Luke’s already moving, pulling gear from the scattered wreckage. A survival pack, water bottles, anything that survived the fall. His movements are efficient, controlled, but I catch the way his jaw stays locked. The rigid set of his shoulders.
He’s feeling this too. He’s just better at hiding it.
“You good?” he asks without looking at me.
“Yes.” I wish I felt as strong as I sound.
“Then let’s go. We can’t shift to fly out until nightfall, or we’ll be seen. Until then, we’ll figure out our next steps on the move.” He pauses, and something flits across his face, too fast to name. “Stay close.”
He starts moving into the forest, and I follow because there’s nothing else to do.
The mountains stretch around us, empty and hostile. No roads. No signs of civilization. Just trees and rock and the smoke rising behind us like a funeral pyre.
But with every step, Mara’s face haunts me. The twisted metal. The moment she disappeared into the darkness.
And behind it all, one question burns hotter than the wreckage we’re leaving behind:
His dragon chose me. In that split second when everything was falling apart and death was reaching for both of us, his instinct—the most primal, honest part of him—reached for me instead.
Why?
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.”
