Swell And Scorch

He will control the air you breathe and call it love.

Theda Voss never bends. In twelve years as a senior code enforcement inspector, her clipboard has been a death warrant for every non-compliant structure in the county. She follows the law blindly to outrun the ghost of her father's fatal mistakes. Her rule is simple: assess, document, condemn. No exceptions.

Then she drives down a scorched access road and meets Ransom Kael.

Ransom is a former military combat engineer who doesn't care about permits, citations, or county authority. He is a man built on steel and stone, haunted by a deadly collapse in his past, and determined to build things that can never fall down again. Deep inside an isolated Oregon cliffside, he has carved a flawless, subterranean bunker. A fortress built to withstand anything. Even her.

When an unstoppable wildfire roars through the Coast Range and seals the road, the world outside turns to ash. The air turns toxic. And the only place left to breathe is inside Ransom's concrete walls.

Trapped together in six hundred square feet of absolute claustrophobia, a brutal game of control begins. Ransom owns the air, the water, and the key to the heavy steel door. He claims he is keeping her safe. But as the temperature rises and the filtration cycles drop, the line between salvation and captivity vanishes entirely.

Theda was sent to tear him down, but locked in the dark with a dangerously possessive monster, she finds a flawless structure she cannot break. And a dark, toxic attachment she might not want to survive.