Ethan nodded once. "She'll need a follow up regimen." He pulled a notepad from the side table and wrote a prescription in quick, clean strokes. A herbal formula that would fully restore Eleanor's cardiac health within a few treatment courses. He tore the page free and handed it to Dr. Whitfield.The old physician read it with both hands holding the paper flat, his eyes tracking each ingredient with the focus of a man studying scripture. His lips moved silently.When he finished, he folded the page carefully and placed it inside his jacket pocket like it was made of gold leaf.Then he stepped close to Ethan. His voice dropped to something only the two of them could hear."Young man, the Crimson Flame Divine Needle has not been performed in decades. The only practitioner who ever mastered it was the Medicine King himself." His eyes searched Ethan's face with an intensity that bordered on desperate. "Where did you train? Who taught you that technique?"Ethan met his gaze without blinking

The private room on the second floor of the Dynasty Nightclub smelled like cheap whiskey and expensive cologne, and underneath both, something sour and rotten that had nothing to do with the ventilation.Danny Voss sat in the center of a black leather sofa with his legs spread wide and a glass of whiskey resting on his knee.He was twenty six, lean, sharp jawed, and carried the kind of confidence that only comes from hurting people who cannot fight back.A minor Silver Fang leader with a reputation for cruelty and a taste for women who had no choice but to say yes.Lily Summers was on the floor in front of him.Her wrists were bound with zip ties so tight the plastic had already cut thin red lines into her skin.Her left cheek was swollen and darkening where she had been hit, and her school bag lay torn open beside her, textbooks and pens scattered across the carpet like the remains of a life that had been ripped apart in a matter of minutes.A woman draped across Danny's other side l

The room was not large. Danny on the sofa. The woman beside him. Red by the wall. Four armed men near the windows. And Lily on the floor, trembling, flushed, barely holding on.The moment Lily saw his face, a sob tore out of her chest so raw and broken it didn't even sound human.It was the sound of someone who had already decided to die and then been handed a reason not to.She tried to push herself up, tried to move toward him, but the woman grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked her backward, slamming her down against the floor.The woman looked at Ethan with a slow, lazy smile. "The real show hasn't started yet, sweetheart. You can watch if you want."Ethan did not look at her. He did not look at Danny. He did not acknowledge Red or the armed men or anyone else in the room. His eyes found Lily and stayed there, and something in his expression shifted so quietly that only the Spirit noticed it."Oh," the Spirit whispered. "They're dead. They just don't know it yet."Ethan walked

He turned to Lily. The moment his eyes met hers, she broke.She threw herself forward and crashed into his chest with both bound hands pressed flat against his shirt, and a sob tore out of her that shook her entire body from her shoulders to her knees.It was the kind of crying that comes after the worst is over, when the body finally lets itself feel everything it had been holding back."You came." Her voice was muffled against his chest, cracked and wet and barely holding together. "You actually came."Ethan wrapped one arm around her and pressed his free hand flat against her back.He channeled a thin, carefully controlled thread of Dragon Force through his palm and into her bloodstream, targeting the drug compounds and breaking them down at the molecular level.To Lily, it felt like nothing more than warmth spreading from his hand into her body.A steady, gentle heat that pushed back the fire in her blood and lifted the fog from her mind.Within seconds, her breathing steadied.Th

Big Tony walked into the private room and did something none of his men had ever seen him do before.He dropped to his knees the moment his eyes landed on Ethan sitting on the sofa with Lily's head resting against his shoulder.He pressed his forehead to the floor, and when he spoke, his voice had none of the swagger it usually carried through this building.No bravado. No pretense. Just a man who understood exactly how close he had come to disaster."I swear on everything I have, I knew nothing about what Danny was doing tonight." His forehead stayed pressed against the carpet. "He was operating without authorization. If I had known, I would never have allowed a kidnapping on Silver Fang territory. Tell me what you want done. Whatever it is, it happens right now. No questions."Ethan did not raise his voice. He did not make threats. He simply looked down at the man on the floor and said what needed to be said."Danny Voss. I don't want to see him again. Ever."Tony's head lifted an i