Blood Flame

by Caris Roane

  “And you didn’t have to warn me. But you did.”

  Her smile was crooked. “I had some self-interest in the matter.”

  At that, he smiled as well.

  Oh, God, he was even better-looking when he showed some teeth. For a moment, she was drawn away from the disaster on the bridge. Connor was handsome as hell. His eyes were blue and intense, he had strong cheekbones, a straight nose with a sexy dip at the bridge, and arched eyebrows. He wore his dark brown hair pulled away from his face, the upper portion bound in a leather strap. The rest was wavy and hung to his shoulders. She loved the look on him.

  He didn’t look a day over thirty, though she knew from web-browsing that he’d been one of the early alters and had some years on him. Long-life had been the trade-off for the heinous change that had made him a vampire and her a witch.

  She took another sip of wine then caught Connor’s arm. “Thank you. Seriously. I’m more grateful than words can possibly express.”

  ~ ~ ~

  Connor couldn’t breathe. The forbidden woman of his dreams had her hand on his arm and once more that strange powerful energy radiated where she touched him. He didn’t want to move. He wanted to stay in this position for about a year, looking at her, feeling her hand on him.

  He was nothing but grateful as well that Iris was still alive. His own ass, he hardly cared about. But Iris was a good woman, someone who should stay as far away from him as she could. If it ever made sense for her to date a vampire, he should be a last choice, not a first.

  His gaze fell to her lips. He’d imagined kissing her, plunging his tongue deep, letting her feel what he really wanted to be doing.

  When she sighed, he searched her eyes. She shifted toward him just enough and her breathing changed, higher in her chest.

  Her lips parted.

  If ever there was an invitation …

  She wanted the kiss and that was something he hadn’t expected. Was it possible she was into him?

  “Iris?”

  She blinked and caught her breath, then turned back to the island. She picked up her wine once more and took a long drink.

  He’d always been certain he was alone in his interest, which in many ways had kept him safe. Now he knew something very different to be true.

  His heart started pounding and he couldn’t move. He should have though, because he saw the mounds of her ass through her torn clothes. He leaned close and breathed in deep. “You smell like your garden.”

  She chuckled, then sniffed. “And you smell like a blown up bridge with just a hint of leather.” She glanced at him, her lips swollen as hell, ready to be plundered. But a sheen of tears covered her eyes once more.

  What the hell was he thinking? She was feeling vulnerable and he couldn’t take advantage of her. Besides, he needed to be smart. She was a witch and could kill him with one touch of her fingers to either his temple or the base of his skull.

  The breath he released sounded like a hiss of steam.

  He nodded, then looked away from her. His frown deepened as he rounded the island once more to pour himself a glass. He drank along with her, but stayed on the other side of the thick slab of granite. His brow had a tight, pinched feel as he stared at nothing in particular.

  A change of subject would help.

  He met her gaze once more. “Who would want both you and me dead? That’s what I don’t get. One or the other of us would make sense. I have enough enemies—”

  “And your entire territory would be happy to see me in my grave.”

  “I won’t argue with that.” But his lips curved.

  ~ ~ ~

  She wasn’t offended. She knew how hard her species was on vampires, the number of massacres employed against his kind by the dark witch covens. Elegance had a number of her kind intent on destroying Crescent.

  But, oh, that smile again.

  He was the sort of man who pulled no punches and didn’t have a lot of frills around him either. Some men needed to be hand-held. He would need something else held, but that would be about it. God help her, she liked him.

  She slowly turned away from him, pretending to take in the room. She sipped her wine some more, then put her hand up against the bare parts of her ass. She flipped back around, her cheeks warming. “Have you got a long shirt or maybe a t-shirt I could borrow?”

  “I do. And if you don’t mind, I’m going to shower and change gear.”

  “Please. Do what you need to do.”

  Wine in hand, he moved past her, heading beyond the dining table. He was so tall, at least six-five, and built. His shoulders looked massive against his black tank. The sight of his Glock and holster clipped on one side of his belt and his half-sword with a sheath clipped to the other made her feminine soul long for more from him.

  She also had a clear view of his torn up leathers and a lot of what lay beneath. Maybe he knew she was looking, but he didn’t seem at all embarrassed by the rips in his pants. She wanted to look away, but couldn’t and desire for him rose once more.

  Her craving for him returned full force. Maybe because he wasn’t standing right next to her, she felt free to indulge.

  Once he disappeared down the hall, she released a heavy rush of air. Part of her was relieved to have a break from all the lust and longing. The other part was curious to discover more about him since she now had a chance to see his surroundings.

  Their homes had one similarity that surprised her. Each was small, that was true. But the first room in both was the dining area.

  Taking her wine with her, she moved past the table and into a small living room with black leather furniture and, not surprising, a large flat-screen TV opposite. Very male, but at the same time, he had jumbles of books stacked here and there.

  She picked one up from the end table. It was a book about Egypt and the pharaohs. Beneath lay a large coffee table tome with several pictures of swords and daggers on the front. The Border Patrol officers carried a smallish sword since the drug world loved their blades. Hence the ridiculously sexy, black leather wrist guards the men wore as well to protect their arms from getting sliced up. The leather was reinforced with steel. The female BP officers, of which there were a few, wore them as well.

  She set the Egypt book back down and meandered in the direction of a small patio. There was a single Adirondack chair and a nearby table. She had a strong sense of Connor’s solitude, otherwise there would have been two chairs or more and a patio table.

  He appeared to be as alone as she was.

  But she was stunned to find a collection of nicely crafted redwood planters outside, each bearing some kind of succulent or cactus.

  As a witch, she knew better than anyone the importance of having and caring for a garden. All kinds of energies moved in and out of the plants and the soil. Even the insects that arrived to partake of the bounty had a purpose and changed things.

  Checking to make sure the wood was sanded down smooth, she slowly lowered her bare-ish bottom onto the chair. So far, so good. She sipped more of her wine and tried to figure out what she was seeing. Connor’s home looked thought-out, not just jumbled together, another sign he’d been around longer than the thirty-years he looked.

  After a few minutes, she went back inside, closing the sliding glass door behind her. A black t-shirt lay on the couch and in the distance, she heard the shower running.

  She unclipped her Sig holster and settled it on the nearest sofa cushion. Her belt and jeans were next. After she unbuckled and set the button loose, she unzipped, then slowly slid her pants down her achy body.

  Her cuts and bruises were only half healed. If she’d been badly injured, she would have needed some quiet time and a homemade salve made with her favorite medicinal herbs. And a long soak in her tub steeped with bay leaves, lavender, and rosemary.

  Sliding off her top, she donned Connor’s black t-shirt. It hit her mid-thigh, which would cover her well enough for now. She folded up her clothes and pulled her cell from her pants pocket, grateful not
to have lost her phone in the blast. She then gathered up her belongings and placed them in a neat pile on the dining table.

  She smelled the sleeve of Connor’s shirt, liking how fresh it was. She’d been a witch for ten years and in all that time she’d never been this close to a vampire. She’d long since supposed they all lived like animals. She knew it wasn’t universally true, but so many did, lost as a lot of them were to the flame drugs.

  She thought about calling for a cab and heading home, but chose to wait. She needed to talk with Connor before she left, even to thank him again.

  But as her thoughts turned back to the explosion, once more she pondered why she and Connor had been summoned to Sentinel. Who the hell wanted them dead?

  ~ ~ ~

  After showering, Connor returned to the living room and invited Iris to join him at the dining table. He had a solid reason for not wanting to sit beside her on the couch. Her legs were way too bare and some of his damn fantasies, especially the more involved ones, had taken place on his couch.

  He’d done a lot of thinking in the shower. He suspected he’d get some answers from Big Nuts about who or what was behind the set-up.

  What he couldn’t put together was how he might be connected to a witch he’d never formally met before.

  Iris sat down at the table, angling her chair toward him. He leaned his forearms on his thighs, his chair also turned away from the table. The relative position however, gave him another solid view of her shapely legs.

  He slid his gaze up, intending to land on her face, but got stuck on her throat. He saw the pulse and a different kind of lust worked him. He’d heard witch blood was the best. He’d had it once, but he’d been lost in blood flame and had no memories of it. Guilt of course tried to rise, but he pushed it down and for a bare moment allowed himself to wonder what Iris’s blood would be like flowing down his throat.

  This led to other issues, so he finally forced himself to focus on what had led them here together tonight. “What’s your job description at the Tribunal? I know you’re a Public Safety officer, but what do you do specifically?”

  “I work the tip-line and observe crime scenes. Mostly, I make a lot of reports that are usually ignored. Occasionally, I’m sent out to assess an out of control vampire, warlock, witch or shifter. If needed, I’ll take him or her out, but always with an eye to public safety.”

  He nodded. “Sounds like a shit job.”

  He watched her shoulders fall about a quarter of an inch. He liked that she worked hard not to show her emotions. Of course in Five Bridges, revealing your cards could get you killed.

  “You could call it that, except every once in a while I get to do some good.” She chuckled softly. “I’d hoped to do some real good tonight and take out a corrupt Border Patrol officer. Then you carried that woman away instead of killing her.”

  He measured the look in her eye. “You would have done it, too. You would have shot me out there in the wash if I’d killed her.”

  “Yes, I would have.”

  He narrowed his gaze. “But I would have had a legal right, decreed by the Tribunal, to kill any runner attempting to take drugs out of Five Bridges.”

  “But you didn’t kill her.”

  “The point is, if I had, you would have killed me.”

  She nodded. “But even I could see the woman was thin and very weak. She posed no threat and I’m sure you knew she wasn’t likely to succeed in getting the drugs to the border.”

  “So you could see her? At that distance?”

  “My spotting scope could, which means I could see the flame rash on her neck. I knew she was a drug addict and probably desperate. Mostly, I knew you could easily overpower her. So yes, if you’d killed the woman, I would have taken my shot.”

  For some reason, Connor wasn’t bothered at all, probably because he knew Iris as well as he did. And she hadn’t shot him though she could have. As a TPS officer, and in the employ of the Five Bridges central government, she had more clout under Tribunal law. It would have been her word against Crescent authority as to what happened. Witches lied all the time, so he had to give her this: She chose to act on what she actually saw.

  He respected her for it.

  “I’m sure you’ve been thinking about what happened on Sentinel Bridge. Have you uncovered a possible connection between us?”

  She shook her head. “No, but there must be something we share in common. I’m just not seeing it. I’ve never actually met you before tonight. I mean I know who you are, and I’ve seen you dozens of times at various crime scenes, but I don’t know any of the Crescent Border Patrol officers.”

  He nodded, thinking. “And do you usually work near Sentinel Bridge or west Crescent Territory?”

  “Rarely. If anything, my assignments involve Savage.” The shifters in their province had chosen the right name. Humans who went wolf entered a wild reckless world, more than even vampires. But they tended to fight between packs as opposed to lashing out at witches or vampires. They left the fae and dead-talkers alone as well.

  He nodded, but his gaze once more slid over to the exposed parts of her thighs. In response, she crossed her knees. Without warning, his desire for her shot through his skull once more, heating up his groin. His fantasies had been vivid as hell and one of them had involved putting his hands right where one knee rested over the other and easing her legs apart.

  He turned away from her and cleared his throat. It would do no good to give his lust free rein right now.

  ~ ~ ~

  Iris’s cheeks were warm but it had nothing to do with embarrassment. She’d basically caught Connor lusting after her and despite their strange shared situation, she liked it. Craved it.

  She tried to remind herself that he was a vampire, the enemy of her kind. But right now, all she saw was a man, wearing a snug tank, his tats exposed over muscular shoulders and a flat six-pack that had her fingers itching to touch him. He also wore the BP standard issue black leathers, which did not help her craving. He’d settled his sword, wrist guards and Glock on the table next to her own pile.

  She put a hand to her chest, aware her heartrate had just spiked. The proximity was killing her and it was time, if possible, to create some physical distance. “I should be getting back to HQ. I need to let Donaldson know I’m still alive.”

  The permanent line between Connor’s brows deepened. “But what if he’s part of this, Iris? Everyone knows he’s on the take and you already said he requested you. It’s possible he was directly involved in the assassination attempt since the Trib has the ability to shut any of the bridges down. If he’s involved, he might be under some obligation to send someone else after you.”

  She rubbed her forehead. “You’re right. Someone got to him.”

  “We need to figure out what’s going on here before we split up. And as it happens, I have a lead.”

  He told her about Gary Smith, who Iris knew was called Big Nuts behind Gary’s back. She’d seen him several times and knew exactly why he’d earned the nickname. He had the biggest balls she’d ever seen and for some reason enjoyed showing them off.

  He also owned a sex club that featured overweight women called House of Big Sex.

  “Why Big Nuts?”

  He smiled, probably because she had no problem using Gary’s nickname, as horribly descriptive as it was. “Tammy said she owed him for some blood flame. He’s the one who sent her out to Amado.”

  Once more, her gaze moved from Connor’s left shoulder to his right. He was a physically powerful man and was probably her best chance of surviving the night, whatever path it took.

  When she’d first realized Connor had started visiting her home, hovering above her garden while she worked in it, she’d searched him on the net. She found out he’d worked as an engineer and had built over fifty of the bridges throughout Shadow and Crescent.

  She remembered being stunned to learn that a vampire had created anything useful. The fae were the real workers of Five Bridges as well as
the dead-talkers. Maybe that was the moment she knew she was in trouble with him.

  “Iris, there’s one thing I’d like to know. I’m fully aware that most witches wouldn’t get this close to a vampire without engaging an enthralling spell. Why haven’t you tried one of your witchy trips on me? Tried to control me?”

  She rarely talked about these things, about her craft or her philosophy of being a witch. But it seemed appropriate now. “Mostly, I don’t believe in it.”

  “Could you do it, though? Do you have that level of skill and power?”

  “I do.” A shot of fear went through her. “But please don’t tell anyone.”

  He frowned. “Why not?”

  “There are dark forces in Elegance among the various more powerful covens. Witches who practice the dark arts summon power from evil spiritual elements that have taken root in Five Bridges. These women, and a few wizards, don’t hesitate to use their gifts to enslave witches of power like me.”

  He cocked his head. “Is that why you live such a solitary existence?”

  “It’s definitely the main reason. I have a healthy fear of vampires, but an absolute dread of dark witches.”

  “Anyone in particular?”

  “You’ve probably heard of her. Seraphina.”

  His nostrils flared and his lips turned down. “I’d kill her if I could find her.”

  Seraphina and her group had murdered over a hundred of Connor’s kind in the last year alone. Rumors had it she planned one day to rule the Tribunal with the intent of turning Crescent into a police state.

  Still looking at her, Connor narrowed his eyes once more, something he did a lot. His eyes were incredibly blue, his brow as furrowed as ever. “I need to be honest here. None of the criminal encounters I’ve had with witches have ended well. I’ve destroyed many of your kind and thought nothing of it.”

  “But my guess is, you only take a life during the commission of a violent crime. Am I right?”

  Connor shifted his gaze away from her. His eyes looked haunted. “Not always. There have been a couple of incidences where I was out of control and deserved to be taken out. If you’d seen me, you would have shot me and I would have welcomed it.”