Page 22

KADE

The wind turns sharp with ozone, curling with smoke and tension. I stand at the edge of a makeshift fire base carved into the side of a high mountain pass, surrounded by a ragged half-moon of engines, brush rigs, and portable water tanks.

The ground beneath my boots is dry and cracked, blackened with ash from a backburn set just hours ago. A wall of pine looms to the north, charred and still crackling. The sky above it is streaked with orange and gray. Every breath tastes like smoke and warning.

Lightning crackles overhead. I don’t flinch. The static sings across my skin, echoing the low hum building in my chest. Storms don’t rattle me—they reflect me. Controlled chaos. Quiet fury. And right now, all that intensity is focused on the woman twenty feet in front of me.

Liv Monroe.

She’s all sharp angles and defiance, arms crossed tight over her chest, soot streaked down one cheek like war paint. She looks like she hasn’t slept, like she hasn’t stopped since the world fell apart.

“You’re wasting your time,” she says, voice clipped. “I don’t need a babysitter.”

“No,” I say, calm and quiet. “You need backup.”

“I’ve worked this base three seasons longer than you’ve been interested in using your voice,” she snaps.

My lip twitches. It lands—she knows it—but I don’t give her the satisfaction of more. I let the silence stretch, heavy and measured, the same way I handle everything that might blow up in my face.

I let a near-smile curve my mouth. “I don’t need to talk to protect you.”

Her eyes flare. “I don’t need protection.”

I step in closer, slow and steady, like she’s all coiled tension and I’m the lightning waiting to ground through her. “Someone sabotaged the fuel stores last night. Radios were jammed this morning. You’re not just a target, Monroe. You’re the spark.”

She doesn’t answer right away. Her shoulders flinch—barely—but I see it. Like a blade of memory just slipped beneath her ribs. I know that look. I know what it costs to lose a crew. To walk away when others couldn’t.

She’s thinking about them. About the ones she couldn’t save.

I stay where I am. Silent. Steady. Letting her decide if she still wants to stand in the fire.

And I see it—that flicker of doubt in her eyes, the ache just behind her bravado. She’s questioning whether she belongs here. Whether the line will ever forgive her for what she lost. For what she still carries.

But I know the answer.

She does belong here. She was forged in this heat. Strong enough to carry the scars. And if she forgets that, I’ll remind her every step of the way.

“You’re not going to leave, are you?” she asks.

“No.”

“You breathe like you were born in a storm.”

“I was.”

Her breath catches. She hates that I notice. But I do. I always will. I file it away like I do every critical detail before a breach. Because with Liv Monroe, every flicker counts.

“Fine,” she mutters. “You want to watch my back? Try to keep up.”

Then she turns and walks toward the fire trucks, hips moving with that same fire—purpose, power, fury.

I watch her go, pulse a slow, steady drumbeat of restraint.

She doesn’t trust me.

Doesn’t want me.

But she will.

Because I already feel it building—something hot and reckless sparking under my skin. It’s not just attraction. It’s instinct. Bone-deep. Combustible. Like standing too close to a storm you know could crack the sky wide open… and wanting it anyway.

A flashover.

And this time, I won’t let her burn alone.

Kade, Liv and the rest of the Blackstrike Unit will arrive later this summer.