Chapter 73 You are not human
"What should I be sure of?" she countered, throwing his own question back at him. She wrenched her wrist from his grasp, though her body betrayed her, trembling under the weight of his ferocious gaze as it pierced through to her very soul.
"That you are the person you perceive yourself to be," he said. As the words left his lips, the ground slipped from beneath her, leaving her reeling.
"You are not human," he breathed. Though it was only a whisper, it sounded like thunder in her ears. Her breath hitched and her eyes widened; her soul seemed to recoil, startled by the truth reflecting in his gaze.
"I can see the truth of you," he said, stalking forward. She retreated instinctively, her steps becoming uneven and clumsy as the weight of his presence bore down on her.
"Do not hide it from me," he commanded, closing the gap. She retreated until her spine pressed against the rough, unyielding bark of the oak tree.
"I am not hiding anything from you!" she threw back, finding her voice even as he loomed over her. He was close enough now to smell the salt of her skin, close enough to devour her power with a single breath.
"Why did you do this to me? Does the King know?" His expression turned feral at the thought of Ezra. Esperanza swallowed her terror and tried to look away, but he caught her chin, clutching her wrist with a grip of iron.
She didn't want this—any of this—but the truth was clawing its way to the surface. "Tell me," he growled, his own curiosity burning him alive. "Does he know your reality? Do you even know who you are?" Her silence was a weight, crushing him second by second.
"Orion, let me go," she whispered, the words breaking as her eyes flooded with tears.
"What? Why are you crying?" He stepped back slightly, confused. "I haven't said anything false, have I?"
"Tell me, Esperanza! Who are you?" he demanded, his eyes wide and piercing. She gasped, the sobs finally breaking through, harsh and uncontrollable.
"I should tell you so you can absorb me like the others?" Her voice was jagged, a blade of raw anger.
Orion froze. The air between them turned to ice. He had lived lifetimes in shadows; nobody knew his secret. Nobody. His grip slackened as shock took hold. "How do you know that?"
She didn't flinch. She spat her answer at him, her anger finally burning brighter than her fear.
"I know everything you are," she said, her voice trembling but steady. "And I will never let you kill me."
Orion recoiled as if she had struck him. He gasped, the air rushing out of him; he couldn't bear to hear those words from the one person he loved above all else. To her, he wasn't a lover or a protector—he was a murderer.
"I would never do that to you," he insisted, his voice cracking. He reached out, desperate to brush away the terror in her eyes, but the distance between them felt like an ocean. "I only want to know who you are. Why can’t you see that?"
He tried to soothe her, to wash away the fear he had instilled, but it was too late. The shadow of what he had done to others now stood firmly between them, a wall he couldn't climb.
"I cannot trust you," she whispered, the words tasting like ash. "It’s impossible." She wrenched her gaze away, desperate to bury the emotions that still pulled her toward him emotions that felt like a betrayal of her own soul.
The memories of that night came rushing back, clear and damning. Orion wasn't just a predator; he was one of them. He was one of the shadows who had conspired to slaughter the Golden Dragon and extinguish the Golden Fire. He had sought to demolish the Drakon world itself, leaving nothing but cinders behind.
"What has happened to you?" Orion asked, his voice trembling. "You were never like this." He watched her, stunned by the sheer force of her rage. But Esperanza couldn't answer; her heart was a furnace, and her eyes burned with an ancient, molten light.
Her human form seemed to shatter as her soul evaporated into pure energy. The Golden Fire was no longer just around her it was taking over her entire being, consuming the girl she had been to make room for the power she truly was.
"I will always be this," she declared, her voice resonating with a power that wasn't entirely her own. "I only wanted to keep the truth from you. But since you’ve forced it into the light, then let it happen. Let the fire come."
Orion stood frozen, unable to believe his ears. He could feel the raw, ancient energy fuming in her eyes—a heat so intense it distorted the air between them. He realized then, with a crushing weight in his chest, that he had pushed too far. He had wanted to know her secret, but he knew that once this power truly exploded, the woman he loved would be gone. He was losing her to the very fire he had once tried to destroy.