Chapter 13
Luke
We’re trapped. The reality settles into my bones as I sweep the torch across the chamber one more time. Rock walls surround us, the only access point sealed by tons of collapsed stone.
No way out except through a passage that would take dragon strength to clear.
And we can’t shift.
I kill the torch to conserve battery. The darkness presses close, suffocating. Beside me, Ember’s breathing comes too fast.
Not panic. But close.
Two days since the crash. Two days of running on stress hormones and dwindling supplies. One bottle of water between us. Maybe half a ration bar each. The torch battery at thirty percent.
We should have reached extraction by now. Should be debriefing in a safe house while medics check us over and Vanya tears me apart for letting this happen.
Instead, we’re sealed in a stone tomb with no way out and time running short.
I crouch beside Ember, keeping my movements slow. “You sure you’re good?” I ask again. She replied too easily the first time, considering what just happened.
She doesn’t answer immediately now. Just lies there on the cold stone, staring at the collapsed passage.
“No,” she finally says.
Honest. I respect that.
She sits up slowly, wincing. Her palms are scraped raw from when I pulled her through. Blood on her torn pants. That ankle still bothering her, though she won’t admit it.
She’s holding it together by a thread, and I’m the reason she’s in this position.
Should have checked the structural integrity before we entered that passage. Should have anticipated the instability. Should have—
“Luke.” Her voice cuts through my analysis. “Tell me there’s another way out.”
I force myself to think past the self-recrimination. To assess. To do what I’ve always done: turn crisis into strategy.
The chamber is solid. High ceiling—good for air. The floor is level and dry.
Not the worst place to be trapped.
I check the walls again, running my hands over the stone. Searching for temperature differentials. Airflow. Anything.
“You already checked,” Ember says.
“Checking again.”
“Why?”
“Because I might have missed something.”
“Luke, stop.”
Her hand catches my wrist. Pulls me around to face her.
In the weak torchlight, exhaustion shows in every line of her face. But her eyes are steady. Determined. The same look she had when she refused to leave the helicopter. When she kept moving despite her injured ankle. When Mara died and the world fell apart.
“We’re stuck here,” she says. “Aren’t we?”
The words hang between us; honest, brutal.
“Until the structure stabilizes.” I pull free of her grip and sit down, leaving careful space between us. “The vibrations are still too frequent. Trying to clear that passage now risks bringing the ceiling down.”
“So we wait?”
“We wait.”
She sinks to the floor, wraps her arms around her knees, making herself small. The gesture does something to my chest that I don’t examine too closely.
“How long?”
“Few hours. Maybe more.”
“And if the ceiling doesn’t stabilize?”
“Then we find another way.”
“There is no other way.”
“There’s always another way.”
She looks at me like I’m insane. Maybe I am. But the alternative—accepting that we’re going to die down here—isn’t an option.
Especially not with her.
I won’t let her die. Can’t.
The thought comes unexpectedly. Dangerous.
I push it aside and focus on practical concerns. “We conserve resources. Minimal light. Minimal movement. Wait for the tremors to stop, then reassess.”
“So we just sit here. In the dark. For hours.”
“Yes.”
I expect argument. Panic. The breakdown that anyone would be entitled to in this situation.
Instead, she just nods once. “Okay.”
That quiet acceptance makes the tightness in my chest worse.
The mountain groans, a deep, subsonic rumble that sends dust raining from the ceiling. Ember tenses but doesn’t reach for me. Just tightens her grip on her own knees and rides it out.
When it fades, she releases a careful breath.
“That’s the fourth one,” I say.
“You’re counting?”
“Always.”
She’s quiet for a moment. Then: “Do you ever stop? Monitoring everything?”
“No.”
“That sounds exhausting.”
“It’s survival.”
“It’s also lonely.”
The observation hits closer than it should. I don’t answer.
Another silence. This one stretches until she breaks it.
“Tell me something,” she says. “Something that has nothing to do with tactics or survival or getting out of here.”
“Like what?”
“I don’t know. Anything. I just—” She stops. Starts again. “I need to think about something other than being buried alive.”
Fair enough. Reasonable request.
My mind goes blank.
What do I talk about that isn’t mission-related? What conversation do I have with Vanya’s daughter that won’t cross lines I’m already dancing too close to?
“Venice,” I say finally. “1723. When I got this.” I touch the scar along my jaw.
“The knife fight.”
“You remember.”
“I remember everything you’ve told me.” She shifts slightly, turning toward me. “What happened?”
“I was little more than a kid. Arrogant. Thought being a dragon made me untouchable.”
“And?”
“And I picked a fight with a vampire who’d survived a thousand years by being smarter than everyone around him.”
“A vampire?” She stares at me. “There are vampires?”
“There are dragons and witches, Ember. Of course there are vampires.”
“Right.” She nods. “Of course there are.” She nods again. “And he could have killed you.”
“He did. Technically.” I lean back against the wall. “Tore out my throat. Punctured my lung. Broke three ribs. Left me bleeding out in an alley.”
“But you’re here.”
“He carried me to a safe house. Paid for a healer. Left a note saying next time I should pick fights I could win.”
Ember’s silent for a long moment. “He saved you.”
“He taught me a lesson. That strength without strategy is suicide. That the strongest fighter doesn’t always win.”
I don’t add the rest. Don’t tell her that I’ve carried that lesson for centuries. That it shaped every decision since. That it’s why I analyze instead of feel. Why caring about anyone became a weakness I couldn’t afford.
Why the way I’m starting to feel about her terrifies me more than any collapsed tunnel.
The mountain groans again—longer, deeper. Rock grinding against rock. The torch flickers.
Ember’s hand shoots out, gripping my arm. Hard.
I don’t pull away.
The vibration builds. For thirty seconds that feel eternal, I’m certain the ceiling is coming down. That this chamber will be our grave.
Then it stops.
Dust hangs in the air. Ember’s fingers dig into my arm; strong grip, no trembling.
“That was worse,” she says.
“Yes.”
“Is the ceiling going to hold?”
“I don’t know.”
Her grip tightens. “You always know.”
“Not this time.”
She doesn’t let go. Just keeps holding my arm like it’s the only solid thing in a world that won’t stop shaking.
I should tell her to release me. Should maintain professional distance.
But I don’t.
Because the warmth of her hand through my sleeve, the way her fingers press into muscle… it grounds me in a way that tactical assessment never could.
And that’s the problem.
I’ve spent so long keeping people at arm’s length. Building walls high enough that attachment can’t take root. Turning human connection into mission parameters and strategic assets.
It worked. Kept me alive. Kept me focused. Kept me from caring enough that losing someone would break me.
But sitting here in the dark with her hand on my arm, I can’t remember why that mattered.
Can’t remember why being alone felt safer than this.
“Luke?” Her voice is quiet.
“Yeah?”
“Thank you.”
“For what?”
“For keeping me sane.”
The words catch me off guard. “I’m not sure sitting in the dark waiting for the ceiling to collapse counts as keeping you sane.”
“It does.” She squeezes my arm gently before releasing it. “Because you’re here. I’m glad you’re here.”
I almost laugh. “Glad you’re trapped in a cave with no way out?”
“Glad I’m not alone.”
The simple honesty in her voice does something to the walls I’ve built. Makes them feel thinner. Less necessary.
And the truth is—sitting here in the darkness with her hand just inches from mine, listening to her breathe, knowing she’s still fighting despite everything we’ve lost—I feel the same way.
I’m glad she’s here too.
Not as a mission parameter. Not as Vanya’s daughter. Not as the prophetic dragon I’m responsible for protecting.
Just… her.
Ember.
The realization should terrify me.
It does.
But not as much as the idea of being down here without her.
“Me too,” I say quietly.
She turns to look at me. Her face is inches away in the dim light, exhaustion etched into it. Her eyes search mine, looking for something I’m not sure I can give her.
I remember waking up with her hand on my bare flesh. Remember how my body responded.
Fuck. I can’t remember when last I had so little control.
The air between us shifts. Changes. Becomes heavy with something I don’t want to identify.
Her eyes drop to my mouth.
My breath catch.
“Ember—”
She leans in.
It’s not calculated. Not seductive. Just an impulsive movement, closing the distance between us like she can’t help it.
Her lips brush mine. Soft. Tentative. A whisper of contact that sends electricity straight through my nervous system.
I freeze.
Every instinct screams at me to pull back. To remember that she’s twenty-one and I’m responsible for keeping her alive, and this violates every professional boundary I’ve ever maintained.
But my body doesn’t care about boundaries.
My hand comes up, cups her jaw without permission from my brain. Her skin is warm beneath my palm. Impossibly soft. I can feel her pulse racing under my thumb where it rests against her throat.
She makes a small sound against my mouth. Relief, maybe. Or surprise that I’m not pushing her away.
I should push her away.
Instead, I kiss her back.
It’s not careful. Not gentle. My control fractures as I tilt her head and take her mouth the way I’ve been wanting to since the moment she pressed against me in that fissure. Since I felt her lips against my palm in the darkness. Since I realized keeping her alive had become about more than duty.
Since the moment I first set eyes on her, if I’m honest with myself.
She tastes like cold air and exhaustion and something impossibly pure, something that makes every nerve ending light up. Her breath comes faster against my mouth, warm and unsteady. Her fingers slide from my arm to my chest, gripping my vest, pulling herself closer.
The kiss deepens. Her lips part beneath mine, and I’m lost, drowning in the feel of her, the way she responds without hesitation, the small sound she makes when my tongue touches hers. Her other hand finds my jaw, fingers sliding into my hair, and the sensation shoots straight down my spine.
Heat builds between us, her dragonfire bleeding through despite the suppression, my own weakened power rising to meet it. I can smell smoke and summer storms, feel electricity crackling across my skin where we touch. For seconds, the magic surges. Almost there. Almost within reach.
Her scent wraps around me. Female. Hers. It fills my lungs with every breath, makes my head spin in ways that have nothing to do with oxygen deprivation.
Then the magic dies.
Crashes back into nothing, like hitting a wall.
The loss breaks the moment.
I pull back. Try to catch my breath and fail.
Ember stares at me, fingers still twisted in my vest. Her lips are swollen. Her eyes dark with desire and confusion.
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I shouldn’t have—”
“Don’t.” My voice comes out hoarse. “Don’t apologize.”
“But you—”
“I know what I did, Ember.”
The use of her name—not clipped, not professional—makes her eyes widen.
“Then why did you stop?”
Because you’re twenty-one and I’m centuries old and this is wrong on every level that matters. Because I’m responsible for keeping you alive, and kissing you complicates that in ways I can’t afford. Because if I don’t stop now, I won’t stop at all.
I don’t say any of that.
“Because we’re trapped in a cave with limited resources and no way out,” I say instead. “And that’s not a good time to make decisions we’ll regret.”
“You think you’ll regret it?”
Yes.
No.
I don’t know.
“I think we both need to focus on survival right now.”
She studies me for a long moment. Then releases my vest and sits back, putting space between us that feels like miles.
“Right,” she says quietly. “Survival. Professional distance. Got it.”
The hurt in her voice guts me.
“Ember—”
“It’s fine, Luke.” She wraps her arms around her knees again. A posture that I’m growing to recognize. “You’re right. Bad timing. Stress response. Whatever.”
She’s dismissing what just happened. Writing it off as circumstance instead of choice.
And I’m letting her.
Because the alternative—admitting that kissing her was the first honest thing I’ve done in decades—is too dangerous to acknowledge.
The mountain groans again. Quieter this time. More distant.
“Tremors are easing,” I say, grateful for the distraction. “Another hour, then we try to find that air current.”
“And if we can’t?”
“We will.”
She doesn’t argue. Just nods once and turns away.
The silence that settles between us now is different. Loaded with everything we’re not saying. Everything that kiss meant and didn’t mean.
I close my eyes and try to focus on what to do to get out of here.
Try not to taste her on my lips or feel the ghost of her fingers on my chest.
Try not to acknowledge that kissing Ember was both the worst decision I’ve ever made and the only thing that’s felt real in my lifetime.
I fail at all three.