Chapter 45 Dante
Valin never called.
Not unless the world was about to tilt off its axis.
The vibration against the table cut through the low murmur of the restaurant like a blade. I didn’t look at the screen at first. I already knew. The air itself had shifted—heavy, cold, final.
I lifted the phone.
“Mortayne,” I said.
The line crackled once.
Then his voice came through—deep, slow, carrying the weight of mountains and centuries.
“Vescari.”
No greeting. No pleasantries.
My spine tightened.
“Kael’s consort crossed into my territory an hour ago,” Valin said. “She did not ask permission. She did not turn back.”
My jaw clenched. “Renee.”
“Yes.”
There was no anger in Valin’s voice. That was what made it worse. Death did not rage. It decided.
“I will launch war at midnight,” he continued calmly. “This is not personal. I have no grievance with you, Drayke, or Blackstorm. But Shadow has crossed a line.”
I stood slowly, chair scraping faintly against the floor.
“Valin,” I said, keeping my tone measured, “this isn’t what you think. There are… complications.”
Silence.
Then—
“If anyone attempts to stop me,” Valin said, unhurried, “I will deal with them the same way I am dealing with Kael.”
A pause.
“A courtesy warning,” he added. “You deserved that much.”
The line went dead.
I stared at the phone.
For half a second, the world narrowed to a pinpoint of sound and heat and pressure behind my eyes.
Midnight.
War between Death and Shadow wouldn’t stay contained. It never did. It would drag Storm in. Fire would be forced to answer. Water would be pulled into the undertow whether Lucian wanted it or not.
And humans?
They would burn without ever knowing why.
I turned.
Seraphine was already standing.
She didn’t ask what happened. She didn’t demand answers. She just looked at my face and knew something had gone catastrophically wrong.
“We have to leave,” I said, already moving toward her.
“Okay,” she said immediately.
No argument.
No hesitation.
That alone told me more than she probably realized.
I reached for her hand and she let me take it—let me pull her up, let me guide her forward. Not because she couldn’t resist.
Because she chose not to.
I waved sharply at the host as we passed.
“Have the food delivered to this address,” I said, already pulling a card from my wallet. I slid two hundred dollars into his hand. “Keep the change. Immediately.”
“Yes—yes, sir,” he stammered.
I didn’t slow down.
The night air hit us as we stepped outside, cool and sharp. I kept walking, my grip firm but not painful, my mind already racing through contingencies, alliances, bloodlines, consequences.
Seraphine stayed at my side.
If she said anything, I didn’t hear it.
My thoughts were too loud.
A war between kings would not be quick. It would not be clean. It would ripple outward for decades—centuries. Borders would be redrawn. Bloodlines erased.
And Kael had finally pushed too far.
I needed Lucian.
Water could calm where fire only burned hotter. Lucian could speak to Valin in ways I could not. Could slow the inevitability of death long enough to buy us time.
Time was the only currency that mattered now.
I tightened my grip on Seraphine’s hand as we turned the corner toward my building.
She didn’t pull away.
Didn’t stumble.
She moved with me—matching my pace, my urgency.
Good.
Because the world was about to change.
And I would not let it take her with it.
The elevator doors slid open.
The moment my boots hit the marble floor, I didn’t bother looking around.
“Lucian.”
It wasn’t a shout.
It was a roar.
The sound ripped out of my chest—deep, commanding, edged with fire—and it echoed down the corridor like a challenge carved into stone. Staff froze. Glass trembled faintly in the fixtures overhead.
I didn’t care.
I turned back to Seraphine to help her with her coat—
And stopped.
She was staring at me.
Not startled.
Not afraid.
Her eyes were lit from within, a molten glow flickering behind the green like embers stirred too hard. Her breath came shallow, pupils blown wide, her entire body locked tight as if something inside her had just been struck awake.
I knew that look.
I lowered my voice instantly. “Seraphine.”
She swallowed. “When you did that—when you yelled for him—it…” She shook her head, trying to find the words. “It went straight through me. Like—like electricity. My skin. My chest. Everything just—answered.”
There it was.
I felt the corner of my mouth lift despite everything pressing down on me.
Of course it did.
That wasn’t a yell.
That was a mating call.
An instinctive summons laced with power, meant to be heard by allies… and felt by one person alone.
“My roar,” I said quietly, stepping closer so only she could hear me, “isn’t just sound.”
Her breath stuttered.
“When a dragon hears their mate roar,” I continued, low and calm, “their body reacts before their mind can catch up. It’s instinct. Primal. A call to attention. To alignment.”
Her cheeks flushed, the fire in her gaze brightening rather than fading.
“So that’s normal?” she asked, incredulous.
“For you?” I smirked. “Very.”
She opened her mouth to ask something else—
And I didn’t let her.
“We have a war to stop,” I said, turning sharply. “Lucian—now.”
Her head snapped up. “A what?”
I roared his name again, shorter this time, sharper.
“Lucian!”
That second roar hit her harder.
I felt it—felt her react behind me, felt the subtle shift in the air around her as something coiled tighter inside her chest.
Her shock lasted exactly half a second.
Then—
Her posture changed.
Eyes sharpened.
Jaw set.
Journalist mode.
“Okay,” she said briskly, already stepping closer. “You don’t just casually say ‘war’ unless it’s imminent. Who, when, and why?”
Gods, she was incredible.
Lucian appeared at the end of the hall, already moving fast. One look at my face and his expression darkened.
“Bad?” he asked.
“Midnight,” I said. “Valin called.”
Lucian cursed under his breath.
Seraphine’s eyes widened. “Wait—Valin as in the reclusive mountain king Valin?”
Lucian didn’t bother pretending surprise.
“Yes,” he said flatly. “That Valin.”
Seraphine exhaled slowly through her nose. “Okay. So this just went from ‘bad’ to ‘historically catastrophic.’”
I felt the corner of my mouth lift despite myself.
She wasn’t wrong.
“Why would Valin call you?” she pressed, already walking with us down the corridor. “He doesn’t do warnings. He does endings.”
Lucian shot her a look. “You’ve done your homework.”
“I’m a journalist,” she said. “I don’t survive otherwise.”
I cut in before Lucian could elaborate further.
“Kael’s consort crossed into Valin’s territory,” I said. “Uninvited. Unannounced.”
Seraphine stopped short.
“Renee,” she said quietly.
“Yes.”
Her jaw tightened. “On purpose.”
Lucian nodded. “Shadow doesn’t stumble into Death by accident.”
“So Valin thinks Kael is making a move,” she said, already mapping it out. “Or worse—testing him.”
“And Valin doesn’t tolerate being tested,” Lucian added.