Chapter 67 Serena
SERENA
“Lesson number one,” Jace muses, his voice militaristic. “Do not attempt to wield dragon fire without a set intention. Nothing must be left to chance. You have to be very clear in your mind about what it is you want. And you cannot waver.”
Ah, decisiveness. My one true enemy.
“The point of this is to convert her fire into pure energy, which you then get to shape into a weapon of your choice.” He meanders through the clearing, pausing to glance at Furi—propped on her hind legs, nibbling the nearby treetops.
“Maybe you can get her to pay attention. This is training, not snack time.”
Her massive head swings in his direction. Maybe I’ll feast on your entrails and bathe in your blood.
I can’t help but laugh.
“Keep it up, and they’ll be no forest left,” he digs.
“If I were you, I’d be trying a little harder to get on her good side.”
“Yeah, well, she’s not my favorite either.”
I roll my eyes. “Okay. Clear intent. Got it. What’s lesson number two?”
“Oh, we’re not moving on until you’ve mastered the first one. Mount her.”
“So bossy,” I mutter under my breath. “Okay Furi, let’s give this a shot.” She nudges me with her nose before I climb up onto her back.
“Are you comfortable?” Jace calls up to me.
“Yes.”
“Good. Now let your mind empty. Focus on the link between the two of you. You need to be on the exact same frequency for this to work.”
I try doing what he says. Try to focus. Clear my mind of tyrants and mental shielding and night terrors and near-wedding experiences and—aww, fuck.
“No,” he drones. “You’re not connected. You have to be in complete synchronization.”
I groan. “We’re trying.”
“Try harder.”
“Dick.”
“Brat.”
“Shut up. I’m trying to focus.”
Concentrate, Blackblood.
I am.
You’re distracted. By him.
Am not.
We share a bond. I can hear your thoughts.
Then you know that right now you are the only thing distracting me.
“Let’s try something else. Come down. Put your hand on her chest. On my count, inhale for four, hold for two, and exhale for five.”
“That’s confusing,” I say, slipping onto the ground.
“Only if you can’t count to ten.”
“Can we just keep it simple? Four, four, and four?”
“Fine. Whatever. Three, two, one, inhale.”
Jace counts, anchoring my thoughts as Furi and I breathe together, my hand resting against her smooth scales.
Her breaths rise and fall beneath me, and I become acutely aware of her heartbeat aligning with mine.
“When you’re perfectly in sync, you’ll feel it lock into place. Hold onto it. Don’t let go.”
A moment later, I sense the shift. It’s like a rope tightening around the very fibers of my soul.
“I feel it.”
“Good. Now slowly call her fire.”
Sweat breaks through my skin as her fire begins to flow through me like a river of lava, streaming into my veins. Hot and thick, it mingles with my blood, twines with my magic and races through me at an alarming speed.
The heat intensifies, vibrating within me so fiercely that my entire body trembles.
“That’s it. Keep going,” Jace coaches. But his voice is far away.
Furi is silent, focused on funneling her fire into me. The sound of my gnashing teeth grates against my ears, but I don’t feel it. All I feel is endless heat, mere seconds from devouring me.
A loud, choked cry cuts through me.
“That’s it! You’re almost there—”
“I can’t take anymore! It’s killing me—”
“Now! Push it out now!”
I break away from Furi, my hands turned up toward the sky. My roar bounds off the trees, shaking every branch and leaf for miles around. I become a live wire, electricity coursing through me as my eyes fly open.
The blast feels nuclear.
A line of blue fire explodes from my palms, sending two twin beams of light up into the sky. My shout is lost to the rushing flames. It’s a purging. A cleansing, burning away every impurity, every thought drifting around my head as I become a hollow vessel for Furi’s magic.
Jace catches me as I collapse, easing me down to the ground.
“That was it. That was fucking amazing. You’re—”
His words drift off, lost to the wind as his golden eyes roam over me.
We stay like that for a moment, my head leaning against his shoulder, tension coiling around us like a brewing storm.
I’m so engrossed in him that I don’t even notice Furi ducking to lick my face.
With the size of her ridged tongue, it’s really more of a full upper-body lick with Jace in the crossfire.
“Lovely,” he mutters, wiping his cheek clean.
The tension breaks as I crawl out of his arms and haul myself onto a tree stump. He follows, sinking back on his heels.
“What is it?”
I’m all too aware of his touch. His thumb sweeping over my thigh—the same one he stuck a dagger in the day we first met. And damn if that touch doesn’t feel so perfectly normal. So perfectly perfect.
“I’ve never felt anything like that. I thought it was going to consume me.”
“What did it feel like?”
I hold his gaze. “Power. It felt like power.”
“Well, you better get used to it, witch.” He nods toward Furi, a hidden smile threatening to peek through. “Time to go again.”