Chapter 79 Seraphine
I lost it.
Not rage alone.
Not fear.
Everything.
The fire inside me didn’t surge outward like it had before. It collapsed inward first—condensing, compressing, folding in on itself until the pressure became unbearable.
Then it detonated.
Black fire tore out of me in a soundless shockwave.
Not red.
Not blue.
Not purple.
Black.
It wasn’t light so much as absence—flame that devoured illumination instead of casting it. The blast hurled me backward as the room screamed. Walls scorched instantly, concrete spiderwebbing and blackening. Machines died mid-beep, sparks snapping once before going silent. Beds burned down to twisted frames in seconds, restraints snapping and dissolving into ash.
But the women—
The fire curved around them.
Every single one.
It split and bent like it had a will of its own, leaving bare skin untouched, hair un-singed, breath intact. The human was thrown against a console hard enough to rattle teeth, but when the flames passed, he was whole. Shaken. Alive.
The room smelled like ozone and ash and something ancient.
When the fire finally receded, I was on my hands and knees, lungs burning, vision swimming.
I forced myself to look up.
Thane stood where he’d fallen.
Or what was left of him.
His clothes were gone, burned away entirely. His skin was charred black, cracked like cooled lava, smoke curling lazily off his shoulders. Parts of him should have been fatal—flesh burned to nothing, bone visible beneath.
And yet—
He was still smiling.
A low, reverent sound left his throat, like a prayer answered. “There it is,” he breathed. “The end of things.”
My stomach turned.
Then I saw Renee.
She lay crumpled near the edge of the room, where the fire hadn’t bothered to spare the walls. Her shadows were gone—gone, not scattered—like they’d been erased. Her body was still, one arm twisted wrong beneath her.
Not moving.
Not breathing.
The world narrowed to a pinpoint.
“Oh gods,” I whispered.
My hands shook violently as I scrambled toward her, ignoring the sting in my palms, the ache in my chest. I pressed my fingers to her neck.
Nothing.
I pulled back like I’d been burned.
“I—” My voice broke. “I didn’t— I didn’t mean to—”
A life.
I might have taken a life.
The realization crushed down on me, heavy and suffocating, dragging all the air from my lungs. This wasn’t self-defense. This wasn’t instinct.
This was final.
Thane laughed softly behind me.
Not mocking.
Delighted.
“Don’t look at her like that,” he said. “You didn’t kill her.”
I spun on him, fury and horror colliding. “She’s not breathing!”
“She’s not dead,” he corrected gently. “She’s… emptied.”
He took a step forward. The charred skin knit itself back together as he moved, death repairing death. “Shadow can’t survive where the end has passed through. You burned what she was, not what she is.”
I stared at him, sick.
“You’re lying.”
“No,” he said quietly. “I’m explaining.”
He stopped a few feet away, gaze intent, almost reverent. “You didn’t just burn. You judged. You chose what deserved to remain.”
I backed away until my shoulders hit the scorched wall.
“I didn’t choose anything,” I said hoarsely. “I lost control.”
Thane shook his head slowly. “You protected them.” He gestured to the women, who were staring at me now—not in fear, but in awe. “You spared the innocent. You destroyed only what threatened you.”
My heart slammed against my ribs.
“That’s not fire,” he continued. “That’s something older.”
I looked down at my hands.
They were clean.
Not a mark on them.
“I didn’t want this,” I whispered.
“I know,” Thane said softly. “That’s why it’s perfect.”
The floor trembled faintly beneath us—far off, distant, like the earth itself reacting.
Somewhere, something was coming.
I didn’t know how I knew.
I just did.
I lifted my head, meeting Thane’s gaze with whatever strength I had left. “I’m not yours,” I said. “And I will never be.”
His smile didn’t fade.
It sharpened.
“We’ll see,” he replied. “But you should rest now.”
I shook my head hard, forcing myself upright despite the tremor running through me.
“No,” I said, breath ragged. “No. I’m not resting. I need to see Dante.”
Thane stilled.
“I need to talk to him,” I continued, words tumbling faster now. “I need to know why this is happening to me. Why I’m losing control. This—” I gestured weakly at the ruined room, the scorched walls, Renee’s unmoving body. “This shouldn’t be happening. I didn’t wake up like this. I didn’t choose this.”
The air shifted.
In less than a heartbeat, Thane was in front of me.
Not walking.
Appearing.
His presence pressed in, cold and vast, like standing too close to a grave that hadn’t been filled yet. He reached for me—not forceful, not rough—but I flinched anyway.
“Easy,” he murmured, voice low, soothing in the way deep water pretends to be safe. “You’re unraveling.”
“Don’t touch me,” I snapped, backing away until my calves hit the edge of the ruined bedframe. “Why are we here?” My voice cracked, fury bleeding into desperation. “What do you want with us? With me?”
For the first time since I’d met him, Thane didn’t answer immediately.
The smile faded.
Not completely—but enough.
He studied me for a long moment, eyes darker now, older. Weighed down by something that looked uncomfortably like truth.
Then he exhaled.
“I want you to survive,” he said quietly.
I barked out a hollow laugh. “By chaining us to walls?"
“You still don’t understand,” Thane said, voice low but firm. “I’m not doing this for power. I’m doing this to make sure dragons don’t die out. At all.”
I frowned, my pulse thudding in my ears. “You said dragons,” I said slowly. “Not just death dragons.”
He exhaled, the sound tired. Ancient. “Exactly.”
That was when he stepped closer.
Not threatening. Not rushed.
He reached out and pulled me against his chest, arms closing around me in a grip that felt less like possession and more like inevitability. Cold pressed in from all sides, but beneath it was something else—resolve. Desperation.
I hated that a part of me didn’t immediately fight it.
His mouth hovered near my ear as he spoke, voice dropping to a whisper meant only for me.
“Dragonkind is dying,” he said. “Quietly. Slowly. And no one wants to admit it.”
My chest tightened.
“Trying to turn dragonborn females has always been rare,” he continued. “One in fifty, if that. Most don’t survive long enough for anything to happen. They burn out. Their bodies reject the change.”
I swallowed hard.
“And it’s getting worse,” he added. “Because human DNA is winning. Overriding. Diluting what used to be instinct.”
I pulled back just enough to look up at him. “So you drown us. Chain us. Terrorize us?”
“I push,” he said evenly. “Because if I don’t, you fade into nothing. Married. Working. Aging. Never knowing what you were meant to be.”