Chapter 27 Can't Cage Fire
Rhea POV
The door slammed before I could get a word out.
“You can’t just order me around!” I shouted after him.
Rhett spun, every line of his body tight as a bowstring. “You think I’m ordering you? I’m keeping you alive.”
“Oh, thank you, noble jailer,” I snapped. “Do I get meal breaks and fresh air, or do you prefer your mates half-feral and compliant?”
His jaw flexed. “You don’t understand the danger...”
“No, what I don’t understand is why I’m suddenly the one who needs protecting!” My voice echoed off the stone. “I’ve survived vampires, dragons, and death itself, and now I need a babysitter?”
He growled a low warning, almost more sound than word. “Watch your tone.”
“Or what?” I stepped closer, my chin held high. “You’ll lock me up? Throw me in a cell until I’m ‘safe’? Because that sounds familiar, Alpha.”
He flinched like I’d hit him. For a second, I almost felt guilty, then I remembered the guards posted at my door.
I paced, heat crawling under my skin, power fluttering against my ribs like caged wings. Four heartbeats thudded inside me, overlapping, too loud. A choir of chaos.
“I won’t be caged,” I said quietly. “Not by you. Not by anyone.”
He dragged a hand through his hair, exhaling hard. “You’re not a prisoner.”
“Then open the damn door.”
“No.”
I laughed, sharp and humorless. “Then you’re exactly what I said.”
Kaen’s voice ghosted behind his eyes, he didn’t have to speak for me to feel the growl roll through the air. Rhett’s gaze flicked to mine, molten gold meeting wildfire.
“Stop pushing me,” he said.
“Stop giving me reasons to.”
Silence stretched between us, thick and electric. The tension wasn’t just anger, it was that maddening, magnetic pull that had been haunting me since I woke up in his bed. Every breath drew me toward him even as my brain screamed to run.
He took a step forward. “You think I like this?”
“I think you like control.”
“I like breathing,” he shot back. “And right now, every kingdom in this world wants you dead, or worse. The dragons saw you. The vampires felt you. You step outside this castle, and you won’t make it a mile before someone tries to claim or kill you.”
“So I should hide and wait?” I demanded. “Let them decide who I am?”
“You’re not ready, Rhea.”
That did it. The heat inside me surged, blooming under my skin. “Don’t tell me what I am.”
The lights flickered. The air shimmered with gold. Flames licked my fingertips, not hot enough to hurt, but bright enough to make his eyes widen.
“Rhea...”
“Don’t,” I warned. “Unless you want a repeat of last time.”
He sighed, dragging a hand down his face. “For the love of the gods, don’t Phoenix out in my bedroom.”
I blinked. “Phoenix out?”
“Yeah.” He gestured vaguely at me. “The wings. The light. The spontaneous combustion thing you do when you’re mad.”
“I can’t help it,” I muttered. “It’s new.”
“Then learn control,” he said, his voice low. “Because if you light up here, you’ll burn half the pack alive.”
I froze. The truth of it landed hard. The flames receded, leaving goosebumps in their place.
He must’ve noticed, because his tone softened. “Please,” he said quietly. “Just… stay in the castle for now. Until I can figure out what to do.”
“Figure out what to do with me, you mean.”
“For you,” he corrected.
Something in the way he said it cracked through my anger. I hated that it made sense. I hated even more that his voice, deep, rough, and steady, made my chest ache.
“You can’t protect me from what’s coming,” I said finally.
He stepped closer. The heat rolling off him tangled with mine until I couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began. “Maybe not,” he admitted. “But I can damn well try.”
I wanted to stay angry. I wanted to push him, to prove he couldn’t cage me. But the way he looked at me, like I was both disaster and miracle, tied the words in my throat.
“Fine,” I said at last. “I’ll stay. For now.”
He nodded once, relief flickering behind the Alpha calm. “Good.”
“But if you lock that door again,” I warned, “I’ll melt it into slag.”
He almost smiled. “Noted.”
For a heartbeat, neither of us moved. The silence wasn’t comfortable, but it wasn’t war either. It was… something else.
Then he turned to leave, his hand on the door.
“Rhett,” I said quietly.
He glanced back.
I met his eyes. “You can’t cage fire.”
He hesitated, something like admiration in his gaze. “Maybe not,” he said. “But fire still needs air.”
And with that, he was gone.
I stood there, my fists clenched and my heartbeats thundering. One steady, one wild, one cold, one burning.
Four rhythms in one body, all demanding something different.
Freedom. Vengeance. Survival. Love.
And gods help me, I didn’t know which one would win.
____________________
Korr POV
The chamber pulsed with heat and shadow.
Molten light from the forges below flickered across the walls, casting fire through the glass floor where dragons walked in their true forms. I sat on the edge of the war table, one clawed hand pressed to my temple, the other curled around a cup of molten amber.
“She’s alive.”
The words came from my general, Serath, who bowed low before me. His scales gleamed dull silver, smoke curling from his nostrils.
I looked up slowly. “Say that again.”
“The human. The Ghost. She was seen in the Wolf King’s territory. My flight confirmed it. She appeared at his window, alive, unburned, and very much protected.”
The molten drink hissed as it hit the floor.
For a moment, I said nothing. The silence was heavier than steel.
“Rhett.” Her name brushed through my mind like the memory of smoke. I tasted her scent on the air even now, ash, lavender, and something older. The kind of fire that didn’t fade.
“She rose from my flame,” I murmured. “And the wolf thinks to keep her.”
Serath shifted uneasily. “We believe he’s hiding her. His guards were on high alert. The scent was everywhere. She’s his now.”
"Mine," Vaelrith hissed inside me, the dragon voice low and furious. "Our mark still burns in her flesh. He shelters what belongs to the flame."
“She does not belong,” I said aloud, my voice a measured rumble. “Not to me. Not to him. The gods marked her. We merely… lit the spark.”
"You tell yourself that," Vaelrith growled. "But you felt her heart ignite. You still do."
I ignored the echo in my chest. Three beats, faint but constant, hers, mine, and the bond neither of us had asked for.
“Prepare a message for the Wolf King,” I ordered finally. “Polite. Cautious. We’ll not start another war...yet.”
Serath bowed again. “And the woman?”
My gaze drifted toward the horizon beyond the volcanic glass. “She was forged in my fire,” I said quietly. “The wolf may guard her, but the flame remembers its own.”
I turned away as the forge wind roared through the citadel.
“She’ll come back to the heat,” I murmured. “They always do.”