Page 3 of Rook (Dragon Brides #11)

The park ranger urged her back the way he’d come, acting like the fire was nothing more than an inconvenience, a brush-clearing project, not a living threat swallowing the forest.

Shouldn’t he be calling it in?

Shouldn’t he have a radio, a sense of urgency, a plan that involved more than just hustling her along a muddy trail?

“They had flamethrowers,” she panted out, one boot scrambling for purchase as she vaulted over an old, moss-blanketed pine. “I think it’s drug dealers, maybe. Or … you do work for the park, right? Are you a cop?”

Her words came out in gasps, half carried by panic, half by the need to make sense of the impossible. He couldn’t just be a regular hiker—not in that uniform.

She risked a look at him. His uniform wasn’t right.

It hugged his body, all black and slightly glossy.

The material looked too sleek, too fitted, as if it were tailored to his broad shoulders and lean waist. There were panels of something that caught the light in flashes, and the seams looked reinforced, not stitched.

No patches, no name tag, no faded green or khaki like every ranger she’d ever known. He moved in the uniform easily, with a kind of grace she’d never seen on anyone in government-issued polyester.

It wasn’t just the uniform that made her heart beat faster. Even with the panic thrumming beneath her skin, she couldn’t help noticing how he filled it out. He was tall, at least a head above her, and built like he could haul a full-grown elk out of a ravine with one arm.

His jaw was all hard lines and stubble, his hair black and a little too long to be regulation, curling just above his collar.

There was a heat to him, a presence that felt physical, almost magnetic.

She felt it even with the fire behind them, even with her brain screaming at her to run.

Her hands were shaking, but not entirely from fear.

He glanced at her, his strange yellow eyes catching the light for a split second. Her stomach knotted.

What the hell was wrong with her?

She was fleeing flamethrower-wielding drug dealers, and her heart was fluttering like a teenager’s.

“I’m Rook,” he said, his voice deep and rough, like gravel under tires. He hesitated before giving the name, as if he was leaving something off. Or maybe he wanted to say more—Captain Rook? Ranger Rook? Was it a last name or a first? Either way, he said it like it explained everything.

“Sasha,” she replied, still panting. She could worry about the specifics later, when she wasn’t running for her life.

But if this guy was official, he needed to know what was happening.

“They were talking to one of my co-workers, Erik.” She didn’t feel bad about throwing Erik under the bus, not after he’d cheated on her and certainly not now, with fire licking at her heels.

“They handed him a big stack of cash. It could only be drugs, right?”

Rook nodded, but it was distracted, like he had a dozen other things on his mind. He didn’t slow down, his eyes scanning the trees ahead.

Since when did a cop not care about drugs? Cops loved drugs.

Well … okay, maybe that wasn’t exactly right, but she’d watched enough procedural dramas to know that “mysterious fire in the woods, possible drug deal, ex-boyfriend getting paid off” should at least merit a little more than a nod.

She pushed herself to keep up, legs burning.

Her lungs were tight, not just from fear, but also exhaustion.

She’d spent the whole afternoon hauling gear, restocking first aid kits, checking bear canisters, and prepping for the next round of tourists.

Her arms ached from lifting heavy packs, and her back twinged every time she dodged a low branch.

Sweat trickled down her spine, sticky and cold against her shirt.

It was getting harder to push one foot in front of the other, but the memory of that living ribbon of fire kept her moving.

Rook didn’t seem to feel it at all. He moved with an easy, relentless stride, barely winded, his boots barely making a sound on the pine-needle carpet. The way he moved all effortlessly made her hate him a little.

“Wait!” she called as Rook veered left, cutting through a patch of ferns.

He stopped instantly, turning back to her, eyes narrowed in question. “What?”

“There’s a gorge that way,” she said, trying to catch her breath. Her ribs ached. “We’ll be trapped. Everyone knows that.”

For a moment, he just looked at her, as if weighing her words, then gave a single, sharp nod. “Lead the way,” he said.

She didn’t hesitate. Pushing past him, she headed back toward camp. If they could just make it to the parking lot, to her van, maybe even to the old satellite phone stashed in the emergency locker, they might have a chance. Rook didn’t try to stop her, just fell in, matching her pace exactly.

They crashed through a thicket of young saplings and broke onto a narrow, well-worn trail.

Sasha’s pulse pounded in her ears, the sound almost drowning out the distant roar of the fire.

She could feel the heat licking at her back, the air shimmering with it, but she kept her eyes forward, focusing on the trail, the next step, the next breath.

Then a shadow flickered ahead, stepping onto the path with a confidence that made her blood run cold.

It was one of the drug dealers. Up close, his uniform looked familiar.

The same dark, high-tech material as Rook’s, the same tight fit over a frame that was all muscle and menace.

His boots were heavy, but he moved with the same predatory grace.

There was something wrong with his eyes, too, something flat and inhuman.

The man’s mouth twisted into a grin that showed too many teeth. “The great Rook? What a surprise.” His accent was strange, clipped, like he was trying to mimic a language that didn’t quite fit his mouth.

He lifted one hand and, as casually as if he were flipping a coin, conjured a ball of flame.

Sasha blinked, her mind stuttering to a halt.

The fire didn’t go away. It just sat there, hovering in his palm, the color richer and hotter than any campfire she’d ever seen. No lighter, no fuel, no trick. She stared, waiting for the illusion to reveal itself, for the wires or the special effects.

Nothing. The flame just grew, licking up his forearm, illuminating the sharp angles of his face.

What? It had to be fake. People didn’t just conjure fire, not outside of YouTube prank videos. Maybe a magician could do it, but this wasn’t a party trick. This was … she didn’t even know. And the flame wasn’t dying down. If anything, it was getting bigger, brighter, hungrily reaching for the sky.

“Get behind me, Sasha,” Rook said, his voice calm.

She didn’t need to be told twice. Ducking behind him, she put as much of his body between her and that impossible fire as she could.

Her hands trembled, her knees threatening to buckle.

She pressed her palm to the solid wall of his back, felt the heat rolling off him, and realized she’d never been more grateful for a human shield in her life.

What the actual hell was happening?

Branches snapped behind them. The other drug dealers emerged from the trees, fanning out to block the trail. Erik stumbled after them, face ashen, eyes wild. His shirt was askew, his hair a mess; he was clutching the envelope of cash like it was a life raft.

Now that she could see them all together, the similarities were impossible to ignore. The uniforms, the stature, the strange, glowing eyes. They looked less like a drug gang and more like a squad of mercenaries from a sci-fi movie, except the terror was real, and the fire was very, very real.

“How are you doing that?” Erik demanded, voice wobbling dangerously close to a whine. He stared at the fireball, his expression a mix of greed and fear, the kind of look he used to get when he was about to make a bad decision.

Had she really dated him? Had she really ever found that kind of weakness attractive?

Though, in fairness, she wanted to know, too. She just wouldn’t beg for answers.

“No witnesses,” one of the dealers said, his words flat and final, like a judge delivering a sentence.

The fire-wielder shrugged, almost bored, and tossed the ball of flame directly at Erik. It hit him square in the chest and flared outward, engulfing him in an instant. It was too fast, too complete, nothing like the movies with their slow-motion agony.

Erik went up like dry tinder, the flames swallowing his scream before it could fully form.

There was a smell, sharp, acrid, not quite like burning meat, more like scorched hair and melted plastic.

The blaze flashed blue for an instant, then guttered out, leaving nothing but a blackened husk crumpled on the trail.

Sasha screamed, the sound tearing out of her throat raw and wild. Her legs gave out, and she landed hard on her knees, hands pressed to the earth. Her heart jackhammered in her chest, and her vision blurred, the world swimming between horror and disbelief.

Oh god. She was about to die. This was it. Her story was going to end in a forest, burned alive by monsters pretending to be men.

Rook stepped forward, his posture shifting.

Something in him changed, the air around him growing impossibly hot.

He held out his hands, palms open, and the flames swirling in front of the drug dealers seemed to hesitate, as if waiting for his command.

For a moment, he looked like a circus performer, a fire-eater or an illusionist, but the power radiating from him was tooreal, too raw.

He was one of them.

No witnesses.

The words rattled in her skull, echoing in the same emotionless voice as the man who had just incinerated Erik.

She was the only living witness.

And she wasn’t going to let them burn her up.

Sasha scrambled to her feet. Her muscles screamed in protest, but she ignored the pain. She turned, picked a gap in the trees, and ran. Branches whipped at her face, but she didn’t care. She ran like her life depended on it.

Behind her, she heard Rook shout something, his voice a guttural snarl.

Heat flashed, brighter than the sun, and the roar of fire chased her through the woods.

Sasha didn’t look back. She forced her burning legs to keep moving, her arms pumping, her breath coming in short, ragged gasps.

The forest blurred past, a smear of green and brown and shadow.

All that mattered was the next step, the next patch of ground, the hope that maybe she could outrun the impossible.

She wasn’t ready to die. Not there. Not then.

Not like that.