Page 6 of Fire's Storm
The image of her stunned face burns into my memory like a brand—copper hair escaping her helmet, amber eyes wide with confusion and awakening hunger, lips parted in a silent question I intend to answer thoroughly when next we meet.
As I move deeper into the forest, I realize with shock that the wildfire is subsiding—not because of my efforts, but because it has fulfilled its purpose. It found her. Brought us together. Initiated the bond.
The fire wasn't my emotional outburst after all. It was the Tempest Bond, awakening, searching, calling to both of us.
My isolated cabin comes into view as I crest the ridge—a crude structure of logs and stone built with my own hands when the clan first exiled me. For years, I've lived here alone, on the very edge of Storm Clan territory, as far from the central sanctuary as possible while still technically remaining undertheir protection. Hell, I’m closer to the Fire Clan’s home than I am my own.
My prison. My penance for the unforgivable crime of being unable to control my volatile power.
I slam through the door with enough force to crack the frame, beyond caring about the damage. My body burns hotter than the forest fire I just left, skin steaming in the cooler air of the cabin. Storm energy still pulses beneath my skin, seeking release I refuse to give it. The air pressure inside the cabin fluctuates wildly with my emotions, objects rattling on shelves as atmospheric conditions respond to my chaotic energy.
I pace the small confines of the main room like a caged predator, claws fully extended, tearing gouges in the wooden floor with each turn. The physical pain of separation intensifies with each passing minute. This isn't normal. Even accounting for the shock of finding my destined mate, this level of physical distress goes beyond anything described in dragon lore.
I stop at the crude wooden shelf that holds my most prized possessions—a few ancient texts stolen from the sanctuary library before my exile. Forbidden knowledge I wasn't meant to access but smuggled out anyway, always the defiant one, always the scholar even when others saw only the destructive potential of my power.
My clawed fingers trace the fragile pages of the oldest volume, finding the passage that describes the Ancestral Flame Protocol:
When dragonkind faces extinction, when the ancient powers wane and sanctuaries fail, the Protocol shall activate. Four elemental bonds shall form, each awakening dormant systems within the sacred spaces. Guardian first, to protect. Tempest second, to harness and redirect. Memory third, to recover what was lost. Sovereign last, to unite and rule.
The implications stagger me, making my legs suddenly weak. I sink to the floor, back against the wall, as the full weight of understanding crashes down.
If the second elemental bond has awakened, it means the Ancestral Flame Protocol has truly begun. The Guardian Bond wasn't an isolated incident but the first step in a process described only in the most ancient dragon texts.
And I—unstable, exiled, rejected me—have been chosen for the second bond.
It makes no fucking sense. I am the last dragon who should be entrusted with something so significant, so powerful. Yet the evidence is undeniable. The fire that found her. The connection that formed instantly between us. The elemental patterns that emerged without conscious creation.
My storm heart.
I grip my head between my clawed hands, scales rasping against scales as I struggle to process this fundamental shift in my existence. For centuries, I've been nothing—the clan embarrassment, the cautionary tale told to hatchlings about the importance of control. Now, suddenly, I may be essential to the very survival of my kind.
The irony would be amusing if it weren't so terrifying.
What if I fail? What if my unstable flame, my lack of control, my fundamental brokenness ruins the Tempest Bond as I've ruined everything else in my life? What if I harm her—harm Phoenix—with my volatile power?
For the first time in my life, purpose fills me. Not just the driving need to claim the female whose scent still clings to my skin, but something larger—a role in events that will change dragonkind forever.
The Tempest Bond doesn't just connect two individuals; according to legend, it harnesses electrical energy and fire to help restore protective barriers around dragon territories thathave been failing for generations. It combines volatile flame—my curse—with storm energy to create something neither could achieve alone.
Balance. Control. Purpose.
Everything I've been denied. Everything I've been told I can never have.
For the first time in my adult years, I'm going to the Emberhold sanctuary. And I'm taking with me the one thing they never believed I could have—a mate. A bonded female. Living proof that I'm not as defective as they always claimed.
A feral grin spreads across my face, fangs fully visible. Let them see what the outcast has become. Let them witness the power of the Tempest Bond awakening in the dragon they deemed too unstable to matter.
But first, I need to find her. Need to convince a human female who doesn't even know what she is to come with me to a sanctuary full of dragons who will see her as nothing but a means to an end.
I catch myself rubbing my neck against the doorframe as I prepare to leave—an unconscious territorial marking gesture I haven't made since adolescence. My specialized scent glands leave an invisible but potent marker that any dragon would recognize as a warning to stay away.
Phoenix Ward. Captain. Firefighter. Human with dormant dragon blood. My destined mate.
She didn't try to calm my storm—she channeled it, directed it, harnessed what others had only tried to suppress.
And perhaps, in her, I've found what I've sought for centuries—not the absence of the tempest, but its purpose.
THREE
