“Build your fire.” The words come out flat. Defeated. “Before I change my mind.”
She pushes herself up, movements slow and stiff. It takes her two attempts to stand. She sways slightly, catching herself against the wall. Then she starts searching the shelter.
I watch her move along the perimeter, checking corners and crevices. Her hands shake as she pulls out dried brush—old growth that’s blown in over time, dead branches, anything that might burn. She gathers it with careful focus, like the task is the only thing keeping her upright.
When she has an armful, she drops it in the center of the shelter. Arranges it into something like a fire structure. Then she turns to me.
“Don’t make me regret this.” She crosses the distance. Stops a couple of feet away, evaluating. Then closes the distance. Her hands shake as she reaches for the cuffs. Fumbles with the lock mechanism. Takes two attempts before the runes flicker and die.
The moment metal falls away, warmth surges back into my system. Not fire—not yet. Just the return of what’s been suppressed for hours. My body adjusts, recalibrates, remembers itself.
Her fingers brush my wrists as the cuffs come free. She flinches. Violent. Immediate. Like the contact seared her. She jerks back so fast she nearly stumbles. Creates distance—five feet, then seven—and wraps her arms around herself. Not from cold this time. From whatever that touch triggered. It shifted something in me, too. A strange tingle that warms my skin faster than my dragon heat alone.
Bullshit. The cold’s messed with your head.
I don’t move. Don’t comment. Just stand there with freed hands and confusion that I’m not accustomed to.
“Build the fire,” she says. Hard. Clipped. Not looking at me once more.
I nod and move to the gathered brush. I kneel beside it. The arrangement isn’t bad. She’s done this before. Knows how to stack kindling for airflow.
I call my fire. It starts in my chest. Warmth that spreads outward, following pathways carved over two centuries of use.Down my arms. Into my hands. Heat building, concentrating, becoming visible.
Scales ripple over my skin. Just my hands at first; iridescent, dark as iron with molten silver catching light that isn’t there yet. Dragon surfacing just enough to channel what’s needed. The transformation is always partial when controlled. Always contained.
The scales spread up my forearms. Overlapping like armor, each one edged in that strange luminescence that marks dragonfire waiting to emerge.
I can feel her watching. That prickle of attention that raises instincts I shouldn’t be feeling.
Fire forms in my palms. Blue-white at the core. Copper at the edges, where it melts into orange and gold. I cup it carefully, feeding it into the brush. Flames catch immediately. Spread through dry tinder. Grow into something sustainable.
Real heat fills the shelter. I look up.
She’s staring. Not at the fire. At my hands. At the scales that shimmer with each small movement. At the visible proof of what I am beneath human skin.
Her eyes track the transformation with an intensity that doesn’t look like fear.
She’s transfixed. The way she’s watching me—pupils dilated, lips slightly parted— It’s not the look of someone assessing a threat. It’s hunger. The same expression from the fight. When our closeness stopped being violence and became something that still doesn’t make sense.
My fire flares hotter without my permission. Responding to her. To whatever signal she’s giving off.
Wrong.
She must realize it, too, because her expression shifts. Awareness crashing back. Horror replacing fascination. She goes rigid.
“That’s enough.” Her voice is sharp. “Put it out. The flames on your hands. Put them out.”
I close my fist. The flames die instantly. Scales fade back into human skin as I hold back the fire that wants to keep burning.
She’s already moving. Quick, angry steps. Grabs the cuffs from where she dropped them.
“Wrists,” she orders.
I hold them out. She locks the cuffs with movements that border on violent. The runes flare bright. My dragonfire banks completely, locked behind suppression that settles heavier this time. She backs away immediately. Puts the fire between us. Tears her eyes away from me.
The shelter fills with warmth. Real heat that pushes back the cold, melts the ice creeping along walls. Color slowly returns to her skin. The shaking eases.
She’s safe. For now.
