Ash and Burn (Paranormal Dating Agency #110)

Arvid

ONE

Maggie sat hunched over a microscope at the adjacent bench, her dark hair escaping its ponytail in the way it always did when she'd been concentrating too long.

Coffee stains decorated her lab coat like badges of dedication, and the soft scratch of her pen against paper provided counterpoint to the lab's mechanical symphony.

"You know," Maggie said without lifting her eye from the scope, "most people consider ten o'clock on a Friday night to be firmly in the 'leave work for the day' territory."

"Yeah well, most people don't wait until midnight to eat dinner."

"I ate." Arvid adjusted the focus on her own microscope, bringing the cellular anomalies into sharper relief. "I had that granola bar an hour ago."

"That wasn't dinner. That was survival rations." Maggie finally straightened, rolling her shoulders. "And before you argue, coffee doesn't count as a food group, even if you've been treating it like one."

The familiar warmth of Maggie's concern settled around Arvid's shoulders like a blanket she didn't want to admit she needed.

Three years ago, when everything fell apart, she'd built this life deliberately small.

Manageable. Predictable in ways that military command never was, relationships never were, and trust never was.

But sometimes, in moments like this, she wondered if small was the same as safe, or if she'd simply convinced herself that surviving was the same as living.

"Are you planning to do this forever?" Maggie's voice carried the particular tone she used when she was about to say something Arvid wouldn't want to hear. "Hide in this lab, solving other people's problems, never asking if maybe you deserve something that lets you shine brighter?"

Arvid's hands stilled on the microscope controls. "I'm not hiding."

"No? Then what would you call spending three years in a rented lab space, working on contract research that barely pays the bills, when you could be heading your own department at any major university in the country?"

"I call it realistic. My military discharge—"

"Was three years ago. And it was for saving seventeen lives when command ordered you to leave them behind." Maggie's voice carried the edge it got when she talked about that day. She'd been one of the seventeen. "Most people would call that heroic."

"Well, the Army called it insubordination."

"The Army was wrong," Maggie muttered.

The words hung between them, heavy with history neither of them discussed often.

Arvid had learned that talking about that day—about the choice that cost her everything she thought she wanted—only made people uncomfortable.

They preferred their heroes to follow orders, not make the hard calls when orders were wrong.

"This life works," Arvid said finally. "I help people. I solve problems. I don't have to answer to anyone but myself. It's good enough."

"And that's enough for you?

The question hit deeper than Arvid wanted to admit.

She thought about the patents she held, the lives her research had saved, the quiet satisfaction of work that mattered.

But she also thought about the empty apartment she returned to each night, the social invitations she declined, the careful distance she maintained from anything that might require her to be vulnerable again.

"Good enough shouldn't be the goal," Maggie continued, her voice gentler now. "You're brilliant, Arvid. You're capable of changing the world. But you've built yourself such a small corner of it that no one can even see what you're capable of."

Arvid finally looked up from the microscope, meeting Maggie's brown eyes. "I'm too tired to have this argument again."

"Then maybe you should go home for the night." Maggie gestured toward the clock on the wall. "Or better yet, stop by that corner restaurant. Get something that actually qualifies as food. I don't think you've eaten a proper meal in weeks."

The truth of that statement settled uncomfortably in Arvid's chest. She'd thrown herself so completely into the Dragon's Blight research that basic needs had become afterthoughts.

Sleep, food, human contact—all secondary to the consuming need to understand how this disease worked and why it felt so important to solve.

"Fine." Arvid pulled off her lab coat and reached for her purse. "I suppose I should eat a real meal."

"Perfect. I'll run this last test and lock up for the night."

Arvid paused at the lab door, looking back at Maggie's bent head as she returned to her work. "Maggie?"

"Yeah?"

"Thank you. For everything."

Maggie smiled without looking up. "You saved my life. Least I can do is make sure you remember to live yours."

The words followed Arvid as she left the university building, stepping into the warm Dallas night. The campus was quiet except for the distant sound of traffic and the occasional burst of laughter from students who had better social lives than she did.

Maybe Maggie was right. Maybe she should be reaching for stars instead of settling for survival.

The corner restaurant glowed with warm light, its windows revealing a crowd of college students and professors who all seemed to be living their best lives.

When she finally stepped into the space, conversations flowed around tables laden with actual food, and the energy felt infectious in a way that made Arvid's carefully controlled world seem suddenly very small.

She headed straight for the bar—not because she needed alcohol, but because seating for one at the bar felt less obvious than a lonely table for one.

The bartender nodded as she settled onto a stool, and Arvid found herself studying the other patrons, all of them seeming to navigate social connection with an ease she'd forgotten how to access.

But the bigger truth, she realized as she opened the menu, wasn't that she was miserable. It was that she'd built a life that mostly worked and was quietly terrified to ask whether "mostly worked" was enough.

Minutes later, the bartender slid a glass of wine across the polished surface as Arvid settled deeper onto the barstool, the leather creaking beneath her weight.

She'd ordered something simple—a grilled chicken sandwich and fries—food that required no thought and would actually qualify as a meal in Maggie's estimation.

The restaurant buzzed with Friday night energy around her, conversations weaving together into a tapestry of social engagement.

Suddenly, a petite woman materialized on the adjacent stool with the kind of fluid grace that suggested she'd been doing this dance for decades.

Her snow-white hair caught the bar's amber lighting, styled in a perfect bob, and her designer pantsuit—a bold green that should have clashed with the warm lighting but somehow didn't—marked her as someone who understood the power of making an entrance.

Arvid took a careful sip of wine and focused on her phone, scrolling through research articles she'd already read twice. Social interaction with strangers ranked somewhere below root canals on her list of preferred activities.

"This dry heat is absolute torture, isn't it?" The woman's voice carried a warmth that seemed to fill the space between them. "I swear Texas summers get more brutal every year."

Arvid glanced up, meeting eyes that shifted between bright blue and something that looked almost gold in the bar's lighting. Basic politeness won over her instinct to retreat into silence.

"It's definitely intense," Arvid agreed. "Though I suppose it beats the torrential rain we had last month."

"Oh, honey, you're so right about that." The woman laughed, a sound like wind chimes in a gentle breeze. "I'm Gerri, by the way. Gerri Wilder."

"Arvid."

"What a beautiful name. Strong. Purposeful." Gerri signaled the bartender with practiced ease. "Vodka tonic, extra lime, and make it a double. It's been one of those weeks."

Something about Gerri's presence made the usual tension in Arvid's shoulders ease. Maybe it was the woman's complete lack of expectation—she wasn't trying to impress or interrogate, just existing in the moment with infectious confidence.

"What kind of work keeps you out this late on a Friday?" Gerri asked, genuine curiosity coloring her tone.

"Research. Infectious disease, specifically." The words came easier than they usually did with strangers. "I run a small independent lab. Nothing glamorous, but it pays the bills."

Gerri's eyes lit up with interest. "Now that sounds absolutely fascinating. What kind of diseases?"

Arvid found herself leaning forward slightly, drawn into the conversation despite herself. "Currently I'm working on something called Dragon's Blight. It's a rare blood disease that affects maybe three hundred people worldwide. But more cases are popping up lately."

"Dragon's Blight." Gerri repeated the name slowly, as if testing how it felt on her tongue. "How intriguing. The name itself suggests something almost mythological, doesn't it?"

"I've always thought so. Most rare diseases get clinical names that sound like alphabet soup, but this one...

" Arvid shrugged. "Someone with an active imagination named it, I suppose.

The cellular structure actually resembles scaled patterns under certain magnification levels, which might explain the dragon reference. "

The bartender delivered Gerri's drink and Arvid's food simultaneously. The sandwich looked better than she'd expected.

"You know," Gerri said, stirring her drink with a straw, "I have the most unique opportunity that might interest someone like yourself."

Arvid paused mid-bite. "What kind of opportunity?"

"Well, my profession is rather unusual. I'm a paranormal matchmaker.

I know, I know, it sounds completely insane—but one of my previous clients mentioned something that's been weighing on my mind.

" Gerri's expression grew serious. "There's an outbreak happening on another planet called Nova Aurora.

Specifically in a territory called Ashvorn where dragon shifters live. "