Page 35 of Echoes of Fire

Steam curled in lazy tendrils around me, drifting toward the stalactites above. The algae-infused light kissed the water’s surface, rippling faintly with each exhale I released into the mineral-rich pools. Beneath the surface, the volcanic stone was smooth under my feet.

I closed my eyes and sank lower until the water lapped at my shoulders, letting the heat absorb some of the weight pressing against the walls of my chest. For a moment, just a fleeting moment, I tried to pretend I was anywhere but there. That I was back on Earth, immersed in some sort of secluded hot spring, with no alien trials or fated bonds to unravel and no piercing golden eyes haunting me.

But Volcaryth didn’t let me forget itself. The ever-present trace of fire lingered in the air, a sharp reminder that I was far removed from the world I’d called home.

The idea ofhometwisted something in me, a deep, confusing ache that I’d been suppressing since the moment we crash-landed. I had thought I’d come to terms with it, that I’d made my peace with the idea that Earth—my colleagues, my family, the life I’d left behind—was gone. But there, in the quiet of the baths, it all bubbled back up.

Maybe that was what terrified me the most about Rath and everything he represented. I wasn’t just fighting against thisbond—I was fighting against what it might mean to give up the ghost of the life I used to dream of.

Rath wasn’t part of that dream. This world wasn’t part of that dream.

And yet, somewhere deep within me—far deeper than science could probe—something in me wanted him anyway.

I pressed my palms to my face, the heat from the water clinging to my skin as I inhaled deeply through my nose. The steam burned slightly on its way into my lungs.

I was startled from my spiraling reflection by an unmistakably human voice, sharp and warm as it pierced through the haze of steam.

“Mind if I join you, or are you hiding?” Selene’s voice floated toward me before her figure resolved through the mist, a towel wrapped around her body. Her long black hair was damp, clinging to her skin. She must have just emerged from another pool.

I managed a laugh, though it carried a hollow edge I couldn’t quite disguise. “I’m hiding, but not from you. Maybe cowering.”

Selene grinned, but the look in her dark eyes was searching. Without waiting for more permission, she sank into the water near me with a soft sigh, the ripples from her entry washing over me.

“You’ve got that look,” she said as she settled in, leaning back against the smooth stone edge casually. “The one that says your whole world just got turned upside down. Or exploded.”

Her bluntness sent a derisive snort escaping from me. “Can’t it be both?”

“It absolutely can,” Selene quipped, offering me an easy smile as she swept her fingers through the water. “I’d argue they tend to go hand in hand. Want to share?”

I hesitated, bracing myself. Selene had always been disarming in her no-nonsense approach to everything—frompatching up wounds to sassing intimidating alien warriors—but I wasn’t entirely sure even she could make sense of this.

Still, the words began to tumble out before I could stop them. “I feel like I’ve stepped into a story I don’t understand,” I admitted, my voice low and thin against the cavern’s hush. “And somehow I’ve already committed to roles I didn’t ask for.”

Selene tilted her head, her sharp gaze softening just a fraction. “This about Big Red?”

My laugh cracked this time, barely holding together. “When isn’t it about him? And don’t call him that.”

She huffed, sending a ripple of steam-laden breath across the surface of the water. She nudged my leg with her foot under the water, a gentle prod to pull me from my spiraling doubts. “I’m guessing this is less about Rath the warrior and more about Rath the … whatever he is to you?”

I swallowed hard, trying and failing to dislodge the knot in my throat. “He thinks I’m his fated mate,” I said softly, the words tasting almost bitter on my tongue. “And maybe … maybe there’s something chemical or biological there, something real. But it’s all so … fast. So overwhelming. And I’ve barely figured myself out here, let alone what I am to him.”

Selene was quiet for a moment, her gaze sliding toward the faintly glowing pools farther out in the chamber. Her words were gentle but purposeful.

“I won’t pretend to understand it all. Kaiya and I have been trying to wrap our heads around the biology. The pheromone stuff, the bonding rituals, their obsession with biting or whatever weird shit is at play,” she said, a faint smirk tugging at her lips for a brief second before sobering again. “But connection—real connection—is never just biology. It’s built with choices.”

“But what if I didn’t get to make those choices? He claimed me in front of everyone without even asking.”

“To save your life,” she pointed out.

Rudely.

I sank lower into the water, letting the heat slap against my skin as if it could dissolve the tension knotted beneath the surface.

“But now what? What happens if I can’t live up to whatever this bond is supposed to mean to him? What happens if this all blows up in my face?” My voice broke slightly on the tail end of the question, the jagged strength of my doubts cutting through what little calm I could scrape together.

Selene arched a single brow, looking entirely unfazed by the outburst. “What happens if it doesn’t?” she countered, her tone so maddeningly even it was like she knew how that question would twist inside me.

I opened my mouth only for nothing coherent to come out. I wanted to shout back, insist she hadn’t seen Rath, hadn’t felt the intensity he carried everywhere with him, hadn’t been dragged into the gravitational pull of someone so certain of every step he took that it felt impossible to diverge.

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