Powerful brutes have always dominated my life.

And now I let one own me.

Gorion is unlike anyone I’ve met before.
He’s thoughtful and strategic. And he makes me feel wanted.

As a woman, my body has always been the only thing of mine to admire.
But Gorion shows me I have more.
I have a sharp wit to respect. And respect it he does.

He admires me. Treasures me. Protects me.

And in the end, he uses me.

Gorion claims he wants to help my magic-wielding companion and I.
In truth, he wanted us to do his dirty work.

When his plans turn against him and nearly get me killed, I learn the truth.
But will Gorion choose his treasure over my life?
Or do I have something more valuable for him to collect?
It may not be worth much, but to him, it’s everything.

It’s my love.

Chapter 1

Sarah

        “We can’t stay here,” I whisper, watching the lynch mob pound the temple doors. I’m surprised they haven’t toppled them, yet. Our time is running out. “We need to go.”

        “Where?” Uri hisses out. “We’re stuck!”

        “No, we’re not.”

      The other end of the temple descends to a passageway. Most of the temple is sinking into the swamp, so there’s a chance we can find an escape route through one of the wall’s cracks and broken walls.

        I don’t know if this plan is going to work, but it’s better than being torn apart at the hands of an angry mob.

        “Come on, we can find a way out over here.”

        “Why are you so oddly calm about this situation?” Uri asks, trying to tug her arm away from my hand as I drag her towards the staircase. “I don’t want to get you into any more trouble because of me. This is all my fault! You should leave me behind–”

        “Are you crazy?” I pull her close, cupping her fear-stricken face with my hands. We’re both covered in dirt, grime, and sweat. “I’m not leaving you. I promised Chase that I would keep you safe and I don’t intend to break that promise. My brothers put her and her orphanage through enough trouble, so this is the least I can do.”

        “They want me. I’m the one who can light fires in my mind. I’m the one who they’re after!”

        “Do you think I’m in the clear, too?” I smile, though I’m not feeling any joy right now. Behind Uri, I see the doors about to cave in. “Do you think they have any good opinions on me? After what my brothers did?”

        Uri hesitates. Her mouth opens and closes, as if searching for the right words to say. Then, she just stares at me with big eyes.

        “If that mob gets through, they’re going to kill us both. I’m sure of it. We can’t stand around and let that happen, we need to go.”

        “I-I wish we were still with Chase and Levias,” Uri whispers. I don’t notice how quickly her eyes fill with tears, but her fragile voice tugs at my heartstrings. “T-They’d be willing to help us.”

        “Yeah,” I say. “Levias would have slaughtered this whole crowd by now, but what’s the point in making more enemies? The whole world is going to end up hating us at this rate.”

        Uri furiously wipes at her eyes. “I wish we never left.”

        “There’s no point in wishing.” Three particularly strong bangs at the door make me flinch. Are these people tossing stones at the temples now? “Things are what they are and we can’t change them. Uri, uh… Can you do me a favor?”

        The girl nods. Her bottom lip quivers, so she bites at it.

        “Why don’t you use a bit of your fire magic to hold back that crowd?” I nod my head towards the doors. We have nothing to fight back with if they manage to fight through. “Shouldn’t be that hard, right?”

        “I…” Gazing at her palms, Uri sighs. “I don’t know how to control my magic yet.”

        “Just use a little bit of it. That’s all we need. Make a fire behind the doors. It’ll stop them from entering. If we’re lucky, maybe these bastards will fall into the flames.”

        Uri sucks in a deep breath and closes her eyes. “Okay.”

        Stepping aside, I keep my mouth shut and wait for her magic to work. I don’t know how she does it, but she described it before as being a release of energy in a way. It’s safe to assume that intense emotions make her magic spiral out of control.

        Red and orange sparks fly out of her hands and towards the front doors. The sparks stray towards the right, igniting the vines hanging over the entrance instead. Good enough. That should keep them at bay for a while.

        “Smoke!” A man outside starts yelling. “There’s smoke coming from the building!”

        “Let the purna burn, then!”

        The crowd shouts their agreement. Uri backs into my chest and I wrap my arms around her, embracing her tight.

        “I-I’m sorry. I tried to make the fire like you said, but–”

        “This is perfect. They won’t be able to come into the temple. You did a fine job.”

        “I’m starting to think I’m not too good at this magic stuff,” Uri admits quietly, staring at the crevices running along her hands. “I don’t understand how to use it correctly. I wanted to create flames, not sparks that light up a vine! I wanted to do the same thing I did to the guard back at the gibbon!”

        “You’ve got plenty of time to practice. Trust me.”

        I carefully maneuver myself towards the entrance, nabbing a burning branch that the fire extended to. The heat pulsates around me, unlike any other flame I’ve come across. I can’t explain it, but the fire consumes the breathable air around it at a fast rate. As I come close, I feel the fire ready to extend towards me and invade my space, eager to rob me of the air I need to breathe.

        There’s something more to Uri’s fire powers. I’m starting to think that the girl’s flames are more powerful than a natural flame. As I think back on the guard and his burning arm, it took longer than usual to douse that fire.

        No good mulling about it, now. We have to go.

        “Come on,” I say, taking Uri’s hand and leading her towards the passageway. “Someone in that crowd might try playing the hero and burst into the temple. We can’t stick around here anymore.”

        “Sarah, I…” Uri snakes away from my grasp and digs her feet into the ground. “I can’t keep getting you in trouble! Please, go! I’ll distract them while you make an escape!”

        “No. That’s not going to happen.”

        Linking my fingers with hers, I hold on tight until my knuckles turn white. Uri tries fighting me off, but she can’t match the strength I have right now. My blood pounds in my temples, deafening in my ears.

        “Do you want to die that badly? That’s fine. We’ll both go down together.”

        “No! That’s not what I want!” Uri exclaims. “I want to help you! I don’t want to destroy things anymore, I need to make things right!”

        “Uri.”

        The girl stills. Shaky breaths fall from her lips.

        “I’ve always admired you,” I say. It’s sincere. I’m pouring out the thoughts I’ve held in my heart for a long time. It’s curious what the taste of death will make you do. “You’re a good girl. Whenever you had the chance to stand up for your younger siblings, you did it. You took care of them, even when Chase found herself in trouble and couldn’t do the job herself. You’re stronger than you realize.”

        Uri meets my gaze. Despite the horrors she’s living through, there’s still a glimmer of innocence in her brown eyes. She’s so young, only nineteen years old with an entire life ahead of her. I’ll be damned if I let the white hot embers of her soul get extinguished this early on.

        “It’s about time you stopped worrying so much about others and let someone else take care of you. It’s hard, I know, since you’re nineteen and you think you own the world now, but trust me. Let me help you.”

        “I-I don’t understand why you’re doing this in the first place.”

        “I need to make it up to you and Chase. I turned a blind eye to my brothers’ evil actions for too long.”

        Sometimes, I feel as if my heart is rotten to the core. How else could I explain why I stood around with my cheek turned while my brothers led our gang members to terrorize other people?

        Here’s my chance at repentance. I don’t care if Uri fights against this for a while. She’s stuck with me, from this day until my very last.

        “You weren’t the one who made others suffer. It was them,” Uri argues.

        I shake my head. “I could have stopped things long ago, but I didn’t. Our gang benefited our family and it gave us a sense of power. We dominated over people. For a while, it felt nice to see people bow down to our every whim.”

        Life is a game, a tricky one. I never would have imagined myself in a situation like this, but now that I’m here, I don’t want to change the circumstances. I deserve this.

        “It’s not good to dwell on the past,” I say, shaking off the jitters I get whenever I think back on my brothers’ atrocities. “Let’s keep moving. If we don’t find an escape route, then we can hang out for a bit and figure out another plan.”

        “Do you really think they won’t follow us in?” Uri glances over her shoulder.

        “I doubt they will.” Especially after feeling the intensity of Uri’s flames. “We’ll be alright. I won’t let anything happen to you, I promise.”

        I squeeze the girl’s hand as a comforting gesture and Uri responds with a small smile. She’s sweet. I hope nothing damages that big heart she has.

        The passageway turns out to be the beginning of a labyrinth, one that twists and turns endlessly without any obvious way out. Vines adorn the walls, seeping through any crack they come across. How long has this temple been aging away in this spot? And who built this thing in the first place?

        “...Are you sure we’re going to find a way out?” Uri’s voice echoes against the walls, as well as our hurried footsteps. “I don’t like this place.”

        “Don’t worry. I’m good at mazes.”

        I’m lying, but I don’t want to worry Uri anymore. In reality, there’s a pit forming in my stomach with every step further. I want to crawl into a ball and cry my eyes out. If Uri wasn’t around, that’s exactly what I would be doing.

        Instead, I have to hold my chin high and lead the way, even though I’m not the right person to act like a leader. I barely know what I’m doing half of the time, so what the fuck am I doing leading a teenaged kid through a temple maze?

        Calm down. I’m psyching myself out again. We’ll make it out alive. Just calm down.

        “How do we know we’re not walking in circles?” Uri asks, jolting me back into reality. “Should we make markers? In that way, we can know that we’ve already passed by a certain spot if we come across it again.”

        “...Good idea.”

        Using my burning branch, I hold it against the vines we pass. Within seconds, the vines char and shrivel into a black, gnarly appendages that extend out of the wall. The fire rips up its length, consuming it like a ravenous beast after its prey.

        “You’re a smart kid, I hope you know that.”

        “I’m doing the best I can,” Uri replies. “I think it’s my survival instinct kicking in. I don’t know. I wish I had more experience with this sort of thing.”

        “Me too.”

        “You don’t?”

        That makes me laugh. “My brothers terrorized people so that we could live off of their luxuries. I’m not used to this stuff.”

        “You’re doing a good job at faking your confidence, then.”

        My eyebrow raises. “Thanks. That’s a good thing, right?”

        “Sure.” Uri grins. “It’s comforting. Sort of.”

        “You know what would be really good to have right now?”

        “What?”

        “A huge invincible gargoyle warrior by our side to protect u.”

        Her eyes twinkle. It’s the first time I’ve heard her laugh since we got caught in this situation.

        “I can live without one,” she says.

        I scoff, rolling my eyes playfully. “Seriously? You don’t want a gargoyle boyfriend of your own to protect you from the lynch mob outside?”

        “No, thanks. I’m good on my own.”

        “Suit yourself. Let’s see if I get lucky.”