Chapter 202 Dante
Chapter 202 Dante
“Dante…” Her voice barely made it out.
Broken. Weak. Still reaching.
Even now. Even like this.
My chest tightened painfully.
The sound of her convulsing filled the clearing, wet breaths, choking gasps, the scrape of her nails in the dirt as her body fought something it couldn’t win. Amara’s sobs layered over it, raw and desperate, begging her to breathe, to stay, to not let go.
The voidbinder stood too still, watching like this was some cruel experiment reaching its conclusion.
And me?
I stood there like I wasn’t the reason it was happening.
I could fix this. I knew how. I knew exactly how. I just had to choose her.
Fully. Let go. Give everything back the way she had given it to me.
No walls. No hesitation. No pride.
But that meant... It meant losing something fundamental.
Something that made me… me.
Fire does not kneel. Fire does not follow. Fire leads.
It takes. It dominates.
And I... I wasn’t ready to let that go.
Not for her.
The realization didn’t hit all at once.
It settled. Slow. Heavy.
Like something rotting its way through my chest until there was nothing left to deny.
And that was when I knew.
This wasn’t going to work.
Not because she wasn’t enough.
But because she was too much.
And I wasn’t willing to become something else to meet her there.
My throat tightened. “Seraphine…”
Her name felt wrong on my tongue now. Like something I didn’t deserve to say.
Her body jerked again, another seizure tearing through her, harder this time, like her body was burning from the inside out. Her back arched violently, a broken sound ripping from her throat that I felt like a blade through my ribs.
Still reaching.
Still trying.
Even while I was standing here deciding whether she was worth it.
Something inside me cracked.
Not enough to stop me.
But enough that I felt it.
I stepped closer.
Just enough.
Not enough to touch.
Not enough to save her.
Just enough to end it.
“I’m sorry.” The words came out quieter than I expected.
But they landed.
I felt it.
Through the bond.
That last fragile thread that still connected us.
The second before it broke.
The second where everything still existed.
Where everything still could have been something else.
Where I could have chosen differently.
Then... I let go.
Not halfway.
Not hesitating.
Fully.
Completely.
The bond snapped.
It didn’t explode.
It didn’t shatter.
It just… stopped.
Like a flame being suffocated.
Gone.
The connection that had been there, burning, pulsing, tying us together, ceased so completely it left a ringing silence in its wake.
The mark on my chest flared. Bright. Blinding.
Pain ripped through me for half a second, sharp enough to make me suck in a breath... Then it died.
The fire that had been etched into my skin faded slowly, embers dimming, glow dissolving until there was nothing left.
No heat. No connection. Nothing.
Across from me, her mark did the same.
It had been pulsing weakly, barely holding on. And the moment I let go… It went dark.
Her body went still. Not calm. Not peaceful.
Just… Empty.
Like something had been ripped out of her entirely.
Amara made a sound I didn’t want to understand. “Seraphine…?” she whispered, shaking her gently. “Seraphine, no—no, no—”
I looked away.
Because if I didn’t... I might feel something I wasn’t ready to deal with.
Something inside me twisted. Sharp.
Regret? Maybe.
But it wasn’t enough. Not enough to undo it. Not enough to make me turn back.
“I can’t do this,” I said, more to myself than anyone else.
Then louder— “I won’t.”
Amara looked up at me, her face streaked with tears, eyes wide with something that looked a lot like hatred.
“What are you doing?” she whispered.
I didn’t answer her. Because I didn’t owe her one.
I looked at Lucian instead. “Let’s go.”
He didn’t move right away.
He looked at Seraphine. At the broken bond. At the aftermath of my choice. Then back at me.
And I saw it. Disappointment. Judgment. Understanding.
All of it.
But he nodded anyway. Because he knew me. And he knew I wasn’t going to change my mind.
I turned first. Because if I didn’t... I might hesitate.
And hesitation was the one thing I couldn’t afford right now.
Not after everything.
Not after the truth had finally settled in.
I walked through the smoke, through the remains of the cabin, through the heat that was finally starting to die down now that my fire had settled.
That was the first thing I noticed.
The fire.
It wasn’t raging anymore.
It wasn’t clawing at my skin, begging to be unleashed.
It was… Quiet. Calm. Contained.
My dragon wasn’t snarling. Wasn’t fighting. Wasn’t resisting. It was still.
Satisfied.
That should have felt right. It didn’t.
I reached the SUV and yanked the door open, sliding into the driver’s seat with more force than necessary. The metal was still warm from the heat in the air, but it grounded me in a way nothing else had in the last few minutes.
I gripped the steering wheel.
My breathing finally started to even out.
The silence in my chest where the bond had been was deafening.
And for a split second... I almost missed it.
The chaos. The noise. Her.
The passenger door suddenly jerked open. Lucian. He didn’t hesitate. Didn’t ease into it.
He leaned in, grabbed the front of my shirt, and yanked me toward him hard enough that my head snapped forward.
“What the fuck were you thinking?”
I didn’t flinch.
Didn’t fight him.
“I made a choice.”
“That wasn’t a choice, Dante,” he snapped. “That was you running.”
My jaw tightened.
“You think I don’t know what I just did?”
“I think you should have fought for her,” he shot back. “I thought you would.”
Something bitter twisted in my chest.
“You thought wrong.”
His grip tightened.
“I thought you’d force your dragon to accept it,” he said. “I thought you’d actually be strong enough to do that.”
“I am strong enough.”
“Then why didn’t you?”
Because I didn’t want to.
The answer sat there.
Ugly.
Unavoidable.
“I realized something,” I said instead, voice flat.
Lucian’s expression didn’t soften.
“Enlighten me.”
I met his gaze.
“I didn’t love her.”
That made him pause.
Just for a second.
Not long.
But long enough.
“I loved the idea of her,” I continued. “What she was when I met her. What she could have been.”
His eyes darkened. “And now?”
“Now she’s not that,” I said. “She’s something else. Something bigger. Something I can’t—”
“Control?” he cut in sharply.
I didn’t answer.
Didn’t need to.
His grip loosened slightly, but the anger didn’t leave his face.
“You’re serious.”
“I am.”
A beat of silence.
“She was never meant to be mine,” I added, quieter now. “That’s why the bond was wrong. That’s why it never fully settled.”
Lucian stared at me like he didn’t recognize me. “That’s what you’re going with?”
“It makes sense.”
“No,” he said flatly. “It doesn’t.”
“It does to me.”
Another pause.
Then I asked the question that had been sitting in the back of my mind since I walked away.
“Is Amara coming?”
The words barely left my mouth before I knew I shouldn’t have said them.
Lucian’s expression shifted. Not anger. Not frustration. Something colder.
“Are you serious right now?”
I leaned back slightly, one hand still gripping the wheel. “This isn’t our problem anymore,” I said. “Not mine. Not yours. Not hers.”
Lucian went still.
“Seraphine is the high priestess,” I continued. “Whatever this is, whatever she’s dealing with, that’s on her now.”
The silence that followed was heavy.
Wrong. And then... Lucian hit me.
His fist connected with my face before I could react, snapping my head to the side as pain flared across my jaw.
I didn’t block it. Didn’t retaliate. Just sat there and took it.
“You’re an entitled prick,” he said, voice low and sharp. “I never thought that about you before.”
I tasted blood. Didn’t wipe it away.
“I won’t guide you anymore,” he added.
That one hit harder than the punch.
Then he shoved me back into the seat and slammed the car door hard enough to rattle the entire vehicle.
I sat there.
Alone.
Fire calm.
Dragon quiet.
Bond gone.
And for the first time since I made the choice... It didn’t feel like control.
It felt like something else entirely.
Something I wasn’t ready to name.