Chapter 18 The Storm
The Storm
The storm had swallowed the ridge.
Thunder rolled close enough to rattle the air, and the smell of rain hit before the first drops did.
Tater stood just below the crest, half-covered by the overhang of pines, phone dead in his hand. No signal, no reception, no damn luck.
He’d been gone for ten minutes. Maybe fifteen. Just long enough to try calling Eagle, to check the others. Just long enough to think Ren was safe where he’d left her.
Then the sky cracked.
A flash lit the ridge—bright and gold, not lightning. Something hotter.
Something wrong.
Tater froze. The wind carried the faintest sound down the slope—a shout, maybe a growl, too human to be thunder. Then silence again.
“Ren…”
He started up the hill, boots slipping in the wet clay, rain came harder now. The trees bent and hissed under the wind, branches snapped overhead.
Halfway up, he caught the smell.
Smoke.
Not from his lighter. From her.
The dragon.
His chest went tight. He broke into a run, mud kicking under his boots. The world was all storm and shadow now, flashes of light revealing the ridge in fragments—the road, the rocks, the faint orange flicker at the top.
He could feel it, even before he saw them.
The pull. The violence. The heat.
He wasn’t stupid. He knew who it was.
Shadow.
Tater’s pulse turned to a roar in his ears. He reached for the knife on his belt, thumb resting on the worn leather grip.
“Ren,” he muttered into the storm, “don’t you die on me, darlin’.”
And then he climbed faster, toward the fire that had once been hers.
The higher he climbed, the louder the storm got.
Wind cut sideways across the ridge, rain hammered his jacket, lightning strobing through the trees like a warning. Every flash showed him another few feet of slick ground, another half-second glimpse of the sky burning gold at the top.
The smell of fire was stronger now—burnt earth, wet smoke, iron. Not the clean tang of gas or gunpowder. Something alive.
Tater slowed near the ridge line, breath sharp in his chest. Heat shimmered between the trees, thick enough to feel even through the rain. He could hear movement up ahead: the scrape of boots on asphalt, the drag of metal, a voice—hers—low and rough, followed by another one that made his gut twist.
Shadow.
The name tasted like rust and bile.
Tater drew his knife but didn’t charge. He’d seen what happened when you ran straight at a storm—you ended up part of the wreckage. He’d wait for his opening.
Lightning hit a tree fifty feet away, blowing bark into the air. The flash lit the road for a split second—enough for him to see two shapes locked in the rain, fire curling up between them.
Ren.
And him.
His heart stopped.
She didn’t move like she used to, no fear, no hesitation. Her stance was low, deliberate, shoulders squared in that way that said she wasn’t fighting to survive anymore. She was fighting to end it.
The flames around her were strange—blue at the edges, gold in the center, like something holy and hell bound all at once. He could feel the heat from here, biting through the storm, eating at the cold.
And the man facing her—Shadow—looked almost small against it.
Almost.
Tater’s fist tightened on the knife handle. He wanted to charge, to tear that bastard apart with his bare hands. But then she turned slightly, enough for the light to catch her face.
Her eyes glowed faint, but steady.
Focused.
Not lost.
Not gone.
She didn’t need saving.
Not yet.
Tater took a step forward, just far enough to be close if she fell. The mud slid under his boots, but he didn’t stop.
“Come on, baby girl,” he muttered under his breath. “You finish it your fuckin’ way.”
The thunder rolled again, closer now, almost in rhythm with his heartbeat.
He stayed low, watching, waiting.
And when the next flash of lightning lit the ridge, he saw Shadow stagger—blood running bright through the rain.
Tater’s jaw locked.
It was starting.