Page 71 of Forged in Fire
“You’re also my mate, goddammit!” he snaps. “How am I supposed to protect you if you don’t do as I tell you?”
“Do as you tell me?” she scoffs, setting her hand on her hip and waving a finger at him. “First off, buddy, you don’t get to tell me what to do! And secondly, I can damn well take care of myself!” She jabs him in the chest. He looks down at it and, for a moment, I don’t know if he wants to shake her or kiss her.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.” I step between them, my patience finally snapping. “Are we seriously doing this right now? Having a lovers’ quarrel while Riven is bleeding out in some Romanian monastery?”
Both of them turn to stare at me, but I’m not done.
“You want to fight? Fine. Fight about something that matters. Like the fact that we left a man behind to save my ungrateful ass. Fight about the fact that my brother is apparently some kind of magical weapon to raise the dead, and instead of rescuing him, we’re sitting here having committee meetings.”
Viktor tries to regain control. “If we could return to the matter at hand—”
“No!” Caleb rounds on him. “The matter at hand is that my mate could have been killed because no one thought to inform me of this operation!”
“It was time-sensitive,” Elena shoots back. “By the time we went through proper channels, Iris could have been dead or captured!”
“And now we have an international incident on our hands!”
“Enough!” My shadows explode outward, darkness filling every corner of the room. The arguing stops as everyone turns to stare at me. “This is exactly why I work alone. This is exactly why I can’t stand working with organizations.”
Viktor steps forward carefully. “Iris, we understand you’re frustrated, but if you’d just listen—”
“Listen to what? More half-truths? More strategic discussions about my life while the people I care about suffer?” I back toward the door, my shadows swirling around me like a living storm. “I trusted you people to help me save Kieran. I trusted Elena to help me save Riven. And what do I have to show for it? One brother still missing, one good man probably dead, and a room full of politicians arguing about jurisdiction.”
“That’s not fair,” Elena says, hurt flashing in her gray eyes.
“Isn’t it?” I reach the doorway and turn back to face them all. “You want to know what I think? I think you’re all so caught up in your grand strategies and ancient bloodlines and fucking magic theories that you’ve forgotten we’re talking about actual people with actual lives.”
“Iris, wait—” Viktor starts.
“No. I’m done waiting. I’m done with committees and protocols and being treated like a chess piece.” My voice drops to something deadly calm. “Find me when you have real answers. Not theories. Not political maneuvering. Answers.”
I turn and walk out, leaving them to their arguments and their strategies and their grand plans that always seem to involve everyone except the people who actually need saving.
Behind me, I hear Caleb’s voice rise again: “This is what happens when we act without proper coordination—”
I don’t stay to hear the rest. I’ve heard enough.
Chapter 21
Riven
Pain is a language I speak fluently.
The Guild made sure of that during my early training—taught me to treat injury like inventory, assess damage without emotion, function through trauma that would leave most people catatonic. Useful skills when your profession involves getting shot at, stabbed, and occasionally thrown through windows.
Less useful when those same skills keep you conscious through systematic torture.
My left shoulder throbs where they dislocated it—twice. Blood crusts my split lip, the taste of iron coating my tongue. The restraints holding me upright bite into my wrists, dragon-forged steel that hums with containment magic. Professional-grade bondage designed to hold supernatural strength.
They know what they’re dealing with.
I hang suspended between two steel posts in what Guild terminology calls a “conditioning chamber.” Clinical name for atorture room. White walls, surgical lighting, drain in the center of the concrete floor. No windows. No clocks. No way to mark time except by the rhythm of my own breathing.
I’ve been here long enough that the adrenaline’s faded. Long enough for my dragon fire to bank to coals instead of flame. Long enough to think past the immediate pain and start calculating.
Escape options: minimal. The restraints respond to magical pressure by tightening. The door requires biometric authorization from the other side. No tools, no weapons, no allies within reach.
Tactical assessment: I’m fucked.
