Page 13 of Ashfall

“I was watching the sky.”

He folds his arms. “This is an active zone, not a sightseeing trail.”

“Right,” I snap. “Thanks for the lecture, Commander Obvious.”

Something dark flickers in his eyes—anger maybe, or something older, deeper. But he doesn’t rise to the bait. He just stares, jaw locked, gaze unreadable. There’s too much silence in him, too much weight. Like he’s measuring me. Or deciding if I can handle the truth he’s not ready to give. The stare holds longer than it should, laced with a tension that makes the air between us feel charged, heavy with things unspoken.

“What the hell were you doing up there?” I ask. “I know you saw it too. That shadow.”

He doesn’t blink. “We’ve got thermal currents over the ridge. A vulture probably caught one.”

“A vulture? Are you serious? A pterodactyl maybe. But that thing was no vulture, and you know it. Don’t lie to me.”

“I’m not,” he says, but there’s hesitation under the surface, like he’s testing the weight of the words before committing to them. His voice is calm, too calm, and that just pisses me off more. “You saw something strange, fine. But not everything unexplained means someone is lying to you or hiding skeletons. We’ve got more at stake out here than what’s on paper. That shadow? Probably nothing. But if it’s not, I’ll find out. That’s my job.”

“Then stop hiding things.”

He doesn’t flinch. “We’re not hiding anything that threatens your investigation. But we don’t open our playbook to outsiders either. You want to work with us, earn that access. Until then, I share what’s necessary. No more. No less.”

“I think,” I say, matching his tone, “that your unit sees a lot more than it reports. That you’re playing by your own rules. And that you’re either obstructing this investigation or you’re running your own.”

His jaw ticks.

“This isn’t some conspiracy,” he says, voice low. “It’s a fire investigation.”

“Bullshit,” I snap. “This is arson. Coordinated. Intentional. And if your unit isn’t behind it, then someone’s working damn hard to make it look like you are.”

We stand locked in a silence that crackles like tinder—dry, brittle, one breath away from ignition. The air between us pulses with things unsaid, heat and accusation hanging like storm clouds just waiting for a strike. His jaw is tight. My hands are fists. Every instinct screams at me to push harder, demand answers. But something in his stare holds me back—a warning, maybe. Or a promise.

Then I turn and walk. Not because I’m done—but because if I don’t, I’ll say something I can’t take back.

He doesn’t stop me.

Back at my tent, I kick the dirt off my boots with more force than necessary and slam the flap shut behind me like I can shut out the whole damn day. The heat still clings to my skin, soaked into my clothes like residue from the fire—and from him. My heart hasn’t slowed. My thoughts haven’t settled. The adrenaline hasn’t burned off so much as mutated into something hotter, harder to control.

I pace once, twice, then drop into my camp chair like the ground might give way next. My fingers tremble as I flip openmy laptop, the keys clicking louder than they should. Everything feels too loud. Too close. Too uncertain. One man, who shouldn’t affect me so deeply, has already tangled me up in his web.

I connect to the satellite uplink, fingers flying over the keys with a sense of urgency that borders on desperation. The hum of the connection stabilizing is the only sound in the tent, a low mechanical heartbeat that feels too calm for the chaos in my head. When the screen flickers to life, casting a pale glow across my face, I lean in like it might give me something solid to hold onto. I don’t waste time. Can’t afford to.

“This is Vale,” I say. “Field ID 7896. I’m calling to escalate priority. I believe the wildfires are intentional, possibly linked. I also believe I’m facing internal obstruction from the Blackstrike Unit.”

The voice on the other end pauses. “Obstruction?”

“They’re hiding something,” I say flatly. “There’s a pattern in the omissions, in the way they operate just outside the margins. They’re protecting someone—or something—and it’s interfering with my ability to get straightforward answers. I need backup. And I want a full file on Dax Fane—every redacted line, every classified mission, everything the agency hasn’t told me.”

The line goes quiet. Too quiet. No static, no clicks—just dead air stretching longer than it should. The kind of silence that doesn’t just suggest hesitation—it screams it. My skin prickles with a slow, creeping chill. They heard me. They're deciding what to do with that information. And suddenly, I’m not sure who I can trust—on this call, in this camp, or even back in D.C.

CHAPTER 6

DAX

Iwatch her go, her hips moving in a defiant sway that makes my dragon rear inside me, claws dragging at my skin from the inside out. She doesn’t just walk away—she prowls or stalks... at the very least, strides. Ember claims space like it’s hers by birthright, each step a challenge, each motion laced with fire. And it guts me.

I want to chase her, wrap my arms around her from behind, tilt her head back and show her exactly what she does to me. Pin her down. Make her listen. Mark her. Make her mine—in every scorching, undeniable way. But I don’t. Because one wrong move and I’d destroy the fragile boundary, we’ve barely built. And gods help me, I want her too much to risk that. Not yet.

I don’t move. I can’t move. Because if I follow her now, I won’t stop. The second I reach for her, I’ll lose the battle I’ve been fighting since the moment I saw her standing there in the smoke, defiant and burning like she belonged to the fire. What’s roaring under my skin isn’t just lust—it’s the dragon, clawing to the surface, hungry for her scent, her submission, her soul.

My fists clench. Heat rolls off my shoulders in waves, curling like smoke from skin just shy of ignition. She’s triggered every instinct I’ve spent hundreds of years learning to leash—instinctscarved into my bones when the world still bowed to fire. It’s about fire knowing where it belongs. And she—Ember—is where my fire wants to rest.

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