Chapter 16
K.
Dragana opens her mouth to speak—
The explosion cuts her off.
Not close. Perhaps half a mile distant. But unmistakable—the deep whump of ordnance detonating, followed by screams as villagers react.
I’m on my feet in an instant. Every instinct I don’t remember developing snaps into focus with crystalline clarity.
“Stay here,” I tell Mara. Then to Dragana: “Keep her safe. Lock the door. Do not open it for anyone but me.”
“K, wait—” Mara starts.
I’m already moving.
Outside, the village square erupts. Villagers running, shouting. Smoke rises from the eastern edge—near where the path leads down from the high pass.
The path we used to enter.
Another explosion. Closer this time. A building’s roof collapses in a shower of slate and timber.
Nicolae sprints toward me, face pale. “Armed men! Coming from the pass! They have—” He struggles for the English word. “Weapons. Many weapons.”
“How many men?”
“Twenty. Maybe more.” His eyes are wide with fear. “They demand we surrender the fire-blood and the woman.”
Of course they do.
The Syndicate operatives from before. They tracked us here. Perhaps followed the destruction I left in my wake when I rescued Mara. Perhaps detected the surge of power when I transformed.
Either way, they’ve found us.
And they want blood.
Movement catches my eye. Andrei emerges from a dwelling, rifle in hand. Old hunting weapon, but functional. He takes up position behind a stone wall.
Others follow his lead. Not many—this is a farming village, not a military outpost. But enough who know how to shoot. How to defend their home.
Still woefully outmatched against Syndicate operatives with modern gear.
“Andrei!” I cross to him. “How many can fight?”
“Twelve. Maybe fifteen.” He checks the rifle’s load with steady hands. “We are not soldiers, but we protect what is ours.”
Brave. Foolish. Noble.
And completely insufficient against what’s coming.
Situational assessment flows without conscious thought. I monitor defensible positions, sight lines, choke points. The village layout forms in my mind like a battlefield map.
I’ve done this before.
The knowledge settles bone-deep. I’ve commanded troops. Assessed threats. Made life-or-death decisions under fire.
I just don’t remember when. Or where. Or for whom.
Another explosion; the well house disintegrating in flame and stone. Closer still.
They’re advancing methodically. Destroying infrastructure. Driving the villagers toward the center square.
Herding us.
“Listen to me.” I raise my voice, projecting authority I didn’t know I possessed. “Fall back to the square. Defensive positions around the central buildings. Children and elderly to the back. Anyone who can fight—rifles to high ground, form barricades.”
Andrei stares at me. “You know tactics.”
“Apparently.” I don’t waste time questioning it. “Can you coordinate the shooters?”
“Yes.”
“Do it. I’ll handle the rest.”
He nods once and moves to organize the others.
I scan for Mara—find her emerging from Dragana’s dwelling despite my explicit instructions to stay inside.
Of course.
Goddamn woman. Stubborn as hell.
“You need to get back—” I start.
“Don’t even.” Her voice is sharp. “I’m not hiding while people die defending me.”
“They’re not defending you. They’re defending their home.”
“Because we brought this here.” Guilt flashes across her face. “Because I ran into the night like an idiot and led them straight to you.”
“That is not—”
An operative appears at the eastern entrance.
He sees me. A device crackles at his shoulder. Some sort of communication instrument.
“Target acquired. Requesting suppression protoc—”
I move.
Don’t think. Don’t plan. Just act.
Three strides close the distance. My fist connects with his jaw before he finishes the sentence.
Bone crunches. He drops like a stone before pushing himself to his knees.
I’m behind him before he can find his feet, forearm locked around his throat, finding a pressure point.
His eyes roll back in his head, and he goes limp against me.
When did I learn this?
No time to question.
More operatives pour through the entrance. Five. Seven. Ten.
Too many for the villagers’ hunting rifles.
Not too many for me.
I stride toward them, feeling my skin start to tighten. Scales start to form.
“K!” Mara’s voice, distant. Terrified.
I risk a glance. She’s pressed against the wall of Dragana’s dwelling, twenty yards away. Exposed. Vulnerable.
An operative sees her. Raises his weapon.
“No!” The word tears from my chest.
Heat erupts beneath my skin. Not gradual. Explosive.
Fire pours from my hands—not conscious, not controlled. Pure instinct answering threat to what’s mine.
The operative’s rifle melts. He screams, dropping the molten metal, and scrambles back.
But more are coming. So many more.
They flood the square from three directions. Coordinated. Professional. Moving like a well-drilled unit.
And they’re carrying something else. Not just rifles.
Devices. Cylindrical. Emitting a low hum that makes my teeth ache.
One operative activates his. The hum intensifies.
Pain lances through my skull. Sharp. Immediate. Like something pressing against my mind.
The heat beneath my skin gutters. Flickers. Fades.
“Suppression field active,” an operative reports into his communication device. “We have his abilities contained at sixty percent.”
What—?
I try to summon flame again. Feel the power there, coiled and ready. But accessing it is like pushing through tar. Possible, but harder.
They knew. Came prepared.
Came for me.
The realization takes shape. They’re not here for Mara. Not specifically.
They want the dragon who tore through their strike team.
They want me.
“Back!” I shout to the villagers. “To the central buildings! Now!”
Andrei and the others retreat, providing covering fire. I move with them, keeping between the operatives and the civilians.
Mara is trying to reach me. Fighting through the commotion.
“Stay back!” I roar. “Mara, get to cover!”
She doesn’t listen. Never does.
An operative lunges for her. She dodges—barely—and grabs a fallen branch. Swings it with desperate strength.
It connects with his helmet. He staggers.
She runs.
Straight toward me.
Idiot. Brave, reckless idiot.
She’s ten yards away. Five.
Then something hits me from behind.
It’s like being struck by lightning. A massive wave coursing through my body. I go down hard, every muscle seizing.
Scales shimmer up my arms and then flicker away.
“Target acquired,” a voice says above me. “Deploying secondary suppression.”
More pain. The devices—multiple now—creating overlapping fields that crush against my skull.
The heat inside me dims to barely an ember.
I try to move. My body won’t respond. Paralyzed. Helpless.
“K!” Mara’s scream cuts through the ringing in my ears.
I see her through blurred vision. Fighting to reach me. Andrei grabbing her arm.
Good. Get her out of here.
I want to yell the words, but can’t find my voice.
“Let him go!” She’s clawing at Andrei, who’s dragging her back toward the others. “He didn’t do anything! Just let him—”
“Secure the asset,” someone orders. “Lethal force authorized for interference.”
No.
I try to summon power. Try to find my beast form. Try to do anything.
The suppression fields hold. My dragon nature buried beneath technological warfare I don’t understand.
Hands haul me upright. Cuffs snap around my wrists. Heavy. Cold. Reinforced with something that makes my skin crawl.
More technology designed to contain what I am.
Mara is still fighting. Still screaming. I dig deep, reaching for the power that still coils within me. One of the cuffs explodes.
An operative raises his rifle. Aims at her.
“Stand down, or we put her down.”
Everything in me howls to protect her. To burn these men to ash. To tear them apart with claw and fang.
The suppression holds.
“No.” Her voice cracks. “No, you don’t get to do this. You don’t—”
She wrenches free from Andrei’s grip and steps forward. Into the open. Into the line of fire.
“Take me instead,” she screams. “I’m the one from the Collective. I’m the one you need.”
Every cell in my body ignites with fury.
“Mara, get back—”
“Take me!” She shouts it at the operatives. Hands raised. Offering herself. “That’s what you want, isn’t it? I’m the one you’ve been hunting. He’s just… he was just protecting me. So take me and let him go.”
“Mara, no—” I fight against the hands holding me. Against the cuffs. Against my own useless, suppressed power.
Three rifles swing toward her.
The lead operative speaks into his radio. “Confirming—do we need both assets?”
Static. Then a voice: “Negative. Dragon only. The woman is not a priority target anymore. The boss doesn’t need her now.”
“You hear that?” The operative looks at Mara with cold assessment. “You’re not worth the trouble. But you keep interfering, and I’ll make you worth a bullet.”
“Then shoot me.” She takes another step forward. Toward them. Toward me. “Because I’m not letting you take him without a fight.”
She’s insane. Brave and reckless and completely insane.
And they will kill her.
“Mara.” I force command into my voice. The authority I don’t remember learning. “Stand. Down. Now.”
She looks at me. Our eyes lock across the clearing—hers wild with tears and desperation, mine burning with everything I can’t say.
I watch understanding break over her face. Watch her realize what I’m doing. That I’m choosing this. Choosing capture over her death.
The distance between us might as well be an ocean. Ten yards. Impossible to cross.
Her lips tremble. She shakes her head once. No. A denial of what’s happening. What we both know comes next.
“I can’t,” she whispers. “I can’t just watch them—”
“You can.” I hold her gaze. Will her to understand. “You can because I am asking you to. Because if you die here—” My voice breaks. “If you die here, I will have nothing left to come back for. Do you understand? You are what I come back for.”
The words hang between us. Naked. Undeniable.
Her face crumples. She shakes her head, but her feet stop moving.
“Please,” I say, and I’ve never meant anything more. “Please, Mara. Live.”
A sob tears from her throat. She staggers back a step.
Andrei catches her. Holds her as her knees threaten to give out.
“Good girl,” I breathe. Relief and agony twisted together. A shimmer of flame ripples up my arms.
An operative strikes me across the temple with his rifle butt.
Pain explodes. Vision swims.
But I don’t look away from her.
“I will come back for you.” The words ring across the square. “I swear it on fire and blood and everything I am. However long it takes. Whatever they do. I will come back.” I don’t know why I need her to know this, simply that I do.
“K—” Her voice breaks. Dragana’s arms wrap around Mara as her knees buckle completely.
They drag me toward the eastern path. Away from the village. Away from her.
I keep my eyes on Mara until the last possible moment. Memorizing her face. The wild, streaked hair. The fierce green eyes.
The woman who kissed me until losing my memory didn’t matter.
The woman who just offered her life for mine.
The last thing I see before they force me around the bend is Mara.
On her knees in the dirt.
Dragana and Andrei still holding her as she reaches for me—one hand extended, fingers grasping at empty air. Trying to bridge the impossible distance between us.
And the devastation on her face carves itself into my memory. Brands itself against the inside of my skull.
This is what breaking feels like.
Not the suppression technology crushing my power.
Not the cuffs biting into my wrists.
This. Leaving her behind. The look on her face. The knowledge that I’m walking away, and she can’t follow.
My dragon roars inside me. Claws at the invisible cage they’ve built. Demands I turn back. Fight. Burn everything to nothing and take what’s mine.
But they’ll kill her if I do.
So I keep walking.
One foot in front of the other.
While something vital tears free inside my chest.
Then trees block the view.
And I’m alone with my captors.
Heading toward whatever hell the Syndicate has prepared.