Page 7 of Tempest Blazing (The Dragonne Library #3)

Kane

The summons came through official channels—a formal request to discuss Guild Trial logistics. I should have known better.

Silvius's office felt smaller than usual, the luminescent stone walls pressing in as I stepped through the doorway.

He didn't look up from the papers scattered across his desk, letting me stand there like some first-year applicant waiting for acknowledgment.

The silence stretched, deliberate and cold.

"You wanted to see me," I said finally, keeping my voice level.

"Sit." He gestured to the chair across from him without lifting his eyes. "We need to discuss the upcoming trials."

I remained standing. "What about them?"

That got his attention. Those piercing blue eyes—so like my own—fixed on me with the weight of centuries behind them. "The human girl's performance has been... adequate."

Adequate. The word scraped against something raw in my chest, but I kept my expression neutral. "Tess has exceeded every expectation. Her progress—"

"Is irrelevant." Silvius leaned back in his chair, fingers steepled. "What matters is the precedent her presence sets. The... complications it creates."

"Complications?"

"Don't play ignorant, Kane. It doesn't suit you." His voice carried that particular edge I'd learned to recognize—the one that preceded pain. "Your attachment to this human is becoming conspicuous. Concerning."

The temperature in the room seemed to drop. My elemental magic stirred beneath my skin, a warning I couldn't quite suppress. "My professional assessment of her abilities—"

"Has nothing to do with the way you look at her." Silvius rose from his chair, moving with that fluid grace that marked him as predator. "Or the way she looks at you."

I forced myself to remain still, even as every instinct screamed at me to step back. "I don't know what you think you've observed—"

"I think," he said, circling the desk with deliberate slowness, "that you've forgotten who you are.

What you are." He stopped just close enough that I could feel the chill radiating from his skin.

"The Ellesar bloodline has remained pure for over a thousand years. We don't sully ourselves with humans. "

The word dripped with disgust, and something hot and violent flared in my chest. "Tess isn't—"

"Tess." He repeated her name like it tasted bitter. "How familiar. How... intimate."

"She's a Guild member. A rider. She deserves the same respect—"

"She deserves nothing." The words cracked like a whip. "She's a political liability at best, a contamination at worst. And you—" His eyes narrowed. "You're defending her with the passion of a lovesick fool."

My hands clenched at my sides. The elements responded to my rising anger—air pressure shifting, temperature fluctuating. I felt fire gathering beneath my skin, water in the very air around us, earth trembling in the stone beneath our feet. "I'm defending a qualified rider from prejudice."

"Are you?" Silvius tilted his head, studying me like I was some fascinating specimen. "Or are you so blinded by whatever base attraction you feel that you can't see the damage she's already done?"

"What damage?"

"To you." His voice dropped to barely above a whisper. "To your reputation. To your future." He stepped closer, and I caught the scent of ozone that always preceded his magic. "To everything I've built for you."

"Everything you've built for yourself, you mean."

The words were out before I could stop them. Silvius went very still.

"Excuse me?"

I should have backed down. Should have apologized, deflected, played the dutiful son. Instead, I met his gaze head-on. "You heard me."

For a heartbeat, the office was silent except for the whisper of our breathing. Then Silvius moved—not the measured pace of before, but a blur of motion that had him across the space between us before I could blink.

The blow came open-palmed, elemental fire crackling across his skin as his hand connected with the underside of my jaw. Pain exploded through my skull, followed immediately by the acrid smell of scorched flesh. The force of it snapped my head back, but I didn't stumble. Didn't fall.

Didn't give him the satisfaction.

My own magic roared to life in response—all four elements surging beneath my skin like caged lightning.

Fire traced along my veins, water gathered in the air around us, earth trembled in the walls, and wind whipped through the confined space.

The temperature spiked, then plummeted, then spiked again as my control wavered.

But I held his gaze. Let him see exactly what he'd awakened.

"Better," Silvius said softly, lowering his hand. No remorse in his voice. No anger either. Just cold satisfaction. "There's the son I raised."

The burn under my jaw throbbed in time with my heartbeat. I could feel the mark he'd left—precise, calculated, hidden just beneath the line of my collar where others wouldn't see. Not rage. Not even punishment, really.

Discipline.

"You will end whatever foolishness you've begun with the human," he continued, smoothing down his robes as if nothing had happened. "You will maintain appropriate distance. Professional courtesy, nothing more."

I said nothing. Couldn't trust my voice not to crack with the fury building in my chest.

"And if I hear even a whisper of impropriety—if I see you looking at her with anything resembling the devotion I witnessed today—there will be consequences." His smile was winter-sharp. "Not just for you, Kane. For her."

The threat hung in the air between us, crystal clear. My magic pulsed harder, demanding release, demanding retribution. The very air in the room felt combustible.

"Do I make myself clear?"

I forced my jaw to work, each word careful and controlled. "Perfectly."

"Good." Silvius returned to his desk, already dismissing me. "The trials begin in two weeks. See that you remember your place."

I turned and walked toward the door, every step measured. Professional. The perfect son doing as he was told.

"Kane."

I paused with my hand on the doorframe but didn't turn around.

"If you continue down this path," Silvius said quietly, "you won't just lose your standing in the Guild. You'll lose everything. Your title, your inheritance, your future." A pause. "Your family."

I already have, I thought, but kept the words locked behind my teeth.

I stepped into the corridor and let the door close behind me with a soft click. Only then did I allow my hands to curl into fists, knuckles white with the force of it. The burn on my jaw pulsed, a reminder of exactly how much control he still held.

How much he was willing to use.

My magic churned beneath my skin, all four elements demanding an outlet. Fire wanted to burn something. Water wanted to freeze, to shatter. Earth wanted to crack foundations, and air wanted to tear through the Guild's pristine halls like a hurricane.

I wanted to go back in there and show him exactly what his "pure" bloodline was capable of.

Instead, I walked. Down the corridor, past startled students who took one look at my face and scattered, past instructors who suddenly found their scrolls fascinating. I walked until I reached my private training grounds, until I could feel open sky above me and solid earth beneath my feet.

Only then did I let a fraction of my magic loose—fire erupting from my palms in a controlled burst that left scorch marks on the practice targets. Not enough. Not nearly enough.

The need to hit something, to break something, to unleash the full force of what I was boiled just beneath my skin. But even here, even alone, I held back.

Because that's what he'd taught me. Control. Restraint. The careful management of power.

Even when it was killing me from the inside out.

???

I channeled everything into the training dummies.

Fire and earth first—molten rock that should have been impossible to sustain, but my magic was running too hot to care about the laws of elemental physics. The practice targets exploded in showers of superheated stone and ash. Wasn't enough.

Water and air next—ice shards propelled by hurricane-force winds that shredded what remained of the wooden posts. Wood splintered across the empty training grounds, but the sound barely cut through the roar in my head.

You will end whatever foolishness you've begun with the human.

Another dummy. This time all four elements at once—a combination that should have torn me apart from the inside.

Fire melted the metal framework while water froze the remains solid, earth cracked the foundation, and air scattered the debris like confetti.

Magic crackled along my forearms in chaotic patterns, my hands shaking from the strain.

Still not enough.

Because I could still feel the burn on my jaw. Could still hear the casual threat in Silvius's voice. Not just for you, Kane. For her.

Her.

Right. Like I'd been trying not to think about her. Like every rational thought I'd had for the past week hadn't circled back to those golden-brown eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses. To the way she'd looked at me in the library like she could see straight through every wall I'd built.

"You're not as untouchable as you pretend to be."

The memory punched harder than my father's hand. Tess, standing in that narrow aisle between the ancient texts, close enough that I'd caught the scent of cinnamon and something uniquely her. Her chin tilted up when I'd tried to intimidate her, daring me to do my worst.

The way she'd seen me.

I conjured another training dummy from the scattered materials—earth magic pulling stone and metal back together, air magic lifting it into position. Made this one stronger. Reinforced it with layers of elemental protection that should have withstood anything short of a dragon's flame.

Then I destroyed it with my bare hands.

Magic poured through me in desperate waves—not the controlled, precise applications I'd been trained to use, but something raw and hungry.

Fire traced along my knuckles as I drove my fist through reinforced stone.

Water followed, flash-freezing the cracks before earth magic shattered the whole thing apart.

The dummy exploded outward in a spray of ice and rock that would have killed anyone standing within twenty feet.

"What are you so afraid of?"

Her voice again. That moment in the corridor when she'd stepped too close, when I'd felt the pull of something I couldn't name and couldn't control. The way her magic had responded to mine—gold and purple light dancing with my elemental chaos like they belonged together.

Like we were meant to—

No.

I slammed my palm against the nearest wall, letting fire magic sear through stone until my handprint was burned six inches deep. The pain in my jaw throbbed against the fresh burns on my palm, but it wasn't enough to quiet the war in my head.

Because this wasn't just about Silvius's threats. Wasn't even about the Guild's prejudices or the careful political balance I'd spent my entire life maintaining.

This was about the fact that when he'd threatened her, every instinct I possessed had screamed for blood.

Mine. His. Anyone who dared to look at her wrong.

The realization should have terrified me. Should have sent me running back to the safe distance I'd maintained from everyone and everything that mattered.

Instead, it just made me want to burn the whole Guild to the ground.

I was reaching for another training dummy when a shadow passed overhead—too large to be natural, too fluid to be anything but deliberate.

"Well," came a familiar voice from above. "That was impressively destructive."

I looked up to find Lorcan perched on the observation platform, black wings folded against his back. In his humanoid form, he looked like any other Guild member—tall, lean, sharp-featured. But the intelligence in those dark eyes was anything but ordinary.

"How long have you been watching?" I didn't bother hiding the destruction around me.

"Long enough to see you turn three training dummies into modern art." He dropped down from the platform with predatory grace, landing silently on the scorched earth. "Long enough to realize that whatever happened in daddy's office didn't go well."

I didn't ask how he knew where I'd been. Lorcan made it his business to know everything that happened in the Guild—especially when it involved his most reliable clients.

"What do you want?" I said instead.

"To deliver what you paid for." He reached into his jacket and pulled out a folded piece of parchment, edges singed like it had been carried through fire. "Though I have to say, the timing is... interesting."

I took the message, recognizing the coded script immediately. Lorcan's network used a cipher that changed daily, but I'd been reading his reports long enough to translate without thinking.

High-stakes exhibition match scheduled for Friday evening. Opponent: recently bonded pair, rare affinity. Significant betting interest from Guild families. Location: The Crimson Arena.

My blood went cold.

"Recently bonded," I said slowly. "How recently?"

"Three days ago." Lorcan's expression stayed carefully neutral, but I caught the flicker of something that might have been concern. "A storm dragon and his water elemental mate. The bond is fresh—sacred by our laws, but apparently not sacred enough to keep them out of the fighting rings."

The parchment crumpled in my fist before I could stop myself. Fire magic leaked through my fingers, turning the message to ash in seconds.

"They're using a mate bond as entertainment," I said, my voice sounding strange even to my own ears. Flat. Dangerous. "Breaking one of our most fundamental laws for sport."

"That would be my assessment, yes." Lorcan tilted his head, studying me with predator intensity.

"I need details," I said. "Everything you can find about the match, the opponent, the arena setup. I need security schedules, guard rotations, emergency protocols."

"That's going to cost extra." Lorcan's voice stayed carefully neutral, but I caught the calculating gleam in his eyes. "Considerably extra."

"I don't care."

"And if I were to ask what you're planning to do with this information?"

I met his gaze steadily. "You won't."

Because we both knew what I was planning. What I'd been planning since the moment I'd read that message.

I was going to stop this.