Raised in Fire

“Really, Darius?” I asked in a dry voice. “I could have prevented that.”

His hard body peeled away from mine enough so he could look down on my face. I’d probably have a few bruises from that “rescue.” He needed to start wearing padded clothes if he planned to keep this up.

People around us were slowly unfurling from their crouches, taking their hands away from their heads. They had clearly been expecting a huge blast. Thankfully, that mage hadn’t had the power to pull it off.

“I tried to prevent this reaction,” he said, stepping away. Not far enough, though. His hands lingered on my hips. He shook his head, small movements, and confusion drew a crease between his brows. “I’m not sure feeding can unseat this, Reagan. It has gone deeper than that. I don’t know what’s happening to me.”

He sounded lost. Dare I say vulnerable? I was pretty sure those emotions were mostly foreign to him in his stage of immortality. Yet here he was, admitting them to me in a soft though urgent voice.

I patted his arm. “We’ll get you that blood and see if it goes away. Hopefully it does, for both of our sakes. Because you are cutting into my cool points by saving me.”

“Saving a human also cuts into my cool points, I assure you.”

“I’m back to being a human in your eyes, am I? Wow. You must really hate emotion.”

“Fear for your survival is distracting.”

“There he is—the vampire who stole my mark.” I pushed past him and exited the hall. People were checking on each other, speaking in hushed voices. The scream of sirens sounded outside the bar. The woman who’d detonated the spell lay on the ground, not moving. She’d gotten her just dessert. Beard had rolled to the side and was clasping his head. Mustache was gone.

“Where the hell did you go?” Callie demanded, rushing over to me. She checked over my face and then shifted her gaze down my body. “I didn’t think you’d need to get cover. Are you okay?”

“Darius to the rescue.” I shooed her away. “I’m fine. Is Dizzy okay?”

“Darius to the rescue?” Callie eyed Darius suspiciously.

“I’m okay,” Dizzy said, hurrying from the bar. The bartender was on the phone. “We were prepared. They were lackluster bullies, at best. Just mad they didn’t have enough know-how to get into the real guild. We’ve seen a few of those in our time. Anyway, we need to get out of here. He’s going to say it was a terrorist, but their mage friends might form a posse.”

“Screw their friends,” Callie and I said at the same time. She grinned at me as I laughed.

“But yes, let’s go. I don’t want to be seen at this crime scene any more than I did at the first one.” I looked back toward the bathrooms. “Let’s use the back door.”

“What was the first crime scene?” Callie asked.

“I’ll explain later. C’mon.” I ushered them along as the first policemen walked through the door. More than a few people rushed out the back door with us.

“What now?” Callie asked as we hurried along the alleyway.

“Tonight we need to get back to the hotel, but tomorrow we’ll find one or more of the mages responsible for summoning the demon and squeeze the information out of him or her. I’m tired of playing this game. These last two days have seemed like a week. It’s time to end it.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

I stepped out of the shower and glanced through the opened sliding doors at the windows. Blackness still coated the sky, barely allowing a few points of light for tenacious stars that would not be conquered.

I crossed into the bed area. The clock read 4:53. Soon streaks of light would cut through the night, warning of the approach of daylight.

A bottle of whiskey sat on the small table near the couch at the front of the suite. Darius must’ve brought it in while I was in the shower. The note said, Get as drunk as you need to.

I smiled. He was a vampire, which implied a certain level of selfishness, but when he let himself, he was a damned good guy as well. One who paid attention, and remembered the little things.

“Careful, Reagan,” I said softly, tying the towel above the swell of my breasts. If anywhere on a mostly flat chest could be called a swell. “This is how it always starts. They’re wily, these vampires. They’ve had hundreds of years to charm their way into bloodstreams.”

I poured myself some whiskey and closed my eyes after it hit my taste buds. Darius always bought the best.

I checked my phone as I thought about my options for pajamas. They were sparse, since I mostly slept in one overworked and under-washed tank top and my undies. I did have some yoga pants and a loose T-shirt, so I supposed those would have to do. This wasn’t the right kind of battle for leather.

I’d missed a text from J.M. earlier, asking how it was going. I thought about replying, since it was kind of nice that someone was checking in with me, but a glance at the clock had me putting the phone down. If he was like most people and kept the phone near his bed, and it was on, I might wake him. I doubt he cared about my day that much.

I brushed my hair, glancing at the window again. A part of me wanted to wait until dawn approached in the hopes Darius would take what he needed and go right to sleep. I knew vampires treated the days like most humans treated the nights, though. They needed sleep, but as long as the sun didn’t touch them, they didn’t have to sleep. Darius could stay up all day if he was closing in on a kill.

Me, sexually speaking.

I blew out another breath as my stomach flipped.

The days and nights with that other vampire surfaced in my memory. It was still the most enjoyable thing I’d ever experienced. The very best. Nothing could quite compare. As soon as their saliva hit your bloodstream, that was it. Your body was no longer your own. Suddenly it was a pleasure cruise taking you away, and in the past, I’d wanted nothing more than to ride that boat all the way out to sea.

Granted, my mom had just died at the time. Really, I’d wanted a seat on any boat leaving the harbor because I was not stable. Instead of resorting to drugs, I had found a vampire.

I was a different person now, though. An experienced, knowledgeable person who was mostly stable. It would be absurd to assume a vampire could still affect me the same way…

After another sip of whiskey, I dried my hair in a towel and stared at the closed door dividing Darius’s room from mine. He’d closed it after delivering the whiskey. When I went over to him was completely up to me. Despite all his talk about chasing and hunting, he was giving me the control.

He probably knew that if I didn’t have it, I’d tell him to get lost.

“Oh, this is a terrible idea,” I said as another wave of butterflies surged through my stomach. “A terrible, bad idea.” The whiskey went down a little quicker that time.

“But really, what’s the worst that can happen?” I asked myself, needing to hear a voice, even my own. “I should call Callie.”

I shook my head. Another terrible idea. She’d start plotting Darius’s death immediately. She didn’t trust him as far as she could throw him. And if I tried to explain, she’d tell me how stupid I was for having promised such an asinine thing.

“I am stupid. Oh my God, I am so stupid.” Another gulp of whiskey. “But again, what’s the worst that can happen?” I thought about it for a second. “The absolute worst would be if I fall into a trance and start worshipping the ground he walks on. If I lose myself to him.”

That wasn’t helping. I shouldn’t think of the worst.

“What’s the best that can happen?” I asked myself as I shrugged into my T-shirt. “If I stick out my neck, give him the blood he needs, and he absolutely hates the taste, maybe it’ll break the spell I somehow have over him.”

I nodded. Yes. That was the best thing. I needed to hope for that thing.

My yoga pants went on, and I took another shot of whiskey, summoning my courage.

This was worse than slowly creeping around someone’s house waiting for them to pop out like a jack-in-the-box. Horror movies should be made of what I was about to do.

Oh wait, they were. And for good reason.