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CHAPTER 13

EMBER

H e's standing there, tall, powerful—and completely naked.

One second, he was a damn dragon, wings outstretched, fire clinging to his scales like he owned the flame itself. And the next, he's consumed by flames—and for a heart-stopping instant, I think he’s burning alive. My breath catches, panic claws at the edges of my mind, and all I can see is fire devouring flesh. But then, impossibly, from the heart of the inferno, he steps forward—whole, human, and terrifyingly calm. Muscles taut, expression unreadable, steam still rising from his skin like a warning not to come too close.

I stare. Not at the nakedness—okay, maybe a little, the man is hung—but at the fact of it. The way his body is transformed. The fire. The raw, unfiltered truth of what Dax Fane really is. And even more unsettling—the fact that he let himself be engulfed in flames like it was nothing. Like pain didn’t exist. My brain screams that anyone caught in that inferno should be dead, but he emerged from it untouched. Transformed. The image of him vanishing into fire replays in my head, not as awe, but as terror. Because part of me still hasn’t let go of that moment—of believing, even for a second, that he was gone.

"Why... why are you naked?" I ask, my voice coming out too high, too tight. “Is that what happens when you don’t buy fireproof clothes?”

Stupid questions, I know. But my brain is still rebooting. Because all I can see is the moment he was swallowed by fire—gone in a burst of flame that felt like watching someone die. My heart hadn’t caught up with the fact that he stepped out of it alive. Gloriously, impossibly alive. Naked, sure. But standing. Breathing. Real. And somehow, that’s even harder to wrap my head around than the dragon part.

He exhales slowly, like he expected that question. There’s the barest twitch at the corner of his mouth—humor, maybe. Not mocking, just... amused. Like he’s relieved I’m not screaming or bolting for the nearest exit. "Clothes don’t shift. Fire burns them away. Casualty of the process." His voice is calm, almost teasing. Grounding, if I’m being honest. And weirdly, it helps—because if he can joke, then maybe this isn’t the beginning of a full psychological break.

I blink. Once. Twice. My brain latches onto the logic because it’s easier than confronting the bigger thing—that I watched him burn. That for a split second, I thought I was witnessing a man incinerate himself. It wasn’t the dragon that scared me. It was the way the fire wrapped around him like it belonged to him. Like he belonged to it. The flames didn't just touch him—they claimed him. And I’m not sure which is worse: that he survived it... or that he welcomed it.

Wait. Dragons are real? They can’t be, can they?

I know because I just watched one turn into a man—watched the impossible unfold in fire and fury and emerge as flesh and bone. My logical brain is still reeling, short-circuiting with every beat of my heart. But the visceral part of me? The part that felt the heat, smelled the smoke, and saw him rise from it? That part knows exactly what it saw. No dream. No illusion. Just a truth that reshaped my world in a breath.

I cross my arms tightly over my chest, even though I’m not the one exposed. But it feels like I am—because the air between us is heavy with something raw and unspoken. I try to ignore the heat pooling low in my belly, the flicker of arousal curling through my spine at the sheer predatory grace of him, at the unapologetic strength of his body.

He grabs a pair of pants from a nearby crate—of course he stashed them—and pulls them on without shame, without flinching. But I see it. The subtle hardening of his cock, half-swollen, unmistakable. And the worst part? My breath catches, not from shock—but from the part of me that wants to touch. To taste. To burn alongside him.

"And that?" I ask, giving a subtle nod of my head to his hard-on.

"Also a byproduct of the shift and the presence of one’s mate," he chuckles before turning serious and quiet, thoughtful.

“Mate?”

“Fated mate, to be more precise. We don’t have time for lengthy explanations, but we were destined to be together."

“You believe that?" He nods. “I don’t know that I believe in such things.”

“And a few moments ago, you didn’t believe in dragons,” he chuckles.

He reaches out for me, and I pull back. He isn't mocking me or being smug, just watching me, concerned as if he was worried I might break.

I shake my head slowly, swallowing around the tight knot in my throat. "I don’t know." My voice comes out hoarse, like smoke's already filled my lungs. Because nothing about this is normal or okay—not the flames, not the dragon, not the fact that some deep part of me wants him, anyway. I'm terrified, not of him exactly, but of the fire that lives in him—and worse, of how much I crave its heat.

He nods once, accepting that. Giving me space, though his gaze never leaves mine. There's no pressure in his stance, just quiet restraint—but it's the restraint of a man who could close the distance in a blink and take whatever he wanted. That should scare me. Maybe it does. But it also pulls at something low and hot inside me. And I hate that it makes me want to step closer. To press against him, to see if the heat coming off him would sink into my skin or consume me whole.

I pace. I need movement. I need oxygen. I need a damn minute. Because this is too much. Too fast. I’ve stared down wildfires. Watched men burn. Caught arsonists with accelerant under their nails. But I’ve never had the ground lurch beneath me like this—never felt my own reality tilt, like a plate cracked clean through the center.

My heartbeat won't settle. My hands won't stop trembling. And underneath the panic, the confusion, is something even more destabilizing: want. Pure, molten want. I don't know whether to scream, kiss him again, or run until the air burns out of my lungs.

Nothing prepared me for this. I was unprepared for the raw, elemental fear of watching someone willfully consume themselves in fire. Nor for the arousal threading through that fear like smoke curling tight around my ribs and especially not for the way my body responded to the heat, to him, even while my mind screamed this shouldn’t be happening.

This moment—this man—shatters everything I thought I knew about fire, about danger, about desire. And I have no idea what to do with that truth.

He starts to speak. I hold up a hand. "Don’t. Just—give me a second."

I pivot away and start pacing again, hard and fast, my boots scuffing against volcanic stone. My pulse is a riot in my ears, my breath shallow and quick. I press my palms to my temples like I can press the world back into shape. I walk to the edge of the carved platform, then back again, a caged thing trying to outrun the blaze inside her. The air tastes like iron and smoke. Everything smells like him. I clench my fists, open them again, trying to breathe through the fire he left in my blood. Trying to remember who I was before all of this... and failing.

The silence stretches.

Then, finally, I stop pacing. "So let me get this straight—you’re a dragon-shifter. This is your base. Your team? They’re all like you?"

He nods once. "We took an oath a long time ago—to guard our existence, to protect humanity when needed, and to never reveal ourselves unless absolutely necessary."

"Define 'long time,'" I ask suspiciously, my arms still crossed. I already suspect his sense of time makes mine look laughable.

Dax grins, slow and unapologetic. "In some cases, hundreds of years. In others... thousands."

Thousands. My mouth goes dry. I can only stare, trying to wrap my head around what it means to live that long. To carry that much memory, that much weight.

"We did not always live in harmony with man," he says, softer now. "There were eras of conflict. Of worship. Of fear."

I raise an eyebrow. "So... virginal sacrifices?"

He lets out a breath. "Not our finest era. Nor was it humanity’s. We never asked for offerings—they were given, usually out of fear or tradition."

"And what did you do with them?"

His gaze holds mine. "Enjoyed what was freely offered, when we could. But devouring? Killing? That was rare and condemned. Most of us relocated those women—gave them coin, safe homes, anonymity. We weren’t monsters... at least, not all of us."

I nod slowly. I don’t know why, but it makes sense. Terrifying, ancient sense.

"So what changed?"

His expression changes—pride tempered by old pain. "We evolved. Or we tried. Our instincts never left us, but we adapted. We learned how to control the flame. How to work among humans without setting the world on fire. Most of us chose to protect, to serve. We created Blackstrike to serve as our cover—a frontline smokejumper unit for the most extreme fires. But it’s more than that."

He takes a step closer. "We go where the fire appears to be unnatural. Where things go wrong. Where rogue shifters manipulate flame, push the balance too far. That’s when we move in. That’s what we are."

It sends a shiver down my spine. Because suddenly, the world feels a lot bigger—and a lot more fragile. Like every step I’ve taken until now has been across solid ground, and I’ve just realized it was thin ice all along. Everything I believed was possible, rational, explainable—gone. Replaced by a truth so old and raw, it hums in the surrounding air. Dragons. Fire. Fate. And me—standing in the middle of it, no longer sure whether I’m supposed to run or burn.

"And the secrecy?" I ask.

Dax’s jaw tightens. “We’re not meant to be known. The world wouldn’t survive it. We’re not fairy-tale villains, but there’s a dark side to what we are. Without our mates, the fire inside us turns unstable. It starts small—heat rising, patience thinning. But eventually, we lose our grip on humanity. We burn out. We lose control. We go feral.

"It’s not just rage or madness,” he continues. “It’s deeper than that. Elemental. The dragon takes over. Reason disappears. We become exactly what the world already fears: weapons of destruction.”

I raise an eyebrow. “So, what—you need a soulmate to stay sane?”

He hesitates, jaw flexing. “I’ve seen it firsthand. One of ours tried to fight the bond. Said fate was a lie. Thought he could manage on his own. But in the end, he couldn’t tell friend from foe. He almost leveled a town before we stopped him. Took three of us to put him down. He died screaming—body and mind both gone.”

A shiver creeps up my spine, curling slowly and deeply like smoke wrapping around my ribs. I don’t know what hits harder—the horror of what he just described, or the quiet grief in his voice when he said it. That kind of loss doesn’t just haunt a person. It hollows them. Leaves a burn that never fully heals. I open my mouth, but nothing comes out. My throat is too tight, my thoughts too scattered.

What do you say to someone who’s watched their own kind fall to madness and had to help end it? To someone who’s seen what happens when the fire wins? The silence between us stretches like a fault line, and for once, I have no words to fill it.

Fear curls in my chest, sharp and cold—like a shard of ice piercing through the heat he left behind. This isn’t just a myth. It’s not some beautifully twisted fantasy I can dismiss when it gets too real. This is brutal, elemental truth. Life or death. His. Theirs. And suddenly, terrifyingly, maybe even mine. Because if he’s right—if there’s some kind of bond between us and if it’s the only thing holding his fire in check—what happens if I say no? What happens if I run?

My mouth is dry. My mind is racing, chasing logic that’s slipping through my fingers like ash. I want to believe this is some elaborate delusion, a prank, something I’ll wake up from with a jolt and a laugh. But I saw him shift—watched his body dissolve into flame and emerge reborn. I felt the heat. It wasn't imagined. It seared into my skin and etched itself into the space between heartbeats. No hallucination has ever left a mark like that.

"So I’m supposed to what—save you?" I ask.

He doesn’t flinch. "No. But you’re the only one who could."

"That’s not comforting," I mutter. "That’s pressure. That’s insane. That’s?—"

"Fire," he says. "It doesn’t ask permission. It just is."

I glare at him. Then spin on my heel. Storming off feels good. Powerful. The stomp of my boots on the stone is sharp, defiant—punctuating my anger with every step. But the sensation fades quickly as I near the edge of the platform and the truth rears up like a wall. I stop cold, cursing under my breath as I stare out over the drop. Jagged canyon ridges stretch in every direction, cloaked in mist and smoke. No road. No path. No damn way down.

He flew me here in a helicopter.

Behind me, I hear him step forward, his movement smooth and unhurried, like he knew I’d hit the edge and have no choice but to turn back.

"You’re not a prisoner," he says. "If you want to leave, I’ll get you back. But before you do, you should see something."

I glance back, wary. "What?"

He walks over to a nearby stone table, carved into the dark basalt like an altar. Scattered across its surface are several charred notebooks, their covers brittle, corners curling from intense heat. I step closer, drawn despite myself. The pages are scorched and fragmented, but what's left is enough to make my skin crawl—scribbled equations I can't decipher, strange diagrams that pulse with something wrong, and symbols that look less like writing and more like warnings. Twisting spirals. Jagged lines. The kind of markings that feel older than language. The air around them feels colder somehow, like even the fire didn’t dare consume whatever secrets those pages still hold.

"Dennis Price’s logs," he says. "Before he disappeared, he left these. We found them at a burn site he never should’ve had access to."

I lean over, scanning the notes—and my eyes catch something: embedded GPS tags. Coordinates. As I trace the numbers with my fingertip, a chill skates down my spine. I recognize them. I’ve seen this region before in wildfire response reports—just north of a restricted zone buried deep in Forest Service records. A place flagged as unsafe because of unstable terrain and unverified seismic activity. But even then, there were whispers about odd burn patterns, erratic heat signatures, and sightings of strange symbols etched into scorched trees. Seeing them here, tied to Price's logs? It feels like confirmation of something I haven't wanted to admit.

"These lead into restricted federal land," I whisper.

Dax meets my gaze. "I think it’s where he’s been staging. Or hiding. Or worse."

I straighten. "I’m going."

His brows lift. "Alone?"

I meet his gaze, unflinching. "Yes. You already said I’m not a prisoner."

He steps closer, arms crossed, tension tightening his shoulders. "You don’t know what you’re walking into. That zone is dangerous, even without a rogue shifter waiting in the wings."

"And you think I haven’t figured that out?" I snap. "It seems he’s trying to attract my attention, which he’s got. If he thinks of me as just human, he won’t be anticipating that I’m any kind of threat."

Dax’s mouth opens, but I barrel on. "Dennis Price knows the Blackstrike Unit. He knows you, your patterns, your tactics. If one of you shows up, he’ll see it coming. But me? I’m just a 'mere human' to him. Disposable. Invisible."

He flinches at that—just a flicker, but I see it.

I press the advantage. "Let me go in. Let me be the variable he didn’t account for. You want to catch him? Then stop trying to wrap me in bubble wrap and start trusting me to do what I came here to do."

For a beat, he doesn’t speak. Then he sighs, long and low.

"You’ll need a ride," he mutters. "Rafe is on standby. He'll take you to the SUV we left at the base camp. Take it to the location. We'll be better able to track you."

I nod, and within minutes, I’m in the air, the rotors screaming overhead as the chopper lifts off the ridge and banks into the open sky. The air is sharp with altitude and smoke, and adrenaline buzzes beneath my skin like an aftershock. I glance out the open side of the helicopter and see him—Dax—standing alone on the landing pad, arms folded, wind tearing through his hair, the firelight catching on the hard lines of his face. He doesn’t move. Just watches me go. Like he’s imprinting the moment. Like he already knows this is going to change everything.