Total pages in book: 99
Estimated words: 93267 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 466(@200wpm)___ 373(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93267 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 466(@200wpm)___ 373(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
Black smoke poured from every window of the five-story apartment building, filling the sky and turning the afternoon to twilight. Gregori’s heart clenched at all the lives being destroyed, the families who were now going to be homeless. He stood beside the fire chief as she shouted orders at her team. The street was filled with trucks and hoses pumping gallons of water into the building with little evidence of it making any difference. The smoke burned his nose and the mist of water hanging in the air kissed his cheeks.
She had called him to the blaze not more than five minutes ago.
“What’s the situation?” he demanded when the fire chief took a breath.
“Chemical fire at the start of things. Landlord had a construction company in doing renovations on the third floor. Possibly a stray spark set things off. We’ve gotten everyone out from the first and second floors. Third was empty. I’ve got firefighters still checking the top two floors. We’re also struggling to bring this fire under control.”
Gregori nodded. That meant the entire structure was in danger of collapsing. There was no way it could hold his weight as a dragon. He would need to remain in his human form to tackle this.
“Where do you want me? Putting out fires or focusing on saving people?” he asked. This was her specialty. He was more than willing to follow her command to make sure the firefighters and the residents got out safely.
“Put out as much of the fire as possible. Then my people can focus on getting out the tenants.”
As they spoke, another firefighter ran over and handed him a helmet and a jacket. “We’ve got a spare respirator we can loan you. It’s gonna be hard as hell to breathe in there.”
Gregori shook his head as he slipped on the jacket and helmet. “Nah. I’ll be fine. My magic allows me to breathe.”
With a smirk and a little salute to the fire chief, Gregori jogged toward the building and up the short set of four stairs to the front door. Even before he stepped inside, heat blasted his face, melting away the chill he’d experienced in the winter air. Part of him wished he had a mage with him. They had plenty of fire control spells at their disposal. Any one of them could have put this inferno out with little effort.
The linoleum tile curled from the intense heat and crackled under his feet as he quickly passed through the first floor. There were eight apartments, along with a small lobby area, and the doors to each place had been kicked in. He peeked into each apartment to check for fire, his eyes skimming over places in various states of disarray from the tenants’ daily lives. Grey smoke hung close to the ceiling, but there was no sign of flames licking away at the walls.
He circled back—moving faster after clearing the first floor—to a set of stairs at the back of the building. The smoke grew thicker, making the narrow passage almost as black as night. He pressed his hand to his face, trying to block it as much as possible until he reached the door to the second floor.
The hot metal scalded his fingers as he ripped the door open to reveal dancing orange and yellow flames. He backed up a step, shielding his face with his arms. Fire nearly consumed the second floor.
But it was nothing in the face of his ice magic.
Gregori thrust out his right hand, calling on all his powers to freeze everything in front of him.
Nothing happened.
Not even a fucking snowflake.
Oh no. This was not the time for this bullshit. It was bad enough his magic had gone wonky in front of the kids, but not now when lives were depending on him.
With a growl, he reached deeper, trying to drudge up every speck of power inside of him, but when he tried again, nothing happened.
He mentally poked his dragon. What the fuck is going on with you? There are lives at stake.
Silence was his only reply. His dragon didn’t even stir or acknowledge his words. If not for the fact he could feel his dragon, he would have almost said the creature wasn’t there at all.
Panic seized his chest, tightening muscles and sending a chill down his spine despite the insane heat. What was going on?
“Gregori?”
He heard the voice directly in his ear and jerked around. There was someone coming up the stairs behind him in full gear.
“Is there a problem?”
The voice was coming from the man approaching but sounded closer. It took him far too long to realize the helmet he was wearing was set up with a walkie-talkie system so the firefighters could speak to each other while still wearing the mask and respirator.
Gregori forced a smile and gave the man a thumbs-up, even though he wasn’t feeling it.