Page 12 of Ash and Burn

How am I supposed to manage this? The question echoed through his mind as he wore a path in the terrace stone. How do I protect my people and navigate a mate bond with a woman who doesn't even know it exists?

For once, Calix didn't know what to do.

FIVE

ARVID

Arvid's hands moved with efficiency as she transferred clothes from her suitcase to the ornate wardrobe, but her mind raced through the implications of everything she'd learned in the past hour. Twelve percent mortality rate. Progressive organ failure. Complete inability to shift to dragon form.

The parallels to Dragon's Blight sent ice through her veins despite the volcanic warmth permeating Ashspire's walls. She'd spent six months studying that rare blood disease back on Earth, fascinated by its unique attack pattern on cellular structures. The name had always struck her as oddly specific. Now she wondered if the name had been more literal than anyone realized.

If Ash Fever follows similar pathways…

Her mind began cataloging treatment protocols, but the thought hit a wall. Dragon shifter physiology. She'd deployed to three conflict zones, treated everything from hemorrhagic fevers to weaponized pathogens, but she'd never encountered anything remotely like the biological complexities of beings who could transform between human and dragon forms.

What does shifting do to their cellular structure? How does their internal fire system work?

The questions multiplied faster than answers, but beneath her scientific anxiety ran a current of excitement. This was exactly the kind of impossible puzzle that made her pulse quicken with anticipation rather than dread. Give her an outbreak that had stumped local experts, throw in completely unknown biology, and she felt more alive than she had in months.

She hung her last shirt and closed the wardrobe doors, but the motion brought back the memory of Calix's strange reaction when she'd first arrived. The way his breathing had become labored when their fingers brushed during the suitcase exchange. How he'd gone pale and unsteady, making her instinctively reach for his arm.

Stress reaction, she told herself firmly. He's dealing with a medical crisis that's killing his people. Of course he's not functioning normally.

But the rationalization felt thin. She'd seen plenty of leaders under extreme pressure, and none of them had ever made her body respond like a tuning fork struck by lightning. The moment her hand had contacted his forearm, something had shifted in the air between them—something that had everything to do with the way his scent seemed to wrap around her like smoke from an exotic fire. Spice and clean rain and something deeper that made her want to step closer instead of maintaining professional distance.

Dragon shifter pheromones, she decided. Has to be some kind of biological response to a male of a different species. Completely normal.

Except nothing about her response felt normal. Normal didn't include the way her pulse had spiked when he'd guided her through Ashspire's corridors, or how she'd found herself studying the confident way he moved through his ancestral home. Normal definitely didn't include the strange sense of recognition that kept washing over her—like some part of her mind insisted she belonged here, belonged in this place she'd never seen before today.

She grabbed her small medical kit from the suitcase and clipped it to her belt, using the familiar weight to ground herself in reality. Whatever weird atmospheric effects this alien world was having on her nervous system, she had work to do. People were dying while she stood here analyzing her inappropriate attraction to a king who probably viewed her as nothing more than a convenient solution to his territorial crisis.

Focus on the science. Focus on saving lives. Everything else is just noise.

The grand staircase soon stretched before her, her boots clicking against polished pyrestone steps that seemed to pulse with warmth as she made her way down to the grand foyer. Each level of Ashspire told stories of generations—tapestries depicting ancient battles, portraits of previous kings, weapons and artifacts that spoke of a family line built on strength and protection.

And at the bottom of those stairs, Calix waited.

He stood in the grand foyer with his back to the staircase, hands clasped behind him as he stared out through massive windows toward the distant Caldran volcano. Even motionless, he radiated the kind of controlled power that made the air around him feel charged with potential energy. His black hair caught the light streaming through the windows, and the white shirt he wore did nothing to disguise the breadth of shoulders built for carrying the weight of an entire territory. Arvid's heart did something complicated against her ribs that she absolutely refused to acknowledge.

Focus. You did not travel through a wormhole to another planet so you could develop a crush on the local king. You came here to stop an outbreak.

But when Calix turned at the sound of her approach, those green eyes meeting hers with a piercing intensity that seemed to see straight through her professional composure, her pulse betrayed every rational thought in her head.

"Ready?" His deep voice carried the kind of authority that expected immediate compliance, and something in Arvid's chest bristled automatically against the assumption.

"Let's go," she said, switching into the clinical mode that had carried her through three deployment zones and countless medical emergencies.

Something flickered across Calix's expression—surprise, maybe, or approval. He moved toward the front door with fluid grace, reaching it before she did, and holding it open with old-world courtesy that felt both charming and slightly patronizing.

"After you."

Arvid stepped past him into Ashvorn's volcanic warmth, and the brief moment when their bodies were close enough to share space sent that same electric awareness racing through her nervous system. His scent wrapped around her again—spice and storm and something indefinably male that made her want to turn back toward him instead of walking forward.

Instead, she kept moving, letting the warm air and distant rumble of the Caldran ground her in the reality of why she was here. Behind her, she heard the door close and the sound of Calix's footsteps as he moved to walk beside her, leading her toward the heart of Ashvorn where people were fighting for their lives.

Work, she reminded herself. Focus on the work, and everything else will sort itself out.

But as they walked together down the pyrestone pathway, Arvid couldn't shake the feeling that nothing about this assignment was going to be as smooth as she'd hoped.