Chapter 3
Doryan’s next move was painfully predictable. He feinted left, aiming a right hook toward my ribs—but I was already a step ahead. I planted my weight and snapped my boot up, catching him square in the jaw with a satisfying crack.
He staggered back, clutching his nose. “Ah, come on, Fitzroy!” he groaned, blood trickling between his fingers. “Cheap shot.”
I smirked, rolling my shoulders. “Maybe don’t make your moves so obvious next time, D. It’s getting embarrassing.”
His eyes flashed with irritation as he straightened, already mastering his pain to gear up for another round. “You forget who taught you that,” he muttered.
He wasn’t wrong. Doryan might be twice my size, but since the day Father tossed me into the fighting ring, he had been the one to take me under his wing.
Father gave me no direction, no special training—just a brutal introduction.
One morning, he simply declared it was “time to learn how to be a warrior” and threw me into a group of ten young men, each one towering over me.
They had the size, strength, and weight advantage—and they didn’t hold back.
Father didn’t care. He said battles don’t match you up by size and that I’d need to be his secret weapon.
So I learned to be faster, sharper, and ten steps ahead of everyone in the ring.
I learned to strike hard and where it hurt to make up for the strength I didn’t have.
Doryan may have been my most challenging opponent, but he was also my best teacher.
And he knew by now that I wouldn’t hold back just because he’d taken a hit.
I swept my leg in a tight arc, catching his ankles and sending him crashing to the ground. Doryan landed hard, his hands still pressed to his nose. He looked up at me, that familiar wide grin spreading across his face despite the bruising.
“Atta girl,” he said, his tone a mix of pride and pain.
I leaned over, bracing my hands on my knees, catching my breath. “Careful, D. You don’t want anyone seeing you get your ass kicked by a girl,” I teased, giving him a playful wink.
Doryan stood up, wiping the blood from his nose onto his leather pants.
As always, he was shirtless—a sight he never seemed to mind showing off.
His deep brown skin caught the sunlight, highlighting the chiseled muscles he’d earned through years of training.
His left arm was a canvas of inked art, a sleeve I’d crafted over time.
Yet, no matter how often I asked, he refused to let me work on his right arm.
His right arm had a horror story written in a language of burn scars.
When Doryan was around five, a patrol of our warriors had found him and his mother camped high in the mountains.
She was an exile from the Barrens, cast out for being caught with a Tyrian soldier who’d slipped past our borders.
When our warriors approached, she panicked, not believing their claims of harmless intent.
Desperate to save herself, she shoved Doryan into the campfire as she made a run for it.
She didn’t get far.
They brought Doryan back to the Hollow, treated his burns, and gave him a home. A lieutenant took him in, and we’d been best friends ever since.
“Still here?” I asked, lifting an eyebrow as he shook off the pain, flashing me that familiar, resilient grin.
“Still here,” he replied, his voice rich with pride. For all his scars, both seen and unseen, Doryan’s spirit was something even fire couldn’t burn away.
I’ve always believed Doryan’s past was why Yorro chose him as his rider.
We were sparring under a bright blue sky, the sun streaming down, when a shadow suddenly darkened the light.
A massive green-scaled belly covered the sky as Yorro descended, his landing shaking the ground and flattening three huts nearby.
I had leapt out of the way, but Doryan didn’t flinch.
He stood firm, jaw set, as if he knew that if fire couldn’t kill him the first time, it wouldn’t kill him now.
Yorro loomed over him, his enormous eyes narrowed as he assessed Doryan’s steady stance.
Then, in a move that made my heart lurch, the dragon opened his jaws and unleashed a torrent of flames, engulfing my best friend in fiery heat.
I wanted to look away, but I couldn’t. I watched as the flames consumed him—but instead of turning to ash, Doryan stood unwavering.
The fire that had once scarred him now solidified the bond between them, leaving behind a distinctive crimson pattern on his back.
Yorro’s flames marked him, not with burns but with protection, granting him resilience against fire as much as any human could have.
That day, Doryan became more than a survivor—he became a dragon rider.
We squared off for another round when a voice cut through the air.
“Fitzroy.”
Doryan’s gaze shifted over my shoulder, and I sighed without turning. “I’m busy,” I called, keeping my focus locked on my opponent.
“It’s Scarlet.”
The wicked grin spread across my face before I even turned.
I pivoted slowly to face Rhodes Wylder, who stood at the edge of the ring, arms crossed, exuding that infuriating air of authority.
The sun caught him just right, outlining the sharp angles of his jaw and setting his eyes ablaze.
His expression was unreadable, but his posture said it all—this wasn’t a request.
Smug. Arrogant. Just like his father.
“Relationship problems already, Wylder?” I drawled, raising a brow. Behind me, Doryan stifled a laugh.
Rhodes didn’t flinch.
I smirked, leaning into the moment. “If it’s just her looks you’re after, I’m a spitting image. My bed’s open.” I winked for good measure.
“Pass.”
The clipped response was so quick it might have stung if I hadn’t noticed the tension radiating off him. His jaw flexed, his stance rigid. I could practically feel the frustration simmering beneath his skin.
I tilted my head, popping a hip as my eyes drifted down my own frame. “Literally identical,” I mused, dragging the words out. “See? Even down to our—”
“Pass,” he repeated.
I clicked my tongue, wagging a finger at him.
“If you’d let me finish,” I said, my eyes lighting up with feigned enthusiasm.
“I have a fantastic idea. We could go back to my place, and you could practice your moves on me. That way, when your girlfriend finally lets you in, you might actually know how to satisfy her next time.”
Rhodes stepped forward, his nostrils flaring as a spark of rage lit a fire in his eyes.
His hand shot up, hovering for a moment as though he might choke me.
I couldn’t help my reaction—I giggled. My gaze flicked down to his hand as he hesitated, then clenched it and folded it stiffly behind his back.
“Ah,” I drawled, a smirk tugging at my lips. “I have a hard time submitting in the bedroom, but for my loving sister, I suppose I could make an exception.”
“Are you always this big of a—” Rhodes growled, but Doryan’s sharp voice cut him off.
“Watch it.”
The shift was immediate. Rhodes snapped his gaze to Doryan, his expression flickering with restraint. He stepped back, straightening his posture. His chin tilted upward, the move deliberate as if to reassert control. He regarded me with the same haughty, piercing stare, looking down his nose.
But then Rhodes shifted. His shoulders dropped slightly as he lowered his chin, his gaze falling to the ground between us. He let out a deep, controlled breath before lifting his eyes back to mine. His gaze was softer now, not sharp or commanding. They were pleading.
“Please,” his voice was barely above a whisper. “She needs someone, and it isn’t me.”
An unfamiliar and unwelcome emotion stirred in my chest. It was fleeting, but it loosened the tightness in my shoulders, leaving me momentarily unguarded. I forced myself to push it away, to pull the walls back up.
Stepping closer, I closed the gap until only inches separated us, the tension humming between our bodies.
I tilted my chin up, locking my gaze with his.
Be what he won’t, Doryan’s words echoed in my mind, a memory from one of his first lessons.
Throughout my training in the Hollow, I’d always been the smallest—more petite than even the other women.
From day one, Doryan drilled those four words into my head like a mantra.
But before that, he had knocked me flat on my ass in the dirt.
No apologies. No helping hand. Every time I scrambled to my feet, he used his size to shove me back down, circling like a predator.
“Odds are,” he had said, his voice calm but cutting, “any soldier you face will be bigger, stronger, and probably more powerful than you.”
I had barely risen before his hand shot out, toppling me again.
“Your opponent will see you as an easy target,” he continued, pacing around me like he had all the time in the world.
“They’ll rely on their techniques, rigid and predictable.
They won’t think stepping outside the mold is necessary.
That’s where you—” Then, he knocked me down again.
Frustrated, I crossed my arms over my chest and glared up at him, sulking like a child mid-tantrum as he loomed over me.
That was when my nickname came to life. “Yes, you—Fitz,” Doryan had taunted.
“The fight within you must always play the unnecessary move. To survive—to win—you must be what they won’t expect. Be what he won’t.”
I glared up into Rhodes’s eyes. He encompassed authority—a stoic, indestructible, all-tough soldier. But even the unbreakable have their cracks. I knew his weakness.
I looked exactly like his weakness.
Softening my features, I let a faint grin tug at my lips.
Tilting my head down just slightly, I kept my gaze locked on his.
The subtle dip of his chin and the deep breath he took told me I’d accomplished my goal.
But the greediness in me wanted to take it a step further once I saw my reflection—Scarlet’s reflection—in his eyes.
So I stepped even closer and laid my hand on his chest. His heart beat fiercely as he took in the sight of me, of her.
Be what he won’t. What would Rhodes not do?
He would spar with Scarlet. He would definitely test her, pushing her to her limits.
But he would never push his own limits in order to beat her. He would be too afraid of hurting her. And pushing himself would be what he’d have to do in order to beat me.
“Spar with me,” I said, my voice lower now, deliberate. “You win, I’ll help her. I win, you’ll owe me a favor.” I adjusted my tone, mimicking Scarlet’s softness just enough to twist the knife a little deeper.
His eyes narrowed, and he shook his head, a scoff of disbelief escaping him. “No.”
Ding, ding. That was an easy win.
I took a slow step back, keeping my gaze locked on his, and shrugged. “That’s my only offer. The next one won’t be so generous.”
Turning toward the weapon racks, I grabbed a sword and spun it effortlessly in my grasp. “Now, fuck off. We were in the middle of something.”
Without a word of warning, I struck Doryan. But, being the soldier he was, he blocked my move with precision, the clash of metal ringing sharp in the air.