Chapter 24
Luke
I sit across from Caleb and Dorian in the main cabin of the Aurora private jet. The sleek interior, with its leather seats and low lighting, should feel like relief after days on the run. But the hum of engines can’t drown out the tension humming between us.
They’ve given me clean clothes, medical attention, an energy drink to combat the exhaustion. All the comforts of civilization that should make me feel human again.
Instead, I feel exposed. Raw. Like my scales have been peeled back one by one, leaving nothing but vulnerable flesh beneath.
The dragon inside me—dormant for days under the Syndicate’s suppression field—now stirs restlessly. His presence brings physical relief but emotional complication. Because dragons don’t forget. Dragons don’t rationalize. Dragons recognize their mates with an instinct older than civilization.
And mine recognizes Ember.
Bullshit. It’s not that.
Can’t be.
“The helicopter went down approximately eight miles from the extraction point,” I say, keeping my voice clinical as I brief them on our mission. “Mara didn’t survive the crash. We took shelter in the mountain cave system, avoiding Syndicate patrols for forty-eight hours before capture.”
As I speak, my mind flashes to Ember huddled against me in the darkness, her body trembling from cold—or something else. The memory of her scent hits me with a force that feels physical, embedded in my senses.
I force the thoughts away.
Caleb nods, his expression carefully neutral. The perfect clan leader, processing information without revealing judgment.
“And your escape?”
“Utilized a shift change in guard rotations. Acquired a transport vehicle. Retrieved Ember as they had her en route to Syndicate headquarters and made contact with the extraction team at the designated coordinates.”
The facts. Just the facts. Nothing about Ember’s impossible power awakening. Nothing about her mouth on mine or her body pressed against me in the dark, her skin burning against my palms, the soft sounds she made when I touched her—
My heart kicks hard against my ribs. The dragon beneath my skin prickles with heat, threatening to emerge. I haven’t lost control of my shift since I was a juvenile. The fact that mere thoughts of Ember bring me to the edge is terrifying.
Dorian studies me with narrowed eyes. Unlike his twin, he’s never bothered to hide what he’s thinking. And right now, he’s reading me like an open book. His nostrils flare slightly, dragon senses detecting the chemical changes in my body that betray everything I’m trying to hide.
“You look like hell, Kenan.”
I manage a dry smile. “Three days without dragon power in enemy territory will do that.”
“That all it was?” The question hangs between us, weighted with implication.
I don’t respond. Just hold his gaze until he looks away, though my pulse thunders in my ears. A drop of sweat slides between my shoulder blades, where the memory of Ember’s fingers digging into muscle still burns.
Caleb leans forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Ember Arrowvane. Vanya’s daughter. Twenty-one years old, minimal field experience.” He pauses, eyes never leaving my face. “You were responsible for her safety.”
My jaw tightens, a muscle ticking beneath the skin. “Yes.”
“And she’s returning unharmed. Mostly.”
“Mostly,” I echo, feeling like a fraud. Because while she may not carry visible wounds, what happened between us has changed her. Changed us both.
I remember her determined face in the mountain cabin, firelight catching on her cheekbones as she straddled my lap. Remember the way she trembled, not with fear but with want, when my hands slid beneath the flannel shirt to find bare skin.
“Care to explain the ‘mostly’?”
The memory dissolves. I swallow hard, my throat suddenly dry, and choose my words carefully.
“She twisted an ankle early on. Some bruising and scrapes from the caves. Syndicate interrogated her but didn’t—” I stop, unable to finish that sentence without my control fraying, without the dragon surging forward with protective rage. “She held up well.”
Dorian snorts. “That’s not what Caleb’s asking.”
The implied question sits like a stone between us: What happened between you two?
“We survived,” I say simply. “That’s what happened.”
“That’s not an answer.” Caleb’s voice remains calm, but his eyes have hardened.
I look out the window at the clouds passing below us, suddenly too tired for this dance. The pressure of three days and nights—of life and death decisions, of desire suppressed and then surrendered to—settles into my bones.
“What do you want me to say?”
Dorian leans back, studying me with an expression I can’t quite read.
“I’ve known you for decades, Luke. You don’t rattle easily.” He pauses, considering his next words. “But right now? You look like a man who’s just walked through fire and isn’t sure if he’s still burning.”
The assessment hits closer than he knows. Because I did walk through fire—Ember’s fire. I say nothing. Because what can I say that won’t make this worse?
Dorian continues, “You know Vanya’s going to have questions. Hard ones.”
“I know.”
“And you know she’s not going to like the answers.”
I meet his eyes. “I know that too.”
The memory of Ember pressed against me in the transport floods back unbidden.
Her desperate kiss after she thought I’d died.
The pure relief in her eyes. And later, in the clearing, the way she gasped my name when I finally stopped fighting what we both wanted.
The way her dragon scales gleam silver along her collarbones when pleasure overtook her, a perfect mirror to my own slate ones.
Caleb’s assessment is clinical. “If something happened out there that compromised your professional relationship with her daughter, we need to know. Now.”
My control frays slightly. “Nothing compromising happened.”
“But something did happen,” Caleb presses.
I don’t confirm. Don’t deny. Just look out the window, my fingers curling into fists so tight my knuckles crack. The air in the cabin suddenly feels too thin, too hot. So much has happened.
There’s silence.
Dorian breaks it, unexpectedly. “For what it’s worth, Ember’s not a child. And you’re not a predator.”
My head snaps around, dragon-fast.
Dorian shrugs. “I’ve seen the way you look at her. And the way she looks at you.” He pauses. “Just saying… whatever you’re beating yourself up about, might not be as black and white as you think.”
For a moment, I hear Ember’s voice echoing in my memory: “I’m not a child. Stop treating me like one.” The fierce determination in her eyes as she pulled me closer. The surety in her movements, despite her inexperience.
Caleb asks quietly, “Did you compromise her safety?”
“No.” The word comes immediately, certain. Because if anything, what happened between us made me more determined to protect her. Made me fight harder, think faster, risk more.
“Did you take advantage of her vulnerability?”
“No.” I pause. “She made her own choices.”
Her own choice to kiss me first. Her own choice to follow me. Her own choice to reach for me in the darkness, to whisper that she wanted this—wanted me—with a conviction that broke all my careful discipline.
Caleb nods slowly. “Then the rest is between you and her.”
My response is bleak. “Vanya’s going to kill me.”
Dorian grins. “Probably. But you’ll die having lived, at least.”
I don’t find it funny. Because all I can think about is the possibility of never touching Ember again. Never seeing that look in her eyes when she comes apart under my hands. Never feeling that impossible connection that makes too many years of solitude seem like nothing but preparation for her.
The jet begins its descent into Seattle, rain streaking the windows, city lights seeping through clouds. My nerves stretch tighter with each mile, closer to safety, closer to consequences. The dragon inside me paces restlessly.
“Whatever happens with Vanya,” Caleb says quietly, “you have clan support. You brought Ember home alive. That counts.”
“Not sure it’ll count enough,” I respond. Not when Vanya realizes exactly what happened to her daughter in my care.
“Guess we’ll find out,” Caleb says, almost smiling.
The jet taxis toward the Aurora hangar; sleek black building, security visible even from here. Through the window, I spot the reception committee waiting on the tarmac.
Medical team. Tactical advisors. And Viktor, as cool and implacable as ever. I draw in a steadying breath, knowing that the next few days are probably going to be as harrowing as the last ones.
“Good luck, Kenan,” Dorian mutters as we prepare to disembark. “You’re going to need it.”
I descend the stairs behind the Cravens. Across the tarmac, Ember has already exited with Hargen, immediately flanked by her mother. Our eyes meet, and something pulses between us.
Her expression: uncertain, hopeful, afraid.
Mine: carefully neutral, though my hands curl into fists at my sides.
Every instinct screams to go to her. Cross the tarmac. Pull her against my chest. Tell Vanya and everyone else watching that Ember’s mine now, and they’ll have to deal with it. The dragon part of me doesn’t care about protocols or clan politics or the three-century age gap.
But the human part—the part that’s survived by being careful, by following rules—keeps me rooted in place.
That, and the knowledge that whatever I might feel, whatever connection sparked between us, could still be nothing more than survival instinct and stress response. The rational part of me whispers that what happens in the mountains, in life-or-death situations, doesn’t always translate to reality.
Viktor approaches. “Kenan. Debrief in twenty. Full medical first.”
I’ve already been patched up by the team back at Bucharest, but I nod, following the medics toward the main building. I catch one last glimpse of Ember being guided in a different direction, Vanya’s hand firm on her shoulder, steering her toward private quarters.
The distance between us mirrors the emotional uncertainty. I force myself not to look back.
But I feel her absence like a gaping wound, like something vital has been torn from me. The dragon inside roars in protest, demanding I return to her side. Three days of being acutely focused on her… and now, nothing. The separation feels unnatural, wrong in a way I can’t articulate.
I straighten my shoulders and keep walking. Whatever happens next—with Vanya, with the clan, with Ember herself—I’ll face it. Because the alternative—never feeling that connection again—isn’t something I can contemplate.
Not when I’ve finally found what three centuries of living couldn’t give me.
Not when I’ve finally found her.