Page 3 of Fired Up Love

“Let me see this rebellious diffuser,” Zina said, already heading toward the hallway. “We can’t have malfunctioning equipment already.”

“I’ll come too,” Bryn offered. “In case you need someone to hold it down while you beat it into submission.”

“Very funny.” Zina shot her a look. “Kalyna, help yourself to more coffee. We’ll be right back.”

The aromatherapy room was a serene space with pale blue walls and silver accents. Soft lighting illuminated glass shelves filled with labeled essential oil blends, each formulated for specific supernatural needs. In the center of the room, a large ceramic diffuser sat on a wooden table, emitting a concerning series of clicks.

Zina knelt to examine the device. “Did you check the water level?”

“First thing,” Jamie confirmed. “It’s full, but when I turn it on—” She pressed a button, and the diffuser rattled ominously before producing a weak puff of lavender-scented mist.

Bryn bent closer. “Sounds like something’s stuck in the mechanism.”

Zina carefully unplugged the device and turned it upside down. A small object fell into her palm—a dried lavender bud, wedged where it could interfere with the ultrasonic plate.

“Mystery solved,” she announced, holding up the culprit.

“Thank goodness,” Jamie sighed with relief. “I nearly had a panic attack thinking we’d have to cancel aromatherapy appointments.”

“Crisis averted,” Bryn declared. “What’s next on the pre-opening checklist of doom?”

Zina reconnected the diffuser, watching with satisfaction as it began producing a steady stream of fragrant mist. “Towel inventory, final walkthrough of all treatment rooms, and staff meeting in twenty minutes.”

“I’ll handle towel inventory,” Bryn volunteered. “I’ve become quite the expert at counting fluffy rectangles.”

“And I’ll double-check the treatment rooms,” Jamie added, already moving toward the door.

Left alone, Zina took a deep breath of lavender-infused air. The familiar scent calmed her jangling nerves, though it couldn’t quite silence the persistent voice of doubt in her mind. Opening a spa was challenging under normal circumstances. Opening a supernatural spa in a town with centuries of magical history and complex shifter politics? That required courage bordering on insanity.

Or maybe just the stubbornness of a lioness,she thought with a wry smile.

Back in the lobby, she found Kalyna examining the treatment menu with interest.

“Claw conditioning for predator shifters?” Kalyna read aloud. “This I have to try. Rust complains about his claws getting brittle in the winter.”

“Book him for next Tuesday,” Zina suggested. “I have a special lion-friendly oil blend that?—”

The words died in her throat as a chill swept through the room. Not a physical cold, but something more primal—an instinctive awareness that made her lioness suddenly alert, hackles raised.

Power. Ancient and controlled, but unmistakable.

The front door hadn’t opened. There had been no warning bell. Yet somehow, Zina knew before she turned that they were no longer alone.

Kalyna’s eyes widened, her gaze fixed over Zina’s shoulder. “Oh my,” she murmured, so softly only Zina’s enhanced hearing caught it.

Moving with deliberate calm, Zina turned.

He stood in the doorway like he’d materialized from smoke itself—tall and imposing with the stillness of someone who had all the time in the world. Light brown hair styled in a way that managed to look both effortless and precisely intentional, framed a face of angular perfection. But it was his eyes that captured Zina’s attention—golden-brown with an intensity that seemed to see through flesh and bone to the very core of her being.

Xai Emberwylde. The newly appointed dragon elder on the Enchanted Falls Town Council. His reputation had preceded him—stern, meticulous, and impossibly old by human standards. The Emberwylde family had protected the region’s magical interests for centuries, their ancient draconic lineage commanding respect even among other powerful supernatural clans.

A sharp, unexpected heat flared within Zina, so sudden and powerful, she nearly gasped. Her lioness, normally content to observe from within, surged forward with startling interest as if reaching toward the dragon’s presence.

What the hell?

THREE

Zina had experienced attraction before. She’d dated casually, enjoyed brief relationships that inevitably fizzled when the spark died. But this—this instantaneous, visceral reaction to a stranger—this was entirely new territory.

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