Page 9

KADE

I stand at the edge of the motor pool, sunrise bleeding molten gold across the rig bays, casting long shadows that stretch like talons over the gravel.

Diesel fumes cling to the back of my throat, the metallic tang of machinery mixing with last night's smoke—a warning you can taste.

Beneath the thrum of generators and the far-off bark of orders, my sat-comm vibrates once—short, sharp, urgent.

I lift it. A scroll of encrypted Blackstrike intel bleeds across the screen, each line opening up as if the wound beneath the surface finally tore free.

OBJECTIVE: Clean assets, purge witnesses

CODE WORD: Phoenix Slate

Friday. Forty-eight hours. They plan to fold the canyon drill into a bloodbath, to ignite chaos so complete no one will question the ashes left behind.

Burn everything and everyone that could expose them.

Liv will be on that line—brave, stubborn, too damn willing to take the heat herself.

So will every rookie too green to recognize how fast bad fire eats good people, how it crawls into lungs and shadows and doesn’t let go.

I clench my fists. This isn’t a drill—it’s bait.

My jaw grinds, muscles flexing until bone strains and my teeth ache.

No more accidents. No more rookies zipped into body bags or women with fire in their eyes left bleeding on canyon walls.

I taste smoke and old rage at the back of my throat, fury laced with memory. This time, the fire answers to me.

Up on the South Slope Switchback, I shoulder a pack of 'training flares' and hike the goat trail skirting Weaver Ridge. The trail narrows to a spine of shale, boot soles scraping over crumbling rock.

Heat clings to the earth even this high, rising from the canyon like breath from a sleeping beast. Real cargo: Blackstrike micro-thermals disguised in inert casing, cool to the touch but radiating with contained power.

I plant the first beneath a gnarled scrub pine, its bark scorched from past burns.

Thumb the activation stud—instant vibration, low and alive.

The sensor hums, already mapping heat signatures invisible to human eyes, whispering data back to Blackstrike like secrets in the dark.

Liv’s voice crackles over my comm, pitched low so the rookies can’t overhear. “Dragon-man, Command wants eyes on the weather. You free?”

Her words are wrapped in smoke and challenge, like she’s daring me to pretend I’m not already watching her. Even through the grainy static, her voice slides over my nerves—rough silk over old scars.

The nickname slices warmth through my chest, and I huff a short breath—half laugh, half growl. Damn woman knows exactly how to needle me, and somehow, it manages to irritate and amuse me in equal measure. “Ten minutes. North Overlook.”

“Copy. And Kade?” She pauses, breath rasping like she’s jogging. “Don’t get dead.”

Possessiveness threads my grin—feral, protective, edged with a hunger I don’t bother hiding.

“Trying my best, fire-girl.” The words rasp out low and rough, a promise wrapped in heat.

Her voice lingers in my ear like smoke that clings to your gear—sharp, familiar, impossible to shake.

She doesn't know it yet, but she’s already under my skin.

I kill the channel and keep moving, muscles tight with anticipation as I install three more sensors in hard-to-spot crevices and under sun-blasted rocks.

Each casing clicks into place with a soft mechanical snap, the kind of sound that makes your heartbeat hitch if you know what it means.

My wrist display flashes green—tiny lights edging across the map, glowing sentinels staking out my kill zone.

If Ignis so much as exhales wrong, if a single molecule of heat veers off-script, I’ll know.

I’ll be there. And this time, I’ll strike first.

I join Liv on the North Overlook, my boots crunching over sun-scorched gravel as the tree line parts to reveal her silhouette against the blaze of late morning.

Anticipation knots tight in my chest—a hard, bracing tension like the moment before the hose snaps to pressure.

I'm not ready to see her. I'm too ready.

The sight of her hits—the first blast of flame—unexpected, devouring, and instantly, irrevocably real.

The wind howls, a beast loosed in the pines.

The old fire-finder tower looms behind her, its skeletal frame groaning beneath the gusts.

Her sunglasses mask the bruise-dark fatigue under her eyes, but her posture—rigid spine, squared shoulders—screams exhaustion held at bay by willpower alone.

Wind lashes her ponytail into a frenzy, strands snapping across her face and catching in the dry sweat along her jaw.

Grit speckles her cheeks, ash after a burn.

She tosses me a radio chart, her hand steady even as the wind fights to steal the pages.

“Atmospheric inversion forecasted for drill day,” she says. “If they spark a crown, the smoke will hug the canyon and cook us like ribs in a smoker.”

I skim the data, then her face. Worry shadows the smart-mouth lines around her lips, dimming their usual defiance.

Her skin is warm under my thumb, the edge of her jaw taut with tension.

I drag my touch along that line—deliberate, grounding, an anchor in the chaos we both feel pulsing just below the surface.

Her breath catches, a small hitch of surprise and something else—need, maybe, or fear trying hard to hide.

It lands exactly how I wanted it to: proof that she's still fighting, still feeling.

“Won’t happen,” I promise.

She peers up, suspicious. “Because what? You and Mother Nature have an understanding?”

“Something like that. I’m rewriting the battlefield.” I hand back the chart. “Run your crew on the south anchor. Leave the canyon interior to me.”

“That’s not your sector.”

“Fire doesn’t care about sectors. Neither does Ignis.” My gaze drops to her mouth. “I won’t lose you to either.”

Color floods her cheeks—whether from anger or heat, I can’t tell—but the impact hits hard and sudden, all scorch and no warning.

My dragon rears up inside, drawn by the flare in her expression, recognizing it as both a challenge and a summons.

That blush isn’t just blood and temperature—it’s a signal.

My skin tightens, heat licking beneath the surface, every instinct screaming mine.

The sight of her flushed, furious, alive—it’s more potent than any fire.

“I don’t need a savior,” she says, but my body’s already answering, drawn to her blaze like it’s carved into my bones.

“I need you to keep breathing.” I lean close, voice scraping gravel. “Everything else is negotiable.”

Her lips part, a retort loading—but I don’t give her the chance.

I close the distance, slide a hand to her jaw, and kiss her.

Hard. Fast. Our mouths crash together like flint to steel—unexpected, volatile, lit with everything we haven’t said.

She gasps against me, and I feel the flare of her body before she yanks back, breathless, eyes blazing.

The duty pager shrills at her hip, cleaving through the tension—an axe hurled straight through the moment.

She jerks back with a muttered curse, the fire still searing her cheeks.

I feel the ghost of her mouth pressed to mine—heat, hunger, promise—all of it lingering, smoke that refuses to be scrubbed from skin.

She turns and jogs downhill, boots grinding against gravel, ponytail lashing in the wind.

I watch her go, the imprint of that kiss etched across my senses, raw and electric.

The taste of her—heat and challenge and barely bridled need—clings to the back of my throat, smoldering beneath every breath.

The unfinished edge of it crackles in the air, a fuse straining toward ignition.

Mine. The dragon inside me roars with certainty, its hunger flaring as if her scent alone could stoke an inferno. It’s a primal recognition—bone-deep, blood-bound—as instinctive as flame seeking air, as absolute as fire meeting fuel. No logic. No hesitation. Just certainty wrapped in heat.

Several hours later, I step into the Command Center’s stale, recycled air, where the low hum of comms chatter grates against nerves already stretched thin.

Ruiz, the camp commandant, stands behind a steel desk, manifest in hand, her eyes narrowed to slits beneath the brim of her ballcap.

Her face, creased by sun, smoke, and too many years of command, tightens further as she scans my paperwork.

The overhead fluorescents flicker once, painting her expression in hard lines and deeper shadows.

Decades of bureaucracy have dulled neither her suspicion nor her pride; the woman could probably sniff out bullshit through a wildfire.

“These ‘aerial torque drivers’ require restricted airspace,” she says, tapping the form. “It'll be at least a week before we can get an FAA waiver. You’ll have to stage them on the ground.”

“They function best at altitude,” I counter, voice sharp with restrained urgency. “Rotor wash down here throws false heat signatures—scrambles the whole damn readout like static in a storm.”

Her stare sharpens. “You’re three days on site and already red-tagging my logistics. Not happening.”

I force my shoulders loose, combat breathing tamping the dragon’s urge to snarl. “Those tools calibrate jump routes. They’ll save your rookies thirty seconds if the canyon blows.”

“Regulations save lives too.” She hands the clipboard back. “No waiver, no lift.”

Fine.