Ash & Ember

Ash & Ember

Olabode David · Ongoing · 37.4k Words

1.1k
Hot
1.1k
Views
0
Added
Add to Shelf
Start Reading
Share:facebooktwitterpinterestwhatsappreddit

Introduction

In a city where neon lights flicker over ancient runes and blood is traded like currency, Kaia Vale has learned one rule hide what burns inside you.

Half-Fae, half-human, she survives on the fringes of New Arcana, stealing relics and silence in equal measure. But when a botched job awakens the fire sleeping in her veins, Kaia discovers the truth she was never meant to know:
A dragon’s soul lives inside her one that once set empires ablaze.

Now the Obsidian Order wants her power. The Ember Cult wants her crown. And the voice in her head ancient, arrogant, and all too alive wants freedom.

As magic riots tear through the city and old gods begin to stir beneath the streets, Kaia must master the inferno within before it consumes her… or watch the world burn from the ashes of her own making.

Because in New Arcana, every flame demands a sacrifice.

Chapter 1

The city never really slept.

It just changed colors.

By day, New Arcana was a tangle of smog and steel mages in suits, witches haggling spells on street corners, ley-line steam rising from every grate. But at night, it turned into something hungrier. The air hummed with magic and desperation. Every breath tasted like rust and ozone.

That’s when I worked best. When no one looked too close.

The club’s basement smelled like burnt sage and cheap gin. Purple lights pulsed across sweating bodies, and the DJ a half-demon with horns filed smooth mixed tracks laced with sonic enchantments. Each beat rattled my bones. I hated it here, but the mark I was tracking loved noise.

Her name was Veris Quinn. Spell-runner. Occult broker. Small-time fence for bigger devils. My employer, a necromancer with too much money and too little patience, wanted something she’d stolen — a glass shard etched with runes older than sunlight.

They called it the True Flame.

And I was supposed to steal it back.

I pushed through the crowd, my coat brushing against glowing sigils tattooed across sweating arms. Magic was a disease in this city. Beautiful, contagious, incurable. I kept my gloves on tight. The last thing I needed was another surge of energy crawling up my veins.

Veris sat in a corner booth surrounded by her entourage human, fae, and something in between. She wore a crimson dress and confidence like armor. When she laughed, the lights seemed to dim for her.

Typical witch trick.

I slid into the shadows behind a broken pillar, my heart syncing with the bass. My fingers found the hilt of the dagger strapped to my thigh dragonsteel, dull on purpose. You didn’t want to kill in this part of town unless you were begging for a curse.

Instead, I planned to talk.

And maybe steal.

When the beat dropped, I moved. Quick, silent, like smoke.

Veris didn’t notice me until I was in her reflection the shimmer of her wine glass catching my shadow. Her laughter died.

“Kaia Vale,” she said, smiling without warmth. “Didn’t think you still worked the streets. Thought you went respectable.”

“Respectable doesn’t pay rent,” I said. “You have something that doesn’t belong to you.”

Her eyes glittered violet. “Everything I own was stolen. What makes this different?”

“The fact that it’s worth killing for.”

She raised a brow. “And you’re here to kill me?”

“No. But the person paying me might.”

The tension between us thickened, the air crackling faintly. She leaned back, amused. “You’ve got some nerve showing up unarmed.”

I smiled, flicked my wrist, and let the runic dagger slide into view its dull edge gleaming under the light. “Unarmed is a matter of perspective.”

That was when the lights flickered.

Just once. Then again.

The bass dropped into silence.

And the crowd froze mid-motion every dancer, every drunk, every flicker of neon light suspended in the air. Only Veris and I were still moving. My pulse spiked.

She whispered, “Oh no…”

The room rippled.

A glyph massive, intricate, alive burned into the ceiling. Lines of light carved themselves into the walls. A summoning circle, inverted. Someone had just locked the club inside a spell.

Magic shimmered, hot and wrong.

“Who the hell” I started, but Veris didn’t answer. She was staring at her glass, which had begun to melt in her hand.

A voice filled the room. Male, low, and echoing from nowhere.

“You were warned, Veris Quinn. The Flame does not belong to thieves.”

She screamed or tried to but her voice cracked into a sob as her skin began to smoke. Light burst from her chest, spreading fast. The rune carved into her neck ignited like wildfire.

I lunged forward, but she was already gone vaporized in a pulse of golden fire that singed my coat and hurled me backward into a wall.

Then silence.

Ash fell like snow.

Only a charred silhouette remained where she’d been sitting.

My ears rang. My pulse thundered. Somewhere in the haze, a small object glimmered among the ashes.

The shard.

I staggered forward, coughing, eyes watering. My gloves smoked as I reached for it. The glass pulsed — faint, alive, whispering.

The moment my skin brushed its surface, something inside me cracked open.

A sound deep, ancient roared in my skull. The air bent. Power surged through my bones like molten lightning. My knees buckled.

Flames crawled up my arms.

I bit down a scream as pain seared through my veins, every nerve on fire. The shard dissolved into my skin, branding me with a symbol that burned like molten metal a dragon’s eye.

Then came the voice.

“At last,” it said, in a language older than death.

“You found me.”

The world twisted.

When I woke, the club was gone.

Or rather what was left of it. The ceiling had collapsed. Charred bodies lay in piles of soot. The walls were melted glass. Firefighters shouted in the distance, but the flames here burned without smoke unnatural. Arcane.

I dragged myself to my feet, dizzy. The symbol on my palm still glowed faintly, pulsing with my heartbeat.

A cold wind cut through the wreckage. A figure stepped through the smoke. Long coat. Polished boots. The kind of posture that screamed law enforcement or worse.

“Kaia Vale,” the man said, voice calm and too smooth. “You’ve made quite a mess.”

I recognized him immediately.

Detective Riven Korr. Obsidian Order enforcement. Mage hunter.

And once, a friend.

“You shouldn’t be here,” I rasped.

“Neither should you.” He looked around, eyes narrowing at the scorched bodies. “Did you do this?”

“Do I look capable of this?”

He studied me for a long time. “You look alive. That’s enough.”

I tried to move past him, but he blocked me. His hand reached for my wrist then froze when he saw the mark glowing beneath the glove.

“What is that?” he demanded.

I jerked away. “You don’t want to know.”

“Kaia”

“Back off.”

The air around me shifted, pressure building, the mark flaring brighter. Riven stepped back, hand on his weapon a rune-etched firearm humming with containment wards.

“Something’s inside you,” he said quietly. “Tell me I’m wrong.”

I almost did. Almost lied. But the voice in my head spoke first smooth, cold, undeniably real.

“Tell him nothing. He is theirs.”

I froze. “Whose?”

“The ones who caged me. Who caged us.”

Riven’s gaze sharpened. “Who are you talking to?”

I swallowed hard. “No one.”

The mark pulsed again, and for a moment, the world around me flickered flames, wings, shadow. A dragon’s silhouette rose behind my reflection in a shard of glass. Then gone.

Riven’s tone hardened. “Come with me, Kaia. The Order can help.”

“The Order’s the reason my mother’s dead,” I said. My voice cracked anger and something darker bleeding through. “I’m not walking into their cage.”

He sighed, lowering the weapon. “Then you’d better run. They’re already on their way.”

Sirens wailed in the distance. Blue enchantment lights shimmered through the smoke.

I turned and bolted.

The streets outside were chaos crowds, drones, flashing sigils, the metallic taste of fear. I weaved through alleys, lungs burning, coat torn and boots slick with ash. The voice in my head hummed restless, like a heartbeat that wasn’t mine.

“They will hunt you now,” it whispered. “But they cannot touch you. Not while I am awake.”

“Who are you?” I hissed under my breath.

“You know my name.”

I didn’t. But when I closed my eyes, I saw it carved in light across the back of my mind.

Eryndor.

The Dragon of the Ninth Flame. The one who burned the old world to cinders.

And somehow… he was inside me.

By dawn, I reached my apartment a half-collapsed building in the Ash District, where magic went to die. I locked the door, dropped my coat, and slumped against the wall.

My hands trembled. The mark had faded to a dull ember, but I could still feel it like a second heartbeat under my skin.

On the counter, a cracked mirror reflected my face. My eyes, once dark brown, now glowed faintly gold.

“Your blood remembers,” Eryndor murmured. “The fire never truly dies.”

I wanted to scream. Instead, I laughed sharp, broken, empty.

“I’m not your vessel.”

“You already are.”

Outside, thunder rumbled not weather, but magic. The city’s wards trembled.

Somewhere far away, someone whispered my name. And the hunt began.

Last Chapters

You Might Like 😍

The Prison Project

The Prison Project

511.6k Views · Ongoing · Bethany Donaghy
The government's newest experiment in criminal rehabilitation - sending thousands of young women to live alongside some of the most dangerous men held behind bars...

Can love tame the untouchable? Or will it only fuel the fire and cause chaos amongst the inmates?

Fresh out of high school and suffocating in her dead-end hometown, Margot longs for her escape. Her reckless best friend, Cara, thinks she's found the perfect way out for them both - The Prisoner Project - a controversial program offering a life-changing sum of money in exchange for time spent with maximum-security inmates.

Without hesitation, Cara rushes to sign them up.

Their reward? A one-way ticket into the depths of a prison ruled by gang leaders, mob bosses, and men the guards wouldn't even dare to cross...

At the centre of it all, meets Coban Santorelli - a man colder than ice, darker than midnight, and as deadly as the fire that fuels his inner rage. He knows that the project may very well be his only ticket to freedom - his only ticket to revenge on the one who managed to lock him up and so he must prove that he can learn to love…

Will Margot be the lucky one chosen to help reform him?

Will Coban be capable of bringing something to the table other than just sex?

What starts off as denial may very well grow in to obsession which could then fester in to becoming true love…

A temperamental romance novel.
Badass in Disguise

Badass in Disguise

363.5k Views · Completed · Sherry
"Everyone out," I commanded through gritted teeth. "Now."
"Jade, I need to check your—" the nurse began.
"OUT!" I snarled with enough force that both women backed toward the door.
Once feared by Shadow Organization that drugged me to replicate my abilities into a more controllable version, I had escaped my restraints and detonated their entire facility, ready to die alongside my captors.
Instead, I woke up in a school infirmary with women arguing around me, their voices piercing my skull. My outburst froze them in shock—clearly they hadn't expected such a reaction. One woman threatened as she left, "We'll discuss this attitude when you get home."
The bitter truth? I've been reborn into the body of an overweight, weak, and supposedly dim-witted high school girl. Her life is filled with bullies and tormentors who've made her existence miserable.
But they have no idea who they're dealing with now.
I didn't survive as the world's deadliest assassin by allowing anyone to push me around. And I certainly won't start now.
I Slapped My Fiancé—Then Married His Billionaire Nemesis

I Slapped My Fiancé—Then Married His Billionaire Nemesis

223.8k Views · Completed · Jessica C. Dolan
Being second best is practically in my DNA. My sister got the love, the attention, the spotlight. And now, even her damn fiancé.
Technically, Rhys Granger was my fiancé now—billionaire, devastatingly hot, and a walking Wall Street wet dream. My parents shoved me into the engagement after Catherine disappeared, and honestly? I didn’t mind. I’d crushed on Rhys for years. This was my chance, right? My turn to be the chosen one?
Wrong.
One night, he slapped me. Over a mug. A stupid, chipped, ugly mug my sister gave him years ago. That’s when it hit me—he didn’t love me. He didn’t even see me. I was just a warm-bodied placeholder for the woman he actually wanted. And apparently, I wasn’t even worth as much as a glorified coffee cup.
So I slapped him right back, dumped his ass, and prepared for disaster—my parents losing their minds, Rhys throwing a billionaire tantrum, his terrifying family plotting my untimely demise.
Obviously, I needed alcohol. A lot of alcohol.
Enter him.
Tall, dangerous, unfairly hot. The kind of man who makes you want to sin just by existing. I’d met him only once before, and that night, he just happened to be at the same bar as my drunk, self-pitying self. So I did the only logical thing: I dragged him into a hotel room and ripped off his clothes.
It was reckless. It was stupid. It was completely ill-advised.
But it was also: Best. Sex. Of. My. Life.
And, as it turned out, the best decision I’d ever made.
Because my one-night stand isn’t just some random guy. He’s richer than Rhys, more powerful than my entire family, and definitely more dangerous than I should be playing with.
And now, he’s not letting me go.
The mafia princess return

The mafia princess return

401.6k Views · Ongoing · Tonje Unosen
Talia have been living with her mother, stepsister and Stepfather for years. One day she finally get away from them. Suddenly she learn she have more family out there and she have many people that actually love her, something she have never felt before! At least not as she can remember. She have to learn to trust others, get her new brothers to accept her for who she is!
His Mission

His Mission

357.3k Views · Completed · Sakz Hussain
Meet Emily Wentworth. Since the death of her father, she's been living a home life full of abuse. It's remained a secret for years until she meets the town's bad boy, Jake Melvin. It doesn't take long for him to figure out her secret.

Emily is suddenly thrown from one world of danger and uncertainty into another. The two teens ride the rollercoaster of love, unbelievable betrayal and heartache.
Omega Bound

Omega Bound

461.5k Views · Completed · Veronica White
Ayla Frost is a beautiful, rare omega. Kidnapped, tortured, and trafficked to rogue clans and corrupt alphas to do with as they pleased.  Kept alive in her cage, broken and abandoned by her wolf, she becomes mute and has given up on hope for a better life until one explosion changes everything. 

Thane Knight is the alpha of the Midnight Pack of the La Plata Mountain Range, the largest wolf shifter pack in the world. He is an alpha by day and hunts the shifter trafficking ring with his group of mercenaries by night. His hunt for vengeance leads to one raid that changes his life. 

Tropes:
Touch her and die/Slow burn romance/Fated Mates/Found family twist/Close circle betrayal/Cinnamon roll for only her/Traumatized heroine/Rare wolf/Hidden powers/Knotting/Nesting/Heats/Luna/Attempted assassination
Mated by Contract to the Alpha

Mated by Contract to the Alpha

259.2k Views · Completed · CalebWhite
My perfect life shattered in a single heartbeat.
William—my devastatingly handsome, wealthy werewolf fiancé destined to become Delta—was supposed to be mine forever. After five years together, I was ready to walk down the aisle and claim my happily ever after.
Instead, I found him with her. And their son.
Betrayed, jobless, and drowning in my father's medical bills, I hit rock bottom harder than I ever imagined possible. Just when I thought I'd lost everything, salvation came in the form of the most dangerous man I'd ever encountered.
Damien Sterling—future Alpha of the Silver Moon Shadow Pack and ruthless CEO of Sterling Group—slid a contract across his desk with predatory grace.
“Sign this, little doe, and I'll give you everything your heart desires. Wealth. Power. Revenge. But understand this—the moment you put pen to paper, you become mine. Body, soul, and everything in between.”
I should have run. Instead, I signed my name and sealed my fate.
Now I belong to the Alpha. And he's about to show me just how wild love can be.
My Possessive Alpha Twins For Mate

My Possessive Alpha Twins For Mate

662k Views · Completed · Veejay
"No... You can't do this to me..." I almost squeezed the words through my teeth, my voice trembling.
My drunk stepfather remained indifferent, his weight suffocating, making it hard to breathe as my heart raced.
Suddenly, the door slammed open, and two figures burst in.
"Get off her!" a deafening roar echoed.
I didn't expect the twin brothers who'd bullied me at school to come charging in like gods to save me.
After my grandmother passed, I had to move in with my mom and stepdad, who treated me like a servant. I prayed every day for my 18th birthday to come, so l could leave and escape this broken home.
However, on my first day at my new school, l encountered the legendary twins everyone feared.
To make matters worse, the Moon Goddess revealed they were both my mates!
After helping me out with my stepdad, my twin mate cornered me, played with my hair, and whispered possessively, "You belong to us, our little mate..."
Mr. Ryan

Mr. Ryan

229.1k Views · Completed · Mary D. Sant
"What things are not under your control tonight?" I gave my best smile, leaning against the wall.
He came closer with a dark and hungry expression,
so close,
his hands reached for my face, and he pressed his body against mine.
His mouth took mine eagerly, a little rudely.
His tongue left me breathless.
“If you don't go with me, I'll fuck you right here.” He whispered.


Katherine kept her virginity for years even after she turned 18. But one day, she met an extremely sexual man Nathan Ryan in the club. He had the most seductive blue eyes she has ever seen, a well-defined chin, almost golden blonde hair, full lips, perfectly drawn, and the most amazing smile, with perfect teeth and those damn dimples. Incredibly sexy.

She and he had a beautiful and hot one-night stand...
Katherine thought she might not meet the man again.
But fate has another plan

Katherine is about to take on the job of assistant to a billionaire who owns one of the biggest companies in the country and is known to be a conquering, authoritative and completely irresistible man. He is Nathan Ryan!

Will Kate be able to resist the charms of this attractive, powerful and seductive man?
Read to know a relationship torn between anger and the uncontrollable desire for pleasure.

Warning: R18+, Only for mature readers.
The War God Alpha's Arranged Bride

The War God Alpha's Arranged Bride

232.5k Views · Ongoing · Riley Above Story
On the day Evelyn thought Liam would propose, he shocked her by getting down on one knee—for her stepsister, Samantha. As if that betrayal wasn’t enough, Evelyn learned the cruel truth: her parents had already decided to sell one daughter’s future to a dangerous man: the infamous War God Alpha Alexander, who was rumored to be scarred and crippled after a recent accident. And the bride could’t be their precious daughter Samantha. However, when the "ugly and crippled" Alpha revealed his true self—an impossibly handsome billionaire with no trace of injury—Samantha had a change of heart. She was ready to dump Liam and take Evelyn's place as the family daughter who should marry Alexander.
Yet Alexander made his decision clear to the world: “Evelyn is the only woman I will ever marry.”
The Son of Red Fang

The Son of Red Fang

175.2k Views · Completed · Diana Sockriter
Alpha werewolves should be cruel and merciless with unquestionable strength and authority, at least that’s what Alpha Charles Redmen believes and he doesn’t hesitate to raise his kids to be the same way.
Alpha Cole Redmen is the youngest of six born to Alpha Charles and Luna Sara Mae, leaders of the Red Fang pack. Born prematurely, Alpha Charles rejected him without hesitation as weak and undeserving of his very life. He is reminded daily of his father’s hatred for him paving the way for the rest of his family to become the same.
By adulthood, his father’s hatred and abuse towards him has spilled over into the rest of the pack making him the scapegoat for those with the sadistic need to see him suffer. The rest are simply too afraid to even look his way leaving him little in the way of friends or family to turn to.
Alpha Demetri Black is the leader of a sanctuary pack known as Crimson Dawn. It’s been years since a wolf has made their way to his pack via the warrior’s prospect program but that doesn’t mean he’s not looking for the tell tale signs of a wolf in need of help.
Malnourished and injured upon his arrival, Cole’s anxious and overly submissive demeanor lands him in the very situation he’s desperate to avoid, in the attention of an unknown alpha.
Yet somehow through the darkness of severe illness and injury he runs into the very person he’s been desperate to find since he turned eighteen, his Luna. His one way ticket out of the hell he’s been born into.
Will Cole find the courage needed to leave his pack once and for all, to seek the love and acceptance he’s never had?

Content Warning: This story contains descriptions of mental, physical and sexual abuse that may trigger sensitive readers. This book is intended for adult readers only.
Goddess Of The Underworld.

Goddess Of The Underworld.

294.3k Views · Completed · sheridan.hartin
Left at a pack border with a name and a stubborn heartbeat, Envy grows into the sharpest kind of survivor, an orphaned warrior who knows how to hold a line and keep moving. Love isn’t in the plan…until four alpha wolves with playboy reputations and inconveniently soft hands decide the girl who won’t bow is the only queen they’ll ever take. Their mate. The one they have waited for. Xavier, Haiden, Levi, and Noah are gorgeous, lethal, and anything but perfect and Envy isn’t either. She’s changing. First into hell hound, Layah at her heels and fire in her veins. Then into what the realm has been waiting for, a Goddess of the Underworld, dragging her mates down to hell with her. Then finally into lycan princess, stronger, faster, the moon finally answering back, giving her exactly what she needs to protect her family.

When the veil between the Divine, the Living, and the Dead begins to crack, Envy is thrust beneath with a job she can’t drop: keep the worlds from bleeding together, shepherd the lost, and make ordinary into armor, breakfasts, bedtime, battle plans. Peace lasts exactly one lullaby. This is the story of a border pup who became a goddess by choosing her family; of four imperfect alphas learning how to stay; of cake, iron, and daylight negotiations. Steamy, fierce, and full of heart, Goddess of the Underworld is a reverse harem, found-family paranormal romance where love writes the rules and keeps three realms from falling apart.