Page 14

LIV

T he voice threads through my bones before I register the words—Kade’s, quiet but taut with urgency, vibrating through the pendant at my throat. I freeze mid-step, every instinct flaring.

“Dragon-girl, the predators are inside the fence," he says.

No sirens. No alarms. Just his voice, low and lethal, and the weight of what it means.

I don’t wait for orders. I don’t ask questions.

My pulse spikes. My breath shortens. I grab my gear and move fast, boots cracking over scorched debris.

The trees around the burn line loom like charred sentinels, and if something’s coming, I’m damn well meeting it on my feet—with eyes open and fists ready.

The last flare-up left a plume of smoke clinging to the upper ridge, and now that the wind has shifted, the ash it carried begins to settle.

It drifts down like black snow, slow and weightless, dusting the charred hillside in lazy spirals.

The sky hasn’t fully lightened, and my skin still tingles from the buzz of the pendant.

One moment I’m hearing Kade’s voice—warning me that the predators are already here—the next, and without any clear instructions to the contrary, I’m suiting up, too furious to breathe.

They can bench me, flag me, call me unstable.

I don’t give a damn. My boots are already coated in soot, and my lungs burn with the bite of smoke.

I can feel the heat of danger pulsing in the ground—alive, waiting, ready to pounce.

The bastards are already inside the fence, slinking through the dark—ruin in motion—and I’ll be damned if I’m not out there when it all goes to hell.

Not hiding. Not hesitating. Just me, the fire, and the fury in my blood.

My headlamp slices through the murk, a blade of light cutting across the ash-choked hillside.

Smoke clings to the air in sticky strands, coiling low along the ground where stumps still seethe with ghost heat.

The remnants of yesterday’s fire glow faintly, veins of ember simmering beneath cracked bark—dying stars on borrowed time.

Outside, the air hangs heavy and sour with char.

I’m leading the patrol—boots grinding through brittle root beds, sweat sliding down my back, every nerve strung tight against the gust that could turn ember to inferno. Again.

I find it buried in the bottom of my jacket—a strip of Nomex with a melted edge and half a name still legible in Sharpie.

It used to be Lawson’s—my spotter. Always carried licorice in his back pocket, always complained about the radio static.

He’d given me hell for not replacing my cracked face shield.

I turn the fabric over in my hands, thumb brushing the burn-warped letters. He’d been closest when the flashover came.

This is all I have left of him; I never found the rest.

I’m buffeted by the winds, having to brace myself to avoid rocking or stumbling back. I can hear the rookies laugh. Gear clinks. Normal.

I stuff the tag back in my jacket pocket. Not out of guilt. Not anymore.

To remember why I walk into the fire. Why I push Diaz and the others harder than the brass wants. Why I bark when they hesitate and stand too long at the edge of a drop. Because the next blowback won’t take me by surprise. Not again.

I won’t lose another crew.

“Check that stump,” I say, pointing with the tip of my Pulaski. “It’s still breathing.”

One of the rookies—Valdez—jogs over and shoves the nozzle into the heart of the charred stump.

The instant water hits ember, a piercing hiss tears through the silence, warning sharp and sudden, followed by a sharp pop that ricochets off the rocks.

Steam bursts upward in a sulfurous plume, stinging the nostrils and carrying the bitter scent of burned sap.

The wood swells, black veins pulsing with heat, and for a moment, it looks like the entire stump is breathing fire.

A flare-up waiting to happen—until Valdez yanks back, eyes wide beneath his helmet.

"Good catch," Valdez mutters, backing off. "Smelled it before I saw it."

I nod but keep scanning. The wind has turned again, sweeping west over the ridge, tugging at my gear and stirring the smoke like restless ghosts.

With it comes a new scent—sharper, hotter, threaded with the bite of fresh combustion.

Less of the sodden, smothered ash we’ve been slogging through and more of something raw.

Untamed. Close enough to taste. Close enough to mean trouble.

A gust barrels in from the east, stirring the smoke into motion—a sentient wave rippling through the hollow.

It dives into the root bed of a downed pine, fanning buried embers.

The wood flares in a sudden shimmer, a heartbeat of molten orange racing across bark and branch.

In a single breath, sparks erupt in a furious swarm, streaking skyward—fireflies flung from a forge.

The ground ignites in flashes, pulsing with heat and promise—an inferno ready to run wild.

“Back!” I shout. “Form up—defensive line, thirty feet!”

We scatter. Heat slams into me, dry and ravenous, a furnace door blown wide. Fire snaps at my heels, tearing through pine duff, feasting on roots and brittle limbs. My eyes sting. Breath rasps in as I scan for a way out, but the flames are already curling in from behind, snarling and fast.

My crew clears the burn line, but I zig toward a cluster of boulders, hoping for cover—only to find I’ve cornered myself. Smoke thickens, pressing close, a suffocating presence tightening around me, and I know it: I’ve walked straight into a fire trap in the middle of mop-up hell.

Then I see him—rising out of the haze with the sure, slow stride of someone born from flame. Kade.

No mask. No helmet. Just raw power and that unnerving calm that treats wildfire as nothing more than background noise. His braid is singed at the end, his shirt clings with sweat, and his eyes find mine through the churn of ash and light.

"You always this good at getting yourself boxed in?" he calls.

"Only when I’m bored!"

He grins and jerks his head. "Come on. There’s a gap upwind."

I follow without hesitation, every step syncing with his as the world narrows to smoke and glowing embers.

His silhouette moves like something elemental—half man, half memory—cutting through the inferno without fear.

Sparks wheel around us in silent bursts, fireflies cast from the ribs of the earth, painting our path in flickering gold.

We squeeze through a narrow corridor where the flames have already fed and faded, the ground scorched and glossy with residual heat.

Each breath tastes of soot and warning, but the scar we cross is stable—for now.

I stop once we’re clear and whirl on him. "Okay, now that you’ve saved me again, want to tell me what the hell you are?"

He doesn’t blink. "Later."

"Bullshit. I’m tired of secrets. You show up out of nowhere, pull stunts that defy physics, and forge weird jewelry that feels like it’s alive."

His gaze drops to the pendant under my shirt, then lifts to my eyes. "That’s protection. Nothing more."

"Then why does it hum?" I press my hand to the metal. "Why does it feel like it’s watching me?"

He steps in close, heat bleeding off him—smoky and familiar, a living forge. “Because I made it with more than just metal.”

I should step back. I don’t. I lean in instead, drawn by the heat rolling off him and the way his scent—smoke, sweat, and something elemental—wraps around my senses. My pulse stutters. Every part of me feels too alive, too aware, as if I’ve edged too near a wildfire and dared it to see me.

I’m breathing him now—smoke, sweat, and something primal threaded with heat—scorched cedar crackling in the dark, the breathless hush before lightning strikes.

His hand lifts slowly, fingertips grazing the chain at my neck, stirring sparks beneath my skin.

He trails lower, knuckles brushing the hollow of my throat, the touch whisper-soft but potent, until his palm settles over the pendant resting between my collarbones.

Warmth radiates from him—not burning, but charged—heat laced with hunger, anchoring itself in my bones, a secret only my body remembers how to keep.

Heat blooms beneath his palm, a steady throb that sinks into my skin and spreads through my chest—not fire, not magic, but something older.

Something alive. Like the forge of his body is answering mine, stoking embers I didn’t know I carried.

My breath falters, chest rising to meet the warmth, caught between surrender and ignition.

It’s not just heat—it’s hunger wrapped in memory, a tether drawn tight beneath my skin.

"You’re playing with things you don’t understand," he whispers.

My fingers flex. "So are you."

I fist his shirt, pulling him down into a kiss that detonates between us—raw and ravenous.

Our mouths crash together, all grit and fire, the taste of ash and want smearing between our lips.

He groans against me, a sound that sinks straight into my bones, and then his hands are on me—rough palms bracketing my jaw, thumbs angled to tilt my face up as he deepens the kiss like he owns it.

There’s no caution, no prelude. Just hunger.

Just heat. His teeth graze my lower lip, dragging it between us before he claims my mouth again, harder this time—like punishment and promise rolled into one.

My pulse hammers, my body arches into him, and the world narrows to the blistering press of his chest against mine, the smoke coiling around us, and the desperate way we devour each other like the wildfire isn’t out there, but in us.

It’s not gentle. It’s not sweet. It’s a surrender with consequences. And I welcome every one of them.

We break apart slowly, foreheads still pressed together, breath mingling in humid bursts of heat and ash.

My lips feel bruised, tingling with the imprint of his mouth, while the flush across my skin hums with residual hunger.

Beneath the scorched fabric of my shirt, the pendant radiates warmth against my chest—steady, rhythmic, unmistakably alive.

I swear I can feel it move through me like a current, more than heat—something ancient, a second heart waking up.

He murmurs, "That was a bad idea."

"Then stop doing it."

Neither of us moves.

The radio crackles. "Monroe, stand by." Ruiz. Her voice is hard. "Effective immediately, you’re pulled from the drill. Flagged for a mental-fitness review."

My stomach drops. "Excuse me?"

"Recommendation from medical. Your recent trauma profile shows instability. Until cleared, you’re benched."

The channel cuts, the silence afterward louder than the order itself. I stare at the radio like it just spat in my face, my fingers tightening around it until plastic creaks. "They’re grounding me," I say, the words bitter as smoke on my tongue, disbelief flaring into fury.

Kade straightens, something dangerous flickering in his eyes. "They want to keep you out of harm’s way."

"I am harm’s way." I shove the headset into my belt. "They think they can sideline me like I’m fragile? Like I didn’t claw my way back into the field?"

"You’re not fragile," he says, voice low. "But they’re scared. And they’re right to be. You’re not just part of the op. You’re the key."

"Then I have to be there."

"You will be." He cups the back of my neck again, thumb brushing that same spot. "But not how they expect."

I arch an eyebrow. "Are you saying I should defy direct orders?"

"I’m saying I’ll cover you. You show up as a safety observer. Ruiz won’t question it until it’s too late to pull you out."

A jolt of something primal streaks through me—more than defiance, deeper than instinct. It’s the rush of claiming back what they tried to take, the fire of being seen, chosen, needed. Not rebellion. Reclamation, with teeth.

"Won’t that get me terminated?"

He leans in again, voice almost a growl. "Only if they live to file the paperwork."

I laugh—a low, wicked ripple that tastes like freedom—and shove him back with both hands, my palms catching the edge of his chest, hot through the fabric.

"You’re trouble," I say, breath still ragged, heart still galloping. And he is. The kind of trouble that unravels restraint and dares me to leap into the fire.

"I’m your trouble."

I turn toward the trail, lungs still tasting him, nerves jangling like they'd been strung too tight and then set alight.

Behind us, the fire fades into hissing coals and scorched silence, its hunger temporarily sated.

But the air isn't still—not really. Smoke still snakes between the trees, and the horizon bleeds the barest hint of pre-dawn glow, brushing the ridge with ghost-light.

Every step forward feels like crossing a fault line, like one wrong move might wake the fire again—or worse, the predators already stalking within it.

The pendant buzzes once—then again—each jolt sharper than the last, vibrating against my skin in a silent, urgent beat.

I freeze, breath catching as tension lances up my spine.

This isn’t a warning—it’s a summons. I press my hand to it, heart tripping over the rhythm, instincts flaring fast and hot.

Kade’s eyes narrow. “What is it?”

“Double ping.”

He stiffens. “Drone.”

Far above, a faint red light glows through the haze—slow, deliberate, predatory. It slices through the smoke with mechanical precision, scanning the landscape. Not a flicker. A focus. Watching. Tracking. Calculating. The kind of gaze that doesn’t just observe—it marks.

The air thickens with consequence, as if the moment itself holds its breath—and the ground beneath us forgets which side of the line it's on.