Ruled By Fire (Dragonblood Dynasty #7)

Chapter 1

Mara

The helicopter blades chop through mountain air like a blender set to “apocalypse,” and I’m already questioning every decision that led me here.

“Okay, so…” I angle my phone toward the window, framing Ember’s profile against the ridiculously gorgeous expanse of snow-capped peaks. “Theory time. Mountains this pristine? Untouched wilderness spanning literal centuries? Classic cover-up territory.”

Ember doesn’t turn from the glass, but her lips twitch. “Cover-up for what, exactly?”

“Everything.” I zoom in on a particularly jagged ridge. “Ancient civilizations. Secret government bunkers. Bigfoot retirement communities.” I pause for effect. “Dragon lairs.”

The truth is, my mouth runs when I’m nervous, and right now I’m operating at approximately seventy-three percent terror beneath this carefully constructed veneer of cool.

Flying over the Romanian wilderness in a metal death trap piloted by an actual dragon shifter to investigate a supernatural battle site wasn’t exactly on my vision board for this year.

But here we are.

I shift the camera to catch the landscape below. Endless forest, valleys carved deep enough to swallow cities, cliffs that drop into shadow. My TikTok followers would lose their minds over this footage. If I survive to post it.

When. When I survive. Of course I’ll survive. Luke knows what he’s doing.

“God, it really is beautiful up here,” I say, panning across the golden ridges.

The light’s perfect, slicing through clouds in those dramatic shafts that make everything look like a movie poster.

“If ever there was an Instagram moment, this is it. Turn to the side, Ember. I want to get a shot of your profile against that backdrop.”

Luke’s voice crackles through my headset, dry as old bones. “Mara, keep the commentary to a minimum. I need to focus.”

“Copy that, Captain Killjoy.” I don’t stop filming.

He could do this in his sleep; I’ve seen him fly. But whatever. Let him have his grumpy pilot moment.

I zoom in on Ember’s face, catching the wonder written across her features. She’s still pressed to the window like a kid on a road trip, platinum hair catching the light.

“Turn toward me,” I tell her. “Very National Geographic meets supernatural mystery.”

She humors me, shifting slightly. I snap a few stills, already mentally drafting captions.

Luke banks the helicopter left, following some invisible path only he can see.

The motion sends my stomach lurching. I swallow hard, forcing my attention back to filming because if I think too hard about the fact that we’re hunting for evidence of a dragon battle—actual dragons fighting in the actual sky—I might start hyperventilating.

The terrain below is raw and unforgiving. Sheer cliffs, dense forest, ravines that suck in light. The kind of landscape where something scaled and massive could hide for centuries.

Which is, you know, exactly what we’re looking for.

You love this, I remind myself. You’ve been waiting your whole life to be right about this stuff.

Twenty minutes in, something changes.

The helicopter jolts. Not a gentle bump; a full-body wobble that sends my phone smacking into the window.

I retrieve it, checking for cracks. Screen’s fine. My nerves? Shattered.

We level out, but something feels wrong. The vibration through the frame isn’t steady anymore.

The instruments flicker.

I see it from where I’m sitting… the console lights blinking once, twice.

“Luke?” Ember’s voice carries an edge I’ve never heard before.

“I feel it.” His tone stays level, but his shoulders tense. “Could be magnetic interference. This region has irregular fields.”

Interference. Right. Because that’s totally normal and not at all terrifying.

The console goes completely dark.

My stomach drops through the floor.

“Oh, fuck.” The words slip out before I can stop them.

For two endless seconds, every instrument is dead. The helicopter seems to hang suspended, held up by nothing but hope and denial. Then the lights flicker back, but wrong; gauges spinning, displays tilted at angles that make zero sense.

“That’s not interference,” I say, because apparently my brain has decided that now is the perfect time for me to state the obvious.

“No.” Luke’s hands move automatically, checking circuit breakers, flipping switches. “Something’s jamming us.”

Jamming. Like someone’s actively trying to kill us.

Of course. Because why would anything in my life be simple?

The helicopter lurches sideways. Hard enough that my harness cuts into my chest. I gasp, the sound crackling loud through the headset. Beside me, Ember inhales sharply.

I grab for the seat, reaching for my phone and shoving it into the side pocket of my cargo pants.

Luke’s fighting the controls now. I can see it in the set of his shoulders, the tension in his arms.

“Hydraulics are failing.” His voice is matter-of-fact, like he’s narrating routine maintenance instead of our imminent death. “I’m going to try to find somewhere to set down.”

“Try?” My voice climbs an octave I didn’t know I could reach.

The rotor pitch changes. Goes from a steady whine to something guttural and wrong, like machinery tearing itself apart. Smoke starts curling from the console; thin wisps at first, then thicker. The smell hits me: chemical, burning, the scent of expensive equipment dying.

“Luke, what’s happening?” Ember’s trying to stay calm. I hear it in the careful control of her voice.

“Electrical failure. Some sort of interference.”

The rotor stutters.

My hands go numb.

The helicopter shakes. Not turbulence. Not wind. The kind of shaking that means fundamental things are breaking.

Through the windshield: trees. Rising fast.

Too fast.

Shit! Shit, shit, shit!

“Everyone, listen to me.” Luke’s voice cuts through my rising panic—calm, authoritative, the kind of tone that’s used to being obeyed. “Tighten your straps. Cover your heads with your arms. Do it now.”

My hands move on autopilot, yanking the harness tighter. Beside me, Ember’s doing the same, her face pale but focused.

I curl forward, arms over my head, and that’s when my brain decides to go over every single stupid decision that led here.

Agreeing to come on this trip.

Thinking I could handle the supernatural world.

Not telling Elena I loved her the last time we talked.

Wearing purple lipstick on a goddamn helicopter ride.

The cabin shakes so violently that my teeth clatter. The horizon through the window is tilted at an impossible angle. Trees rushing up to meet us like the earth is reaching to grab us out of the sky.

Metal screams. Wind howls. The rotor makes a sound I’ll hear in nightmares if I live long enough to have them.

If.

When.

If.

I squeeze my eyes shut, then force them open because if I’m dying, I’m doing it with my eyes wide.

Luke twists in his seat, one arm reaching back toward us. Scales shimmer across his skin—iridescent, protective—as he positions himself between us and impact. His eyes find Ember’s first, then mine.

For half a heartbeat, I see it: he’s terrified too.

That’s when I know we’re fucked.

“Luke!” Ember’s scream cuts through everything.

Her hand shoots out, grabs his. He grips tight.

The trees are right there. Right there. Close enough to count branches.

I brace for impact, every muscle locked, and somewhere in the madness, my brain supplies one last coherent thought:

Of course this is how I die. In snow-capped mountains, wearing a hoodie that says “I ? Bigfoot.”

The irony would be hilarious if I had time to appreciate it.

We hit.

The sound is everything and nothing. Metal tearing, glass shattering, the crunch of trees snapping like matchsticks. The world becomes violence and noise and motion. My body slams against the harness, head snapping forward.

Pain explodes across my skull.

Then darkness rushes in, thick and absolute.

The last thing I register is the acrid smell of smoke and the desperate hope that whatever comes next doesn’t hurt as much as this.

Then everything—the buffeting wind, the groaning of torn steel, the stench of burning—all of it just… stops.