Chapter 5
Luke
The smoke follows us downhill. I taste it on every breath; burned fuel mixed with scorched pine and something chemical that shouldn’t exist in nature.
My head throbs where I took a hit during impact, but pain is just information, data about my physical state.
I store it alongside everything else: wind from the northwest, temperature dropping, smoke plume visible for miles.
We’re exposed.
“Stay close.” I don’t look back to check if Ember’s following. She will. She’s Aurora-trained, even if that training’s still fresh. And her mother would have drilled common sense into her. Vanya Arrowvane is nobody’s fool.
And if you get out of here, she’s going to fucking kill you, Kenan.
I dash the thought away. Now’s not the time for distractions.
The slope steepens as we push into the treeline. Douglas fir crowds so thick the canopy chokes the daylight. Good. We need cover. My boots find purchase on exposed roots, surefooted from centuries of running through hostile territory. Behind me, Ember’s breathing comes harder but stays controlled.
She hasn’t complained once.
I respect that.
We’re twenty minutes downhill before I call a halt behind a massive fallen cedar. The crash site’s invisible now, swallowed by the ridgeline, but the smoke column rises like a beacon against the sky.
“How bad?” Ember drops beside me, face pale but eyes focused. Her jacket’s torn at the shoulder, showing the vest underneath. No blood that I can see.
“Could be worse.” I pull the survival pack from my shoulder and take inventory. Water purification tablets, fire starter, paracord, first aid kit, compass. Standard issue. “Could be better.”
She almost smiles. “Your version of optimism?”
“My version of honest.” I straighten, scanning terrain. We’re miles from anywhere, through treacherous territory. Too far to reach safety on foot. But we can’t stick around here. “We need to move. Get far from that smoke before someone comes looking.”
“Are we being tracked?”
“Don’t know yet.” I meet her eyes. They’re brown. Not chocolate like mine. Deep brown that catches gold when light hits them right. “The helicopter went down because something disrupted the systems. Question is whether it was targeted or just coincidental.”
“Targeted? You think the Syndicate—?”
“I think we can’t assume anything.” I gesture downslope. “We move. We assess. We adapt.”
She nods once, pushing to her feet despite the way her hands shake. Shock’s setting in—delayed reaction to trauma—but she’s fighting through it.
I’ve seen dragons with more experience handle disasters worse.
We move through forest that feels wrong. Too quiet. Birds should be calling, insects humming. Instead, there’s only wind through high branches and the distant sound of our transport still burning.
Ember stays on my heels, matching my pace without question. She doesn’t ask why I avoid game trails or why I keep us to granite outcroppings where we leave minimal tracks. She just watches and follows suit.
Smart.
Another twenty minutes in, she stumbles. Gives a sharp cry.
I catch her elbow before she goes down, reflex faster than thought. Her skin burns through the torn sleeve, dragon-heat simmering just beneath the surface. Our eyes meet.
She doesn’t pull away.
“Sorry.” Her voice roughens. “Ankle turned.”
“Can you walk?”
“Yes.”
I believe her. She’s got that look; chin set, eyes fierce. The same expression I’ve seen on warriors who’d crawl through hell before showing weakness.
Except she’s not a veteran. She’s barely twenty-one.
And she just watched her friend die.
Fuck. You can’t be pitying her now.
But I’m not inhuman. At least, not all of the time.
“Five minutes.” I release her arm, putting careful distance between us. “Hydrate.”
She sinks onto a moss-covered boulder, pulls her canteen. I scan our perimeter while she drinks; no movement beyond wind in the trees, no sounds except our breathing and the forest settling around us.
But something feels off. The air tastes metallic. Like ozone before a lightning strike.
“Luke.” Ember caps her canteen. “Why didn’t they finish us?”
I turn. “What?”
“The interference that took us down disabled us without destroying us outright. If whatever’s out here wanted us dead, we’d be dead.”
She’s thinking practically despite the trauma. Good.
“That’s a matter of opinion,” I say. “The crash should have taken us out. We survived by sheer luck.”
“But we did survive.”
“Yes.” I can’t argue the point.
“And nothing came back to finish the job.”
“Not yet,” I mutter.
“But it could have.” She’s determined. “And it didn’t. So what does it want?”
That’s the question, isn’t it? I consider the possibilities. The ritual chamber they’d tried to activate. The ancient power Ember had sensed in her visions. The strange interference that stripped my dragon strength right when I needed it most.
“I don’t know,” I say finally. “But we’re not sticking around to find out.”
We push on. The terrain grows rougher: exposed rock faces, ravines cutting through forest, elevation changes that leave Ember breathing hard. She doesn’t slow. Doesn’t ask for breaks. Just keeps moving with that quiet determination that reminds me uncomfortably of myself at her age.
Before the clan wars ground it into me.
The light starts failing around sixteen hundred hours. We’ve made maybe six miles from the crash site. Not bad, given the terrain and her ankle. But we need shelter before full dark. The temperature’s already dropping.
I find an overhang. Limestone shelf tucked beneath a granite face. Defensible. Concealed. Cold as hell, but that’s what dragon-heat is for.
“Here.” I drop my pack. “We wait for total darkness, then shift and fly.”
Ember’s face brightens, the first real hope I’ve seen since Mara fell. “How far?”
“Fifteen miles northeast to the helicopter landing site. We push hard, we can be there in under an hour.”
“Then what?”
“With any luck, Radu will still be waiting for us. We’ll have comms to reach out to Aurora and the Craven clan.” I check my watch. Ninety minutes until the light fails completely. “Get some rest. You’ll need strength for the flight.”
She settles against the overhang wall, but her eyes stay on me. Measuring.
“You’ve done this before,” she says quietly. “The survival thing.”
“Different battles. Same principles.”
“Clan wars?”
“Among other conflicts.” I don’t elaborate. The territorial disputes I survived between clans aren’t stories for quiet mountain evenings. They’re scars I keep buried where they can’t bleed into the present.
Mostly.
Ember’s quiet for a long moment. Then: “Thank you. For getting us out.”
“Don’t thank me yet. We’re not clear.”
“But we’re alive.” Her voice softens. “That’s something.”
It is. Though I’m not sure alive means the same thing as safe. Not when the forest feels like it’s watching and my dragon stirs uneasily in my chest, sensing something I can’t pin down.
I settle into guard position and wait for darkness.
Ember sinks back, her lashes fluttering shut. It takes a while, but I finally hear her breathing leveling out.
Good. She needs rest after what she’s just been through.
I close my eyes, sinking into that place where my mind stills while my body stays on full alert.
When the last light finally bleeds from the sky, I stand.
“Time.” My voice cuts through the growing cold as I walk into the clearing. Ember jolts awake, her expression hazy as she struggles to find her bearings.
“Where…? I… Mom?” Her voice is husky with sleep.
“Hardly,” I say. “It’s time to go. Strip down.”
Ember’s eyes widen, suddenly awake. “What?”
“Dragons don’t shift fully clothed.” I’m already unbuckling my vest. “Everything comes off, or you shred it mid-transformation.”
She stares at me for a moment. “Oh. Yes. Right.” Then her hands move to her jacket zipper.
I turn away. Not modesty, just practicality. I need to focus on the shift, on the slate-steel energy that should be coiling through my bones like molten fire.
Except as I peel off layers, as mountain air hits bare skin, I’m aware of the soft rustle of fabric behind me. The quiet catch in Ember’s breathing.
“This part doesn’t make the training manuals.” Her voice wavers between humor and nerves.
“Some things are better learned in the field.” I step out of my boots, shed the last of my clothing until I’m standing naked in the darkness. Cold bites, but I ignore it. My dragon’s already stirring, eager for sky.
Behind me, silence. Then another rustle.
I close my eyes and reach for the shift.
It should be instinct, muscle memory written into every cell. I breathe deep, centering myself the way I always do. Silvery light flickers at the edge of consciousness. The dragon inside uncoils, stretching toward freedom, and I feel the first electric tingle as scales begin to—
Nothing.
The light gutters like a candle in a hurricane. My dragon slams against an invisible wall and recoils, confused and furious. I gasp, stumbling forward as the world spins.
“Luke!” Ember’s hand on my shoulder, bare skin against bare skin, shocking in its heat. “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t—” The words scrape out. “I can’t shift.”
I force my eyes open, turn. She’s standing a foot away, and even in dim starlight I can see confusion blazing across her face.
“What do you mean you can’t shift?”
“Exactly what I said.” I sway, clenching my fists to steady myself. I’m shaking. Not from cold. From rage. “Something’s blocking it. Like hitting a wall.”
Her face goes pale. “Can they do that? The Syndicate?”
“Someone can.” I force myself to straighten, breathing hard. Every instinct screams to shift, to take wing, to get the hell out of here. But the dragon inside me stirs weakly. Too weakly. “We’re grounded.”
The word hangs between us, heavy with implications neither of us wants to voice.
“That can’t be true.” Ember shakes her head.
I see a ripple of scales over her ivory skin.
Silvery gold. Platinum like her hair. She closes her eyes, forehead creasing with concentration.
I watch pale gold light flicker beneath her skin; weaker than mine, less controlled.
She hasn’t done this often. Vanya’s trained her, sure, but I doubt she’s shifted more than a dozen times.
Her breath comes faster. More scales appear across her shoulders, iridescent in the starlight, then fade. She tries again, teeth clenched, and for a moment I see wings trying to form, translucent membranes that dissolve before they solidify.
“Damn it!” Frustration bleeds through her voice.
I force my gaze away from the curve of her spine, the elegant line of her neck. She’s beautiful and naked and completely unaware of it, focused entirely on the shift that won’t come.
Not the time, Kenan.
“Ember. Stop.”
“I can do this. I just need—”
“You need to conserve energy.” I grab her arm as she sways. “Whatever’s blocking us isn’t going away because you exhaust yourself trying.”
She opens her eyes. They’re wet with tears that she blinks away quickly.
“We’re stuck here.”
“Not if I can help it.” I release her.
I fucking hate this feeling.
Vulnerable. Exposed. As helpless as humans in hostile territory with no backup and no way home.
And she’s still naked.
For fuck’s sake.
“Get dressed,” I say gruffly, reaching for my own discarded clothing. “We’re finding a way out.”
“Fifteen miles through the mountains.” She shakes her head. “No backup. No comms. No shift.”
“Yeah.” I pull up my trousers and fasten my belt with brisk movements. “The sooner we start, the sooner we get out of here.”
“I can’t believe we can’t shift,” she half-whispers. I keep my expression neutral. Even in the darkness, I can feel her watching. Measuring whether I’m really as calm as I’m pretending.
I’m not.
The dragon inside me pulses weakly against its cage.
And I realize with cold certainty: whatever this place is, whatever ancient power sleeps here, it wants us human.
Trapped. Weak. Mortal.
And for the first time ever, I don’t know if I can take charge of things.