Taming the Beast: 12. Ash and Silence

The fire was still eating at the sky when they staggered out of the warehouse. Smoke curled upward in black ribbons, carrying the acrid tang of charred steel and blood. Sirens wailed in the distance—too far to matter, too late to save.

Elodie’s lungs burned as if she’d swallowed the flames themselves. Her knees buckled on the cracked pavement, palms scraping concrete. Ciaran didn’t falter. He just stood above her, a looming shadow, chest heaving, face unreadable behind the half-mask streaked with soot.

“Get up,” he said, voice hoarse.

Her body obeyed before her mind did. Rage steadied her trembling legs. “That’s it? No explanation? No—” She bit down hard, tasting iron. “No truth?”

His head turned, the mask glinting under the ruined glow of firelight. “Now’s not the time.”

“Then when?” she snapped, her voice slicing through the night. “When we’re buried under another one of Rourke’s games? When you’ve killed another dozen men in front of me? You think I