Chapter 3
The mud cooling around me is oddly comforting. I am finally done fighting. Some force I can’t decipher moves me upward, and I fear Magmium is rejecting me.
I snag a glimpse of flashes across the now dark sky, veins of green lightning pulse in the glorious darkness.
I blink but can’t focus my eyes. A pinch to my neck pushes the light away and sinks me deep into black sleep.
Awareness creeps in, and I know this life is not done with me yet.
Just let me go. Please.
Haven’t I given enough?
But I know I haven’t. I deserve to die over and over until I have paid for every soul we have lost due to my actions.
Cold liquid swirls over my skin. My wings are numb. I can’t feel them behind me. Hard rubber seals my face and feeds me air tainted with the stale sweetness of hot plastic.
The smoky sky has turned bright green when I take in the world that won’t let me go.
I shift to find out what I’ve broken, and my wings thump against glass. Pain registers in my wing forearms, fingers, and everywhere. My chest is tight and cold, my feet numb. And when I look down, I find I’m not lying or even standing on anything. I’m floating in a cylindrical tank.
Water is my second biggest fear after holding delicate things. Panic sets in as I peer up at the closed lid of my cell. Lights flash rapidly on a console at the base. I try to touch my face, but my arms won’t move.
Come on, Inferno. Get your ass up, drunk bastard! Someone has put us in a terrible prison!
Rapid thumps on the glass make me scan the area until I see a set of familiar green eyes on a big purple prince.
“Jorusk…” Aura’s voice is muffled. “We’re healing you. You were nearly dead when I pulled you out of the mud.”
A human female waves at me from beside him. She has a child strapped to her chest, the same deep violet hue as Aura. She speaks quietly with her mate and shakes her head. He nods like he understands, and it isn’t what he wants to hear, but he can’t do anything about it.
I brace the glass and try to rationalize my situation. But my Inferno is already heating up, wanting back into the fight, wanting freedom. A tank is barely different from a prison cell.
“Jorusk?” someone asks in my ear. “This is Eluni. We worked together on Aura’s ship. I know it’s been three years…”
My Inferno has experienced a lot of freedom lately, and doesn’t hold back even when I hear her name. When it wakes, it panics with me.
“I’m up top with Fieri, opening your chamber. He’s going to pull you out. Deep breaths, okay? I know your kind doesn’t like swimming.”
Light pours in the top of my chamber, and a hoist system reaches in and draws my body out of the water.
Fieri’s angry eyes peer up at me as my wings flop around and my monster wrestles to be free of the harness.
I can’t stop the snarl or the way I snap my teeth at him.
Straps restrain me like Talhuskin body shackles, and I cannot bear the feeling of them again.
I know Fieri won’t hurt me. But I am alive when I should be dead.
I wanted to die so I wouldn’t have to endure this any longer.
“Jorusk, control your demons!” He angrily corrals my chaotic wings as I hang dry. One gets snagged on the harness system and sends a horrid pang through my spine. I roar in agony, and the heat of my breath clouds my mask.
Fieri unclips the respirator and lets me take in ship air again.
Then he steps back and leaves me hanging in the air, helpless in the harness.
My body swings above a metal deck, two stories up from where the tank’s base sits, and a purple male with electric-green eyes watches, his human female peering up from behind the shield of his body.
I am scaring my friends, but I don’t know how to stop it. I am adrift inside the roiling monster that I let out.
Eluni steps back as I wrestle with the straps.
Every movement is painful and pisses off my Inferno more.
My body heats. Crags of orange light break through the surface of my red skin until it flows and folds over into the magma that is my Inferno.
My soul is charred on the outside as it clashes with the cold universe.
But just underneath, I am fury, incarnate.
I claw at my harness, writhe, and twist, trying to break free. When I can’t get the buckles because my hands are too weak and my arms are too numb, I roar at the sky again.
Magmium has forsaken me.
“Jorusk…” Fieri ignites a hand with a ball of frantic green energy. “Stop fighting me. I’m trying to help you.”
I know him, but they brought me back. They brought me back to a world of pain and shame. To more loss and more battles and continued emptiness. They put me in a tank. But mostly I’m angry that my secret is out in the open, and I can’t hide him or control him anymore.
I bare my teeth and let out my frustration in another vehement roar. I did not want this!
“Fieri!” Eluni screeches as my body catches fire.
He’s the only other one besides Aura who dares to touch me.
Fieri takes me by the throat and my harness.
His electricity crawls over me with stabbing force as the bolts burrow into my calescent flesh.
“Jorusk! Listen to my voice. Follow me, brother. You can fight through this. I am here, no matter what it takes.”
His armor smokes being so close to my heat.
The memories of the fields of bodies of my Drathious brothers and sisters come rushing back to me. My Inferno cries out inside at the volume of loss. One is too many. But hundreds upon hundreds…
Fieri’s electric green eyes find mine. “I know your pain. I know what it’s like to lose the ones you love.”
I snarl from the misery my Inferno feels. But finally, the fire eases. My monster sees something familiar in Fieri’s fiery gaze. The Amphiran might be old enough to be my father, but they age differently, and he doesn’t look like it, not really. He fights like he’s my age.
“That’s it, brother.” Fieri pats the side of my head. “Now, deep breath. This is going to help you find peace.”
He takes something from Eluni and jabs it into my neck. The serum spreads strength back into my body and eases the turmoil in my core. Fieri motions for Eluni to lower me toward the floor. The unit hums, and my feet scrape the ground again.
“Fieri? Everything okay up there?” Such a gentle voice can only belong to Jovie, Aura’s mate.
He tenses his body and braces himself for an attack, barely glancing over his shoulder as he replies. “Yeah. I’ve got him. Please check on Brynna. Her ship had a rough jump here.”
“Sure.”
Fieri turns back to me and deftly unclips the harness. “We kept you alive in the tank, but we haven’t mended your bones yet.”
“Why did you bring me back?” I growl.
My monster makes a move toward him, even though I wish it wouldn’t. Fieri redirects my attack and pins me against the wall. The light gray surface ripples outward.
“Do it.” Fieri holds me in place as I struggle for control.
Eluni walks up and calmly reaches over his shoulder as I fight through pain to wrestle Fieri off of me. Eluni places a diamond-shaped plate of metal over my Inferno’s core that bites into my skin with painful force.
I roar from the pain and claw at Fieri’s arms. As the panel lights up red with a progressive stack of bars, I feel a similar draining feeling like the poisoned ice cooling my Inferno. My skin darkens, the veins of orange light fading as they retreat back into my body. Smoke dissipates.
“You got him?” Eluni asks as I slump forward and pant, feeling frozen in the middle. She looks me over like she isn’t sure the device will hold.
Fieri sounds determined as he replies, “I handled Aura when his Storm was out of control because he had not yet met Jovie. You’re certain it can take his heat?”
She flicks her dark hair behind her shoulder. “I used the same metal that’s in Gravion engine cells. It can take ten times what he generates.”
Eluni sighs. “Takes one to know one, I guess. I’ll be in the conference room with the rest of the crew. Let me know if that arrestor fails.”
Fieri’s eyes blaze green as she walks off, then he turns to me. “Do not make me put you in your place again, soldier. A Rogue never forgets his duty for selfish reasons. You almost killed our Keeper of Viestria. Eluni may have children, but she must live long enough to train them.”
Steam leaves my nose as I let out a deep breath. “An entire squadron was encapsulated, a city destroyed. We are going to go extinct if I do not fight with everything I have. I tried to hold it back, but…” I don’t tell him about the hatchlings. I don’t think he would feel the same as I do.
He braces his hands on his hips and looks me over. “We need to get you put back together. Stay with me. I do not want to have to AED your Inferno.”
His Storm doesn’t affect me like most non-Amphirans, and he knows it. But I follow Fieri when he turns down the hallway and firmly points to a medical bay.
We’re on a ship unfamiliar to me, but one that looks a lot like Allele, Aura’s vessel. It has an organically shaped interior with swooping curves to the archways and passages. “Whose ship is this?”
“Eluni’s. This is Zia. She’s a bit bigger than the others, as a protector of Amphiran history should have.” Fieri leads me into a private room and motions to the medical bed. “Face down so I can fix your wings.”
“Don’t bother,” I say, stopping in the doorway.
Fiery pauses and lets out a breath. “Jorusk, I know you are hurting.”
“I don’t care about the physical pain.”