The prince reaches Roxy before I can close the distance. His hand shoots out, and iron chains materialize from thin air, wrapping around her wrists and throat with cruel efficiency. The same kind of chains I used on her when she first arrived. The ones that burned her skin and left scars that took days to heal.
Roxy screams, magic exploding outward in an uncontrolled burst that shatters what is left of nearby windows and sends fae warriors flying. But the iron dampens her power, draining it away even as she fights.
“No!” The word rips from my throat as I launch myself forward.
The prince raises his free hand, and reality twists. A portal opens behind him, swirling with colors that hurt to look at, showing glimpses of a fortress made from moonlight. He drags Roxy backward toward the opening, her feet scrabbling for purchase on stone slick with blood.
“Raze!” she shouts, magic still crackling weakly around her trapped hands, fighting despite the iron burning into her skin.
I transform fully, human form abandoned in an explosion of scales, wings, and rage. Fire pours from my jaws in a concentrated beam hot enough to melt stone, aimed directly at the prince.
He simply steps sideways, reality bending around him, and my fire blast incinerates three of his own warriors instead. Their screams cut off instantly as they transform into ash.
The prince doesn’t even glance at them.
“The witch’s daughter isminenow, dragon,” he chimes, his voice echoing with power that makes the remaining windows blow out. “Your club, your territory, your empire. All of it ends tonight.”
He steps back through the portal, dragging Roxy with him.
Our eyes meet for one endless moment, where I see her fear, rage, and absolute refusal to break even now. I see her mouth form my name one more time. And as I soar toward the portal to reach her, it snaps closed, taking her with it. The sudden absence hits like a physical blow to the chest.
The world narrows to a single point of white-hot fury that transcends fire, transcends ice, transcends anything I’ve felt in five centuries of cursed existence. Every scale on my body ignites simultaneously, fire and frost warring for dominance before merging into something new, something that shouldn’t exist but does because I will it to.
My roar shakes the clubhouse to its foundations, stone cracking, metal warping from sheer proximity to the infernoof my rage. The remaining fae warriors scatter, their assault breaking as primal fear overrides training and duty. They flee into the forest, leaving their dead behind, and I let them go because killing them won’t bring Roxy back.
I transform back into my human form, landing in the middle of the clubhouse, panting frantically for breath, smoke streaming out of my nostrils and ice crackling up my forearms as I try to reconcile the fact that I have lost her.
Behind me, Scar finally tears free of his magical prison, flesh smoking and charred, his vampire healing already working to repair the damage. He stumbles forward, red eyes blazing with fury that matches my own, fangs bared in a snarl that belongs to something that has killed kings and toppled empires. He looks at the brothers, scattered throughout the clubhouse, bloodied but unbroken, standing among the carnage we created together.
The brothers straighten, injuries forgotten, exhaustion pushed aside in favor of the fury that comes from having family stolen. Wreck’s hollow eyes burn with hunger for fae fear. Coil’s serpentine hiss fills the silence with menace. Maul’s werewolf form doesn’t shift back to human because there’s no need for civilization anymore. Flux cycles through forms, settling on something with claws and too many teeth. Thorn bleeds sap but stands tall, the forest’s rage flowing through him. Ruckus stops grinning, and somehow that’s more terrifying than anything else. Rhett’s shadows writhe with barely contained hellfire. Bennett’s wings spread wide, divine light turning hard and merciless. Ivy’s gentle nature transforms into something ancient and cruel. Ash’s flames burn hotter than stars, and Luna’s eyes reflect depths that drown worlds.
They all look at me.
Waiting.
I don’t make them wait long.
“Gear up,” I growl, my voice still carrying draconic harmonics that make the air vibrate. “Full armament. Every weapon we have. Every advantage we can manufacture.” My gaze sweeps across them, finding each face, each brother, each warrior who’s fought beside me through centuries of blood and fire. “They took Roxy because they thought we’d hesitate. They thought the rules still mattered. They thought wrong…” I pause but continue, “We find her… we bring her home…tonight, we ride to war,” I growl, each word carrying the promise of absolute violence. The words hang in the air like a vow written in blood and fire.
I let fire and ice spiral around my form, no longer fighting for dominance but working in terrible harmony.
“Because nobody fucks with the Kings!”
The brothers offer no cheers, no shouted war cries. Just a single round of “Nobody fucks with the Kings,” before they turn as one, moving with lethal purpose toward the armory, toward their bikes, toward the violence about to consume the Seelie Court and everyone foolish enough to stand between us and what we’re reclaiming.
Scar pauses beside me, flesh still smoking from where the fae magic burned him. His hand clamps down on my shoulder, grip strong enough to crack bone if I were human. “We get her back, Prez,” he says quietly. “No matter what it costs. No matter who we have to kill. We get her back.”
“Wewillkill every last one of them,” I promise, meeting his ancient gaze with my own. “We burn their fortress to ash. We salt the earth where it stood. And we leave a warning so loud no one ever questions our patch again.”
Scar grins, all fangs and old violence. “Now you’re talking.”
He moves to join the others, and I stand alone in the center of our ruined clubhouse, surrounded by fae corpses and the lingering scent of Roxy’s magic.
The dome that held my flame for centuries stands somehow untouched in the corner, as if it has a protection spell. The fire within is now burning inside me, intense, but flickering for something more. Like it knows she’s gone.
I walk toward it, scales still rippling across my flesh, and press one clawed hand against the fractured glass. “Hold on, Firecracker,” I whisper to the empty air, to the connection that still thrums between us despite the distance and the prince’s magic. “I’m coming for you.”
I feel my flame flare brighter in response, as if it heard me.