Page 45 of Forged in Fire

“They’re gone,” I say quietly. My voice comes out rough as gravel.

She nods, but doesn’t move to leave our sanctuary. Neither do I. Because out there, we’ll have to figure out what comes next. What this means. How to deal with the impossible situation we’ve stumbled into.

In here, we can pretend the kiss was just adrenaline.

But my body knows better. Every nerve ending still remembers the taste of her mouth, the feel of her against me, the sensation of being bound to her.

“We need to move,” I force myself to say. “They’ll send reinforcements.”

She pulls back a little. “Where do we go?”

Good question. The cabin’s blown. The Guild will have marked every safe house I’ve ever used in the region. We need distance, resources, somewhere they won’t think to look.

“Râ?nov,” I say, running options through my head. “I have assets there. Places they won’t find us.” Reluctantly, I pull away and inch out of the crevice.

“Where the hell is Râ?nov?” she asks, making her way out behind me.

“About thirty miles out.” I glance up at the still-dark sky. “We could make it by nightfall, if we move fast. Quicker if we get a ride.”

“That’s a lot of ground to cover on foot.” She stretches, and I catch myself watching the way her spine arches.

“Not much choice. We need to be clear of here before the next team arrives.” I stretch too, hearing my vertebrae pop. “Thesepeople don’t fuck around when it comes to cleanup operations. They’ll have helicopters, thermal imaging, tracking teams with supernatural abilities. We’d be caught in the open like rabbits.”

“We could shift,” she says, almost casually. “Cover the distance fast. Fly high, avoid detection.”

Shift. Right. Because she’s full dragon, not some half-breed mongrel like me.

The silence stretches too long. She looks at me, confusion flickering in her eyes. “Youcanshift, right? I mean, you’re clearly dragon, your fire signature is—”

“I can’t fly.”

I sound bitter. All these missions, and I’ve never had to admit this limitation to someone whose life might depend on it.

She frowns. “Can’t, or won’t?”

“Can’t.” I meet her gaze, jaw tight. “I’m dragon-touched, not dragon-born. Mixed heritage. I get the fire, the enhanced abilities, but no wings. No dragon form.”

I wait for the calculation to shift in her eyes, for her to realize I’m not the asset she thought I was. Just another liability dragging her down.

Instead, she tilts her head, studying me with interest. “How dragon-touched?”

“Enough.” I leave it at that. She doesn’t need the whole history—human mother, dragon bloodline so diluted it barely counts, abilities that manifested when I was nine and marked me as useful to the Guild.

She’s quiet for a long moment, processing. Then: “You could ride me.”

I blink in surprise. “What?”

“My dragon. I could carry you.” She says it simply, like she’s suggesting we grab coffee. “It’s the fastest way to cover the distance.”

“No.”

“Why not?”

Because the idea of relying on someone else, even her, makes my skin crawl. Because admitting I need help feels like admitting weakness. Because the thought of being that close to her in dragon form does things to my body that have nothing to do with rational thinking.

“Too risky,” I say instead. “If we’re spotted—”

“We stay high. Above the cloud line. It’s still dark, visibility’s limited.” She’s already working through the logistics. “Faster than ground travel. Harder to track.”