Page 10

Chapter 10

L ila

The vision comes without warning, sudden and violent.

I’m on my knees before I realize I’ve fallen, gasping as the Heartstone pulses in my mind’s eye. Not just crystal anymore—a crimson heart, beating with ancient power, pulsing with a rhythm that matches my own frantic heartbeat.

The room spins. Blood trickles from my nose, metallic on my tongue. No Hargen to catch me this time. No extraction equipment to channel the raw power.

Images barrel through my mind—flames licking up ancient stone walls. A dragon with scales like moonlight. Elena, grown and beautiful, surrounded by a vortex of crimson fire that consumes everything around her.

Then her face contorts in pain. Screaming. Blood-streaked hands reaching for help that isn’t coming.

“Elena!” Her name tears from my throat before I can stop it.

A sharp knock breaks through the vision haze. I ignore it, trying to crawl to the bathroom to clean the blood before whoever it is enters.

Too late.

The door slides open. Heavy footsteps cross the threshold. I keep my head down, hair falling forward to hide my face.

“Ms. Ross—” The voice cuts off abruptly. “Lila! You’re bleeding.”

Shit, shit, shit!

Allard Reeve. Of course it would be him.

I wipe my nose with the back of my hand, leaving a crimson streak across my skin. “Observant.”

He crouches beside me, too close. His scent fills my senses, warming me for some strange reason. “A vision?”

“Just a nosebleed.” I lie. I try to stand, but my legs betray me.

He catches my elbow, steadying me with a grip that’s firm but careful. Not the bruising hold of Syndicate guards. Something almost… gentle.

“Right. And I’m just a security guard.”

Our eyes meet. This close, I can see tiny lighter flecks in his green irises. Dragon eyes, but with something human lingering in their depths. Something dangerous. Because it draws me.

“Let me help you to the couch.”

I should refuse. Should tell him to leave. Should maintain the wall between captive and captor that’s kept me sane for years.

Instead, I let him guide me to the small sofa. Let his hand linger at my waist longer than necessary. Let myself lean into his strength because, just for a moment, I’m too tired to stand alone.

He disappears into the bathroom, returning with a damp cloth.

“Here.” He offers it without touching me.

I press it to my nose, watching him over the edge. He prowls my quarters, catlike and tense, eyes scanning every corner as if enemies might materialize from the walls.

“Bit late for a security check,” I say.

“I don’t sleep much.”

“Dragons never do.” I lower the cloth, checking for fresh blood.

“And witches?” He turns, catching me studying him. “Do they sleep?”

“Not if they want to control what they see.”

Understanding flickers across his face. Not sympathy—I wouldn’t trust that—but recognition. He knows about prophetic dreams. Knows more than a Syndicate operative should.

“What did you see?” he asks, voice dropping to something intimate in the midnight quiet.

“Nothing that would interest your masters.”

“Humor me.” He sits in the chair across from me, closing the distance between us. His knee almost touches mine.

I should lie. Should give him a fragment, a misdirection. Years of survival instinct screams at me to reveal nothing.

“A heart made of fire.” The truth slips out, surprising us both. “Crimson crystal that lives. That beats.”

He goes very still. “The Heartstone.”

“Perhaps.”

“What else?”

My throat tightens. The rest of the vision swirls behind my eyes—Elena, all grown up, surrounded by fire that didn’t burn her. Power she inherited from me. Power that makes her a target.

“Nothing clear.” I lie again. I won’t risk Elena, not even for this strange connection I feel.

“You’re lying.” He leans forward, elbows on knees. Our faces now inches apart. “You saw more.”

“Everyone sees what they want to see, Mr. Reeve. Even dragons.”

His mouth curves slightly—not quite a smile. “Even witches who pretend to be broken?”

My breath catches. The accusation hangs between us, dangerous and true. I’ve let them believe their containment fields work better than they do. Let them think they’ve tamed me.

“Careful,” I whisper. “Syndicate walls have ears.”

“Not tonight.” His voice drops lower. “I disabled the monitoring system for my inspection. Standard security protocol.”

Another lie. Another truth between us, unspoken but understood.

He’s not who he claims to be.

And now he knows I’m not what I appear to be either.

“Why are you here?” I ask. “Really.”

His eyes hold mine, searching for something. Trust, perhaps. Or weakness.

“Maybe I wanted to see you when you weren’t being bled for prophecies.”

“Why?”

“Does there need to be a reason?”

“In this place? For everything.”

His hand moves slowly, deliberately, until his fingers brush mine on the couch between us. Electricity arcs between our skin, my magic recognizing something in him despite the dampening field.

“What if I said I’ve been looking for you, Lila Rossewyn?”

My true name on his lips sends a shiver through me. Not Lila Ross, the identity I created when I went into hiding with Elena. Lila Rossewyn. The witch. The seer. The bloodline the dragons have hunted for centuries.

I should pull away. Should call for help. Should do anything but what I actually do, which is lean toward him like a flower seeking sunlight after being too long in darkness.

“Who are you?” The question comes out breathless, vulnerable.

His fingers trace up my arm, leaving trails of fire in their wake. “Someone who wants to see you free.”

“Freedom doesn’t exist for people like me.” The words taste like ash.

“It could.”

My body sways toward him without conscious decision. Years of isolation, of touch limited to clinical examinations and restraints. Years of hunger that I’d buried so deep I’d forgotten it existed.

Until now.

His hand cups my cheek, thumb brushing away blood I missed. The tenderness of it breaks something inside me. A dam crumbling after years of pressure.

“What’s out there for me?” I whisper, so close now I can feel his breath on my lips. The words are a test—to see what he knows, what he might reveal about Elena. My daughter’s safety hovers at the edge of my thoughts, a constant worry I can’t share, even as everything in me wants to trust this man.

His pupils dilate, but his expression doesn’t change. “A future. Freedom. Things worth fighting for.”

His other hand slides into my hair, cradling my head with impossible gentleness. “Trust me.”

Two words that crack my world open.

“How could I possibly—?”

He cuts me off with his mouth on mine.

The kiss starts gentle—a question, an offering. His lips brush against mine with surprising softness, the barest touch that sends sparks cascading through my body. I freeze, shock paralyzing me as forgotten sensations flood my system.

Then something primal takes over.

My hands find his shoulders, fingers digging into hard muscle as the gentleness gives way to hunger. He tastes like smoke and secrets, like possibility in a world where I’ve had none. His tongue traces the seam of my lips, and I open to him with a small sound that would embarrass me if I could think clearly.

One of his hands tightens in my hair, angling my head as he deepens the kiss. The other slips around my waist, drawing me against the solid heat of his chest. I feel the controlled power in him—the dragon beneath the man—leashed but present in the way his body shudders against mine.

Time dissolves. There is only sensation—the slide of his tongue against mine, the slight scrape of teeth, the rumble deep in his chest when I press closer. Heat pools between my thighs, a feeling so long forgotten it’s almost like pain.

A flash of Elena’s face, surrounded by crimson fire, jolts through my mind like lightning.

What am I doing?

I shove him away, scrambling backward on the couch, my mind spinning out of control as I reach for something that makes sense in all this.

“Hargen!” The name comes out before I can stop it, instinct calling for the only person in this place I halfway trust.

Allard doesn’t try to follow. Just watches me with something like regret flashing across his face.

“I won’t hurt you, Lila.”

“Then what the hell was that?” My voice shakes. With anger? Fear? Desire? I can’t tell anymore. My lips burn with the memory of his, my body an unfamiliar landscape of sensation.

“A mistake,” he says softly. “But it didn’t feel like one.”

My chest heaves as I stare at him because it didn’t feel like a mistake for me either. But it should. It really should.

The door hisses open as Hargen rushes in, medical bag in hand. He takes in the scene with one sweep of his dark eyes—my disheveled state, the blood on my face, Allard’s intense focus, the unmistakable tension in the air.

“What’s happening here?” Hargen’s voice is tight, controlled, but I hear the undercurrent of fury. His tall frame blocks the doorway as he steps inside, posture rigid with contained anger.

Allard rises smoothly, all business now. “Security check. The asset had a spontaneous vision. I provided assistance.”

“Did you.” It’s not a question. Hargen’s eyes never leave Allard’s face, the two men locked in a silent battle of wills.

“She was in distress.” Allard doesn’t back down. “I responded appropriately.”

Hargen sets his bag down with deliberate care. “And how exactly did you happen to be here at this hour… Sir?”

“Standard patrol rotation.”

“Through the private quarters? At three in the morning?”

Allard’s jaw tightens. “I heard her cry out.”

Hargen’s gaze shifts to me, questioning. Demanding explanation without words. His eyes soften with concern, but there’s something else there—a possessiveness I’ve never fully acknowledged between us.

“Did he hurt you?” Hargen asks, voice gentle now, though his body remains taut with tension.

The question hits me like a slap.

Did he hurt me?

No.

God, no.

But he’s awakened something I can’t afford to feel. Something that terrifies me.

I shake my head.

“Then what the hell is going on here?” Annoyance edges Hargen’s voice.

Allard moves toward the door. “Ask her,” he says simply. But his eyes find mine one last time, and the look in them steals my breath—regret, desire, and something that looks unnervingly like promise.

Then he’s gone, leaving me with the ghost of his touch on my skin and Hargen’s suspicious gaze boring into me.

“Lila?” Hargen crouches before me, his large frame suddenly protective rather than imposing. He takes my hands in his, examining them as if searching for injuries. “What happened? What did you see?”

The dual question isn’t lost on me. What happened in my vision, and what happened with Allard Reeve?

I touch my lips, still burning from Allard’s kiss. Still tasting of promises I know better than to believe.

“The Heartstone,” I whisper, giving him the safer truth. “Pulsing with power. And fire. So much fire.”

Hargen’s hands tighten on mine. “And Reeve? What did you tell him?”

The concern in his voice is real, but there’s something else, too. Jealousy? All these years, our relationship has existed in limbo—handler and asset, protector and prisoner, something almost like friends. But tonight, I see clearly what I’ve tried to ignore—that Hargen feels something for me that goes beyond duty.

“Nothing important,” I say, avoiding his eyes. “Nothing that would put anyone at risk.”

His fingers brush my chin, tilting my face up to meet his gaze. “Are you sure? Lila, if he’s—”

“I’m fine,” I interrupt. “It was nothing. He just happened to be here when I had the vision.”

Hargen studies me for a long moment, disbelief evident in the set of his jaw. “There are things happening that you don’t understand,” he says finally. “Reeve… he’s dangerous.”

“Everyone here is dangerous,” I counter. “You included.”

“Not to you,” he says softly. “Never to you.”

The raw emotion in his voice catches me off guard.

“I know,” I whisper, and for a moment, I almost tell him everything—about Elena, about my suspicions regarding Allard, about the fire in my vision. But self-preservation keeps the words locked behind my teeth.

Hargen nods once, professional distance sliding back into place as he opens his medical bag. “Let’s get you cleaned up.”

As he tends to the blood splashed on my shirt, I stare at the door where Allard disappeared. My body still hums with the memory of his touch, my mind racing with questions.

Who is he really? What does he want from me?

Why do I want to give it to him, regardless of what he wants?

God, Lila, this is such a mess.

Between Hargen’s quiet concern and Allard’s burning intensity, I’ve stepped into territory more perilous than any vision.

And I have absolutely no idea what happens next.