She cast a fiery barrier, but he pushed right through it, the magic dissolving against his scales. She hurled a ball of lightning at him. His head snapped out, and he swallowed her spell whole. He didn’t slow for a second. Shit.

He was almost upon her, and nothing she tried affected him in the slightest. So she went with plan B: run like hell.

She saw a small opening in the rocks ahead, a rocky cave. She sprinted toward it as fast as her legs could carry her. Water splashed and sand kicked up in every direction. Her lungs were exploding, her muscles screaming. Almost there.

The dragon snapped at her heels.

Sera evaded and slid into the cave. Heaving in hot air, she peeked through an opening in the rocks. The dragon stood stuck on the other side, his body too big to fit through the opening. He paced in front of the entrance, snorting fire. Sera stuck her tongue out at him.

Magic flared in his eyes. There was a harsh crack, then the dragon was gone, leaving the man in its place. A man who could fit through the entrance. Kai walked into the cave, fire bursting up on his hands, casting dark and devilish shadows over his face. Sera responded by showing him her magic too.

He looked at the lightning on her hands, his eyes swirling with magic. His lips curled up in appreciation. “Nice lightning.”

“Nice fire.”

They began to circle each other.

“You are hiding,” he said.

“Not hiding. A strategic retreat.”

“You need to rethink your strategy. What was stopping me from knocking this cave down on top of you?”

He had a point, not that she was going to tell him that.

She just smiled and said, “Because you don’t want to break my body.”

He looked at that body, his look slow, leisurely, as though he were drinking in every curve. “No, I don’t.” His face grew serious. “But our enemies don’t share my concern for you. They will press every advantage. You have to grow your magic, but you also have to be smart.”

As he shot fire at her, she drew up the water, putting out the flames before they reached her.

He nodded with approval. “Good.”

Then he stole her wave of water from her, sending it back at her. She grasped for control of it again, but his hold over it was ironclad. She let go of the water, reaching for wind instead. She used the magic to launch herself up in the air, pouring lightning into his wave of water. It sizzled at him, but he disconnected quickly, before it could zap him. Sera took control of the water again and sent it at him. He froze the mini tsunami into ice.

“You’re stringing spells faster now,” he said. “Your magic is coming more smoothly since you’ve linked with your dragon.”

“It doesn’t feel as unwieldy now,” she told him. “It feels natural.”

“That’s the first step. Now you just need to feed it, to make it grow.”

Rocks broke off the cave’s wall, falling onto her. She threw up a wind barrier, freezing them in the air. The rocks hung suspended for a moment, like a meteor shower of tiny slivers, then they dropped to the ground.

“You’re playing defensive,” he said. “You should have sent them back at me.”

“I’m just getting started.”

She swirled water and lightning into a crackling wave. It roared toward him. He froze this too, then punched the ice, shattering it. Sera clenched her jaw. It just wasn’t fair.

He stepped forward. “You are still reacting to me. You need to act, Sera.”

He filled the air with a dense fog, so thick she couldn’t see more than a few inches in front of her face. She tried to blow it away with wind magic, but it didn’t budge. It was stubborn, just like Kai.

She calmed herself, trying to track his magic. She felt him move a split second before an arm cut through the mist. She blocked his blow and turned to return the favor. But he was too fast. He slipped out of sight.

“Still reacting, Sera,” his voice called out from the mist. “As long as you’re only reacting, you’ll always be one step behind me.”

He was right. She had to go on the offensive. Wind hadn’t worked, but maybe fire would. She set off a spark of magic. The flame roared across the mist, burning it away. When she saw Kai, she didn’t hesitate. She hit him with lightning. As fast as he was, even he was not faster than lightning. For a moment, he was stunned. Her wind magic threw him back against the wall. Icy chains burst from the rocks, closing around his wrists. He broke through, shattering her ice. So Sera tried earth next. Pieces of rock rose up from the ground, forming into thick bands that flew across his chest, pulling him back against the wall. His muscles bulged, but the restraints held.

“I’ve got you,” she told him, smirking.

“If I shifted, I could break through these bindings.”

She walked forward, stopping in front of him. “And then bring down the ceiling on me, which we already agreed you wouldn’t do.”

“Alden doesn’t share my weakness for you, Sera. He will use every tool at his disposal.”

“That’s where I think you’re wrong. Alden shares your weakness. He doesn’t want me dead. He wants me alive. There’s something about me he wants to use, something essential to his revolution’s success. So he won’t kill me.”

Before she knew what was happening, her back hit the ground. Kai was sitting on her, shards of broken rock all around them. He’d broken free.

She was the trapped one now. Adrenaline pounded in her ears. She pushed up, trying to get her pinned hands free. He held her, a smug expression on his face. She opened her mouth to protest—she’d had him, really had him, so he was surely cheating—but his kiss swallowed whatever she would have said.