Controlled Burn

Chapter 7: Seeing His Potential

Lucian sat in the corner of the containment cell, his back resting against the cold, rough concrete wall, watching Cade's chest rise and fall with shallow, uneasy breaths. The fire demon was asleep—exhausted from their earlier exchange, his body still trembling occasionally as if it were fighting a battle even in his dreams. Lucian had seen this before, the aftershocks of a near-combustion. The flames might have receded for now, but they were never fully gone.

They never were.

Lucian exhaled slowly, watching his breath mist in the cold air. The cell was colder than usual, frost creeping along the corners of the room, spider-webbing across the cracked floor. He kept the temperature low on purpose—it helped keep Cade's flames in check while also making the fire demon's body more pliable, more willing to submit to the ice.

He wasn't surprised that Cade hadn't remembered their encounter under the underpass. Fire demons were always closer to the heat than to reason when they reached that point, their minds too consumed by the flames to think clearly. Lucian had seen it many times before. The overwhelming pull of the fire took over, blurring everything else—logic, memory, even pain. By the time Cade had hit the ground, barely conscious, his mind had been so far into the heat that it had burned away the details.

Lucian rose from his chair and paced the small, cold room, his boots crunching against the frost-rimmed floor. His thoughts drifted as he paced, cycling through everything he knew about handling fire demons in Cade's condition. He had been through this before, and not every attempt to save a fire demon from combustion had been successful.

Some methods had failed.

He had tried different approaches over the years, each one aimed at pulling the demon back from the brink, at cooling the fire without extinguishing it entirely. Some demons could handle the cold, could withstand the slow, calculated method of forcing the flames to submit, breaking their will inch by inch until they were tame enough to regain control. But others... others had been too far gone by the time Lucian reached them. The ice had come too late, and the fire inside them had already burned too hot.

Marcus had been one of those.

Lucian's jaw tightened at the memory, the flicker of a face lost to the flames flashing in his mind. He had tried to help Marcus too, back when the fire demon had reached the edge of ferality. Lucian had approached it with caution, knowing how volatile Marcus had been. He had employed every technique he knew—containing the fire with ice, applying constant cold pressure to suppress the flames. But it hadn't been enough. Marcus's flames had consumed him, and by the time Lucian had attempted to freeze them, they had already taken over, leaving Marcus a charred shadow of the demon he once was.

It was a lesson Lucian had carried with him ever since: Don't wait until the fire becomes the only thing left.

That was the mistake he couldn't afford to repeat. Not with Cade.

Lucian glanced over at Cade, watching as the demon shifted restlessly in his sleep, his hands twitching as if grasping at something unseen. Even now, Lucian could feel the faint pulse of heat radiating from Cade's body—just enough to remind him that the fire was still there, still waiting for the moment it could reignite. Cade had fought his own flames for so long that his body was hardwired to resist any outside force trying to control it. But Lucian knew he could break through that resistance. He had to.

The methods that had worked before were brutal, but effective. Submission through control. Ice could numb the fire, but it had to be applied carefully. Too much, and it would suffocate the demon, freezing them into something unrecognizable. Too little, and the fire would overwhelm the cold, pushing back against it with devastating force.

Lucian's fingers flexed at his side, the temperature in the room dropping another degree as he considered the delicate balance he had to maintain with Cade. He couldn't snuff Cade's fire out completely. That would destroy him just as surely as the flames would. Cade's fire was who he was—it was his strength, his identity. Lucian had seen what happened to fire demons whose flames were suppressed too harshly. They withered, their spirit crushed by the cold, until there was nothing left but a hollow shell.

Cade was too strong for that. Too alive.

Lucian needed Cade to fight back. Just enough to keep his fire from turning into an inferno. He needed Cade to learn the difference between control and submission—something Marcus had never understood. Marcus had fought the cold until the last second, believing that his fire was the only thing keeping him alive. But Cade... Cade still had a chance to see that the cold wasn't there to kill him. It was there to save him.

And that's where Lucian had succeeded before.

He had worked with demons who had accepted the ice, who had learned to let the cold temper their fire without destroying it. Those demons were the ones who had survived, who had pulled themselves back from the edge. Lucian remembered one in particular—Selene, a fire demon who had nearly combusted after losing her mate in a brutal attack. She had been volatile, her fire fueled by grief and rage, but Lucian had seen the potential in her. He had kept her flames low, applying ice in carefully measured doses, letting her body adjust to the cold without pushing her too far.

Selene had fought him every step of the way, just like Cade, but eventually, she had learned to control her flames. Not by suppressing them, but by understanding them. She had learned how to channel the fire, how to separate the raw emotion from the heat. It had taken months, but when she finally regained control, her flames had burned brighter and stronger than ever before—controlled, not feral.

Cade reminded Lucian of Selene, though Cade's fire was wilder, more erratic. But that meant there was still hope. If Cade fought his fire and learned to separate it from the pain that fueled it, he could survive this.

Lucian moved back toward the edge of the cell, standing in front of the containment field that kept Cade's flames in check. He stared at the fire demon's unconscious form, his thoughts still turning over the methods that had worked and failed.

There was a delicate balance with Cade—one Lucian had to manage carefully. He couldn't afford to let Cade push too far into the heat, but he also couldn't force the ice too quickly. Cade had to make the choice. He had to decide to control the fire, or it would control him.

And Lucian would be there to guide him through it.

His gaze remained fixed on Cade as the fire demon stirred slightly, his body curling inward, as if seeking warmth that wasn't there. The frost in the room thickened, creeping up the walls, but Lucian kept it steady. He wouldn't let the cold break Cade. Not yet.

He would teach Cade what Marcus never learned. He would teach him how to fight the flames without letting them consume him.

But first, Cade would have to trust the ice.