Chapter Seventeen
Setting Men on Fire for Personal Growth
I light the first torch like a woman who has absolutely not emotionally attached herself to five spiritually unstable men in various stages of transformation.
The moon is too bright. The air smells like pine, sage, and repressed feelings. I’m wearing a robe that whispers “ceremonial authority” but kind of feels like lingerie for a forest deity.
The bonfire pit is ready, logs stacked with intentions of dead repressive monarchical ideology.
I’m emotionally vibrating on a frequency somewhere between “goddess of grief” and “please don’t let them cry at the same time.”
I hear them before I see them, the crunch of gravel and pine needles under the weight of five emotionally volatile men who have apparently decided to arrive for the bonfire as a unit. Not casually. Not in that wandering, “oops we all showed up at the same time” way, but with the deliberate synchronicity of a boy band about to drop a surprise album on healing through fire.
They’re walking in a loose V formation like some kind of emotionally repressed migration pattern, and yes, of course, they’re shirtless. Every single one of them. I don’t know if it’s a spiritual statement or just a flex of collective pheromonal intimidation, but either way, I immediately regret moisturizing my collarbones.
The fire pit logs are stacked with enough symbolic baggage to qualify as emotional kindling. The men are watching me, five shirtless hurricanes pretending to be calm, and I know I have to say something that sounds profound, or at least vaguely spiritual with a feminist twist.
I lift the ceremonial matches from their velvet box like they were forged in a sacred Etsy forge, and take a breath so deep I taste every questionable decision I’ve made this week.
“Tonight,” I begin, robe swirling just slightly for dramatic effect, “We gather not just to burn paper, but to reduce false kings to ash.”
Their expressions vary: from reverent (Asher) to amused (Jax) to visibly concerned this might turn into a literal sacrifice (Miles).
“The kings you constructed to survive,” I continue, voice rising like I’m about to sell them all moon-touched MLM incense, “The ones who were sharp when you needed to be soft, silent when you needed to scream, invincible when all you really were was exhausted, those kings die tonight.”
I pause. Let the silence get just long enough to feel uncomfortable.
“We don’t grieve them. We thank them. And then we set their royal asses on fire.”
Someone chokes back a laugh. Probably Jax.
“From the ashes,” I say, lifting the match, “Comes the cub. Rewilded. Unclenched. Possibly shirtless forever.”
I strike the match.
It flares.
I touch it to the firewood.
And the pit explodes into a blaze so hot and high I stumble back two full steps and yell, “Shit!”
Jax lets out a low whistle.
Asher gasps. “Oh wow, that’s… that’s very symbolic.”
Toad, standing in the shadows, shrugs. “Might’ve used a little extra. For effect.”
The fire roars. The logs crack like they’re screaming. Pine sap hisses.
Jonah mutters, “Overkill.”
Seb’s just staring into it, eyes fixed like the flames are speaking directly to his chest hair.
I try to regain composure.
Straighten my robe. Lift my arms again like this was absolutely the plan and not a propane-fueled masculinity detonation. “The transformation,” I say, voice a little higher now, “Has begun.”
The fire is still raging like it knows we’re about to commit emotional crimes.
I step back, raise my arms like the Queen of Ashes, and nod toward the group. “When you’re ready,” I say. “Come forward. One at a time. Burn your kings.”
No one moves at first.
Then, of course, Asher steps forward.
He clutches his letter like it’s a diary page and a final exam. His curls are extra floofy. His chest is flushed, and I’m already bracing myself for emotional impact.
He approaches the fire slowly, then turns to us and says, “Mine’s a little long, but I wanted to be thorough.”
Of course he did.
“Dear King Me,” he begins, “You were always too loud when I needed stillness, and too still when I needed to be loud.”
Oh gods, here we go.
“You thought softness was shameful. You built walls made of punchlines. But I forgive you, because you were trying to protect something tender.”
I swallow.
Asher wipes his eyes, then he drops the letter into the fire and whispers, “Goodbye.”
I am not okay. I want to clap. I want to sob. I want to knit him a crown made of forgiveness and ethically sourced moss.
Seb steps forward like he’s being dragged by fate, holding what I can only describe as a vaguely humanoid figure made of twigs, bark, and... is that moss glued on with pine sap?
He doesn’t say anything. He just holds it up.
Then, in his usual gravel-rumble says, “This was the version of me that thought staying silent made me stronger.”
He stares at the fire, and then yeets the stick creature in like it owes him child support.
The flames leap. The effigy explodes in a shower of bark.
Seb turns and walks back to the circle like he didn’t just emotionally exorcise a forest demon.
I am devastated. And maybe aroused. I don’t know anymore.
Miles steps forward with his hands in fists, shoulders tight, expression like he’s about to confess to a war crime.
He unfolds a single sheet of paper, looks at the fire and then begins to read with all the intensity of a man defending his dissertation on internalized repression. “Dear King, You were efficient. Ruthless. Respected. But you were also a coward. You spoke in data when you should’ve used your damn heart.”
Oh no. Not the damn heart.
He reads the whole thing. Clear. Controlled. Like he practiced.
Then, at the very end, his voice falters, just once.
He throws the paper in, watches it burn, and walks back to his seat like he didn’t just make me want to build him a library of affirmation stones.
Jax comes forward with the second twig effigy, this one clearly dressed in cut-up denim and wrapped in electrical tape.
“This is Rage-King Riot,” he says. “Built him in rehab. Thought I’d keep him around for emergencies. But I think it’s time.” He flicks the effigy’s tiny sunglasses off. “Later, asshole.”
Into the fire it goes.
I swear the flames roar louder, like even they know that version of him was exhausting.
Then he grins at me, all teeth and relief, and says, “Felt good.”
It does. It does feel good.
I fan my face with a birch leaf and try to remember how to exist.
Jonah is last. Of course he is.
He steps forward with no letter. No stick. Just a small, sealed envelope.
He meets my eyes, walks right up to me, and hands it over. “You can burn it. Or read it. Your choice.”
I blink. “What is it?”
“The part of me I thought I could hide from this,” he says and then he turns, just like that, and walks back to the others.
I stare at the envelope.
It’s light. Small. But somehow weighs everything.
I want to lie down in the fire and be reborn as a woman with less emotional responsibility.
The fire’s lower now. Still glowing. Still hungry. Like it knows there’s always more to burn.
They’re quiet, my five rewilded disasters, watching the last of their kings curl into smoke and rise above the trees. There’s ash on the wind and intention in the dirt, and I know I’m supposed to say something profound and final and vaguely therapeutic.
So I do. “Tonight, you shed the skin of performance. You burned the armor. The noise. The fear.”
I take a breath and try not to think about the envelope in my hand, or the way my legs are shaking from the weight of all this attention. “What rises now is yours to shape. To reclaim. To rebuild.”
I look at each of them.
They’re glowing. Literally. The firelight makes them all look like holy problems. Like altar boys who found sin and decided to climb inside it shirtless.
I spread my arms, fully robe-engaged. “Go forth. You are no longer kings pretending to rule. You are wolves learning to run. You are the cubs. The healed. The unclenched.”
There’s a pause. A silence. A moment where it might all settle.
And then of course Jax creates chaos.
“Should we anoint you with ash and a word of devotion?” Jax asks, tone pure mischief wrapped in muscle. “You know. For balance.”
I blink once.
Then again.
Because of course he would be the one to break the sacred silence with something that sounds vaguely erotic and definitely cult-adjacent. And of course he says it like it’s the most natural suggestion in the world, like we all woke up this morning fully prepared to end the evening by finger-painting declarations of emotional loyalty across my thighs.
I open my mouth to shut it down, but I catch the flicker of movement across the firelight.
Miles chokes softly, trying not to react like a man who just heard the word “thigh” in a professional setting.
Asher looks inspired. Like he’s already mentally drafting his word of devotion. And knowing him, it would be something devastatingly sincere like “radiance” or “wildlight” and it would make me cry.
Seb tilts his head slightly, expression unreadable except for the small, solemn nod that tells me he’s one hundred percent on board with this plan. He would anoint me. Without hesitation. And then probably go chop wood about it with Jax.
Jonah doesn’t say a word. Doesn’t move. But the way he’s watching me across the fire, like I’m already marked... it does something terrible to my spine.
I just stand there, wrapped in too much robe and not nearly enough emotional stability, my brain short-circuiting somewhere between rage, arousal, and the absolutely horrifying realization that I might actually want them to do it.
Not because it’s appropriate. Not because it’s part of the ritual. But because I’ve built something I don’t know how to name.
Why do I feel like this has happened to me in another life?
“Absolutely not,” I say. “This robe is dry clean only.”
They laugh softly together.
And it hits me all at once, they’re not laughing at me. They’re laughing with me. Like I’m not their leader. I’m something else now.
Sacred. Claimed. A little bit feral.
I look down at the envelope in my hand, and whisper, just to myself, “Gods help me, I think I’m the altar.”
The silence hangs like smoke. Heavy. Flickering.
Then Jax takes a step forward, and I already know something is about to happen because he has that glint in his eye, the one that always precedes chaos, or a very good orgasm, or both.
He stops directly in front of me, standing close enough that I can smell smoke and skin and whatever cologne he somehow makes smell like sex and wilderness. He reaches out, not grabbing or groping, just casually hooking two fingers in the edge of my robe, his expression open but daring, like he’s giving me the option to stop him, but betting I won’t.
He’s right.
I nod, barely, and that’s all the permission he needs.
He slides the robe from my shoulders with agonizing patience, slow enough to feel ceremonial, like this is some kind of sacred offering instead of me standing bare-chested under the stars while five spiritually rewilded men look at me like I’m made of prophecy.
The fabric pools around my feet, a soft whisper in the grass, and suddenly I’m mostly bare, vulnerable, glowing, and vibrating somewhere between erotic power fantasy and emotional paralysis.
I expect shock. I expect someone to crack a joke. But what I get is reverence.
They don’t leer. They don’t stare in that hungry way. They look at me like I’m part of the ritual.
And then Asher, sweet, solemn Asher, steps forward with his fingertips already stained with ash. His eyes meet mine, wide, a little awed, and he touches the space just below my collarbone with the gentleness of someone handling a relic.
“This,” he murmurs, the word barely audible over the fire, “Is for radiance.”
Of course it is.
Seb moves next, quiet and sure, dipping his fingers in the ash bowl and dragging two crooked lines across my ribs. His hand is rough, callused, but the touch is soft, intentional.
“This one’s mine,” he says. “It doesn’t need a name.”
He doesn’t look at me when he says it, but I feel the weight of whatever he’s burning away.
Miles follows, more precise, as if the pressure of his thumb matters more than the mark itself. He presses a small, geometric symbol just above my hip, then steps back, silently cataloging whatever it is he’s just admitted to with that touch.
When Jonah steps in, I forget how to breathe.
He dips his thumb into the ash, then reaches for my chest, slowly, watching me the entire time, and marks me just over my heart. His eyes don’t leave mine for a second, and the press of his skin to mine sends something molten and terrifying down my spine.
“Mine’s not a word,” he says. “It’s a truth.”
I’m about to combust when Jax, in true Jax fashion, drops to one knee like he’s proposing to my inner wild woman and presses his ash-covered fingers against the inside of my thigh. His grin is pure sin and smoke, and the symbol he paints could be a rune, a curse, or a dirty joke. Possibly all three.
“Mine’s definitely innuendo,” he says, smirking up at me like I’m a canvas and he’s about to start a new series called Sacred and Slightly Horny.
“Obviously,” I mutter, but my voice comes out a little too breathless to sell the sarcasm.
Then, somehow, we’re laughing. Not loud, not obnoxious, just quietly, together, like something has broken loose inside this circle that none of us want to put back in a box.
I reach down and gather a little ash myself, my hands trembling more than I’d like to admit, and one by one, I anoint them in return.
I paint a spiral on Asher’s chest and whisper, “Divine.”
He blushes like I’ve proposed marriage.
On Seb, I leave a streak across his hip, no name, no explanation.
Miles gets a symbol that might be nonsense but feels important as I draw it, something abstract across the ridges of his abs, and when I murmur, “Stillness,” he closes his eyes like I’ve just handed him something fragile.
Jonah doesn’t look away when I mark him. I don’t even remember what I paint, only that my fingers tremble and his skin is warm and he watches me like he wants to devour the intention in my hands.
And Jax doesn’t wait. He pulls me close and lets me swipe both palms across his chest like I’m branding him with whatever the hell this is, ash and fire and a feral kind of reverence that leaves me breathless.
When it’s over, we’re all covered, laughing, sweating, marked by flame and dust and each other.
And somehow, in the center of all this chaos, I don’t feel like the leader anymore.
I feel like the altar.