Page 165 of Wings of Ash & Flame
Dawson stood beside her, hands stiff at his sides. Close enough she could feel his heat, yet far enough that she knew the distance was intentional.
Silence stretched between them, heavy with everything unsaid.
“You could’ve been killed tonight,” he said finally.
“So could you.”
“That’s different.” His hands gripped the stone balustrade.
“How is it different?”
He was quiet for a long moment, watching the fireworks paint shifting colors across his face. When he spoke, his voice was soft. “You want to know why I call you Firework?”
She nodded, taking in his profile lit by gold and crimson bursts overhead.
“Because you’re like them.” He gestured to the sky as another shower of sparks bloomed. “Beautiful, fierce, impossible to ignore. You light up everything around you and leave me breathless every time.” His voice cracked on the last word. He swallowed hard, jaw working. “And just like them, you’re dangerous. One spark and everything I’ve built, every wall I’ve put up… it all goes up in flames. And I can’t afford that, not after all this time. Not now. That’s how it’sdifferent.”
Her chest caved inward, breath catching as if she’d been struck. The fireworks above blurred through tears she refused to let fall.
“Dawson…”
He squeezed his eyes shut, as though the way she said his name pained him. When he opened them, the walls she thought she’d breached earlier stood taller than ever. His mask of indifference snapped back into place. “We should go back inside. The others will be wondering where we are.”
“Every time I think we’re getting somewhere, you do this.”
“Do what?” But he was already stepping back, widening the space between them.
“Pull away. Shut me out. Like that.” She gestured at the distance. “Like what happened on that dance floor meant nothing.”
A crack flickered in his defenses—pain, longing, frustration—before he hid them again. “Maybe it’s better if it didn’t.”
His words eviscerated her. “You don’t mean that.”
“Don’t I?” His tone lacked conviction, and they both knew it. But he still said the words.
“Look at me and say it again.”
He kept his gaze fixed on the fireworks exploding overhead. “We should go back inside.”
“Dawson—”
“Leave it alone, Alaire.” He raked a hand through his loose black hair. “Please.”
Thepleaseshattered something inside her chest. She felt the pieces cutting her apart.
He never saidplease. Never asked for anything. And now he was practically begging her to stop pushing.
The fighter in her wanted to press harder, to force him to look at her and explain, to convince him to fight forthem. But the exhaustion in his voice, the slump of his shoulders, stopped her.
“Fine,” she whispered. She was so, so tired. “But this conversation isn’t over.”
“It has to be.” He looked at her then, and the decision in his eyes was devastating.
The fireworks continued to burst overhead, but their beauty felt hollow now.
Somehow, it felt like this war was sinking its claws deeper into her with every passing moment, and she wondered if she’d ever find a way to break free.
Thirty-Eight
