Fire Within

by Ella M. Lee

  I had to disarm her. I was mortal, but I was a trained fighter and could at least do that.

  I took another step back and then threw myself forward, shifting my weight to follow through with a strike to her solar plexus. She was startled, but she wasn’t going to be so easily distracted. She went on the offensive, forcing my attention to her hands as she feinted with her knife several times.

  On the fourth jab, I grabbed the blade, careful to avoid the sharp edge, and tugged. The knife came free of her grasp, and I flung it behind me, where it clattered to the floor. I smiled. Damon had taught me that trick, had taught me that fighters who thrust their knives like Yulia had didn’t often keep a good grip on the weapon.

  But that wasn’t about to end this fight, not when my opponent was a magician. I needed to keep her from getting too close to me for too long. Her magic would probably be weak from afar, as Meteor magic often was. It would be best to disable her quickly.

  She raised a hand, and her fingers flicked through the motions for a spell. I flinched and drew my arms up defensively.

  Out of nowhere, several of the large nails holding the cabinet together came loose and shot at me, embedding themselves in my right arm painfully.

  “Fuck you,” I hissed, stepping toward her, catching her arm and bringing it up so that I could throw a couple of quick punches.

  I tried to dart back out of her range, but I underestimated her strength after I had disarmed her so effortlessly. She pulled me to her and flung me sideways into the mirror. My head collided with it painfully, and the sound of shattering glass echoed around the small room.

  Nicolas, I’m going to strangle you, I thought. Where the fuck was he and why did he think it was a good idea to leave me on my own?

  I staggered to regain my balance despite my annoyingly blurred vision, barely blocking a kick from Yulia. I wasn’t fast enough to block two quick punches from her, and I reeled back as her hands reached out to grab me, taking a quick step to steady myself.

  I was almost certainly bleeding, and I couldn’t let her get close enough to use that against me with her magic.

  I put my arms up again, ready to defend, when suddenly the bathroom door splintered into a million pieces. Yulia’s shield shattered into mist along with it. Nicolas grabbed her from behind and pressed a hand over her head. Instantly, she fell to the ground, unconscious.

  I dropped to my knees, grimacing in pain, relieved that I didn’t have to continue the fight given how dizzy I felt.

  “Did you have to make a spectacle of your entrance?” I griped. “Where the fuck were you?”

  He glowered at me, kicking Yulia with his foot to roll her onto her back. “I had to take care of the other one. Obviously we both knew what was going to happen once you and Yulia were gone. And I had to knock out the owner and the cook when they came to investigate the commotion. You were handling yourself fine without me, lamb.”

  “Yeah, whatever,” I muttered.

  I wanted to complain more, but my vision swam as Nicolas crouched over Yulia.

  I put a hand to my head. My fingers came away stained red. I was bleeding, the whole right side of my brain throbbing. My arm was bleeding, too, with six long nails deeply embedded in it. It was almost surreal to see the black metal circles against my pale skin.

  Fucking Meteor magic.

  Something about the starkness of the colors and the smell of blood destroyed the last of my coherence. I closed my eyes and let my body slip sideways onto the floor, unable to stop myself, not caring what happened next.

  Chapter 26

  “Fiona.”

  Nicolas’s voice. His warm hands were on me, shaking me.

  “Fiona, sit up.”

  His hands pulled at me. I resisted, content to lose myself to unconsciousness once again.

  “Fiona, come on,” Nicolas said, his tone firm. “Open your eyes.”

  His magic pressed into me, and I sighed. He hauled me carefully into his arms.

  “I didn’t even want to come here, you know,” I said, although the words sounded a bit muddled to my ears.

  “I know,” he murmured. “You can be annoyed at me later. Now, sit up and stay awake for just a minute while I check on the other one, and then I’ll heal you.”

  I blinked several times and swayed as he removed his hands from my shoulders. I watched Nicolas drag the unconscious Alexander into the bathroom, laying him next to Yulia. Neither Nicolas nor Alexander seemed injured, so Nicolas must have gotten his hands on Alexander quickly.

  With morbid fascination, I studied the nails embedded in my skin. I put my fingernails under the metal head of the first nail and pulled. I whimpered as it slid painfully free of my arm. Nicolas’s eyes snapped up to meet mine, and he stepped over Yulia to land at my side.

  “Allow me,” he said.

  He put a steadying arm around me and guided me over to the sink. I dropped the nail into the basin with distaste, leaning against the sink’s edge, feeling woozy. Nicolas turned on the faucet and positioned my forearm under the water. At his touch, it became so cold that my arm was swiftly going numb.

  “Didn’t you see that this would happen? Why did you bring us here if we were going to fuck it up so badly?” I asked.

  He glanced at me, his brow furrowed. “That’s right, you don’t know,” he said, laughing slightly. “The last little catch to my visions: I can’t see myself.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “I’ve searched for myself in visions—my life, events that involve me, my death. Nothing ever comes up. Just darkness and emptiness. I can’t see people related to me by blood, either. Sometimes it’s hard to even see the people close to me—friends, group members—if I’m not careful and specific with my searching,” he said. “I had to run this operation like a normal magician would.”

  “Wow.” I poked my arm. It was very numb now. “That’s annoying. Your visions are frustrating, huh?”

  “You don’t know the half of it. Ready?”

  I studied his delicate fingers as the water ran over them and nodded.

  “Why did you touch the water to make it cold?” I asked. “Your power could freeze over the whole city without laying a finger on any of it.”

  Meteor’s blood magic and some other clan-specific needs aside, most magic didn’t actually require physical gestures or direct contact from the magician in order to work. Those things helped beginners, but experienced magicians usually eschewed them as a point of pride. Nicolas, for instance, claimed he wasn’t a very good healer, so he likely used gestures to help steady and shape his power.

  But he also snapped his fingers for shields, which was completely unnecessary, and he was currently letting his fingers play under the faucet to cool the water. He definitely didn’t need gestures for things as simple as shields or elemental control.

  “Because I like the feeling,” he said. “Freeze over the whole city, huh?” He offered a small smile. “I like that idea. I dislike hot weather.”

  “I’m a figure skater,” I said. “I love ice. I practically live on it. I bet whatever you did would be beautiful and I would adore it.”

  “Of course it would be spectacular. Have you met me?”

  With a grimace, he pulled the remaining five nails out of my arm while I watched in a daze. He healed the puncture wounds, and I flexed my hand experimentally. His arm was around me again, and I let him hold me up because I felt dangerously close to passing out again.

  “Look at me,” he said firmly, and I managed to focus my eyes on him despite my headache and dizziness.

  He carefully examined where my head had hit the mirror and picked several shards of glass out of my hair.

  “You know, Nicolas,” I said, wincing at his light touch, “this is the worst date ever.”

  His amused eyes found mine, and he laughed. “I’ll make it up to you. Tell me, do you really like Chanel earrings?”

  “No. They are tacky. I have simple, elegant tastes.”

  He brought his hands
into formation for healing. “I will keep that in mind.”

  Once he had healed the wounds, I took several deep breaths, leaning into him. I was unable to focus. He tightened his grip on me. He was familiar to me now—his smell, his touch, the press of his magic—and I felt comforted and supported.

  “Are you all right?” he asked. “Look at me again.”

  I blinked up at him as he peered into my eyes. “Concussion. I know what it feels like.”

  “Yes,” he agreed. “I can’t fix that. I’ll need to have someone else do it.”

  “I love a man who knows his limits,” I said and laughed weakly.

  He shook his head, but he looked delighted by my teasing. Gently, he washed my hands and arms, getting all the blood off them. I waited, trying to breathe deeply and center myself. Concussion aside, healing magic was incredibly taxing on a mortal body, and I had been healed too much recently. It was too bad I didn’t have the luxury of falling apart right now, because I definitely wanted to.

  I pulled the tie from the mess that was my hair. “I need to wash the blood out.”

  “I’m going to check on the staff and make sure the door is locked,” he said. “Then let’s figure out what these two are doing here.”

  It was awkward rinsing my hair and face in the sink, but I managed to get the blood taken care of. I was just taking a few more soothing deep breaths when Nicolas returned.

  He put his hands on my shoulders. “Are you all right for now?” he asked.

  I swallowed. “Yeah, I’m fine. Are you okay?”

  He smiled. “Of course.”

  I wondered if I was the only person who asked him questions like that anymore.

  “What now?” I asked.

  “Sit,” he said. He pointed to the corner of the room under the window. “Over there, please.”

  I did as he asked, feeling better once I was seated. Nicolas shook himself out, straightened his shirt, and ran his fingers through his hair. He paced for a moment, blinking, looking for visions. He frowned, shook his head, and then pulled a bunch of zip ties out of his back pocket. He must have grabbed them from the restaurant’s kitchen. Quickly and competently, he zip-tied Yulia and Alexander’s wrists and legs.

  When he was done, he snapped three times. I felt the rustling layers of shields and wards and a silencing spell settle around us. He snapped again, and I felt more specialized wards appear, specifically for dampening Meteor magic. With a twist of his hand, a shield fell into place between me and where he stood over by Alexander and Yulia. I felt a pang of appreciation that he was protecting me.

  Finally, Nicolas activated his own personal shield—layers of beautiful icy magic against his skin, at odds with his dark hair and golden eyes and burnished complexion.

  He crouched and pressed a hand to Yulia’s forehead. She woke with a gasp, trying to throw herself into an upright position before falling awkwardly because of her bound hands. By the time she opened her eyes, Nicolas had an intense and amused look on his face, so similar to the commander who had taunted me in my cell when we had first met.

  Delicately, he picked up her knife and spun it in his hands. She watched him warily.

  “Well, wasn’t that fun?” he asked.

  “Go to hell,” she said, struggling.

  Quick as a flash, he pressed the tip of the knife over her sternum.

  “Don’t move,” he said. “Don’t speak. This is sharp, and I would not have to do much in order to watch your intestines spill out all over the floor.”

  His words sent chills up my spine. It was sort of incredible to see Nicolas switch so quickly and easily from playful to frightening. He was completely focused now, completely powerful and deadly.

  He pressed the tip of the knife into her a tiny bit more, making her gasp.

  “Now, Yulia,” he said, and her eyes widened at the sound of her name, “tell me what the fuck you are doing in my city and who you are here to meet, and I might leave without killing you.”

  “I said go to hell,” she repeated.

  I felt a wave of her power well up and immediately fade in the presence of Nicolas’s sturdy wards. He closed his eyes for a moment and sighed.

  “Let me be very clear with you,” he said slowly. “You see, I was more than willing to leave you two alone, but then you went and hurt that woman.” He pointed at me. “You spiked her full of nails and gave her a concussion. I am furious. I very much want to spike you full of nails. But I’ll tell you what: I’ll settle for the name of the person you’re meeting, as well as the time and place. Then I’m going to go spike that person full of nails. Vy menya panimayete?”

  I didn’t know he spoke even a little bit of Russian. Yulia was staring at him with wide eyes, considering. I knew that look. I’d used it before, the “should I give in to Nicolas?” look. She didn’t speak. She merely closed her eyes and waited.

  Nicolas sighed again, disappointed. “Well, then. Da svidania.”

  He pressed his hand to her forehead, and she slumped, limp against the bonds of the zip ties.

  “Mon Dieu,” he said, sitting back. “Fuck me.”

  With a snap, he disintegrated all the magic around us. I waited, not sure if he meant to tell me what he had heard in her mind. I had learned a little these past few days about when to push him and when to let him work out the situation without interruption and fill me in later.

  That was what we called trust. I was already treating him like my commander.

  I frowned, not sure how to feel about that. He put a hand to his head and blinked slowly several times, then exhaled sharply in exasperation, shaking his head.

  I waited, studying him as he pulled data and ideas together in his mind. It would be a lie to say that he wasn’t attractive right now. Absolutely in control, in his domain, with his magic rolling excitedly through him.

  I was immensely impressed with how he had taken care of me. That he had intervened when I needed it, that he had healed me when I was wounded, that he had shielded me to keep me safe. I hadn’t been entirely convinced that I meant much to him, but he was acting true to his words from the previous night.

  “You will love the denouement of this whole affair,” he said, opening his eyes. “The person these two were meeting? Derek Douglass.”

  “Derek?” I echoed. “Our Derek? The arrogant jerk who keeps trying to put his hands on me?”

  “The very same,” Nicolas said. “Oh, this is good. This is so good. This is perfect.”

  He rubbed his hands together in what seemed like eager delight. He came over to sit next to me and then took out his phone and made a call.

  “Dan,” he said into the receiver, “something has come up.”

  I could just barely hear Daniel’s alarmed response on the other end of the line. He asked intermittent questions as Nicolas explained our morning adventures.

  “Dan, I need you, Ryan, Teng, and four members of Arturo’s security team,” he said after his story was over. “Listen, don’t interrupt Keisha’s schedule. Just get one of the clan house’s SMs to make a portal if she’s not free. I’m sending you the geo-coordinates now. Tell Ryan to take all normal precautions.”

  I could hear more of Daniel’s urgent murmuring.

  “Fiona is fine,” Nicolas said, sliding an arm around my shoulders as he said the words. “She’s here with me.”

  Nicolas was watching me out of the corner of his eye. He seemed pleased, and his arm around me was friendly and supportive. I leaned into his shoulder with slight, careful movements as he wrapped up his call with Daniel and fired off several text messages.

  “Come on, lamb,” he said, offering me his hands.

  He pulled me up, and I was grateful that he was unbothered by everything that had happened. Nicolas practically screamed competence, and it made me a little more confident about my decision to join Water, seeing how in control he was of every situation.

  Even today’s operation, which had seemed to be full of mistakes, had turned out well. Almost eerily
so. Nicolas’s mood was much better than I would have anticipated after finding out that a co-council member within Water was conspiring with Meteor for unknown reasons.

  “Was this morning all part of some crazy plan to corner Derek?” I asked Nicolas, tilting my head at him.

  He turned to study me, smiling dazzlingly. “You give me a lot of credit.”

  I noticed as he pulled me back out into the restaurant that he hadn’t answered the question.

  I was stretched across the hard bench at our breakfast table, trying to keep my eyes open as Nicolas had instructed, when a portal opened in the middle of the restaurant. I watched Daniel, Ryan, Yu-Teng, and four others file through.

  Daniel came immediately to me and kneeled at my side, pushing the table out of the way hastily. “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah, probably,” I said nonchalantly.

  “Ryan,” Nicolas said, waving his hand lazily as he approached the group, “take a look at Fiona. She has a concussion. Teng, with me.”

  Ryan, sharply dressed as usual in a charcoal-gray suit, came to sit near my head. I met his gaze, and he smiled.

  “Close your eyes, Fiona,” he said. “Let me see if you need some healing.”

  “Nicolas fixed the bleeding.”

  “Nicolas was smart not to touch the internal structure of your brain,” Ryan said. “He is an acceptable healer, but I’m better trained than him, and I specialize in head injuries.”

  I waited patiently while Ryan’s magic repaired me. Ryan was an excellent healer—my headache and dizziness were gone, and I was merely left with the lingering heaviness of healing magic.

  Afterward, I watched Nicolas and Teng as they walked the security team back to where Yulia and Alexander were still bound and unconscious.

  I sat up carefully, and Daniel sat next to me, putting a glass of water in my hands and wrapping a supportive arm around me.

  I reached out a hand to pick up Nicolas’s abandoned block-sync ring, still resting in the center of our table. It was dark and solid, made from something sturdy like tungsten. I slipped it onto my right thumb, where it fit perfectly. I wasn’t surprised. Nicolas’s fingers were long and thin, the agile fingers of a piano player. I studied it, feeling dazed.