Page 20 of Ashfall

She carries the scent of desire and wildfire, the promise of sweet surrender tangled with the thrill of dancing too close to the flames. Her fingers drift over my chest, leaving trails of lava in their wake. Each touch a silent provocation that threatens to shatter my last vestiges of control.

"You’re dangerous," she breathes, her voice a mere whisper against the snapping of the fire.

I press her against the stone wall of my sanctum, every muscle taut and trembling, the feel of her body against mine igniting a fuse that's been smoldering for eons. The stone is warm from my inferno, but it pales against the blazing heat that pulsates between us. Her gasp is soft, almost worshipful,as I pin her, my frame a barrier of heat and hunger, every breath a war against the urge to claim her then and there.

"You have no idea," I grate, my voice a rumble of thunder barely contained.

She kisses me first, a desperate, ravenous kiss, like the inferno within her recognizes mine. My hands entwine in her hair as she arches into me, a soft moan escaping her lips.

Her skin is fire and silk, her breath a brand against my lips and throat. I explore every inch of her—slowly, devoutly—relishing the arch of her back, the quiver of her thighs wrapped around my waist, the way her nails rake across my shoulders as she draws me deeper.

Her body embraces me like it remembers me from lifetimes past, like we were forged for this, made to fit and burn and fuse until neither of us can tell where one ends and the other begins.

I move within her with the cadence of a man who’s waited millennia—deliberate, reverent. Each thrust a vow etched in flame, every slide deeper, a bond tightening between us. It’s more than just carnal; it’s surrender, it’s branding, it’s the tempest held at bay until she unleashed it, and now I’m riding the precipice of devastation, begging the fire never to end.

She cries out my name, her climax colliding with mine in a conflagration of heat and claiming that sears us both to the core. Her soul brushes mine—radiant, fierce, unbound—and I feel her essence entwine with mine in a dance older than time, pure and consuming. For one impossible moment, we burn together, not as two beings, but as one—flame made flesh, bound in fire and want.

When I stir, I clench my fists around handfuls of ash, and the surrounding ground is charred, cracked, and steaming. The devastation is worse than before. The fire’s getting harder to control, spilling out of me like it has a will of its own. Likethe bond is deepening whether or not I want it to. The inferno raging within scorches the surrounding earth.

She doesn’t remember the dreams. I feel it the moment she walks by the next morning—no flicker of recognition, no hesitation in her step. It shouldn’t sting, but it does. I was inside her, inside the fire we both pretend doesn’t exist. And she doesn’t even know it happened. I tell myself it is better this way—that if she remembered, she’d run. But that doesn’t stop the ache in my chest, or the hunger gnawing deeper every time our eyes meet.

CHAPTER 9

EMBER

Ican feel him watching me. It's not a glance or a passing look—it's a pressure, a heat, a hum that brushes across my skin like the edge of a flame held just shy of burning. It prickles under my clothes, coils at the base of my spine, and makes my heartbeat stutter like it’s out of rhythm with the rest of me. Every hair on the back of my neck lifts, my pulse tripping like it knows something I don't. He's somewhere behind me, not making a sound, and still I know—he's there. Always there. Close enough to feel. Too far to touch. And yet somehow, it’s like he never left.

Even though I don’t look back when I walk past him in the morning. Even though I pretend I don’t notice the way the air thickens, sharpens, tightens every time we’re within six feet of each other. Like the space between us is charged with something volatile and unnamed—like the air has gone too still, too hot, heavy with the scent of smoke and static. I pretend like I don’t see him. But my body reacts like it’s under surveillance by something ancient and hungry.

And I hate how much I like it. The awareness. The pull. The way his presence skims across my nerves like a live wire, dangerous and addictive. It makes my pulse race in waysit shouldn't, not when I’m supposed to be focused on fire codes and chain of custody reports—not him. But it’s there, undeniable, thrumming just beneath the surface of every breath I take near him. And the more I pretend it doesn’t matter, the more it owns me.

I don’t ask for clearance to head out alone. I’m not some rookie who needs a leash, and I’m done letting Dax Fane’s shadow dictate where I go, how I move, or what I investigate. I need distance—from him, from the weight of his stare, from the way my thoughts keep veering toward things that have nothing to do with ignition points or accelerant patterns. Out there, I can breathe. Think. Reclaim a little control.

According to thermal drift data and last night’s updated reports, a flare zone cut across an abandoned watchtower northeast of base. The area had been dormant for over a decade—remote, overgrown, more rumor than resource on most maps. No recent activity. No reason for the heat signature to spike. Until now. Something stirred the ashes. And whatever it was, it wanted to be found—or feared it already had been.

I hike in alone, brushing past charred branches and jagged boulders, the air still thick with residual heat and soot. Ash clings to my boots, and every footstep sends up faint plumes that curl like smoke signals. The landscape feels haunted—like it remembers what happened here better than any report ever could. The tower groans above me, tall and skeletal, listing slightly to one side like it’s been holding its breath for decades, waiting for someone to notice it still stands.

Then I see it—a spiral, seared into the metal like fire signed its name. I freeze mid-step, breath catching. Not just because it’s familiar, but because it confirms what I’ve been circling for days: this was planned. It’s deliberate. Patterned. Whoever left it wanted me to find it.

A bolt of cold electricity shoots through me—like my body recognizes the mark before my mind catches up. Not fear, exactly. More like a pressure behind my eyes, a signal that something isn’t adding up. I’ve seen this before—maybe in old case files or buried somewhere in drone telemetry I barely skimmed. Now it clicks with eerie precision. That quiet buzz of recognition: this matters.

It’s burned into the metal siding. Smaller this time, but sharp, perfect. Too exact to be random. The edges shimmer faintly, still radiating heat. I crouch, holding my hand close, feeling the energy pulse off the surface. This wasn’t just a message—it was meant to last.

Inside, the stairwell groans under its own weight, half-collapsed and ready to fall. I edge past the wreckage, boots crunching through ash and splintered wood. Then I spot it: the blackened husk of a drone, half-melted into the floorboards, wires curled like burned nerves. I brush the edge, and a pulse of static jolts through my fingertips. Sharp. Wrong. The circuits aren’t just fried—they were silenced. Deliberately.

I flip the casing and find the signature buried under the carbon scarring.

D. Price

I go still. Of course, it’s the fire guy with a mysterious past and a cult-symbol hobby. The engineer who vanished three years ago. The one who supposedly burned in a supply depot fire no one ever got a full autopsy report from. The one whose drone tech revolutionized wildfire reconnaissance—his software could predict changes in wind patterns better than any human analyst. The same technology that, if misused, could spark a firestorm instead of preventing one.

He’s not dead. Or if he is, someone’s resurrected his work—and is wearing his identity like a mask. The code, the drone, the signature—it’s too specific, too personal. Someone wants me tobelieve Dennis Price is still out here. The scarier truth? Maybe he never left.

I don’t get the chance to decide which it is. Because the tower lurches beneath me. A groan. A crack. A shudder. Then suddenly, what was once the floor is now... nothing.

I grab the window frame, legs dangling, pain shooting through my shoulder like a bolt of fire. Smoke kicks up around me, thick and blinding, curling into my eyes and throat. My lungs seize, panic clawing up my spine. I can't breathe. My boots scrape for purchase, catching on nothing. I'm coughing so hard it feels like my ribs will snap, the edge of the window biting into my fingers. The drop yawns beneath me, wide and hungry. My grip slips a fraction—and fear explodes like static in my chest as my fingers give way completely. I'm falling.

And then I’m not. Because I’m in his arms—swept out of mid-air like I weigh nothing. One moment I’m falling, certain it’s over, and the next I’m wrapped in heat and strength and something that feels suspiciously like safety. My heart stutters, caught somewhere between terror and disbelief, and I cling to him before I can stop myself, just to prove I’m still here.

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