“Foolish wolf, she only thinks with her heart and not with her brains,” Master Orion growled, voice low and coated with something older than malice...an ache, a hunger, a promise.
The chamber around them trembled like an animal about to be skinned alive. Smoke licked the rafters, and the jar on the cabinet pulsed like a trapped heartbeat, black vapor clawing at the glass from the inside.
Gaia laughed...thin, brittle, and full of venom. “You’re deluded if you think you can keep her,” she hissed. Her palms glowed; shadow coiled around her fingers like obedient serpents. “I’ll tear that thing from you, Orion. I’ll carve her spirit out and make it kneel beneath my heel.”
Orion didn’t move, just watched her with those eyes—ice and fire braided together. “You forget your place, b***h,” he sa
