Page 40 of A Storm of Fire and Ash

Zayn

Gods fucking help me.

I tried to give her privacy, gods did I try, but she was in there for too long.

The moment I stepped into that bathing room, the air shifted. Like walking through a storm’s edge—thick with tension and magic, heavy with something I couldn’t name.

And then I saw her.

Elara sat in the tub, knees pulled to her chest, her hair soaked and pulled to one side, hanging in front of her. Her skin glistened in the soft light. She didn’t move.

Her back was fully bare.

She didn’t even hear me walk in. Or perhaps she just didn’t care. She didn’t flinch. Didn’t move. She just sat there, staring off, steam curling around her like she belonged in some half-remembered dream.

My breath caught.

Not because she was beautiful—gods, she was fucking perfect—but because I felt her. That electric pulse beneath my skin buzzed like a live wire the closer I got. It wasn’t just magic. It was ours. Something ancient and unspoken, waking up in my blood.

And fuck me, she was perfect.

The curve of her spine. The toned lines of her body, her legs, her arms. Power rippled just beneath the surface of her skin like she hadn’t yet realized what she was capable of. Her beauty wasn’t fragile. It was feral. Fae.

Mine.

The thought burned hot through my chest, but I shoved it down.

And then I saw the scars.

My feet stopped moving. My eyes locked on the pale, twisted lines crossing her back—thin, cruel, and deliberate. I knew exactly what they were.

Whip scars. Healed over. But they didn’t fade. Fae skin didn’t scar easily—not unless someone meant to destroy her.

Aymon. When she said his name, I saw red. I wanted to make the motherfucker pay for the marks he put on her. But I understood entirely all too well that Elara wanted that revenge. Needed it. And I’d do anything to help her succeed.

Rage surged so fast I almost reached for my sword. It took everything in me not to turn on my heel, storm down the palace halls, and rip that bastard’s head clean off his shoulders. I would’ve done it. Smiled while I did, and then brought Elara his head.

But I remembered her voice. The fire in it. “The king is mine to kill.” So I swallowed the urge. Bit down on it like a blade between my teeth. Let it settle in my bones like a promise.

No. She deserved to be the one to end him.

And when she did, I’d be there—grinning, laughing, watching as she burned this fucking kingdom to ash.

I took one step closer. My hand reached out, couldn’t help it—just barely brushed the edge of one scar. She didn’t move.

But gods, I did.

Electricity snapped through my fingertips and down my spine, lighting up every nerve.

My magic roared in answer to hers, like it recognized her, like it was made for her.

I felt more magic coursing through me than ever before.

Fire. Earth. Water. Air. I clenched my jaw, blood pounding everywhere it shouldn’t.

I had to get out of there.

Then she stood. She deliberately stood naked in front of me. I wanted to fall to my knees and crawl to her. To worship her. To bend my knee to her.

If I stayed another second—if she so much as looked at me again—I wasn’t going to be able to keep my hands off her. And she deserved more than that. More than some man too weak to stand still in her presence.

So I left. Didn’t say a word.

But the second I stepped into the hallway, I felt it—her. The real her. I gasped for air, holding the stone wall to steady myself. Her glamour dropped, and her power rolled through the walls, beneath my fingers, like thunder through my bones. She’d revealed her true form.

And it nearly brought me to my fucking knees.

She was fully Fae now—just behind this wall I was desperately grasping onto. No glamour. No human mask. Her energy called to mine like flame to kindling, and I swore—for a moment—I forgot how to breathe.

It took every ounce of control I had not to turn around, bust down my door, and claim her the way every primal instinct in me screamed to.

She was everything.

And I couldn’t have her. Not like that. Not yet.

So I kept walking, jaw tight, fists clenched, heart caged in wildfire.

Windaria. I thought of the kingdom I spent too much time in. Where I was trained to be an assassin for the King—my father. That would get Elara out of my mind.

The air in that palace was colder than here—cleaner, sharper—but it didn’t clear my head when I went back for a few weeks.

I stood before my father, the high King, King Thrandor Crestwood, as he gave his newest command. Same smug look. Same voice that tried to disguise hunger as strategy.

“Aymon’s hiding something,” he said. “Nymeria says he’s got a dragon. Locked away in that cursed realm of his. You’ll find it. You’ll free it.”

Nymeria. The strongest Mage I have ever met.

Though her loyalties were confusing, she did whatever benefited her.

She harnessed dark, forbidden Magecraft, but the King allowed it because she worked for him.

She did everything for that piece of shit, probably even kept his bed warm.

What sickened me the most was how desperately he leaned on Nymeria to cloak the truth.

He was never made to rule.

I would have felt it—every heir to the throne is marked when chosen by fate. And I’d never felt a damn thing. Not a spark. Not a tether.

My pulse kicked. “If a dragon is true… send it where exactly? And how? I am not Elementara.”

“Trap it, bait it, I don’t fucking care, just lure it here,” he said, eyes gleaming. “My Mage and the Warlock are ready. We’ll bond it to me with the old ways. The forbidden kind. With a dragon under my command, the Fae Courts will crumble. I’ll take them all. And Aymon’s castle. All of it.”

There it was.

His real plan. Not just uniting kingdoms. Ruling everything. Destroying what he couldn’t possess.

I didn’t flinch. I didn’t argue. I just nodded once.

“I’ve heard nothing of a dragon,” I lied.

I knew there was a dragon in the human lands. I dreamed of her rose-quartz scales almost every night. Though she never spoke to me, I felt our connection. I still hadn’t figured out why, or where she is, or even spoken to her, but she was close.

And I didn’t dare say a single word about Elara.

Because if he knew what she was… who she was… what she meant to me… He’d try to use her. Break her. Or worse.

And that would be the last mistake he ever made.

I knew the moment I saw her—truly saw her—that day in the wildflower field. She stood beside the prince like she belonged somewhere else entirely. The breeze had shifted, and her scent hit me like a blade to the chest.

Summer berries. Wild magic. Rain on stone.

Gods, I couldn’t stand seeing her with him.

Seeing her laugh, seeing him touch her. It made me sick.

Made me want to rip his gods-damned head off.

I was supposed to befriend him, make him trust me, so he would tell me where the weapon is.

We became ‘friends,’ but the prince never knew anything of a dragon or any other weapon for that matter.

I was glad they weren’t together anymore. He didn’t deserve her.

My mind went back to the night I pulled Elara from her burning house. Her magic was strong, ancient, and it didn’t burn my skin when I touched it.

She was so broken. So sad. She was confused and scared, and I wanted nothing more than to hold her in my arms and never let her go.

I carried her away from the fire as the roof collapsed behind us. I didn’t stop until we were almost clear of the house, until the flames were further away. She was tucked beneath my warding shield of air, which I placed around us both.

That’s when I turned back. Her mother.

I laid Elara down near a shed and hid her under my magic.

I ran back to her house quickly. Her mother’s dead body lay motionless.

The fire was hungry—ruthless. It would have devoured her completely if I hadn’t acted.

I knelt and pushed both palms to the earth.

The air obeyed me. It always did. I grabbed her mother’s body and carried her out and ran back to where I left Elara.

I placed her mother behind the barn and shielded her with a bubble of air and magic, so no one would stumble upon her.

Once Elara was safe in my room, I would come back and bury her in the wildflower field.

Elara would need that. A place to go. A grave to stand over. Someone to say goodbye to properly when she was ready.

When I got back to my room, I placed Elara on my bed. I dropped to my knees beside her. I wanted to hold her longer. Wrap myself around her. Sheild her from everything.

But I couldn’t.

Eryndor and the Prince walked in, and I told them everything. Well, I left out the bits and pieces about Elara’s magic, as that little twat would probably tell his Mommy and Daddy what Elara is.

Once they left, I knelt beside her one last time. She lay sleeping. She looked peaceful. Her magic took all of her energy, and I knew she would be asleep for a few days. That’s what happened when Royal Fae received their magic for the first time if they weren’t born with it.

I moved her hair from her face and traced my thumb over her pouty lips. “I’m sorry,” I whispered. “I’ll be right back. I swear it.” I pressed my lips to her temple.

I knew what she was to me. I knew the second I saw her mismatched eyes. The goddess whispered to me many, many, many years ago, “Two flames in one soul—fire and ice shall bind your fate, a woman born of Fae—will be your destined mate.”

She had her fun with other men. But now, she was mine.

Mine.

Not in the way men claim women like trophies or territory. She was mine the way stars belong to the night sky.

The way fire belongs to flame.

The way I had never belonged to anyone—until her.

And I would protect her. Even if it meant destroying everything my father had built to the ground.