Chapter 97 – The Flame Beneath My Skin

Chapter 97 – The Flame Beneath My Skin
Scarlett

The scream that tore through the sky didn’t come from my lips—but I felt it vibrate through my bones.

I stood motionless in the ash-covered courtyard of the old temple ruins, heart hammering, blood thick with something ancient and hot. The scream hadn’t been human. It had been older than that wilder. It was as if the earth itself had cried out in warning.

Kael was already beside me before I could react, his hand curled protectively around my arm. I looked up at him, our eyes locking for a fraction of a second—and then we both turned our gazes to the forest edge, where the trees bowed unnaturally in the wake of a dark force slithering just beyond the veil of light.

It had been three nights since we returned from the mountain—a temporary truce forged in fire and desperation. Three nights since Kael had sworn he would fight beside me, not for me. And though we didn’t speak of love or forgiveness, something between us had shifted. He no longer loomed. He lingered close enough to touch. Far enough to ache.

But now, none of that mattered.

Because the forest was moving.

And something inside me was stirring.

“We need to move,” Kael growled. “Now.”

“Wait,” I whispered, placing a hand over my belly. The baby shifted—again. Not like before, not the flutter or the pulse of power I’d grown used to. This time, it burned.

It was as if my child was... reacting to the force outside, or resisting it.

Kael’s eyes dropped to my hand, his expression hardening. “What did you feel?”

“Heat. Like fire... running through my veins.” I met his gaze. “And it wasn’t mine.”

He didn’t waste time doubting me. That, I appreciated. “The wards are weakening. Whatever’s out there—it’s calling to your blood.”

“And to hers,” I whispered, eyes falling to my swollen abdomen.

Kael’s silence confirmed what we both feared.

This wasn’t just about the prophecy anymore.

Something—or someone—wanted our child for its own purpose.

The heir of night and flame... I remembered the words etched into the prophecy scroll we found in the Forbidden Wing. Born of broken bloodlines, destined to end—or begin—an empire.

Kael and I had both broken kingdoms in our own ways. We had bled for them. And now, our child was a flame on the wind, the spark in dry kindling.

“I have to protect her,” I said aloud, surprising myself with the fierceness in my voice.

“You will,” Kael said, voice quieter. “We will together.”

The way he said it—together—hit me somewhere tender, and dangerous.

But I nodded. “Then let’s find out what the hell is chasing us.”

We left the ruined courtyard behind. Lucien joined us halfway down the path, his coat stained in ash, one sleeve torn.

He didn’t look at Kael. Kael didn’t look at him. That suited me just fine.

“I caught its scent.” Lucien’s voice was low, breathless, his usual sarcasm stripped away. “It’s not one of us, not vampire. Not even one of the Ancient Houses.”

Kael tensed, “Then what?”

Lucien shook his head. “Something that forgot how to die.”

That chilled me more than the night air.

“What does it want?” I asked.

Lucien glanced at my stomach. “Do you really have to ask?”

By the time we reached the temple’s old sanctuary, the air was crackling with pressure. The veil between realms was thinner here. I could feel it in my teeth, in the burn behind my eyes. Kael kept glancing at me as if expecting me to collapse.

But I didn’t. I stood taller, and straighter.

And when I stepped onto the ancient stone platform at the sanctuary’s heart, the wind stilled.

Like it was waiting.

Then something boomed against the wards.

The sound wasn’t physical—it was worse. A pulse of shadow, pressing in on my soul. I stumbled.

Kael caught me.

Lucien cursed under his breath. “It’s testing the boundaries.”

“No,” I said. “It’s testing me.”

I turned to Kael, “Whatever this is... it’s connected to me. I need to face it.”

He didn’t flinch. “Not alone.”

That night, we lit the old temple flames again—sigils burning around the sanctuary in a language only the blood remembered. Kael stood at my right, and Lucien at my left. A triangle of broken things, protecting something whole.

When the final rune lit, the world bent.

And something stepped through the mist.

It was... beautiful. In the way an avalanche is beautiful. It shimmered with silver eyes, skin as black as obsidian and just as sharp. It didn’t walk—it glided, silent as a secret. Its mouth never moved, but I heard its voice inside my head.

“You are mine.”

I flinched. So did the baby. Heat flared through me, curling like wildfire around my heart.

Kael stepped forward, fangs bared. “She’s not yours.”

The being turned its silver gaze on him. “You bound her, marked her, burned her, and you don’t own her either, Prince of Ash.”

I looked between them—Kael, rigid with rage. The creature, calm and cruel.

And then I stepped forward.

The baby kicked.

Flames burst from the runes.

I screamed—not from pain, but release—as power surged through me, cracking open every part of my soul I’d kept chained. I saw it all then—my bloodline, my lineage. The truth, I wasn’t just descended from vampires.

My mother had been one of the first flamebearers—part of a forgotten line that could both destroy and heal. The blood that had once saved Kael from the brink. The same fire that now lived in our child.

And the creature in front of me...

It had once hunted flamebearers to extinction.

That’s why it wanted her.

Because she was the last.

Kael and Lucien were shouting behind me, but I couldn’t hear them anymore.

I stepped into the ring of fire.

The creature grinned.

And then it spoke again—not to me, but to the child in my womb.

“You will open the gate. And I will wear your skin like a crown.”

I collapsed to my knees as agony ripped through my abdomen. A vision hit me—my baby, screaming, fire pouring from her tiny mouth, as the world around her burned.

“NO!” I cried out, grasping my belly, clutching my child like I could shield her from prophecy.

Kael broke the circle.

Lucien lunged.

The creature vanished in a scream of ash and wind, but not before leaving behind a single, scorched mark at the center of the stone—

A sigil.

One that wasn’t meant to be seen again.

And I recognized it.

Because it was the same one burned into my back when I was born.