Page 86 of Born in Fire
I stop. “You’re making yourselves targets.”
“Controlled targets,” he counters. “We know they’ll come for it, eventually. Better to choose the battlefield.”
“And what about the Shard?” I ask.
Caleb looks into Elena’s eyes. “You will lead us to it, my love.”
She smiles back at him. “And then we’ll take ‘em out. Fire and brimstone.”
He chuckles. “I love it when you talk dirty.”
“God.” I look away. “Do I have to watch you play sex games with your witch through this whole thing?” The words are sharp. Elena flinches.
“Watch your tone,” Caleb says, voice dropping to that dangerous register that means I’m pushing limits.
“I’m sorry.” I hike a shoulder into an apologetic shrug. “So, how do you plan to protect the Heartstone as well as track down the Shard?”
“Elena’s powers are growing. She can help defend the Stone. The three of us make a formidable team, Dorian.”
I don’t respond. It’s the first time my brother has ever spoken to me as an equal. I turn to Elena. “And you’re comfortable with this?”
“I’m still learning,” she admits, “but I’m stronger than I look.”
I believe her. There’s something different about her since I first met her—a quiet confidence beneath the uncertainty. The Rossewyn blood awakening.
“Fine.” I move to the desk, staring down at the Heartstone. Its light pulses in time with my heartbeat. “But when we find the Shard, I’m going after Malakai.”
“Dorian—” Caleb starts.
“Don’t.” Heat flares under my skin, the dragon pushing against human constraints. I feel the shift beginning—scales rippling beneath the surface, eyes changing. “Don’t tell me to be patient. Don’t tell me to be strategic. They killed her, Caleb. They killed her because of us.”
The room temperature rises. Elena steps back, instinctively wary of a dragon losing control.
Caleb doesn’t move. “And we’ll make them pay. But getting yourself killed won’t bring her back.”
“Nothing will bring her back.” My voice breaks on the last word. I close my eyes, forcing the dragon down. When I open them again, the room has stopped wavering with heat. “But I’m going to make sure they remember her name when they die.”
Silence stretches between us. Caleb and I have had three centuries of arguments, but this feels different. There’s a chasm opening that even brotherhood might not bridge.
“Follow the plan, Dorian,” he finally says. “Find the Shard. Then we decide our next move together.”
I nod, not trusting myself to speak. My gaze falls on a small framed photo on the side table—another of Elena’s touches in Caleb’s sterile space. She and her mother, both smiling, arms wrapped around each other. The kind of moment frozen in time that Juno will never have.
“I’ll find it,” I say, turning away from the photo, from the reminder of what’s been lost. “But when this is over, someone’s paying in blood.”
I head for the door, already calculating where to start hunting. Behind me, I hear Caleb’s sigh, heavy with concern. He thinks I’m being reckless, emotional. He’s right.
But he’s never watched someone he loved die saving him. He’s never held their cooling body while buildings crumbled around him. He’s never carried that weight.
I pray he never does.
I step into the elevator, the doors sliding shut on Caleb’s pristine world. One thought keeps spinning around in my head as the floor sinks beneath me.
Find the Shard. Find Malakai. End this.
Three simple steps. A plan even Caleb would approve of.
What he doesn’t need to know is the fourth step: Make them suffer. Make them burn. Make them wish they’d never heard the name Juno Ashford.
