Chapter Seventeen – Drawn to Fire

The air in the dream clearing felt thick with heat, though no fire burned and no sun shone. Ilia stood before Caelan, barefoot and wary, her breath trembling in her chest. The memory of the prophecy whispered through her mind like a shadow she couldn’t shake.

He was watching her—that same intense, hungry look she had come to expect only in dreams. But this time, she knew too much. Knew that this place, this connection, wasn’t just fantasy. It was something deeper, something dangerous.

She crossed her arms tightly over her chest, fighting the urge to let herself sink into him. “What do you want from me?” she asked.

Caelan stepped forward. One step. Two. She didn’t retreat. He stopped just before her, his hand brushing her hip, fingers resting there like a question half-asked. “I don’t know,” he said truthfully, his voice a low confession. “But I feel drawn to you. Like you’ve woven yourself into the bones of me.”

Ilia shook her head. Her throat tightened. “It’s not real,” she whispered. “It’s not me. It’s the blood. The pull. I’m not someone you actually want. You don’t even know me.”

Caelan’s jaw clenched. “I know you come to me when I close my eyes. And every time, I feel your warmth... feel you pressed against me like you belong there.”

She took a step back, her voice taut with disbelief. “It’s siren magic,” she said, the words like iron on her tongue. “You’re not attracted to me. You’re reacting to something I didn’t ask for—something I didn’t even know was inside me.” Her gaze flicked to him, wary and hurt. “I don’t want to be your fantasy, Caelan. I want to be real—or not at all.”

She turned, meaning to walk away, to escape him and this lie of a world. But his hand caught her by the waist and pulled her back. She gasped as her spine met his chest, her body encased in the warmth of him.

“Don’t,” he murmured, his breath warm against the shell of her ear, laced with something rawer now—desperation, reverence, hunger. “Don’t walk away. Not when I finally have you this close.”

She was trembling. Not from fear. From the weight of his closeness. His palm at her hip was heavy, grounding, and her body betrayed her by leaning back into him.

“Even if it is magic,” he murmured, nose brushing her temple, “what difference does it make? When you touch me, I burn. When you speak, I listen. When you look at me, it feels like being seen for the first time.”

Ilia swallowed. “You have a Luna.”

“I have a duty,” he corrected. “That doesn’t mean I have what I want.”

His words sank into her like ink in water.

He turned her gently to face him, hands light on her arms. The moon above them bathed them in silver. His gaze dragged over her face like a starving man committing her to memory.

“You walk through my thoughts like a ghost,” he said. “You haunt me.”

“You want the illusion,” she whispered, her heart in her throat.

His thumb brushed her cheek. “I want you. Even if I don't understand why.”

The dream shifted. The wind stilled. The trees leaned in.

His lips hovered close to hers but didn’t touch. The ache of proximity rippled through her. She felt drunk on it—on him.

Her hands fisted at her sides. “If you kiss me...” she started.

“Then what?” he asked.

“Then I might not be able to walk away,” she confessed.

A smile ghosted his lips. “Then don’t.”

And when his mouth finally met hers, it was slow—like the moment he'd been waiting for his entire life had finally come, and he refused to rush it. His lips moved against hers with aching precision, a silent vow whispered into the seam of her mouth. He kissed her like he already knew the taste of her dreams, like the weight of her name was carved into his bones. It was not tentative—it was claiming.

It was slow.

Hungry.

Reverent.

The kind of kiss that begged for surrender.

Her knees buckled, but he caught her, lifting her effortlessly and pressing her against a tree, his hips pinning her there with deliberate slowness. One of his hands cradled the back of her head, the other gripped her thigh and hitched it up around his waist. Her dress bunched beneath his fingers, and the friction of their bodies made her gasp into his mouth. She felt his hardness pressing hot and thick against her entrance, a steady, aching throb that sent a shockwave through her limbs. He kissed her deeper, slower, with the kind of hunger that stole reason, like he was memorizing every part of her with his mouth. The warmth of his breath, the scrape of his stubble, the press of his chest—it was all too much and not enough. Her pulse roared in her ears as her body arched to meet his, drawn to the rigid proof of his desire, and still he didn’t rush. He devoured her softly, like he had all the time in the world to ruin her.

Ilia knew this was a dream. Knew this wasn’t real. But the heat in her belly and the fire under her skin made her forget everything but his name.

Caelan.

She was falling.

And the worst part was—she didn’t want to stop.