Page 15 of Sun's Roar

Tyanna remained in the doorway, her eyes wide. “Holy shit, it’s spreading to the dining room now!”

The fire leaped and danced, spiraling upward in impossible patterns. Helena stood frozen for a moment, mesmerized by the way it still seemed to move in rhythm with her racing heartbeat. Every surge of fear sent the flames higher, and every moment of awe made them brighter.

“Fascinating as this is,” Victor said, backing toward the exit, his calculating eyes still fixed on Helena, “I have no intention of dying today.” He slipped through the door without another glance.

The flames curved around Helena, forming a half-circle that trapped her against the cooking station. She flung more water at the closest part of the blaze, but instead of extinguishing it, the water hissed and evaporated instantly, turning to steam that only seemed to fuel the fire further.

“Helena, please!” Tyanna screamed from the doorway. “This whole place is going up!”

“I can’t leave it!” Helena cried, grabbing the fire extinguisher from the wall. “Everything I’ve worked for is here!”

The restaurant had been her life for eight years. Every recipe perfected, every customer relationship built, every late night and early morning sacrifice—all of it was embodied in these walls. How could she just watch it burn?

“It’s not worth your life!” Marco shouted, his voice cracking with emotion before he, too, disappeared.

She aimed the extinguisher at the base of the flames, but the chemical spray merely created swirling patterns in the fire without diminishing its intensity. A sickening realizationdawned on her—the fire wasn’t burning the kitchen anymore, it was burning from her.

The flames had taken on an unnatural red-gold hue, brightening to almost white where they reached toward her. Helena backed away, feeling the heat not as a threat but as a strange extension of herself.

“This isn’t possible,” she murmured, watching as the flames followed her movement like a loyal pet.

The smoke thickened around her, black and choking. Helena coughed, feeling her lungs burn with each breath. Yet even as the smoke filled the room, the flames maintained a clear path to her, as if creating a corridor only she could navigate.

The sprinkler system finally engaged, raining water down from above, but it made little difference. Whatever force was feeding these flames transcended normal physics. Helena stumbled backward, her vision blurring as the smoke intensified.

“Get... it... together,” she gasped between coughs, desperately seeking control over something—anything—in this chaos.

For a brief moment, when she focused her thoughts and tried to visualize the flames receding, they actually seemed to respond, pulling back slightly. But her concentration broke when a support beam crashed down behind her, sending sparks flying into the air.

Helena spun around, disoriented, finding herself surrounded by a circle of fire. The heat pressed in from all sides, yet strangely, her skin didn’t burn. Her clothes remained intact even as the wooden prep table nearby was reduced to charred remains.

“What am I?” Her voice was thin, barely audible over the roar of the fire.

The room spun, oxygen depleting rapidly. Helena sank to her knees, her body heavy and unresponsive. The last thing she sawbefore darkness claimed her was the fire above, forming what looked almost like a protective dome around her fallen form.

Then there was nothing but smoke and silence.

SIX

SOL

Sol sprawled across the luxury hotel bed, staring at his phone in his hand impatiently, when it hit him—a surge of heat that blazed through his veins like wildfire. He bolted upright, chest heaving as the sensation intensified. This wasn’t his own emotion. It was Helena’s, flowing through their fledgling mate bond.

“Shit,” he growled, springing from the bed.

He grabbed his clothes off the ground, putting them on hastily as his bare feet slapped against marble toward Joshua’s bedroom door.

“Joshua, move!” Sol shouted through the door as he pounded on it. The door flew open beneath his fist. “Something’s wrong with Helena.”

Joshua appeared instantly alert, despite his rumpled hair. “How do you know?”

“I feel it.” Sol pressed a hand to his sternum where the heat continued to build. “It’s like she’s burning from the inside out. Rage and fear, all mixed up.”

Mitesh emerged from the adjacent room, already dressed. “The Luna’s powers are unstable right now. If she’s experiencing intense emotion?—“

“We need to get to that restaurant. Now,” Sol interrupted.

Minutes later, Sol could barely sit still in the back of their SUV while Joshua steered them through the early evening traffic. His wolf clawed at his skin, desperate to emerge and find their mate. Sol fought the urge to shift. Helena didn’t even know what she was yet—seeing him transform would only add trauma to whatever crisis she was currently facing.

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