A/n:
What an amazing journey this has been.

I last updated September 20th, 2005. In two months, it will be 6 years later.

Crazy, right? I know! What caused me to want to update again? I'll answer that after the chapter. Without further ado, I give you Heart of Fire, CHAPTER SEVENNNN~! :3

Jade watched the lights, monitors, all electronics around her, flicker and die.

She whipped her head around in panic.

What? This was a hospital, for God's sake. The power didn't just go out. People would die! The thought made her feel an acute sense of unease, worry creeping in her heart. She sat up, solely using the power of her abs. When she accidentally twinged her collarbone, she would see white spots, but she got to her door by the flickering emergency light in the hallway without many major mishaps.

At least her legs were okay! She thought with dark humor. She could kick the intruder to death! For, with her luck the past few days, she didn't think this outage was natural. It screamed Demon to her.

Slumping against the wall after walking around for a bit, to no good, most of the other patients were not in her wing. The ones that were, being either scared, asleep, or a combination of both, were not coming out of their rooms. That's probably a good thing, she thought.

She didn't even have five breaths from that thought before he was upon her.

Ratso, Finn, and Chow closed in on the hospital.

"You know the plan, right?" Finn asked his companions, accidentally breathing a bit of fire on the last word.

"Ahh!" Chow exclaimed, using his newfound speed to dodge it and get back into place. "Watch it!"

"Sorry," Finn frowned.

"Anyway, yeah, we do!" Ratso answered. "Just don't let him dissuade us once he knows what's up."

"Got it," the other two replied in unison.

"Jade..." Drago breathed, frowning. He was about a foot away from her, and, for her liking, too close! She tried to back up, but her back slammed into the wall with her suddenness. She cried out in pain as her collarbone jolted.

She twitched as her nerves spasmed. Then she pitched forward.

Quick as a flash, Drago caught her, keeping her just far enough away from his body so her collar wouldn't touch him. She felt him before she really knew what had happened, her sixth sense tingling. She smelled a faint hint of ash mixed with a more musky, masculine scent and realized she had gotten a noseful of Drago. He had practically materialized with his urgency to close the distance and keep her from falling.

"Wha-" when her consciousness finally registered what had happened, she tried to jerk out of his arms, just hurting herself even further. "Get off of me!" She screamed, twisting to look at his face. "What are you doing?"

Something in her voice set the demon's eyes, which had looked like pools of chocolate, into frozen brown stones. "Calm down," he said, cool and calculating. "You can't be harmed. I'm merely ensuring that."

Her face turned into an unbelieving, sarcastic mask. "Since when, Drago? We've had enough spats in the past where you never went easy on me," she spat, glaring at him. True enough, both of them had gotten a fair amount of injuries from the other.

He tried a different tack. "Jade, oh Jade," he grinned, flashing his ivory teeth. His eyes warmed up to liquid again. "Why do you never believe me? Have I ever really lied to you?"

She was shocked into silence.

Now that she thought about it, he hadn't ever lied to her. He had actually been disgustingly honest about all of his intentions. Which, when she thought about it, weren't that bad, from his point of view. He just wanted to make his parents proud, uphold his heritage, and do "noble" things. However, his idea of noble was a far cry from what she would ever want for her family, her friends, her world.

"No."

"Then, please. I'm taking you hostage. You are obviously in no position to disagree." He said, not unkindly.

She frowned. Being a hostage would strip her of every ounce of pride that she had, as a female agent, the Captain of Section 13, someone skilled in martial arts, and a Chan. But moving her arms was excruciating. Even she realized that it would be nigh impossible stopping anyone from taking her anywhere, much less a Demon Prince.

Yet she still forced herself into as much of a fighting stance as she could manage.

Drago sighed, rubbing circles into his temples with the tips of his scaly fingers. "Always the hard way, Miss Jade. Always the hard way, with you."

He darted up to her and pressed his fingers onto her broken bone.

She screamed, and involuntary tears welled up in her eyes. However, her expression was pure rage.

Before she could protest anymore, he slung her up onto his back and darted away. However, he couldn't resist brushing his fingertips just under her jawline and whispering "I'm sorry, Jade," before sprinting down the hallway with her, being careful not to jostle her.

Drago hoped that Jade was out of it enough not to be able to later recall his apology, nor the shudder that ran through his body when he first put her on his shoulder. He could feel it, the stirrings of desire deep within the pit of his stomach. The feeling blazed white-hot for a moment, just before he put a lid on it and locked it away.

Panting, but not from the exertion of running, he glanced quickly at his captive. "What am I getting myself into?" He sighed to himself, looking just as quickly away from her.

Dude, get a grip! He thought to himself, shaking his head all the way out of the hospital.

A/n: So, that was it :) The end of Chapter Seven! I truly hope it was worth the wait XD LOL! And, since it did take so insanely long, I apologize.

Basically I was inspired to write again after I heard that JCA was available on Netflix! I watched the amazing Beginning Of It All today, the J2 episode, and was really inspired. So I sat down and pounded this out. Since it's going up with minimal editing, there might be some issues, but I really wanted everyone to be able to read it as soon as possible. Please review :) And take care, until the next chapter!