Page 23 of Fire’s Resonance (Hearts on Fire #1)

“The bond is progressing,” he says, voice carefully neutral. “Fighting it only makes the symptoms worse.”

“Symptoms?” I repeat, incredulous. “You make it sound like I have the fucking flu. I’m turning into something else!”

I move to the window again, needing distance from his overwhelming presence. From his heat. From the scent that makes my mouth water and my thighs clench.

Outside, the crystalline cavern of Emberhold glitters with supernatural light. Dragons in both human and partial forms move about their business, none of them glancing my way. None of them caring that my entire existence is being rewritten.

“I didn’t ask for this!” My voice rises with each word, days of fear and frustration pouring out. “I had a life, plans, a career—I made glass art, for fuck’s sake! I didn’t sign up to breathe fire and grow scales and feel like I’m dying whenever you’re not in the room!”

The last admission slips out before I can stop it. I see the flash of satisfaction in his eyes, the way his chest expands. It only makes me angrier.

“Don’t you dare look smug about this.” I jab a finger toward him, careful not to make contact this time. “This is my life being turned inside out!”

His jaw tightens. The careful neutrality drops from his expression like a discarded mask.

“You think I wanted this?” he growls, stepping closer, using his height to loom over me. His silver eyes flash with barely controlled anger. “To be bound to a stubborn, defiant female who challenges every fucking word I say?”

His chest rises and falls with rapid breaths, his control clearly slipping.

The scent of him intensifies—cedar, smoke, male musk—assaulting my enhanced senses, making my mouth water.

I can’t help imagining how he would taste if I licked the column of his throat, followed that bead of sweat down his chest.

“Who makes me break clan law, risk exile, question loyalties I’ve held for centuries?

” He takes another step closer. I should back away.

I don’t. “You think I asked for a mate who fights me at every turn? Whose scent drives me mad? Whose stubborn independence makes me want to pin her against the wall and show her exactly who she belongs to?”

Yes. Pin me. Take me. Claim me.

My jaw drops at his outburst. It’s the most emotion he’s shown since bringing me to Emberhold.

“Centuries?” I latch onto the one detail, fighting to keep my mind clear despite his proximity. My eyes drop to his mouth, wondering what those full lips would feel like against mine. Against my neck. Between my thighs. “How old are you?”

He ignores the question, catching my wrist when I try to create distance between us.

“Let go,” I demand, but my body betrays me, leaning into his touch instead of pulling away. My free hand lands on his chest for balance, and the contact with his hot skin sends another jolt of pleasure through me.

More. Need more. Need all of him. Inside. Now.

“No.” A single word, hard as stone. Final.

The tension between us snaps like an overloaded power line.

One moment, we’re glaring at each other, fury and frustration crackling in the air between us, the next his mouth is on mine. Hot. Demanding. Consuming.

A moan escapes me—needy, desperate, shameless. His tongue claims my mouth, tasting me, owning me. His large hands lift me effortlessly against him. My legs wrap around his waist instinctively, my core pressing against the hard ridge of his erection through our clothes.

Yes. Finally. Mine. Mate. Take.

Gray flames flare crimson around us both, casting writhing shadows across the walls as he backs me against the nearest stone surface. My tank top rides up, exposing bare skin to rough stone. The slight pain only heightens the pleasure.

The kiss is nothing like I’ve ever experienced—primal, consuming, a claiming rather than a caress. His fangs graze my lower lip, the sharp points sending shivers of arousal through my entire body. He tastes like smoke and something wild, something that calls to the creature I’m becoming.

My body responds with embarrassing eagerness.

Core clenching. Nipples aching against his chest. Liquid heat pooling between my thighs, soaking my underwear.

His hands seem to be everywhere at once, sliding under the tank top to cup my breast, thumb brushing over my hardened nipple with just enough pressure to make me gasp into his mouth.

He growls in satisfaction at my response, the sound vibrating through his chest into mine. His mouth leaves mine to trail fire down my neck, teeth scraping against my pulse point. I tilt my head back, giving him better access, my body surrendering even as my mind struggles to maintain control.

His hips grind against mine, the thick ridge of his cock pressing exactly where I need it. The friction is exquisite. Perfect. Not enough.

For one blissful moment, I surrender to the kiss, to the rightness of being in his arms. This is what I’ve been craving, what my body has been screaming for during our separation.

“Mine,” he growls against my throat, the word vibrating through my chest. His hand spans my ribs, so large it nearly encircles my waist. “Say it, female. Say you’re mine.”

The demand cuts through the haze of pleasure. Triggers my stubborn independence.

I am his. His female. His mate. Say it. Submit.

No. That’s not me thinking. It’s the bond. The dragon inside me. Not Spark Dekker.

Reality crashes back like a bucket of ice water. I pull away, panting, horrified by my lack of control.

“Stop,” I gasp, pushing against his chest. The feel of his skin beneath my palms—hot, hard, scaled in places—nearly undoes my resolve. “Put me down.”

To his credit, he complies immediately, setting me on my feet and stepping away. The tent in his training pants makes it clear how difficult the restraint is for him. I can’t help staring for a moment, imagining what he would look like fully aroused, imagining taking him in my hand, my mouth.

I shake the thoughts away. My legs feel wobbly, and I have to lean against the wall for support, my lips still tingling from his kiss.

“What the fuck was that?” I demand, though I know exactly what it was—the bond pushing us together, our bodies responding to an instinct older than reason.

“That,” he says, voice rough with restrained need, “was your dragon recognizing its mate. Fighting it only makes the symptoms worse.”

I wrap my arms around myself, suddenly aware of how exposed I feel in just his tank top and my underwear. I tug the fabric down to cover more of my thighs, though it’s a futile gesture. The damage is done. He’s seen my reaction to him. Smelled my arousal. Felt me melt against him.

“This isn’t real,” I insist, voice shaking as I try to rebuild my mental defenses. “It’s just some magical dragon bullshit forcing us together. Mind control. Biological manipulation. Whatever you want to call it, it’s not real attraction.”

The words sound hollow even to my own ears, especially with my body still humming from his touch.

“I barely know you!” I continue, pacing again, needing to move, to do something with this restless energy coursing through me.

“You broke into my workshop. You kidnapped me. Brought me to this... this place full of creatures I didn’t even know existed.

And now my body’s acting like you’re... like we’re. ..”

I can’t even say it.

Mates. We are mates. Accept it. Let him claim us. Mark us. Fill us.

His expression hardens, silver eyes flashing as he steps closer again, though he doesn’t touch me. I can feel the heat radiating from him, like standing too close to a furnace.

“Don’t lie to yourself, female.” His voice drops to a dangerous rumble. “It doesn’t suit you.”

“I’m not lying,” I insist, but I can’t meet his gaze, can’t bear the knowing look in his eyes.

“Then why did you draw my exact flame pattern before you ever knew I existed?” he challenges, voice low and intense. Each word precise, measured. “Year after year, piece after piece—my exact signature.”

He moves closer, his heat radiating against my skin.

“Why did I collect your work, feel drawn to flames I thought only I could produce?” He reaches out, not touching me but tracing the air above my arm where the scales had appeared.

Even this non-touch sends shivers across my skin.

“This bond didn’t create something new, Spark. It revealed what was already there.”

I have no answer for that. The uncertainty terrifies me more than any dragon, more than the physical changes, more than the entire supernatural world I’ve been thrust into.

Because if he’s right—if this connection predates our meeting, if our souls have been reaching for each other all along—then I have no defense against it. No logical argument. No way to dismiss it as mere magical manipulation.

And that means... what? That I’m destined to be with this man? This dragon? That all my carefully constructed independence, all my plans for my life, my art, my future, were just... what? A holding pattern until he found me?

The thought makes my chest tighten with panic.

“I need time,” I whisper, the fight draining out of me. I slide down the wall until I’m sitting on the floor, knees pulled to my chest. “This is all happening too fast.”

His expression softens fractionally, though the hunger in his eyes remains.

He crouches before me, careful to maintain distance between us.

I can’t help noticing how the position stretches his tactical pants across powerful thighs, how his abs ripple with each breath, how his shoulders seem even broader from this angle.

“Time is now the one thing we don’t have, little flame.” His voice is gentler now, the rough edges smoothed away. “The full moon is tomorrow night.”

He doesn’t need to explain further. We both know what that means—my first transformation, ready or not.

My hands shake at the thought. What will I become? Will I still be me after? Will there be anything left of the human woman I’ve spent twenty-seven years being?