Page 58 of Claimed By Flame

No. Itwantedhim.

He fought, bucked, snarled. But his strength was slipping, his Stormfire faltering like a dying star. He needed time. He needed her.

The Hollow wasn’t just attacking his body.

It was trying toreplace him.

It might have.

If she hadn’t screamed his name.

“Cassian!” Seraphine’s voice cracked the haze like thunder.

Whitefire ripped across the chamber—blinding, roaring, holy.

The Hollowborn shrieked as her flame engulfed it. It didn’t burn the way fire should. Itunmade.The creature turned to ash on top of him, disintegrating into nothing.

Cassian gasped as air slammed back into his lungs. He rolled over, coughing, shaking, staring up at her.

Seraphine stood over him, armor scorched, hair wild, eyes alight with fury and fear.

“You stupid, reckless son of a—” She dropped to her knees, hands trembling as they hovered above his chest. “Let me—let me fix it?—”

“No. Don’t?—”

But her hands were already glowing.

“Shut up.”

Whitefire burned into him, clean and cruel. He screamed. Again. The second time it wasn’t any easier.

Darkness claimed him.

He woketo the smell of smoke and iron and her.

Cassian blinked up at a cracked ceiling, the glow of the fifth shard hovering nearby, pulsing like a heartbeat. His own chest ached, ribs knitted with heat and magic. He tried to sit.

A firm hand shoved him back down.

“Idiot,” Seraphine muttered, sitting beside him. “You could’ve died.”

“Wouldn’t be the first time,” he rasped.

She didn’t laugh. Just looked at him like she wanted to both strangle and kiss him.

He turned his head, gaze finding the shard. “We got it?”

She nodded. “Barely.”

He exhaled. “Good.”

They sat in silence for a long minute.

She then said, “I saw you, you know.”

He frowned. “What?”

“Before I reached you. You hesitated. You looked at that thing and didn’t move.”

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