Firestorm (Smoke & Ashes Book 1)

by D. N. Hoxa

  A warm hand on my arm. I looked at Lexar. “Let’s get inside,” he whispered and guided me toward the double doors.

  I put my loudest fuck you in my smile as we passed the staring crowd, but guess what? The inside was worse.

  The music was twice as loud. Now, I was all up for it, normally. Music was very important to me, and everybody knew it, but the beat that was shaking the ground got to my nerves within five seconds. And the people inside the huge hallway-turned-dance floor got there even faster.

  It was probably just the impatience. And the paranoia. There were several maggots among these people and not jumping at the opportunity to kill them went against my every instinct.

  “So how are we going to do this?” I asked Lexar, trying not to get overwhelmed by everything and everyone. The house was even bigger than it looked from the outside, with a huge stairway that separated into two going up, then met again at the top, forming a perfect circle in the middle for no reason at all. There were flowers and glitter and ribbons decorating the white walls. Cocktail tables all around the room, waiters moving gracefully among the crowd, serving drinks. People laughing and talking and pretending they all didn’t hate each other’s guts.

  It was too much. Too much glitter, too much noise, too much perfection.

  “We’ll play it by ear. Is he here?” Lexar said, and he didn’t sound any calmer than I felt. All those people there could attack me at any given moment, and I wouldn’t even know where it was coming from until it was too late. It’s what made my phoenix restless, too. She raised her head and looked around through my eyes, the need to just burst into flames and kill everyone was so strong it made me nauseous. I pushed her back as deep as I could and looked the crowd over once more.

  “No, he’s not. You’re going to let me do the talking, right?” Because I had no patience for bullshit, and I wanted to just get right down to it.

  “I thought you said you didn’t want him pissed off,” Lexar said.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Because it sounded like…

  “It means you will piss him off.” Asshole. “I don’t even think you can help it. It’s just your nature.”

  “Just because I piss you off doesn’t mean I piss everybody off.” Yeah, it did. It was my other specialty. “In fact, I can be perfectly polite when I want to be.”

  Through the corner of my eye, I could see his grin. “This is the perfect opportunity to show me, then.”

  “Deal.” I could do polite. I could do polite in my sleep. I’d show him.

  The music cut abruptly. Everybody ooh-ed and aah-ed, like they were just so shocked, but soon, they all started applauding.

  Michael Alifair was here, and he stood at the top of the stairway with two women by his sides, smiling like he really felt like a king.

  At six foot one, he wasn’t tall for his kind, but he was wide. His shoulders could fit three me’s between them easily. His hair was barely a silhouette on his head, and his eyes were more orange than yellow. His crooked nose added to his appeal, and his tan skin was just a touch away from too much. The navy-colored suit was probably made for him, and the bright orange handkerchief hanging on his breast pocket complemented it perfectly. He walked down the stairs like he owned the world, waving his hand with a cheeky grin at the people applauding the man of the hour. Even though he seemed at ease, his every movement was precise, like he’d thought about it a million times before taking that step—just like a real predator.

  This guy shifted into a lion. Better not forget that, Sassy. I didn’t want any trouble—for real this time.

  After I killed the nocturnal bitch, everything was fair game again. For now, I was going to be on my best behavior.

  Half an hour later, steam was coming out of my ears. We still hadn’t had the chance to talk to Alifair, and as much as I wanted to go grab him by the arms and force him to stand still for just a second, Lexar insisted that it was the wrong move. We still needed his cooperation.

  We stuck to the side of the room, drinking some really delicious cocktails, staring at the crowd while they pretended not to stare at us. Some people came and talked to us—mostly to me, because they knew me. They didn’t know Lexar personally because he didn’t live in the city.

  At least the initial nervousness had passed. Now I was just impatient.

  “Five minutes,” I whispered into the glass. “Just five more minutes.” That’s all Alifair had.

  “Easy,” Lexar said. “You can just enjoy the party for a minute, you know.”

  Enjoy the party? He was out of his mind. “I will enjoy the party—when we find out where the were-cheetahs are, and I kill the one who bit Chelsea, and the nocturnal bitch is dead.”

  “But there’ll be no party to enjoy then,” he said with a grin.

  “Then I’ll have one on my own—without all these people.” I pointed at everyone in the room, some dancing, most just standing there and mingling.

  “It’s not a party without people.”

  “Sure, it is. That way I can actually enjoy myself without being stared at.” Everybody here knew who I was, and they kept their eyes on me all the time. I hated it so much, but no matter how hard I stared back, they just didn’t give a shit.

  “You’re more beautiful than everybody here combined. Of course, they’re going to stare at you. I don’t know why you let it bother you,” Lexar said, so casually I thought I heard him wrong. Heat rushed up to my cheeks. He’d never called me beautiful before.

  My mouth opened, but for once, I didn’t know what to say. Ugh, I hated it that I liked these things. I was such a girl.

  But lucky for me, a new subject just popped up—Michael Alifair in all his glory.

  “Five minutes are up.” I put the glass on the cocktail table behind me and headed for the crowd.

  “No, they’re not,” Lexar reminded me. But it didn’t matter. The master alpha had gone somewhere behind the weird stairway, and it was my shot. I was going to take it.

  Elbowing my way into the crowd until they started to notice us and make way, I made it to the center of the room in no time. For once it was easy to ignore the stares because I had a purpose—I was going to catch Alifair before he was done with whatever he was doing behind the stairs and make him talk to us.

  I was in a rush, not really watching where I stepped, so when I slammed into a really wide chest, it freaked me the fuck out. My hands heated up even before the blur cleared from my view. My instincts wanted me to attack already—who needed to see what the hell was happening?

  Thank God I didn’t.

  “Sapphire, so good to see you again,” Michael Alifair said, as if we were the oldest and bestest of friends. He was right in front of me, and it was his chest I’d slammed against because he was hurrying from behind the stairway. Focusing on cooling down my hands before my skin caught fire, I didn’t even see it when he came at me with his arms wide to his sides, intending to hug me.

  The most awkward hug of my life. I patted the sides of his back because I had no idea what the hell else to do. When he let me go, I was still a bit disoriented, but I did find my voice quickly.

  “Hello, Michael. So sorry to come here uninvited like this,” I said in a rush.

  “It’s absolutely no problem. It’s a party!” He raised his arms to the sides to show me, as if I couldn’t see where I was. “Everybody’s invited—especially beautiful women like yourself.”

  “Great. Um, do you mind stepping back for a bit?” I gently put my hand on his shoulder and pushed, just so he got the idea. There was a glass table behind the stairway and a few white leather chairs around it, but more importantly, nobody else was there—except the two gorgeous were-lion women standing right behind their master alpha.

  “Would you look at that? I’ve never seen you without those hoodies you wear,” Alifair said, looking down at me, his eyes gleaming. I really tried not to take it personally.

  “Mr. Alifair,” Lexar said from my side, to remind him that he was there,
too.

  “Ah, Mr. Dagon’an. I don’t believe I’ve had the pleasure.” Composing himself, Alifair raised his hand toward Lexar. If looks could kill, the master alpha would be in a pool of blood right now by the way Lexar was staring at him.

  “No, you haven’t. Nice party,” Lexar said, and I could see that he was squeezing Alifair’s hand hard by how white his fingers had become. And Alifair’s were the same. Men.

  “Happy birthday, by the way,” I mumbled. “But—”

  “Thank you. It’s rather too much for me, but my pack wouldn’t have it any other way.” Too much, my ass. He was enjoying this, and it showed all over his face.

  “Right. So, we need to talk to you. Right now. It’s important.”

  The smile on Alifair’s face faltered, but just when I thought he was going to tell us to come back another time, he turned and waved for the glass table a few feet away from us.

  “Please, sit down. What will you drink?” he said. Above us, the stairway split into two, and behind us were two doors, both of them closed. Both of them very close to where we were sitting. Anybody could come through there, or from the sides, but the two women who’d stayed behind Alifair’s back were now on either side of the stairway. I believed they were going to make sure we weren’t interrupted.

  “We already had more than enough, thanks,” I mumbled. “So—”

  “Nonsense. It’s a party. You have to have a drink in your hand at all times.”

  My skin literally crawled. Polite, I reminded myself. I had to be polite.

  “I’ll take your best cocktail, then.”

  “Same,” Lexar mumbled.

  Alifair only nodded. “So, how have you been, Sapphire? I haven’t seen you in a while. You look beautiful, by the way. I’m honored that you could be here.”

  Just like the first two times I’d seen him, he didn’t look any different from an ordinary man. You couldn’t feel his magic. You couldn’t smell it or tell that it was there in any way. That kind of control was to be envied.

  “The honor’s all mine,” I said with a smile. See? I could be polite.

  Alifair’s grin grew, and he pretended to be focused solely on me, but I could see his eyes moving to Lexar every few seconds, lightning fast.

  “There’s a reason why we came to this party, Michael. A very important reason that couldn’t wait until tomorrow,” I started, hoping this time he wouldn’t interrupt me.

  “I see,” he said, and once more, his eyes shot at Lexar, who wasn’t even pretending not to stare daggers at the guy. And he said I would be the one to piss Alifair off.

  “You keep tabs on all your subjects, is that right?”

  “Absolutely,” he said, leaning closer on the table, looking at me like I amused him, like he thought I was a fucking joke.

  Don’t piss him off, I reminded myself. I could do this, damn it.

  “Great. So, all we need to know is where the were-cheetahs are, and we’ll be out of your hair.”

  “The were-cheetahs?” He looked at Lexar properly this time, like he wanted to ask him, what the hell is she talking about?

  “Yes, the were-cheetahs. The same ones who used to live in Point Breeze. The same ones who aren’t there anymore, for whatever reason.”

  That earned me a decent two-second pause from the mighty master alpha. “I’m afraid I don’t follow.”

  “While you were away on business, we were in Point Breeze to speak to the were-cheetahs because one of them bit my friend. My human friend, who has survived the shift and is now a were-cheetah herself. I’m sure you know how all that works better than I do.” The smile left his face altogether. “But every house in the cheetah street was empty. The alpha house was empty, too. Nobody was there at all, so naturally, we came here because you keep tabs on your subjects, and you should know where they are.”

  The more I spoke about it, the angrier I got. Chelsea—a shifter. The were-cheetahs—gone. The nocturnal bitch—still not dead. I didn’t like this list very much.

  Footsteps behind us. It took all I had not to jump to my feet and reach for my knives. Instead, it was just one of the waitresses coming to serve us our drinks.

  “Tina,” Michael said when he saw her, but it sounded more like Teeenaaah. “Thank you, sweetheart.”

  Tina, who was at least a couple inches taller than me, with long curly hair that reached the crack of her butt, put the tray on the table, never taking her eyes off her alpha. The smile on her face was victorious, like she felt perfectly accomplished to have brought this guy a drink.

  Maybe I was being a bitch, but I didn’t get the alpha-subject shifter crap they had going on here. And I was thankful for it.

  “You’re welcome,” Tina purred and put our cocktails in front of us, too. When she turned, her eyes fell on Lexar’s face, and I could have sworn I heard her entire body screaming sex! I liked to think I was not a jealous woman, but fuck, it pissed me off. Or maybe I was just in that kind of a mood.

  Clearing my throat, I ignored the footsteps of Tina while she went back to wherever she came from.

  “Tina’s great. She’s very motivated. A hard worker,” Alifair informed us, and it was plain to see that he was trying to stall the conversation.

  “I bet she is. So, the cheetahs. Where are they?” I asked.

  “I’m afraid I don’t know that. Yesterday, they were where they are supposed to be. This is the first time I’m hearing about them not being in their homes. It sounds a bit ridiculous, don’t you think?” He raised his hands to his sides. “Where else would they be?” And he laughed.

  I had a very, very big problem with people who didn’t take a serious matter seriously. This wasn’t a joke, damn it. People’s lives were in danger, and this guy was sitting there, laughing in my face? How could anyone expect me to keep my cool about it?

  I laughed, too, for a second. “Cut the shit, Michael. The cheetah pack is your responsibility. They’re doing things they’re not supposed to be doing and you don’t even know about it. One of them bit a human, and you know very well what that means.”

  Humans were not to be messed with. The Fallen were very clear on that—not out of the goodness of their hearts, obviously. But humans were souls that needed to be corrupted, not to die before their time and cost them precious power. That’s why the penalty for messing with a human was death. In this case, it would be death-by-Sassy.

  “What kind of an alpha are you?”

  Lexar moved in his seat. I didn’t pay him any attention.

  Alifair wasn’t smiling anymore. At all. Instead, his jaw was clenched, and he was no longer looking at me like I amused him, either. Good. I felt a lot better already.

  “We need those shifters found—right now,” I continued when he didn’t look like he was about to say anything anytime soon. “And since they’re your responsibility, you’re going to find them.”

  The lock he had on his powers must have slipped because suddenly the air filled with heat. Unnatural heat—magical heat. And there was a lot of it. I leaned back in my seat, hoping to get away, but it had already spread. The alpha wanted me to feel his power, and that was exactly what was happening. I was feeling it all the way to my bones, and my phoenix smelled it, too. Her head rose, and she looked at Alifair, curious, a bit nervous. We didn’t feel that kind of magic hanging in the air often. It was almost like we were in Hell.

  “What Sassy means is that it is your duty to help the Fallen when they call for it, and we are here on their behalf. We believe that the were-cheetahs are working with a person of interest to them—a nocturnal witch that we are hunting. The sooner we find her, the better for everyone,” Lexar said, his voice perfectly calm. Only when he spoke did I realize how loudly I’d been talking. Oops.

  “I know my duties, but you are not the Fallen. The only way I’ve ever received an order from them was through hellhounds—not their offspring.”

  “There’s a first time for everything,” I said because I already knew where this was going.


  Putting his huge hands on the glass table, he leaned a bit closer. His voice had changed, his face had changed, his aura demanded we kneel before him, and I was tempted. If it wasn’t for the phoenix inside me, desperate to break free and take him out, I would have even thought about it. He was competition, and my phoenix didn’t like competition.

  “Allow me to repeat that for you because it seems you didn’t understand me the first time—you are not the Fallen,” Alifair said through gritted teeth.

  I could have sworn he let out a growl at the end of the sentence there. I was completely focused on him—not even hearing the music and the chatter from the party anymore. A bomb could go off behind that stairway and I wouldn’t even notice.

  “Your subject bit a human,” I said, no longer worried about not pissing him off. He was already pissed off—and I was, too. “If I can’t find the person responsible for it, I’ll be perfectly within my rights to come for you.”

  When he smiled this time, it didn’t look like a smile at all. It looked like a fucking nightmare. His eyes became bigger, and his pupils began to stretch—no longer round, but oval-shaped. Was he going to shift?

  My phoenix thought so, so she clawed at my chest harder with every second that passed. I sank my nails into my palms to try to calm her down. The pain always helped.

  “You filthy—”

  Lexar stood up, pushing the chair behind him. “That’s enough,” he said, still just as calm as when we walked in here, even though his eyes said he wanted to murder Alifair. “We’re not here to fight. We’re here to negotiate. You want something. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have spoken to us at all tonight. Tell us what it is.”

  “Respect for the master alpha of all shifters, for starters,” Alifair said, his eyes never leaving mine.