The fire inside me will not rest.
It coils through my veins with an unfamiliar rhythm now—no longer a raging inferno, but something watchful. Something… waiting.
Sleep abandons me long before dawn.
I sit upright in the quiet of Zane’s chamber, one hand pressed to my sternum as a dull ache pulses beneath my skin. The First Flame stirs like a living heartbeat inside me, shifting in a way I don’t recognize.
Wrong.
Different.
Zane senses it instantly.
He is awake beside me before I can breathe his name, flame-light glimmering faintly in his eyes as he scans my face with predatory focus.
“What hurts?” he demands softly.
“I don’t know,” I whisper. “It’s not pain. It’s… pressure.”
His hand settles against my stomach unconsciously, protective without thought.
The bond flares.
And for o
