The duty pager shrills at her hip, cleaving through the tension—an axe hurled straight through the moment. She jerks back with a muttered curse, the fire still searing her cheeks. I feel the ghost of her mouth pressed to mine—heat, hunger, promise—all of it lingering, smoke that refuses to be scrubbed from skin.
She turns and jogs downhill, boots grinding against gravel, ponytail lashing in the wind. I watch her go, the imprint of that kiss etched across my senses, raw and electric. The taste of her—heat and challenge and barely bridled need—clings to the back of my throat, smoldering beneath every breath. The unfinished edge of it crackles in the air, a fuse straining toward ignition.
Mine. The dragon inside me roars with certainty, its hunger flaring as if her scent alone could stoke an inferno. It’s a primal recognition—bone-deep, blood-bound—as instinctive as flame seeking air, as absolute as fire meeting fuel. No logic. No hesitation. Just certainty wrapped in heat.
Several hours later, I step into the Command Center’s stale, recycled air, where the low hum of comms chatter grates against nerves already stretched thin. Ruiz, the camp commandant, stands behind a steel desk, manifest in hand, her eyes narrowed to slits beneath the brim of her ballcap. Her face, creased by sun, smoke, and too many years of command, tightens further as she scans my paperwork. The overhead fluorescents flicker once, painting her expression in hard lines and deeper shadows. Decades of bureaucracy have dulled neither her suspicion nor her pride; the woman could probably sniff out bullshit through a wildfire.
“These ‘aerial torque drivers’ require restricted airspace,” she says, tapping the form. “It'll be at least a week before we can get an FAA waiver. You’ll have to stage them on the ground.”
“They function best at altitude,” I counter, voice sharp with restrained urgency. “Rotor wash down here throws false heat signatures—scrambles the whole damn readout like static in a storm.”
Her stare sharpens. “You’re three days on site and already red-tagging my logistics. Not happening.”
I force my shoulders loose, combat breathing tamping the dragon’s urge to snarl. “Those tools calibrate jump routes. They’ll save your rookies thirty seconds if the canyon blows.”
“Regulations save lives too.” She hands the clipboard back. “No waiver, no lift.”
Fine.
Outside, the heat hits like a body slam. Sunlight ricochets off gravel and metal, a wave of blinding glare and suffocating weight, turning every surface into a radiant griddle. Heat shimmers off the asphalt in translucent waves, warping the shapes of the rigs until they blur like desert mirages. The scent of scorched oil and engine coolant wraps around me, sticky and acrid, coating the inside of my nose and clinging to sweat-slicked skin, a film of danger. My boots crunch over gravel as I move, jaw tight, the pressure in my chest coiling with every step. I duck into a narrow sliver of shade beside a tender truck, the metal radiating heat even in shadow, but it's a fleeting relief—a heartbeat of stillness before everything burns.
Sweat trickles down my spine as I pull out my phone and thumb a quick message to Blackstrike field ops:
RAPPEL DROP — GRID W37C — TONIGHT 2300
Bring package Δ — wings dark, transponder off.
Field ops responds with a single glyph: a burning sword.
Dragon-forged weapons—ceramisteel axes that can cleave engine block or dragon scale—courtesy of a ghost-mode twin-rotor. The weight of one in my hand feels like holding the rage of a thousand ancestors—dense, perfectly balanced, humming low with dormant magic. It isn't just a weapon. It's legacy forged in flame, built to sever more than steel—built to end threats before they draw breath. Unregistered, invisible to civil radar. Risk level red. Necessary.
On the approach road, while supply convoys rattle past, I crouch beneath the open hood of Engine Two, pretending to check coolant. A burner phone I picked up from a low-level Ignis stooge buzzes with an unknown number.
CLEAN THE SLATE —G
Greer. The coward drops the threat as if it were a line item on a grocery list—casual, clinical, and utterly damning. My grip tightens around the burner, heat flushing through my palm like my dragon’s fire answering the insult. I tag the cell, routing the encrypted metadata to Dax with a flick of my thumb, locking in a location trace before the message finishes burning its mark into my memory.
Three seconds later, the burner heats abruptly—too fast, too focused. A spiderweb fracture blooms across the screen as if scorched from the inside out. Smoke threads up from the casing, the acrid tang singeing my nostrils. It self-wipes in a silent hiss, pixels bleeding out. Figures.
I slip it into my pocket. My dragon claws at the inside of my chest, restless and seething, demanding release—a restless burn rising through muscle and bone—yet I hold form. Fire here would expose everything.
Some hours later, Liv leans against a cedar post under the overhang of the mess hall, the wood warm at her back as the last orange light of sunset bathes her hair in polished copper. She sips water, but her fingers betray her—trembling just enough to make the bottle shiver in her grip.
I step into her space, and her chin lifts in instant challenge, that fire in her eyes flickering up to meet mine. I catch myself wanting to close the last inch between us, to taste her again, to push my luck with a kiss that would brand more than skin. But we’re not alone—not yet. Too many damn people, too many eyes. So I rein it in, letting the heat simmer just under the surface, where only she can feel it.
“You missed dinner,” she says.
“Busy requisitioning miracles.” I offer half my protein bar as we break off from the others. She takes it, teeth scraping the foil before biting. A growl rumbles low in my chest—possessive reaction to something as simple as her mouth.
“Any luck?” she asks around the chocolate.
“Working angles.” I lower my voice. “Ignis is scheduled to more in forty-eight hours. Your ex is on the board.”
Her throat works. “Greer’s here?”
“Close enough to pull strings.” I show her the dead phone. “Text came an hour ago.”
She hands back the wrapper, eyes flaring with fury. “He’s going to burn everything—including me.”
