Chapter 261 You Burn Me
(Apollo, Adelaide & Caelum)
Apollo threw her.
Not casually. Not gently. He wrenched her off his back and flung her away from him with a violent sweep of his arm.
Adelaide hit the stone hard. The sound of her body striking the floor cracked sharp and bright, a note of flesh against ancient rock. Silk scraped. Skin rasped. The impact cracked through the chamber like a struck bell.
She slid farther across the polished floor than she should have, friction dragging heat from her palms, skin scraping, breath torn from her lungs in a sharp, shocked cry.
For a split second, the chamber smelled of scorched linen and ozone.
For one terrible heartbeat, she was only falling. Then her wings snapped open.
Then her wings reacted. They snapped wide in pure instinct, white-gold fire exploding outward in a defensive arc. Feathers of living flame curved around her as she rolled, the heat absorbing the worst of the impact. The blaze did not burn her—it cushioned her, wrapped her, folding around her body like a shield as she slid to a stop near the base of a pillar. The impact left a faint scorched crescent along the floor where the first flare struck. When she stopped sliding, heat shimmered around her body, warping the air like a desert mirage.
The light dimmed just enough for her to suck in air. Pain radiated along her hip, her shoulder, but nothing was broken. Nothing beyond bruised pride and fury.
Apollo had already turned back to Cael—
And that was when Adelaide pushed herself up. Her hands slammed against the stone. She rose in one fluid, furious motion, wings unfurling behind her in full span, no longer fluttering, no longer uncertain. They burned now. White. Bright. Alive with heat that scorched the air around her.
Her fear was gone. What replaced it was incandescent.
She launched herself forward again. Not climbing this time. Attacking.
Her wings beat once—stronger, coordinated—and the force of it propelled her upward. She collided with Apollo’s back a second time, not scrambling but striking, driving both fists into the thick muscle at the base of his shoulder blades.
“Let. Him. Go!” she shouted, each word punctuated with another blow.
White fire flared along the edges of her wings, licking across Apollo’s fur in crackling arcs. The heat did not consume him—but it stung. It demanded attention.
Apollo’s rage deepened, twisting into something darker.
This was no longer an unplanned surprise. This was a chosen act of defiance.
Apollo roared—more in surprise than pain—and his grip on Cael loosened for half a breath.
That was all Adelaide needed. Her wings flared. Wide and wild. Uncontrolled and immensely powerful. White-gold light detonated outward in a concussive sweep, heat and force slamming into Apollo’s side.
The impact made him stumble. Just a step. His claws tore gouges into the stone as he caught himself, wings snapping wide to brace. But he did not release Cael. His hand only tightened reflexively, squeezing hard enough to make Cael’s vision spark white.
Adelaide saw it.
“Let him go!” she screamed, voice cracking with fury. White fire danced along her forearms, gathering without instruction. “I swear to every god in this pit, Apollo, if you don’t let him go, I will set your ass on fire!”
Apollo’s head turned slowly toward her, black eyes blazing. His lips peeled back, fangs flashing.
“You want him,” he growled, the accusation thick with something darker than rage.
The words struck her like a slap. Something inside Adelaide snapped clean in two.
The fire in her hands condensed, coiling inward instead of flaring outward. It gathered tight, compact, becoming dense and bright—a sphere of white-gold flame spinning between her palms, glittering like a captive star. The air around it shimmered, stone hissing faintly where sparks touched.
She didn’t think. She threw it.
The fireball streaked across the chamber in a clean arc of light and fury. It struck Apollo squarely along the side of his face with a violent crack.
White flame erupted across Apollo’s cheek, splintering into jagged threads that crawled through his mane before dissolving. The blast didn’t burn through him—but it scorched, bright and blinding. The smell hit immediately — singed fur and hot iron — sharp and unmistakable.
Apollo snarled, head jerking sideways as heat licked along his jaw and into his mane. The force of it rocked him hard enough that his grip faltered.
Smoke curled upward in thin, furious spirals, twisting toward the vaulted ceiling as if reluctant to disperse. A faint ringing lingered in the chamber afterwards, not sound but pressure, the echo of concentrated power slamming into something that refused to yield.
Molten sparks skipped across the stone and guttered out, leaving blackened freckles behind.
For the first time since grabbing Cael, Apollo’s focus broke.
His fingers loosened, and Cael dropped.
Boots hit stone unevenly as he collapsed to one knee, dragging air into lungs that burned raw. The world tilted and swam, but oxygen rushed back in violent relief.
Apollo staggered one step, fury incandescent now, white fire still crackling faintly along the fur at his cheek before guttering out. Smoke curled upward in thin, furious spirals.
He didn’t see rescue. He saw choice. He saw Adelaide standing there with wings blazing, chest heaving, hand still extended from the throw. He saw her power move for Cael. He saw her attack him.
His snarl was feral.
“Is this your choice?” Apollo demanded, voice splitting the chamber like a blade dragged across stone. White fire still smoked faintly along his cheek where her power had struck him. “You burn me for him?”
The words weren’t shouted. They were worse—low, incredulous, edged with something wounded and furious all at once.
Adelaide spun on him, incandescent with rage. Her wings blazed behind her, casting violent white-gold light across the walls. “I want you to stop hurting people!” she shot back.
Apollo took a step toward her. The beast did not shrink from her fire. It leaned into it. “You think this is about hurting him?” he snarled. “You think I don’t see what is happening in my own chamber?”
Behind him, Cael forced himself upright, one hand braced against the wall, lungs still dragging air in sharp, painful pulls. He tasted iron at the back of his throat. His vision cleared just enough to see Adelaide standing her ground.
Apollo’s wings spread wide, blotting out half the chamber in shadow. “You move for him,” he pressed. “Your power answers him. You strike me for him.”
“I struck you because you were choking him!” she yelled. “He is your shadow. Your most trusted blade. You appointed him. You put him at my side.”
“My shadow,” Apollo snapped, fangs flashing, “is not entitled to your fire.”
“He’s my teacher,” Adelaide shot back. The word rang too sharply. Too fast. “Nothing more.”
The lie hung between them, fragile and glowing.
Cael felt it land like a brand. He said nothing. Couldn’t.
Apollo’s eyes burned black and endless. “Nothing more?” he echoed, voice dropping to something far more dangerous than a roar. “You climb me. You burn me. You threaten me.” His clawed hand flexed, gouging deeper lines into the stone at his side. “And you call that nothing?”
“You’re acting like a monster,” Adelaide said, breath shaking but voice steady. “You grabbed him like he was disposable. Like he wasn’t someone who had stood beside you for centuries.”
Apollo’s jaw clenched. “Do not lecture me on what he is to me.”
“Then stop treating him like he’s replaceable,” she fired back. “He has done nothing but follow your laws.”
Apollo advanced another step. Heat rolled off him in suffocating waves. “And you?” he demanded. “Whose laws are you following right now?”
The leash at her ankle pulsed faintly, a reminder neither of them acknowledged.
Adelaide didn’t retreat. Her wings lifted higher, light sharpening at their edges. “I’m following mine.”
The words hit harder than the fireball had.
Apollo’s expression twisted—rage, disbelief, something dangerously close to hurt bleeding through the beast’s fury.
Cael felt the air tighten again, the chamber humming under the strain of three powers colliding in too small a space.
Before either of them could move, a smaller presence skidded into the chamber, dropping to one knee so hard the sound cracked.
“My Lord,” the demon gasped, head bowed. “Urgent word from the throne room.”