“I can bind them, but I’ve never tried with so many before. My spell will hold, but I can’t guarantee more than a few minutes.”

I nodded. “It should be enough.” I turned to Christian. “I need the rest of you to go for backup. Tell them we’ve encountered a hive.” Christian was shaking his head at me. He didn’t like this idea. We usually stuck together in battle. It was an old habit.

“You’ll be back in five minutes. Trust me, please.” The thirteen soldiers who had taken to following us, obeyed. Christian followed them reluctantly, shooting glares back at me as he did. I would be getting hell for this later, I knew.

Gretchen began her ritual at the door of the deceptively small, windowless building. It was cinder block. There was no fuel to burn inside. Unless, of course, you counted the bodies.

I worked about five feet away, hand on the gray stone wall. I was no fire sorcerer. I didn’t need to call the fire down from above or below. The fire was inside of me. I merely had to unleash it. It was even somewhat of a relief to unleash some of the furious inferno that resided inside of me. I pushed it out with less effort than I expected. It pushed through the walls and to the creatures within almost too easily. And once there, it blew out like a silent explosion to engulf the creatures inside, too quickly to track. It felt good to release the fire I kept so tightly reigned most of the time. I didn’t hold back a bit of it, because for once I didn’t have to. I felt the fire leave me, but it was my fire, so I also felt what it did, touching one flesh-eater after another as it engulfed the hive.

The sounds that escaped from the building were tortured and wretched. Anguished screams filled the air. I pushed the fire inside the building, burning. Burning them all where they stood. I stood braced against the building by one arm, my being centered on the destruction inside. For long minutes I stood that way, mercilessly trapping them in that all consuming inferno.

The building’s flat roof suddenly burst into the air. It seemed to fly up and disappear. In fact, it disintegrated. A light rain of ash that peppered the battleground was all that remained of it. It was only seconds before necro hands began to emerge through the top of the building. They were making short work of climbing out.

In a flash I was hovering above them. Against my will, I had become flame personified. I looked down at my now glowing body. My power was shifting me against my will. Already I felt wings of flame unfurl from my shoulders. I halted the shift, but seemed unable to reverse the damage already done. I hung suspended in that in-between form, arms spread, back arched.

The climbing Necros froze at the sight of me. I shifted my gaze to them, and they began to scatter back into the building in terror. “Burn,” I tried to tell them, but my in-between mouth would not form human words. I breathed fire down on them in a tidal wave, and they burned.

Within minutes all that remained of the building was a great gaping hole in the ground. I drifted gently down to the earth, kneeling slowly to touch the ground. That touch was all I needed to ground myself. I shifted slowly back to human form, my clothes now singed and tattered. Well, that was new, and I wasn’t even winded. There was definitely something very wrong with my powers. I had never lost control like that before.

It was a moment before I noticed the crowd of fighters that stood frozen around me, mouths agape. I cringed as I realized the revealing show I’d just given them. It was then that I noticed Christian standing only a few feet away, Dragonsbane unsheathed into a double blade in his trembling hands. He was shaking his head back and forth as dawning terror lit his face.

 “Jillian.” Christian’s voice sounded panicked. “Tell me I’m wrong.” Dragonsbane had unfurled into a bigger blade than I’d ever seen in his hands. Every fighter watching backed far away from him to stay out of it’s reach.

“You’re wrong,” I told him calmly. I had been lying for so very many years that I was more than good at it. I didn’t just know how to lie, I knew the perfect timing of a lie, knew how to inflect my voice with just the right conviction. I was still hopeful I could talk my way out of this one. Apparently I had an unexpected optimistic streak. Who’d of thunk it?

“How come I don’t believe you?” His voice broke.

“Nothing’s changed, Christian. You’re still a brother to me. What I am has nothing to do with-”

“Don’t you get it?” He was shouting now. “It doesn’t matter how I feel about you! My instinct is far stronger than my will. How could you? How could you be this abomination for all this time and I not see it?” Tears ran down his face, but he raised Dragonsbane to me threateningly.

I shook my head at him. He was my brother. He was one of a small handful of people I had ever allowed myself to get close to over the course of my wretched life. My strongest instinct had always been one of survival, but I didn’t think I could bring myself to fight the brother that my heart had chosen, not even for my life. “I won’t fight you. I love you, Christian. Nature won’t dictate my actions. It doesn’t have to dictate yours.”

“My line was created to destroy yours, when your kind descended into madness. It is my sole purpose for being.”

“I haven’t gone mad. You know that. Lynn is perfectly sane, as well. I agree that many of the dragons have gone mad. Most of them have, in fact. Those ones do need to be put down. But not me, Christian. Nothing about me has changed.”

His eyes were wild. “I was always taught that enchantment was your strongest power over the slayers. My father told me not to engage your kind in conversation. ‘They will try to deceive you, Son, into thinking they are benign creatures. In this way, they can take your soul before they take your head.’ But I couldn’t have dreamed…I never imagined….”