Chapter 31
THIRTY-ONE
AERO
Cassia’s expression shifted. Grew serious. “He said she’s building toward something. A tsunami. Something massive.”
The words landed like stones in still water, sending ripples of understanding through his mind. He’d been so focused on Delos—so consumed by rage and fear and guilt—that he hadn’t stopped to think. To analyze. To do what he’d spent lifetimes training himself to do.
Now, standing in the dim corridor with Cassia’s hand steadying him, the pieces fell into place.
“The weather patterns—” His brain clicked into focus. “The ocean current changes. The gradual escalation. I thought she was causing chaos—random destruction to mask her presence or distract from her true intentions.”
“But she wasn’t random.”
“No.” He pulled away from the wall, from Cassia’s touch, and began to pace again—but differently.
Not the desperate circuit of a caged animal.
The measured steps of a mind working through a problem.
“She was building. Each manipulation feeding the next. Each storm system adding to the accumulation. She’s not creating chaos. She’s creating a weapon.”
“A tsunami.”
“Big enough to level Haven Shores’s coastline.
” His voice hardened as the full scope of Nerissa’s plan crystallized.
“The wave hits the shore. The ward anchors—they’re embedded in the coastal rock formations.
A tsunami of sufficient magnitude would destroy them.
Without the wards, the town loses its primary magical defenses.
Everyone in the impact zone dies. The survivors scatter.
The community that’s existed here for generations simply… ceases to exist.”
Cassia’s face had gone pale. “That’s insane. That’s—she’d kill hundreds of innocent people?”
“She’d kill everyone.” Aero stopped pacing. Met her gaze. “Nerissa isn’t random in her destruction. She’s surgical. If she’s building a tsunami, it’s because she wants to destroy something specific. Or someone.”
“You.”
“Everything I might care about.” The admission scraped out of him like shattered glass. “That’s what she said to you, wasn’t it? During the fight? Something about me choosing you?”
Cassia nodded. “She said—” A breath. “She said she couldn’t understand how an immortal dragon elder could choose a mortal witch who’d be dead in fifty years. She asked if I thought I could just take you.”
“Thirty years.” He turned away, unable to meet her gaze while he said this. “Thirty years ago, at a Continental Council summit, Nerissa decided she wanted me. Not love—sirens don’t think in those terms. Possession. The challenge of capturing something she saw as valuable.”
“And you rejected her.”
“I didn’t even notice her.” The words came out flat.
Brutal in their honesty. “She pursued me for months. Made offers. Arranged opportunities to be alone. And I looked right through her like she wasn’t there.
Because she wasn’t—not to me. I wasn’t capable of wanting anyone.
I’d shut that part of myself down so thoroughly that her pursuit didn’t even register as significant. ”
“You rejected her by not noticing her at all.”
“I didn’t reject her. I dismissed her. Unintentionally. Completely. She was three hundred years old and the most beautiful woman in any room, and I made her feel invisible.” He laughed bitterly. “In some ways, that’s worse than a rejection. At least rejection acknowledges that someone exists.”
Behind him, Cassia was quiet. Processing. When she spoke, her voice was careful.
“So she spent thirty years nursing a grudge. Watching you stay alone. Convincing herself that you were incapable of caring about anyone.”
“That I was broken. That my rejection wasn’t personal because I simply couldn’t feel the things she wanted me to feel.” He finally turned to face her. “And then you happened.”
Her breath stuttered.
“I came to Haven Shores to study the surge. I had no expectation of finding anything significant. Just another community affected by a phenomenon I’d documented dozens of times before.
” He moved closer, drawn to her despite everything.
“Then I met you. And my dragon—the beast I’d suppressed for so long I’d nearly forgotten it existed—woke and decided you were mine. ”
“Aero…”
“I can care.” The words came out rough. Raw. “I can want. I can feel things I’ve denied myself for longer than most civilizations have existed. Just not for her. Never for her. Only for—”
He stopped. Swallowed.
“Only for you.”
Cassia closed the distance between them. Her hands rose to frame his face—gentle despite the urgency, careful despite the chaos surrounding them.
“She watched you feel things for me.” The words came out soft. “And it proved everything she’d believed about herself was wrong.”
“It proved I could feel. That I wasn’t broken.
That my indifference to her wasn’t about my limitations—it was about her.
” His hands found her waist, pulling her closer.
“She’s not trying to win me back, Cassia.
She’s trying to punish me. Punish you. Punish everyone I might care about for the crime of proving that I was always capable of love. Just not with her.”
“That’s…” She shook her head. “That’s the most toxic thing I’ve ever heard.”
“Years of wounded pride, festering into obsession.” He sighed. “I won’t let her hurt you. I won’t let her hurt this town. Whatever it takes, whatever it costs—I will not let her win.”
“We,” Cassia corrected. Her thumbs traced his cheekbones. “We won’t let her win. This isn’t your fight alone, Aero. Not anymore.”
Something in him settled at that—the fury of the past hours banking to something steadier. She stood with them. She’d claimed that.
“You should let me handle this.” Even as the words left his mouth, his hands contradicted them by pulling her closer. “You should take your friends and leave Haven Shores until—”
“If you finish that sentence, I will call down a thunderstorm directly on your head.”
Despite everything—the fear, the fury, the guilt still clawing at his chest—Aero felt his mouth curve. “You would, wouldn’t you?”
“In a heartbeat.” Her smile was fierce. “I’m not running, Aero.
My magic, my town, my people. And you’re mine now too, whether either of us planned it that way.
So we face this storm—” A flash of humor crossed her face.
“—pun absolutely intended—we face this storm side by side, whether the universe likes it or not.”
She’d claimed him. Called him hers. The words landed deep and stayed.
Aero leaned down and pressed his forehead to hers. “I don’t deserve you.”
“Probably not.” Her breath mixed with his. “But you’re stuck with me.”