Chapter 27 Leena
LEENA
For a heartbeat, nothing moves. Every eye is fixed on them. Two scarred Zmaj warriors facing off.
I’m frozen too. I don’t know what to do. How to stop this crash happening before my eyes.
Kaelreth and Drazan stand, chests heaving, blood dark on their skin, shoulders tight and squared like neither one knows how to back down. They’re almost mirrors of each other.
Scars upon scars, damage no one should ever have to endure. They both survived.
I have to stop this. Somehow.
They aren’t looking at the dead machine. They’re glaring at each other. The danger didn’t go away when the hunter fell. It just changed shape.
Drazan stands with a blade in hand. He hasn’t lowered it. His breathing is steady, but something sits under the stillness—something locked tight and straining at the edges.
Kael hasn’t moved either. Not toward me. Not away.
He’s standing on his own, even though I know it’s costing him. His body is trembling, but it isn’t from exhaustion or pain. The way he’s staring at Drazan… it isn’t confusion.
It’s sharp. Focused. Alive with something that’s been waiting for a long time.
“Kael,” I say quietly.
He doesn’t look at me. He doesn’t even blink.
Every muscle in him is tight, drawn forward, like he’s standing on the edge of something, and he knows if he moves, he won’t stop.
The air feels wrong. Not hot. Not cold. Tight. Pulled thin. Like the whole desert is holding its breath.
Drazan’s gaze hasn’t left him. Not once.
There’s something on his face I didn’t expect—not anger or even shock.
Something heavier. Something that looks a lot like pain held so long it carved into bone.
Drazan takes a step forward. The movement is small and clearly deliberate, but Kael reacts instantly.
His shoulders rise. His stance shifts. His hand flexes like he’s ready to close it around something that isn’t there.
“Stop,” one of the others says sharply, but Drazan doesn’t listen.
He takes another step. Not threatening. Forward toward Kael.
His eyes narrow, and for a second I see it.
Clear, raw rage.
Not the cold, calculated anger he’s shown before. This is different.
I don’t need to understand everything to know there is some deep history between them or to feel how dangerous this moment is. They aren’t seeing the others. They aren’t seeing me. It’s just them.
Two males who know each other. Who share a history.
Two males who look like they’re one heartbeat away from tearing into each other.
I shift closer to Kael. I don’t touch him yet, but I stay close enough that if he moves, I can reach him.
His breath hitches. A low sound rumbles in his chest.
Not quite a growl—close.
Drazan stops. The distance between them is small. Too small.
His eyes move over Kael’s face, then his injuries, then back again.
Something breaks across his expression for a fraction of a second—so fast I almost miss it.
Grief. Real, unguarded grief.
Kael sees it. Instead of easing him, it seems to ignite something worse.
“You—”
The word is rough. Raw. The sound of it cuts straight through the silence.
No one else moves. No one else breathes. Even the wind seems to still.
Kael takes a step forward. Drazan doesn’t back up.
The space between them goes from tense to explosive.
I feel it like a strike waiting to land.
I don’t know if the next move will be a blow or a breaking.