“Not if we redraw the map.” I trace the ridge on her folded chart, fingertip brushing her knuckles. “Sensors here, here, and here. You steer rookies wide of the sweep. At oh-three-hundred, an unlogged bird kisses this LZ.” I tap the canyon lip. “Package Δ. Ends the Ignis’ night.”
Her gaze snaps to mine. “Illegal.”
“Effective.”
“Dangerous.”
“So’s dying.” I curl two fingers under her chin, tilting her face up with slow precision, like I’m measuring how close I can get without losing control.
Her skin is warm, satin-soft, and beneath my touch, her throat flutters with the rhythm of life barely contained. My dragon presses against the cage of my ribs, a low rumble of want and warning. This close, I can smell the salt of her sweat, the heat of her defiance. She doesn't pull away—and gods help me, I don't want to stop. “Trust my fire, Liv.”
“I don’t...” She exhales, chest brushing mine. “...know how.”
“Learn fast.”
My voice drops to a growl as I cup her jaw, thumb brushing the edge of her cheek. I pull her into a kiss—hard, urgent, laced with every warning and vow I can't afford to speak. Her lips part on a breathy gasp, soft heat crashing into mine, and the taste of her explodes across my senses—smoke, salt, something wild that razes restraint.
For one blistering second, she gives in, melting against me, her fingers fisting in my shirt like she’s trying to tether herself to something solid. My hand fists in her ponytail, just tight enough to make her breath catch as I deepen the kiss, feeding the burn coiling between us until it threatens to ignite. Her body presses into mine, and I know if we weren’t surrounded by trailers and watchful eyes, I’d already have her against the wall, claiming what’s mine with more than just a kiss.
My dragon surges, heat rushing to the surface, clawing at the boundary between control and flame. I break away before the fire breaches my skin, jaw tight, lungs burning. Her stunned expression lingers like fuel meeting spark—alive, crackling, dangerous.
Her pupils drown the amber ring around her irises. “You kiss like you expect the world to end.”
“It might,” I answer. “But you’ll be standing when it does.”
A voice clears behind us. Diaz, sheepish. “Briefing in five, Boss.”
Liv straightens, smoothing her shirt, no doubt pretending her pulse isn’t galloping. “On my way.”
She turns with a flick of her ponytail, every stride cutting through the gravel as if it was a challenge issued to the world. Her boots strike hard, rhythm crisp and relentless, kicking up fine dust that hangs like smoke in her wake. Diaz scrambles to keep up, almost tripping over a hose line as he jogs after her. I watch her until she disappears into the ops shack, the scent of sweat and scorched cotton still lingering. Her absence drags at something primal in me—like the loss of heat after a fire dies down, leaving only embers aching to reignite.
Mine.
Moonlight spills across the canyon’s jagged walls, painting the rock face in bone-white streaks that gleam—ancient scars laid bare. Shadows gather thick in the ravines, curling under brush and between fuel drums, coiled predators waiting to strike. The camp below lies deceptively quiet, a sprawl of canvas and metal exhaling soft snores and the occasional metallic creak. But I know better. I’ve tracked Ignis scouts weaving through the dark, their movements snake-silent, edging toward the fuel bladders with a saboteur’s intent. My sensors wait—armed, hidden, and hungry. Soon, they’ll whisper back the heat trail of every bastard creeping too close. Soon, I’ll know exactly where to strike.
I can barely make out the sound of rotors approaching—Blackstrike courier in full blackout. Relief doesn’t come, not exactly. It tightens through my limbs instead, readiness coiling low in my spine. The faint sound is a promise laced with warning—mission still on track, but one wrong move from detonating. The twin-rotor hovers, barely disturbing the dust. A winch lowers a crate stamped AVI-TEST. Dragon-forged blades nest inside, inert but hungry.
I draw a blade from the crate, its edge whispering against the sheath, a vow remembered. Gripping the hilt tight, I carve a sigil into the wood—deep and deliberate, each stroke anchoring resolve into grain. No fire. No flash. Just steel and blood-oath etched in silence. I re-seal the crate.
The acrid bite of scorched wood singes the back of my throat, thick and oily in the still night air as I raise my arm. The twin-rotor lifts without a whisper, rotors slicing the dark like silent blades. No FAA log. No transponder. No radar echo. Just a phantom shadow rising into the sky, carrying hell in a sealed crate—the kind of payload that doesn’t ask for permission and doesn’t leave survivors. Heat lingers in its wake, a ghost-trail of threat that ripples down my spine as the chopper vanishes into the stars.
When the canyon drill ignites—and with it, Ignis's plan to sweep the board clean—they won't find ashes. They'll find teeth. They want fire? I'll give them a reckoning so brutal it brands their name into the canyon walls. Let them come—I’m already burning.
I shoulder one axe, its handle molding to my grip as if it were made for me. The heft settles into my muscles—not burdensome, but dense with purpose. Across my back, tempered steel hums low and steady, a vibration that resonates through bone like the growl of something ancient, bound by duty. That pulse threads down my spine, anchoring me here, now. The dragon within goes quiet—not from peace, but from focus. From the promise of fire answered with fury. Violence, waiting. For now, it's enough. For now, we hold.
Miles away, Liv’s radio crackles through static, her voice firm as she briefs the rookies. She stands beneath floodlights that bleach the world to ash and shadow, oblivious to the weapon forged in secrecy—one that will draw a line between her and the fire that means to consume her. She doesn’t know the blade waits for her hand, or the cost it will demand when it does. The weight of that knowledge presses against my chest, scorching with the promise of sacrifice.
A hot, foul wind snakes through the treetops, carrying the sharp sting of diesel and the bitter tang of accelerant. It scours the back of my throat raw, sets my skin prickling. The tension hums all around us—taut, electric, a matchhead against stone—waiting for the strike that will set everything ablaze.
Below, an engine backfires—followed by a blossom of orange where the depot should be dark. Ignis just moved the timetable. Liv is already heading that way.
CHAPTER 6
LIV
The last flicker of the shed’s lantern still warms my lips as I snap my helmet into place and sprint into the darkness of the retreating night. Sirens split the camp like ruptured steel; engines groan awake; hot-shot rookies spill out of trailers half-dressed, dragging tools. Whatever Ignis had scheduled has detonated early.
The canyon mouth seethes with wind and tension, the scent of scorched earth already rising in acrid waves as boots pound into gravel. Darkness clings to the jagged ridgelines above, a predator waiting in silence, while fire crews begin to spill into the gorge—no longer a drill, but a battlefield. Radios crackle, carabiners jangle, and the air vibrates with the urgency of a fight that shouldn’t have started yet.
