Ashes Beneath the Skin

Chapter Five: Flicker

Isla returned to the burn unit, her heart pounding, her chest constricted with a multitude of unanswered questions swirling in her mind. Outside, the storm had eased its wrath, yet the atmosphere inside felt charged and oppressive—like the tense stillness that precedes an electricity-filled thunderstorm.

Ember lay motionless, her small frame enveloped in layers of blankets. Isla glanced at the monitors, noting the girl’s elevated heart rate and rising temperature. Yet it wasn't chaotic; it was steady, almost metronomic, as if her body was fighting to reclaim control.

Leaning in closer, Isla gently brushed a damp curl away from Ember’s forehead. The girl’s skin radiated heat—too much heat—but it was no longer life-threatening. At least, not in the same way it had been the last three nights.

Those nights had changed something in Isla.

She’d felt it—an inexplicable pull, like a thread wrapped around her chest, tugging her back to Ember’s bedside even when her shift had ended. It wasn’t duty. It wasn’t protocol. It was something deeper. A need to protect. To stay. To keep Ember safe from whatever unseen force had tried to claim her.

She hadn’t understood it. Still didn’t.

But each time she’d stepped away, her body had resisted. Her thoughts had circled back. And when Ember had cried out in her sleep, Isla had been there—always there—without knowing why.

Now, as she saw the girl’s breathing steady, the heat no longer climbing, Isla felt that same pull ease. Not vanish. Just soften.

She didn’t know what it meant.

But Isla knew she wasn’t ready to walk away.

Then, as if summoned by an invisible force, Ember’s lips parted. A breath escaped—not a gasp, nor a cry, but a fragile whisper that hung in the air like a delicate thread.

Isla froze, her breath caught in her throat. “Ember?” she murmured, barely beyond a whisper.

The girl’s eyelids flickered, not fully opening, but enough to reveal a glint of gold beneath her lashes—a fleeting spark that sent a jolt through Isla’s veins.

Her pulse quickening, Isla verified the chart again. No sedatives, no stimulants—nothing in the documentation accounted for this moment.

Outside the ward, muffled voices reverberated down the corridor, drawing her instinctively toward the sound. She knew the voice.

Kael stood near the emergency exit, his silhouette commanding as he spoke in guarded tones with an unfamiliar man. The stranger was tall and lean, his hair threaded with silver at the temples, a stark scar slicing across his jaw. His stance radiated discipline, and his ancient-looking eyes seemed to harbour the weight of countless untold stories. He looked knowing, brave, but also kind.

“I felt it,” Kael said, his voice deep and gravelly. “She’s stirring. We need to tighten security.”

The other man nodded, his expression grave. “How close is she?”

“Too close. I want eyes on every entrance. No one gets in or out without clearance.”

Isla’s breath hitched, her pulse racing as she stepped back into the shadows, unnoticed. Clearance? Security? This was far beyond standard hospital protocol; it was something woven with threads of age-old secrecy, buried deep beneath layers of normalcy.

She hesitated, her gaze drawn back to Kael. He stood in profile, his shoulders squared, his voice low yet commanding, the kind that sent juicy shivers down her spine. Each word he spoke shifted the air around him—warmer, sharper, as if the very walls of the hospital were tuned to his commands. Isla most certainly was.

Before she could rein in her body’s reaction, heat surged through her—flushing her cheeks, tightening her chest, sending a pulse of awareness straight to her core. Her breath hitched, shallow and uneven, and that telltale tingling spread like wildfire beneath her skin.

She loathed it. Loathed how his presence ignited something raw and electric inside her. How the air seemed to shift when he was near, charged with something she couldn’t name but felt everywhere—on her arms, her throat, the small of her back.

Her skin prickled, hypersensitive, as if it knew him before she did. Her stomach twisted, low and tight, every time their eyes met—especially when it was unexpected. Especially when he looked at her like that.

Her heart was racing. Not from fear. Not from adrenaline.

From want.

And that terrified her more than anything ever had.

This was not the setting to become entangled in a dance of attraction with a patient’s family member—especially one shrouded in mystery, with no documentation and secrets steeped in smoke.

Yet, Kael made it hard to remember that reality.

A recalled dream surfaced in her mind—the way he had looked at her, as though he had tasted her existence in his sleep and couldn't shake the intensity of that connection. Watching him converse in hushed tones with a man who seemed forged from the echoes of a war zone reignited a warmth that had nothing to do with Ember and everything to do with Kael. The space between them crackled with unsaid truths, binding them in a way that both exhilarated and terrified her.

Turning back toward Ember’s room, Isla’s mind raced. The girl was awakening. No longer just a nurse, she was stepping into a realm of hidden complexities, one she barely grasped—yet.

And Kael Draven was the irresistible flame that lured her ever closer, even as she struggled to understand the inferno surrounding them both.