Chapter Nineteen
RAZE
Three weeks without Roxy and the clubhouse feels like a burial chamber pretending to breathe.
I stand in the center of the main club room where the crystal dome used to rise, its absence louder than anything that remains.
Fine cracks radiating upward through the crystal dome like a spiderweb frozen mid-explosion, the last physical evidence of three centuries of containment undone in a single moment of witchcraft and judgment.
There is no flame to watch anymore.
No carefully caged miracle burning itself smaller day by day.
Because it isn’t there.
It’s inside me.
Fire coils beneath my ribs now, hot and restless, threaded through the ice instead of smothered by it.
It doesn’t sit quietly, nor does it wait for permission.
It surges, snarls, and snaps against the restraints I’ve spent centuries perfecting, a living thing that remembers what it was to be unleashed and resents every second I keep it leashed now.
Getting my fire back didn’t soften me.
It sharpened everything.
Anger comes easier, faster. Rage rides closer to the surface, no longer muffled by cold calculation.
I feel it in my jaw, locked too tight. In my hands, fingers flexing as if they’re looking for something to break.
In the way my dragon presses against my skin, restless and violent, daring me to lose control just to remember how it feels.
The witch gave me wholeness.
She didn’t give me peace.
And the empty space where Roxy should be only feeds it, a constant, grinding reminder that the one thing capable of steadying the fire walked out of my territory and never came back.
The dome is destroyed.
The flame is no longer contained.
The silence the witch left behind is the most dangerous thing in this room.
The clubhouse is too quiet. No sharp retorts from the kitchen where Roxy argued with Scar about laundering money. No fingers flying across laptop keys as she reorganized our financials with brutal efficiency. No laughter when Rhett said something stupid to make her smile.
Only silence. Silence broken by floorboards creaking as my brothers move like ghosts through a space that stopped feeling like home the moment the witch stole every memory Roxy had with us.
I exhale, frost crystallizing before my fire surges and devours it.
Outside the windows, Ivy’s greenhouse stands with plywood replacing shattered glass, and she works among struggling plants with mechanical precision.
No passion. No connection. Just going through motions because it’s what she’s always done.
Ash paces the perimeter, phoenix wings manifested despite no threat, picking fights with anyone in reach. Yesterday, she nearly incinerated Flux over fight-ring betting. The day before, she reduced a punching bag to ash and molten leather because it wasn’t hitting back.
Luna hasn’t sung since Roxy left. The selkie sits at the bar, staring into an untouched whiskey, her empathic abilities drowned in the grief and rage saturating this place. She used to sing while she worked, old selkie melodies that made the air taste like salt water and home.
Now there’s just silence.
Wreck retreats into shadows, his wendigo nature feeding on fear and tension until he’s more nightmare than man.
Coil spends most of his time in basilisk form, coiled in the lower levels where darkness doesn’t judge.
Maul keeps meticulous records, but his hands shake when he thinks no one’s watching.
The prospects are affected too. Calder moves like he’s afraid to take up space, his fox-fire dimmed to almost nothing.
And Rhett and Bennett aren’t arguing, and that alone tells me how bad things have gotten.
They stand together, shoulders nearly touching, drawing quiet solidarity from the very being they normally can’t stand.
Because Thorn warned us.
The nightbark appeared two days ago, more thorn and branch than flesh, sap bleeding from wounds that shouldn’t exist. His voice when he spoke was like wind through ancient trees. ‘The forest is whispering. War is coming for us, Prez. The fae will strike. I have no doubt.’
We have been on our guard ever since. Waiting for the Seelie Prince to make his move, but also trying to figure out what to do about Roxy.
If there’s anything we can do about Roxy.
Because the witch’s word is final.
But I can’t let that be the last time I see her.
Scar appears at my shoulder, vampire speed carrying him across the club room between heartbeats. Five centuries of existence have taught him to mask emotions, but right now there’s something raw in the set of his jaw.
“This is wrong, Prez,” he says, his voice low. “She belongs here.”
I don’t answer because I don’t trust myself to speak without my dragon surging up and turning everything within fifty yards to goddamn ash.
“She’s human.” Coil’s voice drifts from the shadows near the bar, a serpentine hiss underlining the words, his eyes glowing gold. “The witch’s law is absolute.”
“Bullshit!” Scar snarls, his fangs descending, his eyes bleed red. “We all know the prez has all but claimed her as his own. And we don’t abandon our own.”
The temperature in the club room drops ten degrees as I exhale, ice crystallizing on every surface within arm’s reach. Both of them still recognize the warning for what it is.
“Enough,” I demand, the single word carrying enough weight to make the windows rattle in their frames.
Movement draws my attention.
Rhett and Bennett step into the club room side by side. The hellhound’s shadows pool around his boots, and it’s restless, while divine light bleeds from the angel’s shoulders.
“We get her back,” Rhett says quietly, his usual cocky grin gone. His eyes burn with hellfire. “No discussion. No debate.”
Bennett nods, his wings manifesting. “We don’t let her go again. And we don’t ask permission.”
“The witch will kill us.” Flux leans against the far wall, blending into the shadows. “She’s powerful enough to level this entire mountain range.”
“Let her try.” Maul steps forward with deliberate violence, his eyes shifting to amber. “Roxy’s valuable. She caught the error that would have cost us half a million. Tripled our profit margins. She’s more than useful.”
“She’s family,” Scar corrects.
Thorn moves through the club room like the forest itself carries him forward, branches creaking, thorns sprouting until he’s more weapon than man. Sap bleeds dark and viscous beneath him.
“The forest is screaming, Prez,” he says, voice rough with something that borders on alarm. “The fae know… they know about the girl.”
For a heartbeat, the world narrows to that single sentence.
The fire under my ribs surges, violent and instinctive, heat slamming hard enough that frost fractures across the stone at my feet.
Fear cuts through me sharp and sudden, not for myself, not for the club, but for her.
Alone, human, unguarded in a world that devours weakness without hesitation.
The witch’s voice echoes in memory, ‘Laws. Balance. Consequences.’
I don’t hear it.
All I see is Roxy standing in a room that can’t protect her from creatures that don’t play by human rules. All I feel is the dragon rearing, fire and ice aligning for one singular purpose.
Mine.
Anger follows fear like a blade drawn smooth and fast. The idea that I would stand here, waiting, obeying, hoping, while fae set their sights on what I claimed with blood, ice, and fire is laughable in the ugliest way.
“No,” I growl, the word carrying finality.
I straighten, power rolling outward unchecked now, the fire no longer contained by courtesy or caution. The mountain answers, stone groaning under the pressure of a dragon who has decided patience is no longer a virtue.
“Fuck the law,” I continue, my voice low and lethal.
“Fuck the witch’s rules. If the fae think they can touch what’s mine because I played obedient for three weeks, they’re about to learn how fucking wrong they are.
” My gaze lifts, finding every brother in the room, each one already feeling the shift.
“I’m done waiting,” I say. “No one comes for her. Not the fae. Not the witch. Not anyone.” My dragon bares its teeth beneath my skin. “Anyone who tries goes through me.”
“Then we split forces.” Scar turns to me. “Half with you, Prez. We go get Roxy. The other half stays here and prepares. They’ll use her absence as a weapon if we let them.”
I look at my brothers, at the prospects standing together despite their differences, at the club girls moving through the background like ghosts, then at the empty dome that held my flame for centuries.
Three weeks without her.
Three weeks of watching this place die by degrees.
Fuck the witch’s laws.
Fuck the consequences.
I exhale, and the decision crystallizes. “Scar, Coil, Maul, you’re with me. We go get Roxy. We bring her back. And we don’t stop till she’s home.”
Wreck materializes from the shadows, gaunt frame radiating hunger. “Deep down, she knows our secrets. We can’t let the fae have her.”
“She’s part of us,” Coil adds. “Even if she doesn’t remember.”
Maul cracks his knuckles. “I’ll pack the heavy artillery. They’re about to learn why you don’t fuck with the Kings.”
“We’re coming too.” Rhett’s shadows writhe around his boots. “Roxy deserves—”
“No.” The word carries enough cold to make frost race up the nearest beam. “You stay here… both of you.”
Bennett’s wings flare. “We can help—”
“The clubhouse needs protecting,” I finish.
“The fae are coming. They’ll strike here first, and this place needs defenders who can work together.
” I pause. “Prove to me you can do that. Guard the clubhouse. And when we come back with Roxy, you’ll have earned the right to tell her you kept her home safe. ”
Rhett’s jaw tightens, hellfire burning brighter, but he nods. “Guard it from what, exactly?”
Thorn steps forward. “The Seelie Court moves in darkness between trees. The Unseelie hunt in shadows that have no names. They will strike at the heart of what you love. And they will not stop until everything you’ve built has been hollowed out from the inside.”
Scar’s expression darkens, fangs fully descended, red eyes blazing. “Then we make sure they bleed for every inch. We split forces, cover both fronts, and show these fae bastards why the Kings of Anarchy don’t negotiate.”
I turn back to the broken dome, something in my chest cracking open, and for the first time since the witch restored my flame, it coils instead of exploding, heat gathering like a promise instead of a weapon.
Heat pours from my skin in waves that make the air shimmer, frost melting as flames lick up my forearms. My eyes blaze blue-white, cold fire reflecting in the shattered glass until the entire club room is bathed in light that’s both freezing and burning.
“We ride after dusk. Wreck, you take command here. Flux, Thorn, Ruckus, the prospects, the girls, fortify this place until it’s a fortress even the fae can’t breach. And when we come back with Roxy, we end this war before it starts.”
Scar grins, fangs glinting. “About damn time, Prez.”
I don’t answer with words.
My dragon surges forward, no longer content to pace beneath my skin, and I let it take me.
Bone splits with a sound like breaking stone, heat and cold detonating outward as my body tears free of its human limits.
Scales erupt across my flesh in overlapping plates of ice-blue and ember-orange, fire threading through the frost in glowing veins as wings unfurl with violent force, massive and unstoppable.
The club room can’t contain it.
Fire and ice pour off me in equal measure, the air snapping between burning heat and killing cold in rapid, brutal cycles.
Windows shatter outward, frost crawls across the walls, even as scorch marks bloom beneath it.
Floorboards groan, then crack, as the weight of my true form settles for a single, breathless moment among them.
Then I launch.
Stone explodes beneath my claws as I tear through the ceiling that Wreck only just fixed from my last outburst in a storm of shattered rock and screaming air, wings catching the mountain wind, hurling me skyward.
Fire roars from my throat, lighting the night in molten gold, chased immediately by a blast of glacial frost that crystallizes the flames into sparkling ruin as they scatter across the sky.
Ice and fire spiral along my scales as I climb, a living contradiction made whole at last.
Three weeks without her.
Three weeks of holding the line while everything that mattered threatened to fracture.
I angle my wings and turn toward the dark horizon.
Waiting for action is over.
I’m going after Roxy.
And fuck anyone or anything that tries to stop me.