Page 39 of House Ignis

"He is a golden retriever in fae form," Aether rumbled through the bond. "But the shadow is still watching you, little one. And he does not look amused."

I glanced toward the edge of the mat.

Asher stood perfectly still, his silver gaze fixed on the spot where Jeremy's hand had touched my arm.

At his feet, the shadows weren't merely flickering; they were agitated, snapping against the sand like whipcord.

The arena fell into a sudden, charged silence as Asher reached for a water skin.

With a slow, deliberate motion, he gripped the hem of his damp training shirt and pulled it over his head. Sunlight caught the hard, symmetrical lines of his abs and the powerful breadth of his chest, highlighting every scar, every tattoo and every ripple of muscle.

He didn't look away. Not once.

He tilted his head back, his silver eyes locked on mine with a predatory intensity that made my pulse stutter.

Then, he uncapped the skin and began to pour the water.

It cascaded over his face, soaking his dark hair and trailing in glistening rivulets down his throat, over his collarbones, and across the expanse of his bare chest.

It wasn't a cooldown; it was a challenge.

The water shimmered against his skin, catching the light as it pooled in the hollow of his throat before disappearing beneath the waistband of his leathers.

He watched me through the droplets, his expression unreadable but his intent vibrating through the air like a physical weight.

"If you stare any harder, you'll catch fire without the magic," Aether's voice drawled in my mind, dripping with feline sarcasm.

I couldn't even snap back.

I was too busy trying to remember how to breathe while the heat in my stomach turned into a full-blown roar.

Asher lowered the water skin, his mouth curving into that devastatingly slow smirk.

He knew. He knew the exact effect he was having, and he was enjoying every second of my undoing.

Splash.

A wall of cold water hit me square in the face.

"Ember, what the fuck?" I sputtered, wiping dripping hair from my face.

She looked entirely too smug. "You needed a cooldown."

"You did that on purpose."

"Obviously."

Before I could so much as reach for my own water bottle, Pyro's voice thundered across the field. "New partners. Ember Pyreson, Ezra Valeor—you're up."

Ember's grin turned feral as she stalked forward, sunlight catching the auburn fire in her hair. Ezra, shirtless and stretching, gave her a mocking bow.

They circled, heat shimmering between them, until Pyro barked the command to begin.

Ember struck first—a brutal right hook. Crack.

Ezra's head snapped to the side, blood blooming at his lip. Instead of anger, he smiled. "Didn't expect that, love."

He lunged, his kick slamming into her stomach, but Ember didn't break. With a snarl, she swept his legs and drove him into the sand, rolling in a blur until her thighs locked firmly around his neck.