The word isn’t spoken.
It exists.
For one suspended heartbeat, I am not alone inside my own head. The fire moves with intent, guided by something older than Scorch himself, something that sees the hunger inside me and chooses not to devour it, only temper it.
The flames tighten around my chest, and instinct screams at me to fight, to lash out, to run. My fangs drop, my hands clenching as the urge to tear free surges hard enough to crack bone.
“Hold onto me,” Rogue says, his voice low and steady.
His fingers close around mine, warm and unyielding.
Not forcing.
But anchoring.
I lock my gaze on him instead of the fire, clinging to the solidity of him while the dragon’s presence brushes through me again, vast and assessing. The pain spikes, sharp enough tosplinter thought, and for a terrifying second, I feel the bloodlust recoil like a wounded animal beneath the heat.
The relief is almost worse than the agony.
The constant roar inside my head fades, replaced by a quiet so sudden it feels wrong. I sway forward, trembling as the flames trace every vein, burning away the frantic edge that has ruled me since my turning.
The dragon’s awareness withdraws slowly.
The last wave of fire curls around my chest, pressing inward, and something inside me breaks open. Hunger doesn’t vanish, but it pulls back, forced into stillness by the ancient heat threading through my body.
Then the flames vanish…
And silence crashes into the room.
I slump forward, shaking, skin humming as if every nerve has been rewired. The hunger is still there, a distant pulse instead of a scream, quieter now, as though something ancient pressed a hand over its mouth.
My thoughts feel…clear.
Not empty.
Not numb.
But mine.
For a long moment, no one speaks. The cabin settles around us, wood creaking softly as the heat recedes. The lingering scent of smoke curls through the air, warm and grounding instead of suffocating.
Scorch exhales hard, the glow in his veins dimming as the dragon withdraws behind his eyes. He rolls his shoulders once like a man stepping back into a body that suddenly feels heavier. “Well,” he mutters, his voice rough. “You’re still standing.”
I almost laugh because technically I am sitting, but it comes out as a broken sound. My hands tremble where they rest on my thighs, not from weakness but from the sudden absence ofpressure inside my head. For the first time since the turning, the bloodlust isn’t clawing at me, isn’t demanding, isn’t drowning out everything else.
Rogue’s hand tightens around mine, grounding and steady. His thumb moves once across my knuckles, a small, deliberate motion that reminds me where I am, who I am, what I chose.
The fire didn’t just burn.
It saw me.
And it chose to let me remain.
I sit there longer than I mean to. An hour turns into two. I let the quiet stretch, let the strange, fragile calm settle into my bones. The world feels sharper, the edges clearer. Even the shadows look different, less like threats and more like space I can finally breathe inside, metaphorically, without the weight of hunger crushing my every thought.
Only when the tremor in my hands fades to a faint echo do I lift my head.
Footsteps sound at the doorway.
