Page 52 of Born in Fire
“The Heartstone,” I say. “If Malakai was in the chamber, we need to see that the Stone is safe.”
“It’s fine. I have it.”
“What?” I frown. “Why the fuck do you have it?”
“I needed to show it to Elena.” He doesn’t elaborate.
“Why the hell did you need to do that, you asshole?” This doesn’t compute.
“Because…” He pauses. “I needed to check something.”
“Check what, Caleb?” When he doesn’t respond, I press harder. “What the fuck did you need to check?”
“It’s nothing that concerns you. Get that shitstorm under control. I’ll work on things from my side.”
“What do you mean, it doesn’t concern me? The Heartstone affects all of us, dammit!” I realize that I’m talking to dead air and resist the urge to fling the phone across the room.
Instead, I sink into his chair, the weight of responsibility settling uncomfortably on my shoulders.
Something’s wrong with my brother. The way he reacted to Elena’s name, the strange intensity in his eyes, the almost physical pain that flashed across his face when he spoke of her. It’s more than just anger at a security breach.
I’ve seen Caleb angry. I’ve seen him disappointed, frustrated, even afraid. But this? This is something else entirely. Something I’ve never witnessed before.
“Fuck,” I mutter, running a hand through my hair.
If I’m right—if Caleb has somehow formed a connection with Elena—we’re in even deeper shit than I thought. A clan leader compromised by a human? The elders would revolt. And in the middle of this crisis with Malakai and the Syndicate? The timing couldn’t be worse.
I grab the phone, dialing our communications director.
“This is Dorian Craven,” I say when she answers. “I need you to put together a response team immediately. We have a situation.”
As I outline what needs to be done—discrediting the videos as elaborate hoaxes, deploying our media contacts to run counter-narratives—my mind keeps circling back to Juno.
The look on her face when she saw what I truly am. The fear in her eyes. The questions I couldn’t answer.
I push the thought away. The clan comes first. It has to. My personal shit will have to wait. I put a call through to Sloane, telling her to delay the clan meeting until I can sort this shit out. I don’t have answers right now; anything I say will only make things worse.
But even as I hang up, coordinating the next steps in our damage control plan, I know I can’t leave things as they stand with Juno. She saw something impossible, something that defied her understanding of reality. And unlike Elena, she has no context for it. Aside from a barrage of ridiculous viral videos pointing to me that she might stumble across if she has even one social media account.
“For fuck’s sake,” I mutter. I need to talk to her. To explain. To make sure she doesn’t become another liability in a situation already spinning out of control.
And maybe, if I’m honest with myself, I need to see her again for entirely selfish reasons. To see if there’s anything left to salvage from whatever was growing between us before my dragon decided to make an appearance.
But that will have to wait. Right now, I have a clan to protect and a brother to save from himself.
Chapter 15
Juno
I can’t stop moving. Since Dorian left, I’ve paced my apartment like a caged animal, my thoughts spinning in chaotic loops. Thank God it’s my day off because there’s no way I could focus on work now. Grounding techniques that normally work—counting objects in the room, naming sensations, deep breathing—slide off my anxiety like water on glass.
Glowing eyes. Impossible strength. Skin that shifted beneath my fingertips, like… scales?
My hands shake as I pour myself a third cup of chamomile tea I won’t drink. The mug clatters against the counter, spilling hot liquid over my fingers. I barely feel it.
“This isn’t happening,” I whisper to my empty apartment. “People don’t have glowing eyes or scale-like skin. That’s not a thing.”
Yet I saw it. Felt it. The memory of Dorian moving with inhuman speed to confront Tyler, the heat radiating from hisbody when he carried me upstairs, the strange texture of his skin during our most intimate moments—all of it crystal clear in my mind.
