crown of flames

Chapter 28 – Scarlet's POV

When I woke up, the world was black.

Not the comfortable, lights-out kind of black. Not the I'll-open-my-eyes-in-a-second-and-see-again kind of black.

This was heavier. Denser. A void that didn't wait for permission.

My lungs filled too fast, like they were trying to drink the dark instead of air. My fingers twitched against fabric—soft sheets, cool against my skin. The faint hum of the HVAC told me I wasn't outside anymore. And the air smelled like cedar, iron, and… wolves.

The suite.

Not dead yet.

Points for me.

I didn't move at first. Every muscle ached like I'd been thrown into a wall, folded, and stomped back open. Which, considering Damian's training session from hell, wasn't exactly wrong.

My ribs pulsed. My skin felt raw in places I didn't even know had nerves. And under all that, this deep, simmering ache in my bones, like they were still trying to put themselves back together after almost wolfing out.

Then—

"Finally awake, princess? Took you long enough."

I flinched. My hands curled tight in the sheets. The voice wasn't in the room. It wasn't even real. Not in the way sound usually is.

It was inside. Smooth. Sharp. Like silk sliding over glass.

"Syraen…" My throat scraped the name out like it had claws.

"Who else? Thought you'd be dead by now, honestly. Props for surviving, though."

"Where—where have you been?" My voice cracked. Stupid. Weak.

"Watching. Waiting. Wondering when you'd stop acting like you've got time to burn. Spoiler alert: you don't."

My jaw clenched. "You sound… different."

"Oh? You mean hotter? Scarier? Both are correct."

Despite myself, I huffed out something between a laugh and a sob. "Why do you sound like a—" I swallowed hard. "Like a baddie now?"

"Because I can do both, babe. Mystical guardian dragon AND certified bad bitch. It's called range."

If I wasn't drowning in panic, I'd roll my eyes. "You're impossible."

"And you're out of time."

That sob turned real, punching through my chest. "What do you mean?"

Her tone flipped, sharp now, slicing through my head like a blade.

"You've got until the full moon. Get your Sight back, or kiss it goodbye forever."

The air vanished from my lungs. Full moon. That was what—days? Hours? I couldn't even track time anymore.

"How?" My voice came out small. Too small for what she just dropped on me.

Syraen's reply curled low and slow like smoke:

"You find a scale. My scale. Hidden in the catacombs under this shiny little academy. Haunted, cursed, crawling with things that want your heart on a plate. Oh—and you can't tell anyone. No backup. No boy-band bodyguards. Solo mission, darling."

I froze. "Alone?"

"Yup. Because prophecy rules, blah blah blah. Fail, and it's permanent lights out. Hope you like darkness."

My hands shook. My breath came too fast. "I can't even see! How the hell am I supposed to—"

"Listen. Feel. Stop doubting, Scarlet. Doubt will kill you faster than claws. You've got instincts—use them. Trust yourself, or you're dead."

Her voice softened for a beat. Almost tender.

"You're more than this weakness. Prove it."

Then—silence.

And just like that, the weight crashed in.

I tried to sit up. Failed. My body wasn't having it. My head dropped forward, and before I could stop it, the tears came. Hot. Relentless. Sliding down my face like they'd been waiting all day for this exit.

I hated it. Hated the sound of my own broken breath, the way my chest hitched like a kid's.

I didn't hear the footsteps until the mattress dipped.

"Wow," a voice drawled, dark and lazy, dripping with something sharp enough to cut skin. "Didn't peg you for the dramatic breakdown type."

I froze. My whole body locked.

Dexter.

He was close. Too close. His heat rolled off him like a living shadow, brushing my arm, crawling down my spine.

I jerked back instinctively, baring teeth I didn't even mean to show. A low sound ripped from my throat—half snarl, half warning. Ferality, raw and unpolished, cracked through me like lightning.

"Relax, Red." His chuckle was soft, almost sweet—except it wasn't sweet at all. It was the kind of sound that promised knives. "If I wanted you dead, you wouldn't be breathing right now."

I hated the shiver that climbed up my arms.

"What do you want?" My voice wasn't steady. I hated that too.

He didn't answer at first. Just leaned in, close enough that I felt his breath skate against my ear, warm and dark.

"If I were you," he murmured, "I'd work on not smelling like fear."

My fingers curled tighter in the sheets. "I'm not afraid of you."

"Oh, Red." His laugh was low, sharp, cruel and amused all at once. "You should be."

I swallowed hard. "Go to hell."

"Been there," he said lightly. "Didn't like the view."

Then something in his tone shifted—silk over steel. "Tell me something, though…"

His finger brushed the edge of the blanket, lazy, like he had all the time in the world. "…Who's Drizella?"

The name hit like a blade in my gut. My breath stuttered. "What?"

"You whispered it," he said softly. "In your sleep. Twice. Sweet little secret, huh? Or…" His voice dipped, low enough to make my pulse trip. "…is it a weakness?"

Heat crawled up my neck. I opened my mouth—then froze.

Because that's when Syraen slid back in, voice smug and sugar-slick.

"Ooooh, he heard that? Cute. Tell him it means you can jack his magic now. Share his Sight like a Netflix password. Surprise, babe—you're soul-synced."

My brain flatlined. My mouth did too.

Dexter tilted his head, waiting. Shadows curled lazily around his boots, like they knew a secret.

"Nothing to say?" His smile cut like broken glass. "Didn't think so."

And then—he stood. Just like that. No goodbye. No comfort. Just left me drowning in the dark, my tears drying slow, Syraen humming in my skull like a devil with lip gloss.

Dexter's POV

I shut the door before I did something stupid.

Like wrap those shaking little hands of hers around my throat just to see if she'd scratch deep enough to matter.

Or kiss her until she forgot how to breathe.

Or rip every damn secret out of her skull and lay it bare between us like blood on the floor.

Instead, I walked. Slow. Silent. Each step tasting like restraint—and God, how I hate restraint.

The hallway stretched out ahead of me like a blade—long, sharp, humming with that neon-bright academy buzz. But it didn't touch me. Nothing did. Not the sound of kids laughing down the west wing. Not the screens flickering house points overhead. Not the whispering ghosts of rules taped to glass doors.

All I saw was her.

Scarlet.

Half-feral in my shadow, pretending she wasn't breaking apart under the weight of that prophecy she won't say out loud. The way her voice cracked like splintered glass, even while her teeth were out. The way she shook, but still tried to spit fire through the tremor.

And that smell—

Not perfume. Not sweat. Something older. Wilder. A storm bottled in skin.

It crawled under mine like ink.

I wanted to laugh. I wanted to tear this whole pristine school apart for daring to put her in it. Like it could contain her. Like any of this mattered when something bigger was clawing its way through her veins.

I didn't even notice my hands until I looked down and saw the shadows curling out from my fingers—thick, restless, licking up my wrists like black smoke.

Calm down.

Not happening.

Because there was one word still rattling in my skull, loud enough to drown the rest.

Drizella.

She whispered it like it belonged to her bones. Like it wasn't a name at all, but a spell. A bond.

And then that dragon voice in her head—yeah, I heard that too. Thought I didn't, princess? Cute.

So now I know the truth.

That little alleyway scene everyone pretends didn't happen? The one where she let that gray-haired temptress put her mouth all over prophecy incarnate? It wasn't just a fling. It wasn't rebellion for kicks. It was magic. A trigger. A tie that loops straight to me.

Power-sharing, the voice said. Which means every time Scarlet breathes too hard, I feel it. Every time she cracks, I'm in the quake line. And if she learns to tap into it…

God help the world.

Not because she'll destroy it.

Because I might let her.

Hell, I might help.

By the time I hit the corner leading to the Den, my pulse was a bass drum in my ears. My shadow had grown bold, spilling down the walls like oil, swallowing the light as I passed. Kids scattered without looking. Smart move.

The door loomed ahead—steel, carved with runes no one but me can read. The Den: my sanctuary, my sin, my everything.

I pushed it open—

And froze.

Not because of what was there.

Because of what wasn't.

The room was empty, but my head wasn't.

Because the second my boots crossed that threshold, the Sight hit. Hard.

Not a vision. A gut punch dressed in blood and teeth.

Scarlet—on the floor. Bleeding. Breath ragged, ribs caved in like paper. Damian standing over her, fists dripping red.

Her voice—hoarse, broken—spitting his name like a curse even as her claws scraped the ground. Eyes burning molten, glowing like a storm about to rip the world apart.

Then white static. Heat. Darkness.

Gone.

I slammed back into myself with my pulse clawing at my throat, shadows writhing like snakes around my boots.

I dragged in a breath.

Slow.

Dangerous.

So Damian wanted to play war games? Wanted to break her bones and call it training?

Cute.

Let him sleep with both eyes open.

Because the next time I smell her blood on him—

No.

The next time I even think I smell it—

He won't wake up at all.

I shut the door behind me, sealing the dark in.

And for the first time in years, I smiled.

Not the pretty kind.

The kind that promised ruin.

Dexter's pov

The vision was still burning behind my eyes when I found him.

Damian.

Standing there like he hadn't just painted the floor with her blood hours ago. Like he hadn't left her ribs snapping under his fists for "training."

He was in the lounge, shirt off, towel slung around his neck like the cocky bastard he is. Laughing with Draven and Devon over something I didn't care about. Didn't even hear.

Because all I saw was red.

Scarlet red.

Blood red.

Her blood.

The walls pulsed with my heartbeat as I stepped in. Shadows uncoiled from my boots, sliding across the marble like living ink. The air shifted. Tightened. Devon froze first. Draven's jaw ticked. Damian just smirked, slow and sharp, like he could smell the storm coming and wanted it anyway.

"Dex," he drawled, voice dripping arrogance. "You look—"

I didn't let him finish.

One flick of my fingers and the shadow snapped. Black tendrils lashed up his legs, his torso, his throat—slamming him back against the glass wall so hard it cracked.

The smirk died fast.

"Try finishing that sentence," I said softly. Deadly soft. "Please. Give me a reason to break your jaw before breakfast."

Damian growled, struggling against the shadows choking his air. "What the hell—"

"You know what the hell," I hissed, stepping closer. The light in the room bent away from me now, curling into the dark like even physics was scared to play.

"You think sparring means shattering her spine? You think blind and bleeding is a good look on her?" My voice dropped lower, until the words cut like razors. "You think you're allowed to touch her like that again?"

His lip curled, but he didn't answer. Not with words. His claws punched out instead—black, hooked, slicing through the shadows on his wrists. Blood spattered. He didn't flinch.

Good. I wanted him to fight.

I sent the dark back at him harder, slamming him against the wall again, pinning his arms wide like a crucifix of shadows. Glass cracked louder. The whole suite shook.

Devon moved forward. Draven didn't. Smart man.

"Dexter," Devon started carefully. "Let him breathe."

I didn't even look at him. "He can breathe when he learns what silence tastes like."

Damian's eyes burned molten gold, teeth flashing. "You gonna kill me over her? That it?" His voice was hoarse under the pressure on his throat. "All this because she couldn't keep up?"

I smiled then. Slow. Sharp enough to bleed.

"No, Damian." I leaned in until my mouth was right by his ear. "All this because you forgot what happens when you touch what's mine."

His snarl was almost pretty.

"Newsflash," he rasped. "She's not yours."

I laughed. Actually laughed. Low and cold enough to make Devon swear under his breath.

"Maybe not," I whispered. "But she's sure as hell not yours either. And if you want to live long enough to finish that thought next time—stay. The hell. Away."

The shadows loosened just enough for him to drop to his knees, coughing hard, blood on his lip. I let him taste it. Let him remember it.

Then I crouched, fingers curling under his jaw, forcing his eyes up to mine. "Listen close, wolf-boy, because I'm only saying this once." My voice was silk and poison. "She has a quest. She has until the full moon to finish it. Alone. No babysitters. No cheats. No goddamn hero complex from you or anyone else. You interfere?"

I tightened my grip, let the shadows bite deep into his skin like barbed wire. He gritted his teeth, muscles straining, veins bulging under my hold.

"You interfere," I said again, slow as a death sentence, "and I don't just kill you. I make sure no one finds the pieces."

Silence. Heavy. Absolute.

Finally, Damian spat blood at my boots and smirked through it. "You talk big for someone hiding behind smoke."

My grin widened. "Funny. Last I checked, smoke just choked you out without breaking a sweat."

Then I let him go.

The shadows snapped back into my skin like serpents retreating, leaving the room colder than ice. Damian hit the floor on his knees, gasping, chest heaving.

I stood, turned to the others, and smiled like nothing happened. "Clear enough for everyone? Good. Then get the hell out of my way."

And as I walked out, the only thing louder than Damian's ragged breathing was the thought tearing through my skull like claws:

Scarlet.

Scarlet.

Scarlet.