Page 27 of Ashfall

I see her. Frozen. Eyes wide, pupils blown with shock, her breath caught somewhere between a gasp and a curse. Her mouth parts, but no sound comes out—just that sharp, silent intake that says her brain is scrambling to connect what her eyes are seeing with anything remotely rational. She doesn’t scream, but she doesn’t move, either. Disbelief, awe, and something far deeper hold her entire body in suspension—instinct whispers to her that the impossible stands before her, and it knows her name. She looks at me like the world just turned upside down and handed her the match.

Then she whispers, "What the hell are you?"

CHAPTER 13

EMBER

He's standing there, tall, powerful—and completely naked.

One second, he was a damn dragon, wings outstretched, fire clinging to his scales like he owned the flame itself. And the next, he's consumed by flames—and for a heart-stopping instant, I think he’s burning alive. My breath catches, panic claws at the edges of my mind, and all I can see is fire devouring flesh. But then, impossibly, from the heart of the inferno, he steps forward—whole, human, and terrifyingly calm. Muscles taut, expression unreadable, steam still rising from his skin like a warning not to come too close.

I stare. Not at the nakedness—okay, maybe a little, the man is hung—but at the fact of it. The way his body is transformed. The fire. The raw, unfiltered truth of what Dax Fane really is. And even more unsettling—the fact that he let himself be engulfed in flames like it was nothing. Like pain didn’t exist. My brain screams that anyone caught in that inferno should be dead, but he emerged from it untouched. Transformed. The image of him vanishing into fire replays in my head, not as awe, but as terror. Because part of me still hasn’t let go of that moment—of believing, even for a second, that he was gone.

"Why... why are you naked?" I ask, my voice coming out too high, too tight. “Is that what happens when you don’t buy fireproof clothes?”

Stupid questions, I know. But my brain is still rebooting. Because all I can see is the moment he was swallowed by fire—gone in a burst of flame that felt like watching someone die. My heart hadn’t caught up with the fact that he stepped out of it alive. Gloriously, impossibly alive. Naked, sure. But standing. Breathing. Real. And somehow, that’s even harder to wrap my head around than the dragon part.

He exhales slowly, like he expected that question. There’s the barest twitch at the corner of his mouth—humor, maybe. Not mocking, just... amused. Like he’s relieved I’m not screaming or bolting for the nearest exit. "Clothes don’t shift. Fire burns them away. Casualty of the process." His voice is calm, almost teasing. Grounding, if I’m being honest. And weirdly, it helps—because if he can joke, then maybe this isn’t the beginning of a full psychological break.

I blink. Once. Twice. My brain latches onto the logic because it’s easier than confronting the bigger thing—that I watched him burn. That for a split second, I thought I was witnessing a man incinerate himself. It wasn’t the dragon that scared me. It was the way the fire wrapped around him like it belonged to him. Like he belonged to it. The flames didn't just touch him—they claimed him. And I’m not sure which is worse: that he survived it... or that he welcomed it.

Wait. Dragons are real? They can’t be, can they?

I know because I just watched one turn into a man—watched the impossible unfold in fire and fury and emerge as flesh and bone. My logical brain is still reeling, short-circuiting with every beat of my heart. But the visceral part of me? The part that felt the heat, smelled the smoke, and saw him rise from it? That partknows exactly what it saw. No dream. No illusion. Just a truth that reshaped my world in a breath.

I cross my arms tightly over my chest, even though I’m not the one exposed. But it feels like I am—because the air between us is heavy with something raw and unspoken. I try to ignore the heat pooling low in my belly, the flicker of arousal curling through my spine at the sheer predatory grace of him, at the unapologetic strength of his body.

He grabs a pair of pants from a nearby crate—of course he stashed them—and pulls them on without shame, without flinching. But I see it. The subtle hardening of his cock, half-swollen, unmistakable. And the worst part? My breath catches, not from shock—but from the part of me that wants to touch. To taste. To burn alongside him.

"And that?" I ask, giving a subtle nod of my head to his hard-on.

"Also a byproduct of the shift and the presence of one’s mate," he chuckles before turning serious and quiet, thoughtful.

“Mate?”

“Fated mate, to be more precise. We don’t have time for lengthy explanations, but we were destined to be together."

“You believe that?" He nods. “I don’t know that I believe in such things.”

“And a few moments ago, you didn’t believe in dragons,” he chuckles.

He reaches out for me, and I pull back. He isn't mocking me or being smug, just watching me, concerned as if he was worried I might break.

I shake my head slowly, swallowing around the tight knot in my throat. "I don’t know." My voice comes out hoarse, like smoke's already filled my lungs. Because nothing about this is normal or okay—not the flames, not the dragon, not the fact that some deep part of me wants him, anyway. I'm terrified, not ofhim exactly, but of the fire that lives in him—and worse, of how much I crave its heat.

He nods once, accepting that. Giving me space, though his gaze never leaves mine. There's no pressure in his stance, just quiet restraint—but it's the restraint of a man who could close the distance in a blink and take whatever he wanted. That should scare me. Maybe it does. But it also pulls at something low and hot inside me. And I hate that it makes me want to step closer. To press against him, to see if the heat coming off him would sink into my skin or consume me whole.

I pace. I need movement. I need oxygen. I need a damn minute. Because this is too much. Too fast. I’ve stared down wildfires. Watched men burn. Caught arsonists with accelerant under their nails. But I’ve never had the ground lurch beneath me like this—never felt my own reality tilt, like a plate cracked clean through the center.

My heartbeat won't settle. My hands won't stop trembling. And underneath the panic, the confusion, is something even more destabilizing: want. Pure, molten want. I don't know whether to scream, kiss him again, or run until the air burns out of my lungs.

Nothing prepared me for this. I was unprepared for the raw, elemental fear of watching someone willfully consume themselves in fire. Nor for the arousal threading through that fear like smoke curling tight around my ribs and especially not for the way my body responded to the heat, to him, even while my mind screamed this shouldn’t be happening.

This moment—this man—shatters everything I thought I knew about fire, about danger, about desire. And I have no idea what to do with that truth.

He starts to speak. I hold up a hand. "Don’t. Just—give me a second."

I pivot away and start pacing again, hard and fast, my boots scuffing against volcanic stone. My pulse is a riot in my ears, my breath shallow and quick. I press my palms to my temples like I can press the world back into shape. I walk to the edge of the carved platform, then back again, a caged thing trying to outrun the blaze inside her. The air tastes like iron and smoke. Everything smells like him. I clench my fists, open them again, trying to breathe through the fire he left in my blood. Trying to remember who I was before all of this... and failing.

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