Page 7

CHAPTER 6

DAX

I watch her go, her hips moving in a defiant sway that makes my dragon rear inside me, claws dragging at my skin from the inside out. She doesn’t just walk away—she prowls or stalks... at the very least, strides. Ember claims space like it’s hers by birthright, each step a challenge, each motion laced with fire. And it guts me.

I want to chase her, wrap my arms around her from behind, tilt her head back and show her exactly what she does to me. Pin her down. Make her listen. Mark her. Make her mine—in every scorching, undeniable way. But I don’t. Because one wrong move and I’d destroy the fragile boundary, we’ve barely built. And gods help me, I want her too much to risk that. Not yet.

I don’t move. I can’t move. Because if I follow her now, I won’t stop. The second I reach for her, I’ll lose the battle I’ve been fighting since the moment I saw her standing there in the smoke, defiant and burning like she belonged to the fire. What’s roaring under my skin isn’t just lust—it’s the dragon, clawing to the surface, hungry for her scent, her submission, her soul.

My fists clench. Heat rolls off my shoulders in waves, curling like smoke from skin just shy of ignition. She’s triggered every instinct I’ve spent hundreds of years learning to leash—instincts carved into my bones when the world still bowed to fire. It’s about fire knowing where it belongs. And she—Ember—is where my fire wants to rest.

She doesn’t know. She can’t. Not yet. And gods help me, she smells like fire and temptation and the kind of warmth I thought the centuries had stolen from me.

My chest tightens with the weight of everything I can’t say, can’t show. I turn from the path she took and storm the opposite way—into the trees, away from sight, away from the edge I’m dangerously close to falling over.

Not again. Never again... I’ve been here before.

Somewhere in Central Europe

Centuries Ago

She was young, mortal, and mine. A dark-eyed farm girl from a mountain village whose laughter used to make me feel like a man and not a monster. For three seasons, I watched her. Brought her gifts in secret. Guarded her lands with fire when bandits circled.

And then the rains didn’t come. The sky stayed dry for weeks, then months, turning their soil to dust and their hopes to ash. The river shrank to a trickle. Livestock fell. The crops withered in the fields, stalks brittle as bone. The villagers, once wary but content, turned fearful, superstitious, and cruel. Desperation makes monsters of men—and their eyes turned to the cliffs where they knew I watched.

They remembered the dragon in the cliffs—the silent sentinel they once feared but tolerated. But now, in their desperation, fear turned to blame. And they remembered the girl he watched. The one who wandered too close to the edge, who smiled at shadows and came back with wildflowers from places no one else dared walk. They whispered she had been marked, that her womb was cursed or blessed, depending on the elder you asked. They decided the fire on the mountain wanted her. And they gave her to me.

A sacrifice, they said. They dressed her in white, painted her with ash and crushed petals, and tied her hands with twine. Only by offering her—by letting her blood soak the earth and her screams fill the sky—could they please the gods. They didn’t ask if she was willing. They didn’t care.

I came down from the sky like fury incarnate, a streak of gold and flame against the darkening clouds. My wings beat thunder into the air as I descended, ash swirling in my wake. I landed with a quake that sent the villagers scrambling, screams echoing across the ridge. But I didn't torch them. I didn’t roar. I didn’t take vengeance.

I came for her.

She was bound at the edge of the stone altar, trembling but proud, her eyes searching the heavens. When they met mine, I saw it—recognition, terror, and something else. I scooped her into my claws, cradling her carefully, and soared away before they could comprehend what had happened. I brought her home. To safety. To truth.

She screamed when I landed; her cry echoing against the stone walls like a dying prayer. Her eyes met mine, wide with disbelief—and for a heartbeat, I wondered if what I had seen had been hope. A fragile, flickering thread of it, wrapped in awe and trust.

Until I changed. Until I shed the beast and became the man. Until I stepped from flame and smoke, naked and powerful, and she saw not just the dragon—but the monster beneath. Until she realized what I truly was, and the hope shattered like glass.

She ran. Terrified. Her scream echoed down the walls of my lair as she stumbled through the rocks, her bare feet slicing against stone, her sobs breaking something ancient in me. She didn’t look back.

When she went back to them, they greeted her like a savior. They wrapped her in wool and righteousness. And they came for me—with torches raised, with rusted blades and a holy man's fury, convinced they were cleansing the earth of a monster.

I didn’t kill them. I could have. I could’ve turned them all to ash with a single breath. But I didn’t. I let them chase me from the cliffs I’d called home for over a century. I let them take the place where I once dreamed of something gentler.

I left. My home. All of it gone.

Mogollon Rim, Arizona

Present Day

I stare down at my hands, now shaking—scarred knuckles dusted in soot, fingers trembling with the weight of everything I’ve lost and everything I want. The fire hums under my skin, too close to the surface, itching to rise. My palms curl slowly into fists, and the ache in my chest deepens. This isn’t weakness. It’s memory. It’s restraint. It’s the furious need to hold myself together, when every cell inside me demands I burn.

I will not lose her. Not to fear. Not to fire. Not to the past that’s clawed at my heels for centuries. Not to the regret that still haunts the edges of every choice I make. Ember deserves better—truth, protection, choice. I’ll give her that, even if it breaks every instinct I have to wait. Even if it burns me alive.

The ridge above the canyon is quiet when I join the rest of Blackstrike. The pine-sweet wind brushes past us, thick with the scent of burned earth. The unit’s already assembled—Kade, Rafe, and Jace—all of them leaning over a digital map spread across a mobile ops table, their expressions grim. They glance up as I approach, their eyes sharp with questions, but none of them voice the obvious. Not about the tension on my face. Not about Ember.

Jace offers a slow nod, the only greeting I get. It's enough. We speak more with silence than words, and right now, there’s too much heat in me for civility.

Kade breaks the silence. “We’ve reviewed the flare pattern on the eastern slope. You were right.”

I nod once. “It’s him.”

Rafe whistles low. “Malek’s alive.”

“As alive as he ever was. And twice as dangerous.”

Jace crosses his arms. “Why now?”

“Because we’ve gone soft,” I say. “Because we let the world forget what we are. And he never did.”

Kade mutters, “He’s not after fire. He’s after exposure.”

I meet his eyes. “He wants the world to burn. Not just forests. Us.”

They fall silent. Each of us thinking the same thing: if the humans ever learn what we are—what we’ve always been—none of us will survive. Not because we’re weak, but because fear is a fire that spreads faster than any blaze we’ve ever dropped into.

Once the truth is out, they won’t see protectors. They’ll see monsters. Weapons. Threats. And then it won’t be fire we’re fighting—it’ll be extermination.

“Ember?” Kade finally asks.

“She’s not ready.”

“She’s getting there,” Rafe murmurs.

That night, I lie in my bed at the base, the dark pressing in around me like a second skin. The quiet isn't peaceful—it's weighted, pulsing with everything I’m trying not to think about.

But there’s no rest. Not tonight. Not when her presence still haunts every sense I have. I can still feel the tug of her fingers in my shirt, her grip firm and desperate. I still smell her—wild and hot, a cocktail of adrenaline, smoke, and skin that shouldn't be this intoxicating. Still hear the sound she made when I caught her, that soft, broken breath between a gasp and a moan.

It replays in my head like a looped prayer to a god I don’t believe in. And I want more of it—more of her. Too much more.

My body won’t let it go. Neither will the dragon inside me. I stir restlessly, close my eyes—and then the dream takes me.

She’s standing in the middle of fire.

Naked.

Glowing.

Flame kisses her skin, gilding and glistening it. Her hair tangles over her breasts, her thighs bare and slick with heat. Her lips part as she looks at me—not in fear, but in hunger.

I go to her.

She doesn’t step back.

I press her against the cavern wall, one hand cupping her jaw, the other trailing down to her hip. Her breath hitches as I grip her, lift her, press between her thighs.

She’s wet.

For me.

My cock is already thick and pulsing, hard with need. I sink into her, inch by inch, as she arches and moans and begs for more. She claws at my shoulders, wraps her legs around me, and rides the edge of fire like she was born for it.

She’s mine.

I mark her with teeth and tongue, claim her body in every way but one.

I don’t shift. Not yet. Not here.

But I feel the dragon in me rise, wings unfurling in the dark of my mind.

She moans my name. Her release tears through her like lightning.

I follow—spilling into her with a groan that shakes the dream to pieces.

I wake with a gasp, sweat slicking my skin.

My cock is still hard, painfully so, the sheets damp with release.

I clench my fists, driving them into the mattress beside me. Fire flares under my skin.

“Fuck.”

The room seems to smolder, and all I can think is how badly I want to make that dream real.