Page 22 of Ashfall

It used to be easier.Back when humans offered what they didn’t understand—when villagers lit pyres and left trembling girls at the edge of caves, praying for rain or harvest or mercy. I took what was given, yes. But I never hurt them. I’d let them cry in my arms until the fear ebbed and both maiden and I could enjoy one another for a time. Then I moved them—somewhere safe. Somewhere clean. I made sure they had gold, anonymity, and lives untouched by what they’d seen. It was transactional. Controlled.

But Ember? She’s not an offering. She’s not trembling or grateful or afraid. She is my mate. She is fire wrapped in skin, sharp-edged and untouchable, a force that answers to no one. She doesn’t yield—she commands. And that command, that will of hers, it unnerves me more than any sword or flame ever could.

I can seduce her—I know I can. I see the way she looks at me when she thinks I’m not watching, feel the tension in the air whenever I’m near. But I don’t want her because I claimed her. I want her to come to me. Willingly. Completely. Because that’s the only way the bond holds.

She wasn’t left in my care—she walked into the inferno on her own terms, eyes open, spine straight. And pretending I have any control over the pull between us is the biggest lie I’ve ever told myself. She wasn’t left at my feet. I chased her into the flames—and I don’t know if I’ll survive what happens next. Not because she might reject me—but because if she doesn’t… I’ll never be able to stop wanting more.

She disappears into her tent, her silhouette swallowed by the canvas flap, and I don’t move until I hear the quiet sigh of fabric settling back into place. My feet itch to follow. My dragon snarls at me to go after her. But I force myself to hold the line. Just for now.

I roll the tension from my shoulders, blow out a breath I didn’t realize I’d been holding, and finally turn toward the tree line. The shadows are deeper there, thick with the scent of ash and cooling earth. I pull out the secure satellite phone clipped to my belt and duck behind a cluster of trees. It takes a moment to patch the connection; the signal flickering with static before it locks.

Kade picks up first. Rafe clicks in seconds later. Neither says a word, but I can feel the tension pulsing through the line. They know I wouldn’t call unless it mattered.

I now know for certain, and it settles in my bones like molten stone: someone set this fire not to destroy land or resources, but to lure her in. This is personal. Deliberate. And Malek isn’t just playing with fire. He’s aiming for her, and that changes everything.

“She’s lucky you got there in time,” Kade says, his voice low.

“She shouldn’t have been there alone,” I mutter in the ancient language of dragons—I can't risk anyone overhearing what I have to say.

“Command cleared her,” Rafe adds, switching to our language.

“Doesn’t matter,” I growl. “The trap wasn’t random. It wasn’t faulty infrastructure or some unlucky collapse. Someone lured her there and rigged that floor—timed it to fail when she was on it. That wasn’t carelessness. That was precision. It was intended for her.”

Kade’s voice drops through the line, the static barely dulling the weight of his words. "You think it was him?"

"I know it was him."

Malek. The name rips through me like ash through lung—scalding, bitter, and impossible to ignore. It settles in my chest like something unfinished, something that should’ve burned outlong ago. But now I know better. Now I know the fire never went out. It just waited.

I tell them what I saw at the tower—the spiral burned into the wall, the melted casing of the drone that had no business being there. Someone changed the ignition code, calibrating it for maximum delay and directional flame—sophisticated, malicious, and deliberate. And then the signature: D. Price.

I hear the silence stretch through the line as the name settles over all of us like a shadow. Not just a signature—this was a provocation. A breadcrumb left with purpose. He wants us to follow. Wants us to see what he’s building in the flames. It was a message. And maybe a warning. Or a challenge.

Rafe’s voice is tight across the line. “So you're sure—Dennis Price is Malek.”

I exhale slowly. “He shed the name, but not the fire. Reinvented himself right under our noses. And now he’s baiting us. Testing how close he can get.”

We fall quiet. The kind of silence that isn’t empty—it’s heavy, coiled tight with shared memory and dread. Across the line, I can almost hear Kade exhale, can imagine Rafe scrubbing a hand over his face like he does when the past gets too close. We’ve hunted Malek before. We failed. And now he’s back, dragging Ember into the middle of a war she doesn’t even know she’s fighting.

Kade’s voice cuts through the static, calm and dark. “Malek believed he could make fire sentient. That if you fed it right—fear, pain, chaos—it would start to answer back.”

“And he wanted to be its voice,” Rafe mutters. “Freak wanted to become the fire.”

“He’s not just playing with flame anymore,” I say. “He’s marking territory. Using symbols. Drawing Ember into it.”

“She’s the bait?” Kade asks.

I shake my head even though I know they can't see me. “She’s the spark.”

Rafe curses softly. “Then we don’t take our eyes off her.”

I nod once. “Double tail rotation. One of us is on her at all times. She can’t know—not yet.”

They don’t respond right away. Just a click from Kade, a quick breath from Rafe—confirmation that they’ve heard me, that the order’s understood. Then the line goes dead. Clean. Final. They’re out there, scattered across different sectors, but I know they’ll fall in line. They always do.

But before I can disappear into the night, I feel it... her eyes on me. A prickle between my shoulder blades, the subtle change in the air that only comes when she’s near. It’s not just awareness—it’s a tether, one I feel tighten every time she looks my way. She sees more than I want her to. More than I’m ready for. And even from across the distance, that look sets my instincts clawing at the surface again.

I turn and find her across the camp, standing just outside the shadows, watching. The wind kicks through the trees, lifting her hair, and for a moment, I wonder—did she hear? Did she misinterpret a word, a tone, or something else she shouldn’t have?

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