Page 98 of Wings of Ash & Flame
The word hung heavy between them.
Dawson had everything. She hadn’t thought there was anything for him to lose.
“Everything?” she echoed. “What could someone like you possibly have to lose?”
She searched his face. His expression remained maddeningly calm, like the still surface of a lake hiding what churned below. When he leaned closer, her pulse fluttered like a trapped bird.
“Do you think power comes without cost?” Dawson’s smirk was faint, humorless. “That privilege isn’t its own kind of cage?”
She hesitated, thrown. Dawson was a contradiction—cold as a frozen wasteland one moment, scalding as Solflara’s flames the next. Exhausting. Intoxicating. “What aren’t you telling me?”
“You already know,” he murmured, almost tenderly. “You just haven’t figured it out yet.”
Liar.
She scoffed, stepping back to reclaim her space. “Don’t play coy with me, Dawson. If you think you can use me?—”
“Use you?” he asked, his calm cracking, towering over her now. “You’re far from a pawn, Alaire. You’re much more important to this game than you realize.”
Her heart thundered. For a fleeting moment, she saw something unguarded—vulnerability, desperation, fear—before the walls slammed back into place.
“I don’t want to be part of any of it,” she muttered.
“You already are. The moment you stepped into this academy, the stakes changed.”
The air between them thickened. Dawson leaned in slowly, his scent wrapping around her. The faint brush of his nose along her neck sent a shiver down her spine. Her palms tingled.
“Summon your magic,” he whispered into her skin, lethal in his softness. “Or is it failure you’re afraid of?”
Heat chased the shiver through her. He was baiting her, and gods, it was working. Her jaw tightened as she shoved him away.
Dawson stepped forward again, his presence caging her—heavy, suffocating, electric. “You’re not even trying, Alaire,” he said, voice low and cutting. “What’s the matter? Scared you’ll embarrass yourself in front of me?”
She refused to look away. “I thought we were here to spar.” Her brow arched, settling into the animosity between them—it was far safer than what simmered beneath. “Afraid I’ll put you on your back, Knox? I’d hate to bruise that fragile ego of yours.”
Dawson’s eyes flared into something raw and wicked. “Careful, Firework,” he drawled, a velvet threat sliding over her skin like smoke. “Keep talking like that, and I might enjoy it.”
Alaire’s breath hitched, but she forced an eye roll, masking the fire curling low in her belly. “Is that a promise or a warning?”
His smile turned menacing, gaze dragging over her like a brand. “You like playing with fire, don’t you?”
“Keep pushing,” she replied, her tone a slow, deliberate caress, “and you’ll find out just how easily I could make you lose control.”
Dawson’s laugh was dark and intimate, curling around her like a phantom ribbon. He leaned in, the air between them sparking, his presence pressing against her. His lips hovered just shy of hers.
“Control, Firework, isn’t something I lack,” he murmured, rich with promise. “But I’d be happy to show you how exquisite it feels when you lose it—for me.”
She hated how her body responded—the heat flooding her veins, the desire oozing like honey. Hated it.Dear gods. She pressed her knees together, trying to ease the throbbing his words ignited.
“Pick a weapon,” he ordered, stepping back abruptly, the moment shattering.
The sudden distance left her off balance. Every nerve ending yearned for his touch, for the wicked things he’d promised.
Get it together.
She straightened, refusing to let him see how thoroughly he’d unraveled her.
Alaire pivoted toward the wall of weapons, drawn to a pair of daggers with eggplant coloured leather hilts. The curved alloy blades felt made for her—the same ones she’d used in the fight against Caius.
