Page 26

LIV

T he GPS ping came through just after midnight—unsecured coordinates flagged as a ‘supply cache check.’ I caught it from my trailer at base camp, eyes burning from too little sleep and too many open comm feeds.

It reeked of bait the second it hit the board.

But something in the timing, in the quiet between transmissions, told me this wasn’t just static.

The signal was bouncing off a repeater decommissioned six months ago.

No active fire personnel or park ranger should be anywhere near that channel.

Which meant someone wanted one of us there—and knew just enough to make it look official.

The silence in the derelict shelter isn’t natural—it’s deliberate. A manufactured stillness that coils around you, tightening with intent.

I taste it before I hear him.

"Didn’t think I’d get you or that you’d come alone,” Greer says from the shadows, voice soaked in bitterness and gasoline.

He steps into the dim light filtering through a warped metal slat in the wall. His beard’s longer than it used to be. Thinner. Skin tight across high cheekbones. The last time I saw him, it was from a distance, but I didn’t realize how far he’d fallen until now.

Now there’s no mistaking it. Greer has the hollow-eyed stare of someone who’s already lost everything.

His clothes hang off him like they’ve been slept in for days, and there’s a raw stink of sweat, soot, and desperation radiating off his skin.

His eyes? Flat. Like the light’s gone out behind them, replaced by the kind of fury that doesn’t flare—it festers.

“Danny.” I don’t move. Don’t blink. “It's been a while.”

A bitter laugh scrapes from his throat. He nods toward the stack of C-4 bricks lining the corners, nestled under old cot frames like improvised footers. The setup’s familiar in the worst possible way—an old training shelter warped by time and soot, now wired for carnage.

We practiced rescues in shelters like this, drilled protocols till our hands bled.

And still... we lost people in them. Fires that moved too fast. Flashovers we didn’t predict.

Names etched into the wall back at base, faces that never made it home.

And now Greer’s twisted that memory into a kill box.

A makeshift fire shelter turned death trap.

He holds up a small black remote with a stubby antenna. “Ninety seconds. That’s how long we’ve got once I flip the switch.”

My breath catches as the words land. He’s already primed the detonator.

Ninety seconds in a rigged structure like this?

That’s not enough time to think, let alone run.

I glance once around the shelter—C-4 stacked tight into corners, wire paths winding like tripwires across the frame.

It’s a coffin with a countdown. No margin for error.

If I guess wrong or hesitate, there won’t be enough left of me for a dental match.

My heart stutters. “Is that why you lured me here? You want me dead, or you just want someone to listen while you go out in a blaze of irrelevance?”

Greer’s laugh is low, joyless. “You always thought you were smarter. Always thought you were better.”

“I was better, Danny,” I shoot back. “Am better. Better at the job. Better under pressure. Better at telling the truth when the flames got close.”

“You were better at making me look like the problem,” he snaps, pacing with that twitchy edge that always showed up when he was backed into a corner. “You think they followed you because of merit? They followed you because you were fire’s favorite. Because you looked good on the PR posters.”

I never saw the unraveling—he dumped me the day after my demotion. Cold. Efficient. Like I was a liability he’d waited for an excuse to cut.

I narrow my eyes, trying to keep my voice steady while my pulse hammers in my throat. “And you think blowing me up’s going to fix that? Or are you hoping the world will finally see you as the hero you always wanted to be?”

I need to stall. Keep him talking. My brain scrambles—angles, cover, proximity to the wall. There has to be a way out.

He turns, jabbing a finger toward the C-4 bricks like they prove his point.

“This isn’t about being a hero. It’s about clarity.

About truth. They recruited me because they knew I saw it before the rest of you did—that the system’s broken.

Rotting from the inside out. Ignis isn’t chaos.

It’s correction. And this?” He gestures again, eyes burning.

“This is how you wake a world that’s already on fire. ”

My mouth is dry, but I push the words out. “Neither you nor Ignis give a damn about truth,” I say, letting the fear sharpen into accusation. “You want to be remembered. You want someone else to carry the weight you dropped. That’s not truth. That’s ego.”

Something flickers in his expression. Regret? No—resentment sharpened by guilt.

“I could’ve been great,” Greer mutters, almost to himself. “Before you rewrote the narrative.”

“You did that all on your own,” I say, voice dropping to ice. “And you’re still trying to control the ending.”

“I want the truth to outlive you. You and your scaled-up boyfriend from Blackstrike.” He snorts, voice sharp with scorn.

“Yeah, I know. You think I wouldn’t notice?

The sudden op clearances, the disappearing acts, the fire that doesn’t behave like fire.

Ignis did the math, and now we know what you’re hiding. What he and all of Blackstrike are.”

He paces, jaw tight. “No one’s that good without something unnatural in the mix. And you—you didn’t even flinch when the canyon lit up. That’s not training. That’s biology.”

He knows what Kade is. Knows about dragons. And he knows enough to turn this entire operation into kindling. If this place goes up, he takes me, the secrets, and maybe the only person I’ve ever wanted to burn for all the right reasons.

“I should’ve been the hero,” he whispers, pacing tighter. “Not the scapegoat. That was your job.”

My sigil flares at my collarbone—molten heat blooming, ink poured into flame, sliding through me in a rhythm that isn't entirely mine.

It doesn't hurt—but it claims. An invisible tether pulls taut, snapping my awareness toward Kade with sudden clarity, as if my blood remembers his name before my mouth can form it. Heat licks across my skin in waves I feel in every cell. Kade. He’s close.

The bond tightens, charged with the kind of energy that crackles just before lightning strikes.

I keep my voice level. “You want the truth, Danny? You betrayed everyone and everything we ever believed in. You became their tool—nothing more”

He snarls and flicks the switch. A soft chirp reverberates faintly, sharp and unmistakably artificial.

It’s the kind of sound you only hear once if you get it wrong.

The kind that tells you there’s no more time for negotiation.

My stomach twists as the countdown begins—silent and merciless, each second ticking forward, a fuse tightening around our throats.

The countdown has started.

I scan the rigged bricks. No time to trace every wire. No time to guess. My eyes lock on the receiver—small, exposed, and maybe fragile enough to sabotage.

I sprint to the control panel and grab the closest shard of metal from a splintered cot frame. My fingers tremble as I wedge it under the antenna base and torque upward until it gives with a sharp snap. Sparks flicker—then die. The signal light goes dark.

Dead circuit. No detonation. The signal sputters. Pops. Dies.

Greer lunges with a shout of rage, but in the heartbeat before impact, a flicker of motion above catches my eye—a streak of heat, too bright to be natural, plunging from the rafters in a blaze of flame-shot momentum. My skin prickles. My lungs seize.

Then the roof erupts—a white-gold plume tearing down through the smoke, fury incarnate wrapped in thunder.

Kade drops through the inferno, a force made flesh.

The fire howls around him but doesn’t touch me—not even a scorch.

Just a ripple of warmth across my cheeks, as if the flames recognize me and choose to let me stand.

No pain. No burn. Only awe—and the fierce, unshakable truth that he’s my mate, and he’s come for me.

He lands hard, human, bare-chested, knees bent in a fighter’s crouch.

Flames peel away from him in slow ribbons of heat, trailing sparks that vanish before reaching the ground.

Smoke clings to his skin but never harms it, curling and fading as though in deference.

Every muscle is coiled, tension carved into every line of his body.

Heat radiates from him in waves, unmistakable, primal—and for one breathless moment, I swear the fire bends to him… then dies.

He moves faster than I’ve ever seen him. His face is carved from focus—jaw locked, eyes flaring with barely checked rage. Every step is precision, every movement a weapon honed to the edge. Cold fury rides under his skin, leashed but lethal, and Greer doesn't stand a chance.

One arm locks around Greer’s throat, the move so fast it looks like Kade stepped out of smoke and into the kill zone without missing a beat. The other hand snatches the remote, wrenching it from Greer’s grip with a twist that makes him yelp.

In a blink, Kade pivots—slamming Greer face-first into the wall, one arm barred across his shoulders while the other rips a zip tie from his belt.

The plastic bites into Greer’s wrists, cinched tight before the bastard can catch a full breath.

He gurgles a curse, struggling against the restraint, but it’s done.

Over. The feral edge in Kade’s eyes says he could’ve ended this a hundred ways—and chose mercy out of discipline, not necessity.

I stagger once—only once—and Kade’s already by me. Hands on my arms. Steady. “You okay?”

“No,” I breathe, “but I’m alive.”

He doesn’t kiss me.