something that flickered too faintly to trust the shape of. “Easy for you to say,” she murmured, her lips curling in a sardonic edge. “Pretty sure you Drakarn can fall asleep standing upright.”

I huffed, a sound small and guttural in the back of my throat. “We can. But you’re not Drakarn.”

“No kidding,” she said wryly, pressing her palms into her knees as if preparing to rise. Her glance dropped, and the shadows along her face deepened under the quiet glow of the river’s light. “But seriously—look at me. You think I’m just going to flip myself ‘off’ after this?”

I tilted my head, my wings giving the slightest flick of acknowledgment. “You need to try.” My voice lowered further, rough and honest. “Exhaustion gets you killed. Especially where we’re going.”

Her lips parted, argument at the ready. But her words caught somewhere between her mind and her mouth, and what finally escaped wasn’t anger or sarcasm, just a long, quiet exhale. She leaned forward, bracing her elbows on her knees, and dragged a tired hand through her hair. “You think I haven’t been trying?”

I made no reply. None was required. The rawness in her voice—quiet as it was—said more than anything I could offer.

The silence stretched between us, softer this time. Not heavy, just steady. Long minutes passed, or maybe only seconds. I didn’t count. I just stayed still, watching her from the corner of my eye while the ache buried beneath my ribs pressed harder with each passing breath.

Finally, Selene rose to her feet, the motion practiced but stiff. The fatigue etched in her posture caught the glow of the distant light, shadow and glow playing against her every step. She turned just enough to glance over her shoulder, one hand resting on her hip as her other reached up to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear.

“So,” she drawled lightly, the humor barely masking the honesty beneath it, “dawn, huh?”

I smirked—a flicker of warmth that betrayed more than I cared to admit. “At dawn.”

Her brows quirked in response, her lips tilting upward in a humorless smile. She held my gaze just a moment longer before looking away, her jaw tightening as she shifted her weight on her heels.

“Don’t be late.” Her words were almost teasing, as though speaking them aloud lightened the atmosphere just enough to make it tolerable again.

“I’ll be waiting.”