Chapter 4
Elara's POV
Okay. Okay, think. This might be the one. This might be the one where the luck finally doesn't—
A shadow slid across the sun.
I looked up. One cloud. Small. Grey. Moving fast — way too fast for a windless day. Like it had somewhere to be.
It parked itself directly over the square.
And opened up.
Not drizzle. Not a shower. A wall of water — sudden, vertical, absolute. The kind of rain that doesn't build. It just arrives.
The fire hissed. Sputtered. Died.
Steam rose off the woodpile in thick white clouds, and I hung there on the post, soaked, coughing, blinking rain out of my eyes.
Oh, come on.
The crowd went dead silent. A thousand people staring at the sky, then at me, then at the sky again.
Malachi's torch was out. He was holding a wet stick.
"That..." I coughed, spat out smoke. "That was dramatic."
Seraphina's smile had curdled. She stared at the smoking woodpile, at the rain hammering the cobblestones, at me — dripping, alive, tied to a post like a half-drowned cat.
"You," she said quietly.
"Me," I agreed.
"You did this."
"I'm tied to a pole." I rattled the chains. "When exactly did I do a rain dance?"
Her jaw clenched so hard I heard her teeth click. "You think this saves you? You think a little rain—"
"I mean, it literally just saved me. That's what happened. We all watched it happen."
"Shut up."
"You're the one talking to me—"
"I said SHUT UP!" She spun toward Malachi. "Why are you just standing there? Light it again!"
Malachi looked at his wet torch. Then at the sky. "The wood is soaked, Your Grace. It won't—"
"Then use magic." She grabbed his collar. "You have fifty mages on payroll. Get them out here. Barrier over the pyre. Keep the rain out. Light it again."
Malachi hesitated.
"NOW!"
He waved his staff. Barked orders. Within minutes, a dozen temple mages formed a ring around the pyre, hands raised, chanting in unison. A shimmering dome flickered into existence over the woodpile — translucent, faintly gold. Rain hammered against it and slid off like glass.
Dry inside.
Oh no.
Seraphina walked up to me. Close. Rain streaming down her face, but she was smiling again.
"Let's see your luck get through that," she said.
A mage stepped forward with a fresh torch. The flame caught. The wood was still damp, but it was starting to smoke.
Okay. Okay, this is bad. This is actually bad.
"Burn the witch!" someone in the crowd shouted, and then others picked it up.
"Burn the witch! Burn the witch!"
The fire took.
Slower this time — wet wood, reluctant flame — but it was climbing. Smoke filled the inside of the barrier and I couldn't breathe. Couldn't see.
Where's the lucky break? Where's the butter? The shoelace? The coin in the gutter?
Nothing.
The heat hit my ankles and I hissed through my teeth.
Goodbye, gold. Goodbye, garlic soup. Goodbye, the life of a rich woman I never actually got to live.
I hadn't even kissed anybody. I hadn't even spent my salary. I was going to die a virgin with an empty bank account and my last meal was griffin blood.
My luck is broken. It crashed. It needs a reboot and there's no reboot coming—
"BURN! BURN! BURN!"
The crowd was screaming. Malachi had his arms raised. Seraphina was watching me with the kind of satisfaction that belongs in a locked ward.
This is it. This is actually—
My vision went white. Then nothing.
Kael's POV.
A thousand miles east. The border.
Blood soaked the dirt. I stood with one boot on the rebel commander's chest, greatsword dripping black.
The battlefield was quiet. The kind of quiet that happens when every living thing in a half-mile radius has decided it would rather not be noticed.
"Talk." I pressed down. "Who paid you to move now? This timing isn't yours."
The commander laughed. Bloody. Broken.
"You think this was about the border?" He grinned through shattered teeth. "We're the distraction, Your Majesty. We kept you here. That's all we had to do."
My grip tightened on the sword.
"The High Priest set the whole thing up," he said. "The drought. The mob. All of it. By now your little broodmare is burning on a pyre in the capital square."
Everything stopped.
Not anger. Anger was too small for what moved through me.
"She should be ash by now," he whispered. "You'll never have your heir. Your berserker curse will eat you alive. And the empire—"
The sword came down. The talking stopped.
I stood there. Half a second. Maybe less.
Elara.
Not the heir. Not the contract. Not the curse.
Her face. That specific face. The one that scrunched up when she smelled something bad. The one that went flat and unimpressed when I threatened her. The one that lit up — genuinely lit up — over a bowl of garlic soup.
She'd been in my head for weeks. I'd told myself it was the contract. The bloodline. Necessity.
I'd been lying.
She is my mate.
The word hit like a hammer to the chest. Not a thought. A fact. Something my wolf had known from the first second in the throne room, and I'd been too stubborn, too blind, too stupid to hear it.
She is my mate and she is burning.
My generals were kneeling. One of them opened his mouth. "Your Majesty, the eastern line still needs—"
"Shut up."
My eyes went red. I could feel it — the heat behind the pupils, the shift starting in my bones.
"If she's dead," I said, "I will level the capital to the foundations."
My armor tore. My bones cracked and reformed. In the space of a breath I wasn't a man anymore — black-furred, red-eyed, larger than anything that should exist. The wolf didn't ask permission. It just took.
I launched.
The ground cratered. The air split. The horizon blurred. I was moving so fast the sonic boom flattened tents a mile behind me.
Hold on. Hold on, Elara. Just hold on—
The capital appeared on the horizon. Then the square. Then the smoke.
I saw it before I landed.
The pyre. The golden dome of the barrier. And inside it — fire. Not smoldering. Not dying. A column of flame so tall it lit the underside of the rain clouds orange.
No figure at the center. Just fire.
I hit the square like a falling star. Cobblestones cracked. The barrier shattered like glass. Bodies tumbled across the wet stone.
None of it mattered.
The fire had swallowed the post whole. Flames roared upward, white-hot at the core, so bright they burned the rain to steam before it could fall.
Damn it ! I couldn't see her!
The blaze reflected in my eyes — red on red — and the sound that tore out of my throat wasn't a howl.
It was something worse.
Did I make it in time?
