Chapter 2
Delia
Ashfell, Nightfall
The air still smells like smoke.
Not choking.
Not cloying.
Not the kind that claws at your throat or stings your eyes or makes you regret every breath.
This is different.
It’s pleasant—unexpectedly so.
The kind of smoke that lingers after a fire has already given all it had to give.
When the last log has gone soft, mostly embers, and the heat is no longer urgent, just comforting—like a held breath finally exhaled.
There’s a sweetness to it.
A richness, too.
Not sugary, but deep. Layered.
Like smoked vanilla and aged cedar met in a dimly lit jazz lounge and decided to dance.
It reminds me of the cruise I took once. The one I booked when my tax refund hit and I was sick of everyone telling me to invest in my future.
I invested in me instead.
And on that ship, on the top deck bar where the bartenders wore suspenders, and the menus had curated sections, I ordered a smoked Old Fashioned.
Thirty-five dollars for one drink. No joke.
They brought it in a glass cloche—smoke still swirling inside like some kind of wizard’s secret.
Lifted the dome slow.
Let it escape in a single ghostly curl.
It smelled just like this.
Warm. Expensive.
Slightly dangerous, but in the way that makes you sit up straighter and pay attention.
I took a sip and felt it all the way down.
Like fire wrapped in velvet.
That’s what this air feels like now.
Like fire that’s learned how to touch gently.
Like warmth that doesn’t demand anything from you—just offers itself, waiting.
I smile, stretch, sink deeper into the bed and the impossibly soft, silky sheets—and I freeze.
I don’t own silk sheets.
My eyes snap open.
Black fabric gleams beneath my fingers, smooth as water, warm as skin. The bed is too wide. Too solid.
The ceiling above me is black stone—obsidian maybe—carved and arching, threaded with veins of something faintly glowing like banked embers.
I bolt upright. The sheet falls, and I gasp and grab it tightly to me.
Okay.
I’m naked.
And holy shit, I don’t think I’m in Kansas anymore, Toto.
This is not my ambulance.
This is not an ER.
This is not my apartment in Jersey City with the leaky radiator and the neighbor who plays reggaeton at 2 a.m.
Not that I complain, because I too am an El Tigre fan.
My heart slams into my throat as memory comes roaring back.
Fire.
Heat.
A man cloaked in black, standing untouched in the middle of a burning house, flames curling around him like they were afraid to get too close.
I am Thorne.
“Oh, hell no,” I whisper into the darkness.
I push myself upright—and nearly slide right off the bed.
The surface beneath me is slick and smooth, the sheets whispering against my skin.
Too smooth. Too expensive.
My hand tightens in the fabric as my feet find the floor.
Stone.
Not cold.
Warm. Deeply warm.
Like sun-baked rock that’s been holding heat all day.
I flinch, instinctively expecting pain, but it doesn’t come.
The warmth seeps into my soles instead, grounding and unsettling all at once.
I drop the sheet. Then, I look down. And choke.
Yep. Still completely naked.
No clothes. No boots. No uniform.
No radio clipped to my shoulder.
No knife in my pocket.
Nothing familiar. Nothing mine.
I grab the sheet again and wind it around my body like a makeshift toga.
Then I look around. It’s dark out.
I see no light spilling inside from the open floor to ceiling windows.
My skin prickles as I take in my surroundings.
The chamber is vast, carved entirely from obsidian and volcanic stone.
The walls are dark and glossy, veined with faint lines of red-orange glow, like the rock itself is breathing.
Firelight ripples across the surface, casting shadows that move when nothing else does.
Coal dust perfumes the air.
Smoke, but refined.
Controlled.
Like embers banked carefully instead of allowed to rage.
This place isn’t a prison.
It’s a forge.
And I am standing naked in the heart of it.
Feral doesn’t begin to cover what happens next.
“What the fuck,” I hiss, still feeling too exposed in the sheet I’m wearing.
So, I snatch the nearest thing—a heavy black blanket—and wrapping that around my shoulders like armor.
I clutch it tight, as if it might actually protect me from whatever insanity brought me here.
My pulse is racing.
My skin is hot, and not just from the stone beneath my feet.
“Okay, I don’t know what’s happening. But I’m still me. Still Delia Esposito. And I still like pistachio muffins with cream cheese, ham and bagel sandwiches, and orange is still my favorite color,” I whisper to ground myself.
I spin, scanning the room.
There’s an enormous door, and it looks heavy. Locked.
So, no obvious exits.
A massive hearth dominates one wall, embers glowing low and steady, as if they never truly go out.
And then—there’s movement.
A shape detaches from the shadows near the far wall.
I freeze.
He steps forward slowly, deliberately, firelight catching the sharp planes of his body.
It’s him.
I am Thorne.
My kidnapper.
He’s been standing there the whole time. Watching.
My stomach drops.
“You—” My voice comes out tight. “You saw me.”
Thorne doesn’t deny it.
His gaze drags over me with unapologetic hunger, slow and assessing, like he’s cataloging something foreign. Precious. Or maybe both.
“Yes,” he says simply.
Heat floods my face.
Rage follows close behind.
“You can’t just kidnap people,” I snap. “Strip them naked and lock them in your lava castle and peep on them like—like—”
“Like what, Delia Esposito?” he finishes mildly.
“I don’t know!”
“Like a sacrifice, perhaps?” he supplies unhelpfully.
Bastard.
“Maybe. I don’t know. I mean, that’s kinda what it feels like!” I shout.
He steps closer, and the air between us heats instantly.
Not just temperature—pressure.
Like the room itself is leaning in.
“You are no chicken or goat,” he says, voice low, edged with something ancient. “You are my Shula.”
“I don’t care what word you use,” I shoot back, my voice sharper than I feel. “You don’t get to just steal me and strip me—”
“I already have,” he cuts in, unrepentant. His eyes glow brighter, heat pulsing off him in waves. “And you are playing with fire you do not yet understand.”
I lift my chin, fury buzzing through my veins, my pulse pounding so hard I can hear it in my ears.
“Oh, I understand plenty,” I snap. “You’re a monster. You kidnapped me. You dragged me out of my life and took me to—” I falter, my gaze darting to the walls, the hearth, the glowing seams in the stone.
“Where are we exactly?”
His presence presses closer, not touching, but close enough that I can feel the heat of him along my skin.
“We are in Ashfell,” he says calmly. “My keep, built deep on the edge of the Broken Plains.”
I swallow.
“That’s not a place. That’s… that’s not even a thing.”
“Oh, but it is, milady. I’ve brought you to another realm,” he replies. “One of many.”
“Realm?” The word makes my head spin. “W–what are you talking about? I live in New Jersey,” I whisper, even as some traitorous part of me already suspects the truth.
“Earth was your old world, Shula,” he says softly. “You belong here now.”
My stomach drops. “But where is here?”
“A fair question,” he answers. “We are in the place dreams are made.”
He opens his palms, slow and deliberate.
A flame blooms in the center of his hand.
Not wild. Not raging.
Perfect. Controlled. Alive.
I gasp despite myself, heart hammering as it dances upward at his whim. With his other hand, he closes his fist around it, and the flame snuffs out silently, as if it never existed.
“I–I don’t belong here,” I say, shaking my head.
“You do,” he counters immediately. “Look at how you challenge me without fear. How you stand on Ember-veined stone without blistering. How the fire does not reject you.”
He steps fully into the light now, and it’s almost too much—muscle, heat, power, all wrapped in a man who looks at me like he’s already decided something irrevocable.
“You belong here, Shula,” he says. “You belong to me. Naked is just a perk.”
“I have a blanket on,” I whisper, suddenly painfully aware of how little separates us.
“Indeed, but why do you cover yourself?” he asks, voice low, intimate, infuriating. “You have already shown me your incredible body. And I assure you, I covet it greedily.”
My breath stutters, traitorous and fast.
“I should scream,” I snap, hating the heat pooling low in my belly. “I should run. I should slap you. Something must be wrong with me.”
“Perhaps,” he murmurs. “And perhaps you will. Perhaps I shall allow it.”
He leans in just enough that I can feel his breath against my ear.
“But not until after the binding ceremony.”
That does it.
I march toward him, blanket clutched tight, every instinct screaming that this is stupid—but I don’t stop.
“You don’t get to decide that,” I say, voice shaking with anger and something else I refuse to name.
Thorne looks down at me, towering, unrepentant—and entirely focused.
“No,” he agrees softly. “I do not get to decide.”
Then his gaze darkens, burning hotter, deeper—like something ancient has just taken notice of me.
“But the fire already has.”
Silence crashes between us, thick and volatile, stretched tight as a wire about to snap.
Then he moves.
Not rushed. Not hesitant.
Certain.
His hands come up to cradle my face—one at the back of my neck, the other cupping my cheek, his touch scorching without pain.
His thumbs brush my jaw, grounding and possessive all at once. I should pull back. I know that. I even try to tell my body to obey.
It doesn’t.
His eyes hold mine, molten and unflinching, searching my face as if giving me one last chance to flee.
I don’t.
He doesn’t seduce.
He claims.
His mouth crashes into mine, hot and demanding, the kiss fierce and consuming—like fire finding oxygen.
It sears straight through me, lighting every nerve, every doubt, every protest I meant to voice.
I gasp into him, the sound swallowed by his mouth, and that’s when I realize my hands are clenched in his chest, fisting fabric like I might fall if I let go.
My heart is pounding so hard it feels like it might crack my ribs.
My skin feels too tight.
Too awake. Too alive.
The kiss doesn’t soften—but it deepens, becomes something else.
Not hunger alone.
Recognition.
And the scary part? Somewhere beneath the fear.
Beneath the fury.
Beneath every rational thought screaming that this is wrong—something inside me answers back.
Not with words.
With fire.