Page 9 of Fire’s Resonance (Hearts on Fire #1)

“Not belong,” he corrects, voice rough. “Connect. Complete.” His expression softens slightly, revealing vulnerability beneath the warrior exterior. “The Guardian Bond doesn’t create ownership—it creates partnership. Two halves of the same flame.”

His inner dragon recedes slightly, letting the man speak. The scales along his jawline become less pronounced, his eyes losing some of their inhuman glow.

Guardian Bond? The words from the hunters echo in my mind. Triple if she’s still untouched by the Guardian.

Before I can press for more answers, glass shatters somewhere behind us. A high-pitched whine fills the air, making me wince as my enhanced hearing magnifies the painful sound. It drills into my skull like an ice pick, disorienting and nauseating.

The sensory overload is too much. My vision blurs, my balance faltering as my newly enhanced senses struggle to process the assault.

“Tracker devices,” Raak snarls, his face transforming with fury. More scales ripple across his skin, his features sharpening, becoming more predatory. More dragon. His inner beast surging forward in response to the threat. “Hold on to me. Now, female.”

Female. The word should offend me. Instead, it sends another pulse of heat to my core.

Yes. His female. His mate.

He doesn’t wait for my response; simply sweeps me into his arms. I barely have time to wrap my arms around his neck before he’s moving, faster than humanly possible. The world blurs around us as he races through the streets, my body cradled against his chest like I weigh nothing.

The heat between us intensifies with the prolonged contact. Every inch of my skin pressed against him burns with awareness. My head spins with competing sensations—fear, confusion, and overwhelming arousal. My body molds against his perfectly, like we’re two pieces of the same puzzle.

His chest vibrates with a constant low growl—his dragon half responding to the threat, to my scent, to the feel of my body against his. It makes my inner walls clench with need. Again.

“Your scent,” he growls against my hair as he runs, inhaling deeply. “Driving me fucking crazy.”

A small, embarrassed sound escapes me. “You can actually smell me?”

His laugh is dark, dangerous. “Every drop of your arousal, little flame. Every fucking drop.”

Heat floods my face. And between my thighs. Again. How the hell do I respond to that? How do I process any of this?

Dragons. Fire. Mates. Hunters.

It’s too much. Too fast. Too impossible.

And yet... the evidence is undeniable. The scales beneath my skin. The enhanced senses. The impossible connection to this man I barely know, but my body recognizes on a cellular level.

We reach a nondescript metal door set into the side of an abandoned warehouse. Raak shifts me to one arm with inhuman strength, pressing his free palm against the door. Silver flames dance across the metal surface, tracing complex patterns that glow briefly before the door swings open.

“Inside,” he orders, setting me on my feet but keeping a firm grip on my hand. “Quickly.”

I step through the doorway into darkness. The door swings shut behind us with a final-sounding clang. For a moment, we stand in complete blackness.

Then silver-gray flames erupt from Raak’s palm, illuminating a narrow tunnel stretching before us. The walls are carved with strange symbols that seem to pulse with their own inner light when his flame nears them.

The air here feels different—heavier, warmer, charged with energy that makes my skin prickle. My lungs expand, drawing in the mineral-rich atmosphere that somehow feels more natural than the air I’ve breathed my entire life.

My body temperature rises another degree, responding to the environment. It feels right. Natural. Like my body is finally in the environment it was designed for.

“Welcome to the edge of Emberhold,” he says, his voice echoing slightly in the confined space. “The dragon sanctuary.”

I stare at the tunnel, at the dancing flames in his palm, at the inhuman glow of his eyes. My heart pounds in my chest, each beat sending another pulse of heat through my veins. The copper-red scales flicker beneath my skin again, more persistent now.

“This is insane,” I whisper, even as some deep part of me recognizes home.

Home. Safe. Where we belong.

“This is your heritage,” he counters, his free hand coming up to brush a strand of hair from my face. The casual touch sends electricity dancing across my skin. “Your birthright.”

For a moment, we stand there, his flame casting writhing shadows across the tunnel walls. His silver eyes hold mine, filled with heat and hunger and something deeper—recognition.

“Why me?” I finally ask, voice barely audible. The question encompasses everything—why am I part dragon, why is this happening now, why him?

His expression softens slightly, the predator momentarily giving way to something more vulnerable. His inner dragon receding, letting the man speak.

“I’ve been asking myself that same question since your first piece called to me three years ago,” he admits. “Why a human? Why now, when our kind is fading?” His voice drops, bitterness edging his words. “Why the defective warrior with the ash-gray flame?”

The self-loathing in his voice when he says “defective” stirs something protective in me. Without thinking, I reach up, pressing my palm against his cheek where the scales shimmer beneath his skin.

“Gray isn’t defective,” I say with certainty I don’t understand. “It’s rare.”

Protect him.

His eyes widen slightly at my touch, at my words. For a moment, something raw and vulnerable flashes across his face—hope, maybe. Or disbelief.

The scales beneath my palm shift, pressing against my hand like a cat seeking more contact. His dragon responding to my touch, to my acceptance.

Before he can respond, distant shouts echo from the street outside.

“They’ve found the door,” Raak growls, his expression hardening again. His dragon half surges forward, scales rippling across his jawline, his eyes glowing brighter in the darkness. “We need to move. The full explanation will have to wait.”

He grabs my hand, "Stay close," he says. "The entrance is warded against humans and those with ill intentions against our king."

“But I’m human,” I say, worried what will happen to me.

“Only part human,” he reminds me as we run toward the far wall. Oh, right. How could I forget such a small thing?

He suddenly stops. "The wards will recognize your dragon blood, but the passage may be... painful."

I start to tug my hand back, then the door to the building bangs open. Purity trackers flood in with weapons aimed.

“Run!” Raak doesn’t need to tell me twice. He pulls me toward the wall again. A wall with no door.

“Where are you going?” I can’t help but ask the stupid question. He’s about to slam us into the side of the building. But then I feel a strange pulse in my blood. Like it’s being dissected down to the DNA.

The wall begins to shimmer, semi-translucent energy rippling like heat waves across the highway in a desert.

The barrier resistance hits us both like the apparent wall it is—ancient magic testing, probing for weakness, for deception. Raak pushes through easily, but it recoils at my blood nature.

My body convulses as pain I’ve never imagined erupts in every cell. My mind rebels with such urgent self-protection, I nearly lose conscienceless.

I hear Raak roar like he’s a thousand miles away. "RECOGNIZE HER! SHE BELONGS WITH ME!"

The words resonate through the magical field with undeniable power. The barrier retreats, parting like water, allowing me entrance. My knees give, and I crumble to the cave floor. Cave?

Raak lifts me into his arms and rushes through the tunnel. The temperature rises noticeably with each step, the air growing thick with mineral scents that should be foreign but somehow feel familiar. Like I’ve breathed this air before in dreams I can’t quite remember.

My enhanced senses pick up strange sounds ahead—a distant rumble like underground rivers, the crystalline chime of what might be wind through stone formations, and beneath it all, a low thrumming pulse that resonates in my chest like a massive heartbeat.

The sensory input is almost overwhelming. Too much. Too rich. Too intense. My head spins as I struggle to process it all.

“What’s that sound?” I ask, my hand pressing against my sternum where the rhythm seems strongest. The beat pulses through me, calling to something deep inside. “That... heartbeat?”

“The Great Forge,” Raak answers, his own steps faltering slightly. His expression shifts to something like awe. “It hasn’t called to anyone in decades. Not since The Sundering.”

His dragon half responds to the sound, scales rippling more prominently across his skin. Flames erupt along his arms, shifting from silver-gray to briefly flash crimson—the color change clearly significant from the way his breath catches.

The confusion must show on my face because he shakes his head. “Later. First, we need to reach the inner sanctum. My quarters should be safe for now.”

“Your quarters,” I repeat, trying to wrap my head around all this. “In a dragon sanctuary.”

A grim smile touches his lips. “Welcome to your new reality, Spark Dekker.”

The way he says my name sends another wave of heat through me. Not just arousal—though that’s definitely still there, simmering beneath the surface of every interaction—but recognition. Like my name in his mouth completes some ancient invocation.

My nipples tighten. Again. My core clenches. Again. Heat pools between my thighs. Again.

His. Mine. Ours.

Each step farther into the tunnel intensifies the connection between us, the burning awareness. My body feels both foreign and more mine than ever—awakening to possibilities I never knew existed.

The tunnel widens gradually, the ceiling rising until we’re walking through a massive cavern. Crystal formations stud the walls, catching Raak’s flame and refracting it in dazzling patterns across the stone. The floor beneath his feet is smooth, polished by generations of passage.

“How long has this place existed?” I ask, voice hushed by the sheer scale of the space.

“Since before human civilization,” he answers, his tone somber. “This sanctuary was ancient when Rome was young.”

The thought staggers me—generations of dragons living secretly beneath the human world. A parallel society, hidden in plain sight.

“And no one knows? No one’s discovered you?”

His laugh is harsh. “Some have. They rarely live to tell about it.”

A chill runs through me at his words, at the casual reference to killing humans who discover their secret. Am I in danger? Is that why he’s brought me here—to silence me permanently?

No. The certainty fills me. He won’t hurt me. Can’t hurt me. We’re connected now, for better or worse.

Safe.

“You can put me down,” I demand more than ask. Raak stops, returning me to my feet. In the silver light of his flame, his features look carved from stone—beautiful and dangerous and utterly inhuman. His dragon half close to the surface, watching me through silver eyes.

“What happens to me now?” I ask, hating the tremor in my voice. I’ve never been afraid to face the unknown before. I’ve survived foster care, homelessness, and building a business from nothing. I can survive this too.

“Now?” His free hand comes up to cup my cheek, the touch surprisingly gentle from such a predatory man. The heat of his palm against my skin sends another jolt of electricity straight to my core. “Now you learn who you really are, Spark Dekker. What you were always meant to be.”

His eyes hold mine, silver fire burning in their depths. The heartbeat of the mountain pulses around us, through us, between us.

“And what is that?” I whisper, leaning into his touch despite myself.

His smile is both beautiful and terrible, revealing those too-sharp canines. His dragon half, proud and possessive.

“Mine,” he growls, the word sending a shiver down my spine. “And I am yours. Guardian and guarded. Protector and protected. Two halves of the same flame.”

Yes. Mine. Always.

As we move deeper into this place, leaving the human world behind, the strange certainty grows stronger.

I follow him, my hand burning where it connects with his, my body humming with newfound power and awareness.

Something primal whispers through my blood with each step, getting louder as we descend:

You’re finally going home.