Chapter 62 Dante
I waited.
Not pacing. Not burning the room down. Not tearing the door off its hinges like every instinct in my body screamed for me to do.
I waited.
Because if I pushed—if I forced my presence right now—I would lose her completely.
Something was wrong.
Deeply, catastrophically wrong.
I could feel it in the absence.
Her fire—
the quiet, responsive warmth that had always hovered just at the edge of my awareness—
was gone.
Not muted.
Not sleeping.
Gone.
Like reaching for a pulse and finding nothing but cold skin.
My dragon snarled, confused, clawing at the inside of my chest. Dragons did not vanish. Bloodlines didn’t just disappear. Dormancy, yes. Suppression, maybe.
But this?
This felt like… amputation.
I hadn’t touched the food. The scent of it turned my stomach. I couldn’t eat. Couldn’t breathe properly. All I could do was stare at the bathroom door and replay every word I’d said—every stupid, careless truth I’d delivered without realizing how sharp it would cut her.
I’d wanted to be honest.
Gods help me, I hadn’t meant to destroy her.
When the door finally opened, the sound was soft.
Too soft.
Seraphine stepped out wearing her old clothes. Not the ones I’d bought. Not the ones chosen for protection or presentation or power.
Her clothes.
The ones that said this is me.
Her hair was damp. Her face bare. Her eyes—
Defeated.
Not angry.
Not fiery.
Just… done.
That was when I knew.
I had fucked up. Completely. Irreparably.
I took a step toward her.
“Seraphine—”
Her hand came up immediately.
A stop.
A wall.
“Don’t,” she said. Her voice didn’t shake. That was worse. “Please don’t.”
My chest felt like it was splitting open.
“I’m done,” she continued. “I’m done being protected by you. I’m done being dragonborn. I’m done with mates and consorts and kings and whatever destiny everyone keeps trying to shove down my throat.”
“That’s not—” I started, then stopped myself, forcing my tone gentler. “That’s not how it works.”
She looked at me then.
Really looked at me.
And whatever she saw in my face only hardened her resolve.
“I locked it away,” she said quietly. “My dragon. I don’t want it. I don’t want any of this.”
Fire screamed inside me.
“That has consequences,” I said, unable to stop myself now. “Rejecting your own dragon—Seraphine, you don’t understand what that can do to you. To your body. To your mind.”
“I don’t care,” she replied.
Those three words gutted me.
“You need to listen to me,” I insisted. “You need protection. You need—”
She cut me off, sharp and final.
“I’m quitting journalism,” she said. “I’m getting a quiet job. I’m going to be human. I’m going to live my life without this.”
My throat closed.
“And Renee?” I demanded. “And Kael? And the others? You think walking away makes you invisible?”
She shook her head. “I think being me is better than being what everyone wants.”
I reached for her again—carefully, desperately—but she stepped back.
“I’ll send for my things from your penthouse,” she said. “Once I’m settled.”
“Just—just think about this,” I pleaded. Gods, when had I started pleading? “You don’t have to decide everything tonight. You need me.”
Her gaze flickered. Just once.
Then hardened again.
“No,” she said. “I need myself.”
Nothing I said after that mattered.
I followed her anyway.
Down the hall. Into the elevator. Out into the street.
She called for a cab with shaking fingers.
When it pulled up, I didn’t ask permission—I got in beside her. She didn’t tell me to leave.
That felt like mercy.
Or maybe exhaustion.
She stared out the window, refusing to look at me, while my world collapsed in slow motion.
I texted Lucian with one hand.
I need help. Now.
I turned my location on without thinking.
The cab started moving.
I tried again.
“Seraphine. Please. Talk to me.”
Silence.
I reached for her heat one last time—reaching deeper than I ever had before, past instinct, past bond—
Nothing.
Empty.
Like she’d never existed on that plane at all.
That wasn’t possible.
You couldn’t just decide not to be dragonborn.
You couldn’t just undo what you were.
And yet—
It felt like she had.
Like she’d cut herself out of the world I lived in and slammed the door behind her.
My dragon howled.
And for the first time in four hundred years, I was terrified.
Not of war.
Not of other kings.
But of losing the one thing I hadn’t even realized I was already living for.
Lucian’s reply came a full minute later.
Busy. How serious is this?
I stared at the screen, jaw clenched so tight it hurt.
Busy.
I almost laughed.
Almost.
My thumbs hovered for half a second—pride, restraint, habit all warring inside me—before I did the one thing I hated doing more than anything else.
I broke protocol.
Code Black.
I need you and Amara now.
Meet at Seraphine’s townhouse immediately.
I hit send.
No response.
But the message flipped to Read.
That was enough.
Lucian didn’t ignore Code Black. Ever. If he’d seen it, then he understood exactly what I was saying without me needing to explain.
I leaned back against the cab seat, pulse pounding, and risked another glance at Seraphine.
She hadn’t moved.
Her arms were wrapped tightly around herself, shoulders drawn in, gaze fixed on the city sliding past the window like she was already somewhere else—somewhere I couldn’t follow.
When the cab slowed in front of her building, she reached for her wallet.
“I’ve got it,” she said flatly.
I was faster.
“Don’t,” I said, already handing the driver cash. “Please.”
That finally earned me a look.
Not fire.
Not anger.
Something colder.
Something sharper.
Hatred.
She didn’t say thank you.
She just shoved the door open and stepped out onto the sidewalk without waiting for the receipt.
I followed.
Inside the main building, the air smelled like old carpet and cleaning solution. Familiar. Human. Grounded in a way that suddenly felt hostile to me.
She stopped in front of her apartment door and turned, keys clenched in her hand.
“I’m not letting you in,” she said.
“I know,” I replied quietly.
That surprised her.
She hesitated—just long enough for hope to flare in my chest—then unlocked the door and stepped inside.
It slammed shut in my face.
The sound echoed down the hallway like a gunshot.
I stood there, staring at the wood, my reflection warped faintly in the polished brass of her door number.
For the first time since this nightmare began, I had no move to make.
No command to give.
No fire to wield.
I pressed my forehead briefly against the door, breathing her in one last time—her scent still clinging faintly to the air—and whispered a prayer I hadn’t spoken in centuries.
To ancient dragons.
To old gods.
To anything listening.
Please.
Let Lucian and Amara fix what I broke.