Fused in Fire

“Wow,” I said, amazed by the transformation. A haze formed over the ceiling, disguising the overhead rock like a sheer drape, but not covering it entirely. It felt like a decoration, not the bending and manipulation of reality itself, something that made me want to smile.

After another few minutes, glowing lights resembling stars popped into the haze above, glittering and beautiful. The stream enlarged slowly, now about two feet across. The tufts of flowers were crushed when stepped on, like I’d expect, but they sprang up again in Darius’s wake. Beside the stream, the bank and rocks took on a grayish hue to counteract all the purple.

“Wow,” I said again as Darius slowed. “This really is…beautiful. It’s nice knowing that this side of my heritage isn’t as…horrible as I’d feared.”

Not all the trees wept, now. Some climbed high into the sky, the trunks and branches dark, offsetting the vivid purple leaves.

“Ja spoke of these places. They are for travelers to rest or idle.” He stopped at the curve where the stream turned into a lagoon. Small rivulets and currents created movement in the water. “She spoke of them fondly.”

He put me down and took my hand, entwining our fingers and taking it all in. It reminded me of when we were at the hotel in Seattle, sitting above the water and sharing a quiet moment.

Rustling caught my ears. I jerked my head to the side and immediately went on high alert.

“Be still,” Darius said softly. “These are peaceful zones. Fighting is prohibited. If a demon cannot calmly enjoy this place, it must move on.”

“Remember that your information is super old.”

“In a closed-off kingdom such as this, change is very slow.”

Someone emerged from within the branches of one of the willow-type trees. I say someone, because the being was in human form. A man, in his mid-forties, with toned muscle and long, shaggy hair. He didn’t wear clothes, nor did he have hair elsewhere on his body. His arms were a little too long, legs a little too short, and chest a little too broad. To a demon, I was sure those details were minute and unnoticeable. But to a human, it was jarring enough to make the onlooker stop for a moment to try and figure out what was wrong with the picture.

“Why would it choose a human form in the underworld?” I asked softly.

The being moved to the right, making its way around the lagoon.

I don’t know. Darius had seamlessly switched to thought-talk. Did you feel any power coming from it?

I shook my head slowly. “But it’s probably too far away.”

I wonder if it’s reminiscing about a joy ride it took to the surface. It would have to be a powerful demon to create a form on the surface, as you know. That or… Darius’s hesitation was long enough to jar my curiosity. I glanced at him. Tightness had formed around his eyes as he looked down at me. Ja told me a rumor about these places. Often they are formed after Lucifer returns from a trip to the surface. Sometimes after he goes to the Realm, and sometimes after a journey to the Brink.

I pulled him to the nearest willow-type tree so I could look inside. “That doesn’t seem like a very exciting rumor.” Certainly not enough for the tight eyes.

He personally creates these places, and it’s said they are fashioned after someone who made an impression on him on one of those visits. Possibly that demon was soaking in the feeling of that person—and he created a form to go with it.

“Was Lucifer into both men and women?”

Made an impression doesn’t have to mean love affair, he thought. But as to your question, I do not know.

It took me a moment to realize what he was really trying to say.

My heart stopped for a moment and an intense longing came over me. “Do you think he made one for my mother? They weren’t together long, especially to an immortal, but do you think my mother is represented here?”

Chapter Twenty-One

I don’t know, mon coeur, Darius thought. He was calling me his heart. That was sweet. His meeting your mother would be fairly recent to an immortal.

I nodded, because even if Lucifer had created one, I wouldn’t be able to see it. The whole thing was nothing but a rumor, so the only way I’d know for sure would be to ask my dad. And clearly that couldn’t happen.

Shall we rest for a moment? Darius looked around the willow tree.

Layers of green-gray moss cushioned the dark brown, almost black trunk. Purple leaves fell like a layered waterfall from the branches, creating a lovely sensation of privacy.

But we couldn’t stop to rest just because something was pretty. Just because I hoped one of these tributes had been made for my mom. But for a moment, I leaned against Darius and took it all in, letting the beauty infuse me and unwind some of the aggression that had suffused me. Dissipate some of the rage.

Muscles I didn’t know had been tight slowly relaxed. Tension I hadn’t felt in my shoulders loosened. Darius’s hand let go of mine and came around my body, pulling me close. My feelings for him flowered, filling me with soft warmth. A smile drifted up my face and I put my arms around his middle, soaking in the feeling of contentment.

“Your rage speaks directly to my predatory instinct,” Darius murmured. “As a vampire, it makes me feel alive. Makes me feel powerful. I have found an ally in you. Someone to run into battle with.” He turned me toward him and angled my face up to his. He pulled off his mask and brushed his lips across mine. “But I love this feeling just as much. It speaks to my primal instinct to protect. It makes me feel human. Complete. Through you, I can access both lives I have lived—this one you see before you, and the one I once believed had died in the change. I love you, Reagan, now and forever.”

I fell into his toe-curling kiss as passion flooded my body. I reached up to grab his suit and rip it off, but pulled back at the last moment. Instead, I shoved his chest and made him stagger backward.

“Sorry,” I said, out of breath. I braced my hands on my knees and squeezed my thighs together, trying to relieve some of the new tension in my womanly bits. “I had a strong need to go for a ride, but I don’t want to unravel the magic in your suit. Or, you know, leave ourselves open for attack while thinking about…other things.”

His fangs elongated, and I knew he was barely in control. He nodded slowly, his body taut, fighting the urge to rush me and finish what we’d started.

“Okay.” I threw him a thumbs-up, trying to ignore the hot coiling of my body. I turned to leave. “Let’s keep moving.”

I pushed the cascade of leaves to the side as a shape registered in my peripheral vision. Gliding through the air, silent and deadly, a sparkle of color twinkled against the purple backdrop before it disappeared from sight. A quick glimpse was enough to ramp up my heart rate.

I jerked back and my body keyed up, the serenity I’d felt in this place quickly replaced by battle-ready rage. “Did you see that?” I asked.

What? He moved up beside me and leaned forward, not disturbing the leaves. Which meant he couldn’t see much.

I crouched, and he followed me to where the leaves thinned. The slice of sky that hung above us was purple and empty. “I can’t be sure what it was. A large shape above us. Flying. I thought I saw color.”

“The dragon?”

I clenched my teeth in frustration. “I really want to say yes, but I didn’t properly see it. It could be anything.”

His brow furrowed, like it did whenever he was working out a complex problem. I couldn’t hear anything, though. No thoughts were registering in my mind.

“Don’t fail me now, magic,” I said as sweat wet my brow. We’d be dead in the water if I’d somehow lost access to my powers.

What is the matter? he thought-asked me.

“Wait. I heard that. Why can’t I hear your thinking? Is it my magic, or—”

I have worked out a way to keep some thoughts private, he interrupted, and that came through just fine. Surprise. He resumed his thinking pose, basically ignoring my presence.

“Great, fine. But let’s talk this out. What are your thoughts, Mr. Strategist? Because if you’ve got nothing, we need to approach this my way. That includes busting out of here and killing things in a no-killing zone. Wait.” I held up my hand. “What if it is the dragon? Can it come at me in here, or is it bound by the same rules?”