Page 223 of Wings of Ash & Flame
“Alaire,” he breathed against her skin, a plea and promise.
Her hands roamed greedily over the hard planes of his chest, his broad shoulders. “Dawson,” she spoke into his throat, pressing herself closer, wantingmore.
Alaire felt the hard planes of his body against hers. The roll of his hips between her legs. Instinctively, she rose to meet him. Her body hummed with pleasure. They balanced on the precipice, the kind that beckoned with a dark, dangerous allure.
When Dawson finally pulled back, his forehead rested against hers, hands laced tight at her lower back. His eyes,dark with desire, held no mask of cool indifference, only raw, unrestrained need. His fingers gripped her waist like he never wanted to let her go.
And she didn’t want him to.
They were the same. He hid behind his broody exterior, duty, and sacrifice; she wielded wit and sarcasm as armor. Yet beneath their defenses, both were fiercely loyal to those they loved.
Alaire felt something undeniable stir inside her, as if their broken pieces recognized one another. Grief. Pain. The crushing weight of responsibility.
And this time, there was no distance left between them—only the unspoken promise that they would face whatever came next.
Together.
Fifty-One
Moonlight streamed through the high-arched windows of Australe Library, spilling across the tomes sprawled over the long table. Midnight had come and gone, yet Alaire still pored over page after page, searching for answers wrapped in one of Dawson’s soft sweaters.
The campus had grown quiet over the last week, most students having returned home for summer break. Most of their circle had stayed at the academy, except Archer, who had gone home to Gale Crossroads, the territory of House Cerebral, to dig for information.
Alaire’s curiosity had grown into a gnawing obsession. The geometric patterns she’d seen in the Serenity Gardens, in the bloodravagers’ cave, and again in Nebula’s Veil refused to let her rest. She knew they were connected—woven into everything that was happening.
Book after book revealed nothing she didn’t already know. Until?—
A flicker of movement. Shadows crept along the library walls, stretching long and thin in the moon’s pale light. They bent across the floor as though pointing. Directing.
And then his words struck her like lightning.
The shadow remembers what we forget… but light reveals where to look.
Professor Ross.
She hadn’t thought of his parting words in weeks, dismissing them as nothing more than the delirium of blood loss. But now they curled around her mind like smoke. What if they hadn’t been nonsense?
Her gaze darted to the window, where moonlight fractured against the glass and scattered silver patterns across the stone floor.
Light reveals where to look.
Her pulse quickened. The window—the way the light bent and splintered—it looked almost deliberate.
What if it wasn’t the window itself, but where it pointed?
Ross’s office held floor-to-ceiling shelves and a large arched window. She’d only been inside a few times, but what if…
Her thoughts sharpened to a single point. That book. The one she’d glimpsed in his arms the night she’d found the files.A Chronicle of Shadows: The Forgotten Histories of Elithian.A gift, he’d said. A story better left in the past.
Not forgotten. Hidden.
Hidden amongst his shelves. Waiting.
Alaire had been searching in the wrong place this entire time.
She needed to get to Professor Ross’s office. Now.
Racing down the steps, the double doors of Australe Library slammed shut behind her. Her boots struck the pavement in a steady rhythm, drowning out the pounding of her own heartbeat.
