Page 13 of Fire’s Resonance (Hearts on Fire #1)

When the flames finally recede, Spark stares at her hands in wonder. Tiny copper-red embers still dancing between her fingers. “I—I felt you,” she whispers, eyes meeting mine. “In my mind. How is that possible?”

The intimacy of the moment is staggering. More intimate than a physical claiming would have been. Our very essences have touched. Mingled. Recognized each other across bloodlines and worlds and time itself.

Soul-matched. Flame-bonded. Eternally entwined.

Before I can answer, Elder Nyra rises from her seat. Her ancient face alight with something like hope.

“The Guardian Bond is confirmed,” she announces formally. “The first of the four elemental bonds has awakened.” She turns to Varen, challenge in her silver eyes. “The Ancestral Flame Protocol has begun. The other will awaken in turn. Their time is near.”

Varen’s expression flickers—triumph and rage warring beneath his careful mask.

“Indeed,” he says, voice strained. “The council acknowledges the bond.” His eyes lock with mine, hatred burning in their depths.

“Take your... mate... to the Guardian quarters. She will need training to control her newfound abilities.”

As we leave the Inner Sanctum, Spark leans heavily against me. The awakening of her powers clearly draining her energy. Her steps falter. She stumbles.

I sweep her into my arms without hesitation. Her weight is nothing to my dragon strength. Her body fits against mine perfectly, the soft curves molding against the hard planes of mine. She belongs here. Against my heart. Protected by my strength.

My heightened senses catch the murmurs. The suspicious glances. The fear and wonder in equal measure. The Guardian Bond hasn’t been seen in generations. Its return now, with a half-human female, upends everything the clan thought they knew.

Let them talk.

I turn my head, burying my nose in her fiery tresses. Inhaling deeply. Scent-marking her in the most primitive dragon way.

“What happens now?” she murmurs, head resting against my shoulder. Fiery hair spilling over my arm in a silken cascade. The strands catch the light from crystal formations, glowing like living flame.

My arms tighten around her. The beast within me purring at her closeness.

At her trust. “Now I keep you safe while you learn what you truly are.” I press my lips to her forehead, inhaling her scent—cinnamon and fire, with new notes of dragon emerging.

“And we figure out who hid you among humans, and why.”

Her eyes, heavy with exhaustion, meet mine. “Why do I feel like I’ve known you forever? Like some part of me has been waiting for you?”

The bond pulses between us. Warm and right and perfect. A connection beyond physical. Beyond words. The missing piece I never knew I needed until she crashed into my life with her defiance and her amber eyes and her impossible glass creations.

“Because you have,” I tell her, the truth settling into my bones. “Your dragon has been calling to mine your entire life. Creating my flame pattern in your glass. Searching for me across worlds.”

As I’ve been waiting for you. Incomplete until now.

As I carry her toward the Guardian quarters, I feel more eyes watching from the shadows. Not all the clan welcomes this development. The Guardian Bond threatens the status quo. Challenges power structures in place for generations.

And something about Varen’s reaction feels wrong. His initial anger at the bond’s confirmation before that mask of approval slipped into place. The darkness I glimpsed beneath his skin. The corruption no one else seems to see.

Let them come, my dragon snarls within me. I’ll burn anyone who threatens what’s mine.

For the first time in my life, my defective flames feel like strength rather than weakness. With Spark, they burn crimson-bright and powerful. Together, we’re something neither of us could be alone.

Guardian-bonded. Protectors of the clan. The first step in saving dragonkind from extinction.

Her fingers trace the scales along my jaw. The touch sending sparks of heat through my body. Her scent shifts, warming with renewed arousal despite her exhaustion.

“I still have about a million questions,” she murmurs. A small smile curves her lips. The first real smile I’ve seen from her. It transforms her face. Makes something in my chest tighten painfully.

I rumble a laugh against her hair. “We have time, little flame. All the time in the world.”

My mate. My future. The mother of my offspring someday.

The thought hits with unexpected force. Images flood my mind—Spark round with my child. Our mingled flames creating new life. A family. Something I never thought I’d have. Never thought I deserved.

As I carry her deeper into Emberhold, past ancient guardians whose stone eyes seem to follow our progress, I can’t shake the feeling that time is precisely what we don’t have.

Something is coming. Something connected to Spark’s hidden past and the corruption I glimpsed beneath Varen’s skin.

The Guardian Bond has awakened. And with it, forces that have waited decades for this precise moment.

Let them come. We’ll face them together.

I reach the Guardian quarters—ancient chambers untouched for generations. Waiting for us. The doors recognize our approach, ancient glyphs lighting with internal fire as we near. They swing open soundlessly, revealing a space both alien and somehow familiar.

Crystal formations line the walls, responding to our presence with soft illumination. A massive bed dominates one alcove, carved from stone but covered in furs and silken fabrics. The air is warmer here, heated by underground thermal vents to a temperature perfect for dragons.

For us.

I lay Spark gently on the bed. Her hair spreads across the dark furs like living flame. Her eyes, heavy with exhaustion, still track my movements as I secure the chambers.

“Rest,” I tell her, voice rough with emotions I can’t name. With need I can barely control. “Your body needs to adjust to the awakening.”

She catches my wrist as I turn away. Her touch sending sparks of heat up my arm. “Stay,” she whispers. “I don’t... I don’t want to be alone right now.”

The request breaks something inside me. A final barrier between duty and desire. Between what I was trained to be and what I am becoming with her.

I lower myself beside her on the bed. Careful to maintain distance despite every instinct screaming to claim her completely. The mating urge pounds through my blood with every heartbeat.

But she needs rest more than mating now. Protection more than passion. The bond will require physical completion soon—my dragon instincts know this with certainty. But not while she’s exhausted from her first awakening.

Protect first. Claim later. Love always.

The word shocks me. Love. Not a concept dragons associate with mating. We speak of compatibility. Of genetic matches. Of flame resonance. Yet the emotion swelling in my chest as I look at her can’t be named anything else.

She shifts closer. Presses her body against mine. Seeking my heat. Her scent wraps around me, seeping into my pores. Marking me as thoroughly as I want to mark her.

“I don’t understand what’s happening to me,” she murmurs, voice heavy with approaching sleep. “But it feels right. You feel right.”

My arm wraps around her. Pulling her closer until her head rests on my chest. Over my heart. Where she belongs. Where she was always meant to be.

Her hand comes to rest on my stomach. Small fingers splaying across the muscles there. Even through my shirt, the contact sends heat spiraling through me. I imagine those same fingers exploring lower. Wrapping around my cock. Stroking me to completion.

Soon, little flame. Soon we’ll explore every aspect of this bond.

“Sleep, little flame,” I rumble, the endearment falling naturally from my lips. “I’ll keep you safe.”

As her breathing deepens into sleep, I stare at the ceiling of our new quarters. My mind racing through everything that’s happened. Everything still to come.

The Guardian Bond is only the beginning. The first of four elemental bonds that, according to legend, will restore the clan’s power. Save us from the slow decline that began with The Sundering.

But there are forces that don’t want that restoration. Powers that benefit from our continued weakness.

And my female—my unexpected, impossible mate—is now at the center of it all.

My arms tighten around her sleeping form. Silver-crimson flames flicker along my skin, extending to cover her as well. A protective cocoon that will burn anyone who tries to reach her.

Mine to defend.

In sleep, she burrows closer. Her body perfectly aligned with mine. As if made for me alone. Perhaps she was.

Whatever comes next, we face it together. Guardian-bonded. Two halves of one whole.

For the first time in my life, I am not defective. Not lesser. Not the Ashen One with his strange gray flames.

With Spark, I am exactly what I was meant to be all along.

Complete.