Burn

Copyright © 2023 by JOLIE VINES All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. Editing by Emmy Ellis at Studio ENP. Proofreading by Lori Parks. Formatting by Cleo Moran / Devoted Pages Designs Cover design by Natasha Snow. Cover photography by Michelle Lancaster. Cover model: Thomas Jamezz. To the pyro who catches your dark little heart aflame BLURB I’d wreck his life. For mine, he’d burn down the world. Jamieson was my penpal. My first crush. My surf-crazy, impulsive, pyro boy, and the secret I kept from the world. Until he broke us up before we ever met. When I discover he’s been imprisoned by an evil man, saving him becomes my only goal. Except his enemy wants me too. He was fire and water. With him, I’d either drown or burn. -- Burn (Dark Island Scots, #4) brings this smexy and thrilling series to a breathtaking finish. This is Jamieson and Summer’s romance, so expect fiercely passionate scenes between a plus-sized heroine and her fire-loving, reckless hero. With nothing left to lose, our tribe of found family have to risk it all to end the war against them. CONTENTS Reader Note Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 Chapter 44 Chapter 45 Chapter 46 Chapter 47 Epilogue Acknowledgments Also by JOLIE VINES About the Author READER NOTE Dear reader, Thank you for picking up Burn. This is not a standalone, and you should start at the beginning of the Dark Island Scots series with Ruin. Please be aware this series contains darker themes, including CNC (consensual non consent), predator-prey play, threats of violence to a child, death, and accounts of sexual assault. Plus all kinds of danger. A full list is on my website - jolievines.com. If you’re an audio fan, you’ll love to hear Zara Hampton-Brown and Zachary Webber conclude the story with their swoony narration. Happy reading, Jolie 1 Summer It was strange, the object I fixated on in my weeks of being a prisoner. Left alone for much of the time, it wasn’t underwear or a shirt I wanted most, though that would’ve been nice. No, my obsession was for my lost pendant. A gift given to me on my fourteenth birthday. Small, silver, with a little surfer in a circle. My pen pal had sent it to me, and I’d worn it as a charm. For all my lack of clothes, it was the thing I felt naked without. Instinctively, my hand went to touch the space where it should’ve been, even as my focus was fixed on the woman in front of me. The one who’d removed my handcuffs and led me out of my locked cell and to a staffroom, halfway to rescuing me from this hellhole of a mansion. Divine, who I guessed to be a sex worker from her long red wig and see-through négligée, was a friend of my sister’s and had known I was missing. Her help was to repay a favour. She wanted me to make a break for a garden exit. My impulsive mind had other ideas, because seconds ago, she’d told me news that had stopped me in my tracks. I wasn’t the only captive of police chief, Daniels. In a station somewhere, he held a man accused of arson. Of burning down the house of another rich old pervert. His other prisoner was a vigilante, like me. The chief intended to harm him. It should be none of my business. I had to get out of this house, into the dark summer night and away across the remote Scottish countryside. I should be running for my life, not questioning my rescuer. Except, impossibly, I knew the man she was talking about. “Which police station?” I asked. “Inverness.” She narrowed her cat eyes, her voice low. “Hold up, sis. Why do you care?” “I know him. Jamieson. He’s a friend.” The pen pal. My teenage crush. We’d exchanged daily voice messages, and his energy matched mine but with a side of crazy I’d adored. He’d broken things off a year ago, and though that stung, I’d guessed there was more to the story than he’d told. Seemed like I was right. Divine darted an anxious look at the door. “So? Sorry to say, but that man’s toast. He isn’t going to last the night.” “You mean the chief will kill him?” She folded her arms over her boobs. “Sure as shit, he will. The cops who caught him at the scene of the fire are loyal. He’s kept your arsonist friend hidden at the station, and the other pigs know better than to ask. All he needed was for McInver to wake and give him the go-ahead. That’s where he’s gone now—to the old man’s hospital bed, so the clock is ticking. Do you think either of them will spare a guy who did what he did? Nope. He’ll be disappeared into the same black hole as the last guy who crossed them. And the one before that. You see the pattern.” Panic clawed up my throat. I had nothing. No money, no car, no working phone, as the one I’d found in the staffroom had powered down in front of my eyes, not even shoes. An old hunter’s jacket I’d stolen covered my nudity. Weeks of being tied up had