Page 2 of Fire’s Resonance (Hearts on Fire #1)

Heat builds under my skin like I’m running an even higher fever. Sweat prickles along my hairline. Between my thighs, my arousal builds to an embarrassing level. I haven’t even seen him yet, but my body knows. It’s preparing. Readying itself for something my mind doesn’t understand.

The sounds around me suddenly amplify—conversations becoming painful in their intensity, the clink of glasses piercing my eardrums like physical blows. I wince, covering one ear.

“You okay?” Ivy asks.

“Everything’s too loud,” I mutter. “And the smells...”

I can suddenly distinguish individual scents in the room—the perfume of the woman twenty feet away (artificial, chemical, wrong), the nervous sweat of the gallery owner (anxiety, excitement, greed), the arousal of the man eyeing me from the corner (inappropriate, unwanted).

Three men immediately turn toward me, nostrils flaring subtly. One actually steps in my direction before stopping abruptly, fear flashing across his face as he looks toward the door.

I smell his fear. Actual fear. Sharp and acrid, cutting through the perfume and champagne.

The crowd parts as if pushed by invisible hands.

“He’s here,” Ivy whispers unnecessarily beside me.

I already know. My body fucking hums with awareness. Mine, a voice that isn’t mine whispers in my mind.

Mate. Claim. Take.

My panties dampen instantly, thighs slickening with need. He stalks through the gallery entrance like he owns the place. Six-foot-four of pure masculine intensity.

Black hair streaked with silver, muscles straining against his tailored black suit. Those eyes—penetrating metallic silver scanning the room until they lock onto mine.

Raak Silverclaw.

The name whispers through my mind, unbidden, like a half-remembered dream. Where did that come from? It feels both alien and impossibly familiar, knowledge I shouldn’t possess. I shake my head, trying to clear the strange, intrusive thought as he moves through the crowd.

My birthmark burns beneath the bracelet, pulsing in time with my thundering heart. My nipples harden to painful points again. Between my thighs, emptiness aches for fulfillment.

My mind says run. My body screams stay.

The moment my scent hits his nose, he freezes mid-step, nostrils flaring wide.

His silver eyes dilate, darkening at the edges, then briefly flash with an inner light.

A low growl—audible only to me—rumbles from his chest. The sound triggers something primal in me, something that wants to submit and challenge him simultaneously.

I’ve never reacted to a man this way—like my body has suddenly decided it belongs to this stranger. I should be terrified. I should run. Instead, I take an involuntary step toward him.

Submit. Challenge. Mate. Mine.

“Ms. Dekker?” A gallery attendant appears at my elbow, breaking the trance. “Your pieces are drawing quite a crowd. Would you mind discussing them with some potential buyers?”

I barely hear the question. Raak’s gaze holds me captive, his eyes promising things I shouldn’t want from a complete stranger. Dangerous things. Primal things. The promise of completion.

“Ms. Dekker?”

“Right. Yes. Of course.” I force myself to look away, following the attendant toward my display.

Every step feels wrong, like my body protests the increasing distance from the silver-eyed stranger.

My thighs slide wetly against each other as I walk.

Fuck, I’ve never been this aroused in my life, let alone in public. Let alone from a mere look.

“Your work is extraordinary,” a tech CEO says, stepping too close to my display. Too close to me. “I’ve never seen anything like these flame patterns. How do you achieve this effect?”

His cologne assaults my senses—synthetic, wrong. Nothing like the metallic, smoky scent that pulled me across the room. I can smell his interest in me, the sour-sweet tang of male arousal. It repulses me where it should flatter.

I take a step back. “Trade secret,” I manage, distracted by the prickling awareness that Raak is moving through the crowd toward me.

I feel his approach like heat against my back, like the warning pressure before a lightning strike.

My skin pebbles with goose bumps despite my internal temperature rising steadily.

“Perhaps we could discuss your techniques over dinner?” The CEO moves closer, his intentions clear in his practiced smile. “My company is always looking to invest in promising artists.”

The words barely register. All my awareness focuses on the male presence approaching from behind. Closer. Closer. My body recognizes him before my mind does, clenching in anticipation.

Mine to protect. Mine to defend.

“I’ve been admiring your work, Ms. Dekker.” The CEO’s voice cuts through my trance. Before I can respond, six-foot-four of pure muscle inserts itself between us. Raak moves with impossible speed, his back to me, his broad shoulders creating a wall between me and the other man.

“She’s claimed,” he growls, the sound too animalistic to be human. His voice vibrates with a rumbling undertone that makes my core clench painfully. “Find. Another. Female.”

The CEO’s face drains of color as he backs away instantly, primal fear overriding social conditioning. I smell his fear spike, sharp and acrid.

“No male touches what belongs to me,” Raak adds, voice dropping to a dangerous register that raises bumps along my arms. His hand reaches back, finding mine without looking, positioning me firmly behind him.

No one challenges his dismissal, not even me, though I should be outraged at his presumption.

Raak turns to face me, his silver eyes now ringed with gold.

This close, I can see faint patterns along his jawline—subtle textures that catch the light oddly, like scales lying just beneath human skin.

His body radiates heat like a furnace, making me dizzy with the intensity of it. Like touching the sun.

“You’re unmated. Smell it.” He leans in, deliberately running his jaw against my hair, scent-marking me so blatantly that I should be offended. Instead, my knees go embarrassingly weak. “Your heat is beginning. First transformation close.”

Heat? Transformation? The words echo in my dreams, but make no sense in reality.

“I don’t know what ‘unmated’ means,” I hiss, fighting my body’s response to his proximity. “But you can’t just chase off potential buyers.”

“He didn’t want your art.” Raak’s voice drops to a dangerous rumble that vibrates through my chest. “He wants what’s mine.”

“I am not yours.” The words feel like lies even as I say them, my body betraying me with every hitched breath, every pulse of arousal. “I don’t even know you.”

“Your body does.” His gaze drops to my chest, where my nipples betray me, visibly hard. “Your scent knows me.” He inhales deeply, eyelids dropping in pleasure. “Sweet. Spicy. Perfect for breeding.”

Breeding? The word should send me running. Instead, fresh wetness floods my core.

Yes. Breed. Mate. Eggs. Clutch.

What the fuck is happening in my head?

I glance around frantically. “People are staring.”

“Let them.” His massive hand engulfs my smaller one, his thumb deliberately stroking across the birthmark on my wrist. The bracelet offers no protection against his touch. “Fuck,” he hisses through clenched teeth as visible sparks dance between us.

The scent of my arousal spikes, making his nostrils flare. Heat rushes through me, pooling between my thighs. My clit throbs in time with my racing pulse.

“Stay. Behind. Me.” Each word comes out as a separate command as his eyes scan the room, suddenly alert to some threat I can’t perceive. I find myself obeying without question, stepping closer to his broad back.

“You’re unmated,” he states, not asks, his voice dropping to a possessive rumble. “Your body prepares for me. For us. For our claiming.”

“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” I manage to say, though my body screams the opposite. “But I’m pretty sure I’m getting wet just from you touching my hand, and that’s never happened before.” My eyes widen at my own bluntness. Did I seriously just say that out loud?

His pupils dilate completely, silver irises nearly disappearing.

The hand not holding mine clenches into a fist, tendons standing out along his forearm.

For a moment, I swear I see claw tips extending from his fingers before he forces them to relax.

His teeth flash briefly, canines definitely longer and sharper than they should be.

“I’ll take all of them,” he says, gesturing to my displayed pieces without looking away from my face.

“All?” I blink, struggling to follow the conversation through the haze of arousal. “That’s... that’s over two hundred thousand dollars.”

“Worth every penny.” His thumb continues making small circles against my birthmark, sending jolts of electricity up my arm with each pass. “You calling me for years through these pieces. I didn’t know who until now.”

“I haven’t been calling anyone,” I protest weakly.

“This pattern.” He releases my hand to point at a spiral flame in my centerpiece. “My dragon flame signature. Only mine. You couldn’t know...” He trails off, studying me with newfound intensity. “Unless you’re mine. My true mate.”

True mate. The words resonate through me, settling somewhere deep in my chest. Right and wrong simultaneously.

“Dragons?” I repeat, voice barely a whisper. “Did you say dragons?”

His expression darkens. “The clan will not be pleased you are among humans. But they’ll accept you. They must. Protocol demands it.”

Clan? Protocol? My head spins with terms I don’t understand but that somehow feel familiar.

“This is insane.” I pull away, immediately missing his touch like an addict deprived of a fix. “I need some air.”

I push through the crowd toward the gallery’s small outdoor patio, heart racing, thighs slippery with arousal. My birthmark throbs painfully, glowing faintly beneath the bracelet. The cool evening air does nothing to soothe the heat pulsing beneath my skin.