There are moments when the universe hands a writer exactly the right soundtrack for what they’re working on.
Today, apparently, the universe has decided to be extremely on the nose.
I’m sitting here listening to Iron West’s “They Made Me This Way” while writing Chapter Three of Witchfire Awakened, and if there were ever a song title that belonged anywhere near Cassian Dragomir right now… well.
They made me this way.
Yeah.
That’ll do.
Because Elara has been through a lot.
And when I say a lot, I mean the sort of “a lot” that probably deserves its own supernatural support group.
She began this series as a stubborn witch with blue fire she didn’t entirely understand, accidentally wandered into the orbit of one very ancient, very dangerous Vampire King, discovered she was tangled up in prophecies older than either of them wanted to deal with, became his mate, his queen, and eventually the mother of a child who may very well change the supernatural world forever.
And now?
Now I’m writing Chapter Three of Witchfire Awakened: I Am Not Made of Glass
The title should probably tell you that everything is going wonderfully.
Narrator: Everything is not going wonderfully.
Elara and Cassian have reached the point in their story where all those choices, sacrifices, prophecies, bargains, battles, and stubborn declarations of I will absolutely do the dangerous thing you just told me not to do are beginning to come due.
And I am having an unreasonable amount of fun writing it.
There’s something different about returning to these two this far into their story.
They aren’t the Elara and Cassian who first met in Witchfire in the Vampire’s Hold anymore.
Elara has grown into her power.
Cassian has learned that having absolute authority over an immortal kingdom is considerably easier than convincing his wife not to throw herself directly at whatever is trying to kill them this year.
And together, they’ve built something neither of them expected when this whole beautiful disaster began:
A family.
Which means the stakes feel different now.
More intimate.
More dangerous.
Because threatening a throne is one thing.
Threatening Cassian Dragomir’s wife and daughter?
That feels like a spectacularly poor life decision.
Then again, this is the Witchfire world.
Spectacularly poor life decisions are practically a recreational activity among the vampire nobility.
Chapter Three is beginning to dig deeper into what this next stage means for Elara—not simply as Cassian’s queen, but as a woman whose magic has been changing her from the beginning.
Witchfire has never been interested in asking permission.
Neither, for that matter, has Elara.
And something is awakening.
Something the old vampire world may not be remotely prepared for.
Possibly Cassian included.
Although I suspect he’ll respond to that revelation the way Cassian responds to most existential supernatural threats:
Stand beside Elara.
Glare at everyone else.
And quietly decide which ancient law he’s willing to break first.
So that’s where I am today.
Iron West playing in the background.
Blue Witchfire burning across my imagination.
Chapter Three growing one dangerous paragraph at a time.
And Cassian Dragomir standing exactly where centuries of blood, betrayal, war, and kingship have shaped him to stand—between his family and anyone foolish enough to threaten them.
They made him this way.
They taught him that mercy could be exploited. That hesitation could cost lives. That kings survive by becoming harder than the enemies circling their thrones.
They gave him centuries of reasons to become the monster they feared.
Now Elara is dying, Lyra is changing, the old vampire order is beginning to fracture—and the same people who helped create the Vampire King are about to discover what happens when all that cold, brutal power is turned toward protecting the two people he loves most.
They made Cassian Dragomir this way.
Now they’re going to have to deal with him.
Witchfire Awakened is officially underway.
And judging by Chapter Three?
Things are about to get very, very interesting.
— J. Sands