“Utility boys are pissed.”
“They’ll live.” I tap the pendant resting against her throat. “You will too.”
A flush crawls up her neck, equal parts annoyance and something hotter. “You keep playing guardian angel, people are going to notice.”
“Let them.”
She steps forward till our chests almost touch. “Explain later?”
“Promise.”
Her lips tilt— not a smirk, never that—just the curve of a dare, slow and deliberate, like she’s offering me a lit match and daring me to strike. Her breath comes shallow, pupils blown,and for a heartbeat, the air between us burns with something unsaid, unspent.
“Good. Because I don’t like debts.”
We part as duty calls—she toward the staging rigs she’s forbidden to join, me toward the mine shaft, thinking of thermite and snipers and how many ways a day can go wrong.
Utility crews swarm the blown transformer by noon, stringing caution tape and cursing paperwork. Engineers argue about vaporized circuitry nobody can explain. Over their radios I catch snippets: ‘thermal overload,’ ‘unauthorized load spike,’ ‘possible electromagnetic event.’ Close enough.
Liv’s pendant jolts—double ping. Sniper lock—north ridge. The alert blinks crimson on my handheld, the screen pulsing. It isn’t just proximity—it’s targeting. A sniper has Liv’s position lined up from the north ridge, likely with thermal-invisible rounds. My stomach knots. The kill shot could already be on its way.
I wheel toward the slope, breath icing despite the heat. Branches snap above the ridge line—then a muzzle flash only dragon eyes can see. One shot, polymer round, silent, invisible. Unless I’m faster. I leap forward, letting the fire claw free even as I pray I’m not too late to intercept the bullet meant for her heart.
The fire inside me surges—raw, blinding, inevitable. I rip off my boots mid-sprint, shuck my shirt in one fluid motion, and feel the air scrape across my bare skin as I dive behind a berm. My pants tangle around my ankles, but I don’t stop. I tear free, heart pounding, breath burning.
Then I let go.
The dragon takes me in a rush of searing heat, fire erupting from my spine—sunburst force detonating beneath my skin. My body is no longer bound by human fragility—now it’s forged for speed, for war.
I launch from the slope, hurling my mass between the sniper’s muzzle and the heat-blip he’s targeting. My wings beat once, sending a gale through the trees, and I twist midair to intercept the invisible death meant for her.
If I’m right, I’ll take the hit. If I’m wrong, she dies. There’s no time to think.
CHAPTER 10
LIV
Smoke singes the back of my throat as I sprint uphill, chasing the ripple of a gunshot that never reached my ears—only my bones.
Kade’s voice punched through my pendant seconds ago— “Liv, down!” And the bead in its silver rim still pulses with a frantic heartbeat. The tree line looms above; somewhere beyond it a sniper just tried to carve my future in half.
But there’s no crack of impact, no bloom of pain. Instead, a massive shape looms in the clearing—scaled, horned, terrifying. A dragon. Its wings are half-furled, steam hissing off its cobalt hide as it lowers its head toward the ground. I skid to a stop, heart slamming against my ribs, breath freezing in my chest.
I’ve read books. I've seen tattoos and illustrations. But nothing prepares me for the sheer size of real—the way the earth seems to still beneath it, the way its eyes find me with a terrifying intelligence. I stumble back a step, blood roaring in my ears, too stunned to scream.
Then flame erupts around the beast—brief, blinding—and when it fades, Kade kneels in its place, steam coiling from his bare shoulders. At his feet lies a polymer bullet, flattened against a slab of quartz he must have yanked from the earth. Not a stitchremains on him—his transformation must have incinerated everything he wore. Steam rolls from his bare skin as he rises from a crouch, eyes glowing in the half-light, the raw power of his dragon form still echoing in the air around him.
I stare at him, still trembling, my body trying to reconcile what I just witnessed. "That was a dragon," I whisper. "I saw it. You were...”
Kade doesn't flinch. "You saw what you were meant to see."
My laugh is raw, disbelieving. "That's not an answer. That’s a creature from stories, not real life. Not...”
"It's real," he says softly. "I’m real."
The silence between us crackles with unsaid truths, charged and humming, like storm tension building before the first strike. My knees want to give. "I’m not dreaming? Not hallucinating from smoke inhalation or trauma?"
He steps closer, gently reaching out. "You’re not dreaming, Liv. You just saw what I really am. And I’d do it again if it meant keeping you breathing."
