Chapter 22
Luke
I return to our campsite, rabbit in one hand, a fistful of foraged berries in the other. The small clearing looks exactly as I left it, my pack in the same place, our gear stacked against the fallen log.
Except for one thing.
Ember’s gone.
At first, I don’t register the wrongness of it. My mind is still scanning the periphery, checking sight lines, noting potential threats. It takes four full seconds before the absence hits.
The hollow space where she should be sitting. The missing pack she’s carried since the cabin. The too-neat arrangement of the supplies I left behind.
I drop the game and scan the treeline. “Ember?”
Nothing. Not even disturbed earth where she should have been pacing, restless as always.
That’s when I see it: a folded scrap of paper placed deliberately on top of my pack.
Something cold slides down my spine.
I know what it says before I read it. Know it with a certainty that makes my hands almost too numb to unfold the paper. The words blur before my eyes, refusing to resolve into meaning on the first pass.
Luke,
I’m sorry. I can’t sit back while others die because I did nothing.
If I don’t make it back, tell my mother I love her.
And tell her you tried to stop me.
—E
The paper crumples in my fist.
No. Absolutely not. She didn’t—
She did.
The rabbit lies forgotten at my feet. I don’t waste a second on recriminations. My hands move automatically, grabbing my pack, checking weapons, anything essential.
I scan the ground around the clearing. Her trail is clear at first; broken twigs, disturbed earth, heading southwest. Toward the facility. She’s not trying to hide her path, either from haste or inexperience. It doesn’t matter. I’d find her regardless.
Foolish. Reckless. Suicidal. Going to get herself killed, and it’ll be my fault for not—
I’m running before the thought completes.
My boots pound the forest floor, kicking up pine needles, crushing undergrowth.
I set a brutal pace, one I wouldn’t ask of her but that my body can maintain for hours.
Her trail remains visible, boot prints in soft earth, broken branches at shoulder height, the occasional scent that’s distinctly Ember carrying on the wind. A scent that’s woven itself into me.
The calculations tick through my head. She has maybe thirty minutes’ head start. I’m faster, more experienced, know the terrain better. I should catch her within the hour. I have to catch her before she reaches the facility perimeter.
I push harder, breath measured, heart rate controlled despite the alarm bells clanging inside my skull.
Then the trail vanishes.
One moment: clear boot print in mud, heading southwest. Next: nothing. Smooth earth, undisturbed pine needles.
I freeze, all senses straining. No signs of struggle. No indication she was taken. Just… gone.
Confusion knots my stomach. I backtrack, find the exact spot—a small clearing with exposed granite. Her last footprint visible at the edge, then nothing.
How—?
I cast wider, searching for any sign. There! A scuff mark on stone thirty yards east. I follow it, find another partial print near a fallen log. But the trail feels wrong now. Erratic. She was moving southwest, toward the facility. These marks lead east, then north, then west again.
She’s circling. Or being led in circles.
Every time I commit to a direction, new signs appear, pulling me elsewhere. A broken branch here. Disturbed leaves there. Leading me away from the facility.
The realization hits: this isn’t her trail.
It’s deliberate misdirection.
The mountain—the same power that freed us from that cave—is leading me away from where she went.
I stop in a ravine, breathing hard, hands fisted. I try to ignore the false trails, orienting purely by compass and memory. Start southwest again through sheer determination.
But the terrain subtly shifts around me. Paths that should be straight curve gradually north. Landmarks appear in wrong positions. Three times I correct my bearing; three times the forest gently, inexorably deflects me.
You helped me escape. Now you’re keeping me from her.
Why? What do you want?
A single beat throbs through my chest in response. Not hostile. Not threatening. Almost… reassuring? But that makes no sense. Nothing about this makes sense except that I’m being kept from Ember while she walks straight into danger. Into the hell I just saved her from.
Why, goddammit?
I stand frozen, mind racing through options. I could go back to the extraction point and wait for her there. I could keep searching, but that means wasting hours on false trails while she’s in danger.
The implications are staggering. She’s been gone for over an hour now. She’s either at the facility or close to it. She’s either been captured already or is successfully infiltrating. Me charging in blind helps no one.
I make my decision: extraction point. That’s where she’d return. I’ll be there, armed and ready. If she doesn’t come back by nightfall, I’ll go in after her. Pray I can get past whatever was stopping me before.
The resignation feels like failure.
Hours pass at the extraction coordinates.
I set a perimeter, check weapons for the dozenth time, settle into wait mode—the worst kind of mission.
My mind refuses to stop generating scenarios.
I see her captured, interrogated, hurt. I picture her execution broadcast as a warning to other hybrids.
I envision Vanya’s face when I tell her Ember’s dead because I couldn’t protect her.
I imagine Vanya’s wrath. Righteous, devastating. The clan elders who would look at me with disgust. A career of impeccable service destroyed by this failure: letting the daughter of Vanya Arrowvane die on my watch.
But beneath the political fallout lurks something more disturbing. Something I’ve been avoiding examining too closely.
The thought of Ember gone—her fierce eyes, stubborn chin, surprising compassion—creates an emptiness that feels too personal, too raw. Not just mission failure. Not just letting down the clan.
Loss.
I should’ve stayed with her. Should’ve made her understand—
Should’ve what? Tied her down? She’s not property to control.
The light is failing when I hear it: branches snapping, footsteps running. I’m on my feet, weapon raised, every sense straining. A figure bursts from the treeline—
Ember.
Oh, thank God!
Relief hits me like a wave, so violent it nearly drops me where I stand. She’s alive. Whole. Running toward me. Her hair wild around her face, pack still on her shoulders, eyes bright with triumph and fear.
Then the relief morphs into fury, white-hot and immediate.
She spots me, slows, stops twenty feet away. We stare at each other, her breathing hard, body wired. I can’t speak. My voice, when it finally comes, is deadly quiet.
“Do you have any idea—?”
“I got the intel.” Ember lifts her chin. “Everything Aurora needs. Timing, targets, ritual specifications—”
“I don’t care about the intel!” I close half the gap between us, fury bleeding through every word despite my control. “You walked into a facility full of people who want you dead! For fuck’s sake, Ember! Do you know what they could have done to you?”
“And I walked back out.” Her eyes flash defiance. “I’m fine—”
“You’re not fine!” I’m shouting now, a thing I never do. But I can’t help myself. My nerves are shot to hell. “You’re reckless and stubborn and—”
She shoves my chest. “And what? Too young to make my own choices?”
We stare at each other, both breathing hard. I grip her shoulders, not harsh, but firm.
“You could’ve died.” There’s an edge to my voice that doesn’t feel like rage anymore.
“But I didn’t! I made it! I got what we needed—”
“I don’t give a damn what you got!” My voice cracks. “I thought—” I can’t finish. “I thought I’d lost you.”
Ember goes still under my hands. Something changes in her expression. Like she’s seeing something in me she hasn’t before. The raw fear beneath the anger. The desperation I can no longer hide.
“Luke—” Her voice softens.
My hands slide from her shoulders to her face, cradling her jaw.
“Don’t do that again. Don’t make me choose between respecting your choice and keeping you alive.”
Her eyes—wild and beautiful—hold mine.
“Then stop treating them like they’re different things.” She comes close. Kisses me. Fierce, demanding.
This time, I don’t pull back.
Every restraint I’ve maintained for days dissolves under relief and want and terror of how close I came to losing her. I kiss her like I’m trying to brand myself into her memory. Deep, consuming, hands tangling in her hair, body pressing hers backward until we collide with the rock outcrop.
Her fingers tear at my clothes, desperate and graceless. I shove her jacket off her shoulders; she yanks my vest open. The cold air hits overheated skin, but neither of us cares.
“Fuck… Ember…” I growl as my hands find bare skin, tracing the curve of her waist, tracking the terrain of her ribs, every inch I’ve been denying myself. The heat of her radiates against my palms, warmer than any human, her dragon nature evident even without flames.
She gasps when I cup her breast, the sound vibrating through my chest. I groan when she rocks against my cock, feeling exactly how much I want her; a primal response I can’t control, don’t want to control anymore.
Kicking off her boots, she unbuttons her pants and pushes them down her legs. I help her, feeling the smoothness of her thighs against my palms.
We sink down together, my back against cold stone, her straddling my lap. She fumbles with my belt. I hiss as she slips her fingers beneath the waistband. Everything narrows to heat and friction and the press of her body against mine.
The taste of her consumes me. The sound she makes when I slide my hand between her thighs—half gasp, half moan that catches in her throat. The way she trembles when I sink one finger, then two, inside her. Her nails digging into my shoulders, head thrown back, gasping my name.
She’s ready, slick and hot and desperate, gripping my cock with eager hands.
I grit my teeth as she guides the head of my cock along the seam of her pussy.
The first slow slide inside her takes the air from my lungs, her body tight around mine.
Her small sound of adjustment, then pleasure. My groan against her throat.
I’ve had women before, but nothing’s ever felt like this.
“Fuck,” I groan as she moves, tentative at first, then bolder.
I grip her hips, helping set the rhythm, losing myself in the slide and friction.
Her breathing ragged in my ear, my mouth on her throat, her shoulder, anywhere I can reach.
The coil of pleasure winds tighter with every movement, her body tightening around me. Close, so close.
“Luke… Oh, God!” She breaks first, head thrown back, my name torn from her lips as she comes apart. The sensation triggers my own release; white-hot and overwhelming, everything narrowing to her and heat and those sweet, tormented cries of “Yes, God yes!”
We collapse together, breathing hard, hearts hammering in sync. My arms tight around her, face buried against her hair. Neither of us speaks for long moments. Just breath and heartbeat and the slow return of awareness.
I just claimed Vanya Arrowvane’s daughter against a rock in the wilderness.
And I don’t regret it.
I should. But I don’t.
The clan politics that this will trigger rise in my mind.
Dragons are territorial by nature, possessive of what’s theirs…
and I’ve just crossed a line there’s no uncrossing.
Vanya will sense the change between us; she’s too powerful not to.
The elders will question my judgment, my ability to remain objective.
And yet staring down these consequences feels insignificant compared to what I just experienced.
There will be fallout. But right now, with Ember still trembling against me, I can’t bring myself to care.
Ember shifts slightly; I grimace as cold air hits sweat-dampened skin.
She notices. “We should—”
“Yeah.”
We separate carefully, both suddenly awkward. Pull clothes back into order, avoiding eye contact. The intimacy that felt inevitable moments ago now sits laden with implications neither knows how to address.
My eyes catch hers for a brief moment before she looks away. There’s uncertainty there, vulnerability I’ve never seen from her before. It awakens a fierceness in me, a need to reassure her that this wasn’t the mistake I said it was before.
But the words don’t come. Not yet. We have a mission to complete, extraction coordinates to reach, intelligence to deliver. Whatever this is between us—whatever just changed—will have to wait.
But it won’t be forgotten. Not by either of us.
Definitely not by me.