Kiss of Fire

by Deborah Cooke

  Erik had known Quinn’s father? Quinn met the other Pyr’s gaze and wasn’t sure what to think. He would have given a great deal to have had his father’s assessment of Erik, but that was impossible.

  Because Erik had made sure of it. Quinn knew his hostility showed, but he was surprised that Erik didn’t respond in kind.

  Sara gave Quinn a quizzical look. “Just how old are you?” she asked and he knew that wasn’t the question she wanted to have answered.

  Quinn spoke as much for Erik’s benefit as for hers. “Old enough to know better,” he said lightly and winked. He took her elbow as Erik coughed, then led her into Erik’s temporary lair.

  The perimeter of the suite was ringed with a territory mark, the smoke woven with dexterity as deep as Quinn’s hips. Once again, he was impressed by Erik’s abilities. He felt Sara shiver as she stepped through it and knew she felt the barrier she had crossed.

  The way her gaze flicked over him, looking for injury, was evidence that she remembered what he had told her.

  And maybe that she was concerned for his welfare.

  Quinn would take encouragement wherever he could find it. He tightened his grip on her elbow, knowing that he didn’t imagine the way she drew closer to him.

  “Might as well be in a locker room,” she murmured and Quinn stifled a smile. There was enough testosterone in Erik’s suite to make even him take notice.

  Four Pyr waited in the suite’s living room. They were all fit and looked virile, handsome, and athletic, their poses showing various degrees of antagonism toward the new arrival.

  Quinn hadn’t expected anything different. He only recognized one of them and was surprised by that. What had happened to all the old Pyr? Several of Erik’s fellows were young—Quinn could tell by how lithe they were—and he feared suddenly for the survival of his species.

  Not that it was his concern. The focus of Quinn’s attention was upon himself and Sara. The rest of the Pyr could look out for themselves.

  Quinn knew Donovan from times past and was glad, in a way, to see that Pyr well. Donovan was tall and powerful, auburn-haired, and quick to anger. He leaned against one wall, arms folded across his broad chest, his tight T-shirt and jeans showing his muscles to advantage. He had a gold stud in his left ear, a tattoo of a dragon on his left bicep, and a wicked smile that dropped women to their knees. Donovan was a fighter whom it was best to have on one’s own side. Quinn inclined his head once in that Pyr’s direction but Donovan didn’t respond.

  Erik introduced the others quickly. Niall was fair and built more like a weight lifter, his eyes flashing with suspicion. He sat on a leather couch with Sloane, who was as dark as Niall was fair. Sloane was the kind of wiry man whose fighting prowess and strength were easily underestimated. His expression was grim. They were both younger than Quinn, maybe three or four hundred years old, and didn’t have the attitude and confidence of an old Pyr.

  Rafferty was tall and older, and Quinn had heard his name although they had never met. He waved a lazy fingertip in greeting, apparently conserving his strength for more important encounters. Rafferty would also be underestimated, because of his laconic manner. Quinn wouldn’t have turned his back on Rafferty for a heartbeat, not when his eyes gleamed as they did now.

  Quinn felt them appraise his mate, Niall tilting back his head to take Sara’s scent in a very rude fashion. Quinn wanted to deck him and maybe Erik perceived that because he was quick to chastise the younger Pyr.

  “Mind your manners, Niall,” Erik snapped in old-speak. The Pyr in question settled back to simply look at Sara. “Quinn enters as a friend: he and his mate are under my protection.”

  “Maybe she doesn’t want him,” Donovan suggested in old-speak. An appreciative gleam lit his eye and his smile broadened ever so slightly.

  Sara drew a little closer to Quinn, even though she couldn’t hear what was being said. “What’s going on?” she whispered. “It sounds like distant thunder.”

  “Keep out of my firestorm,” Quinn said to Donovan, not bothering with old-speak. “If the lady wants your favors, she’ll say so.”

  Sara caught her breath and gave Donovan a glare of her own. She put her hand deliberately into Quinn’s and the firestorm sparked between them. Quinn noticed how Rafferty’s expression changed to yearning as he watched the flickering sparks.

  Donovan got to his feet, challenge in his stance. “The way you stay out of everything Pyr?” he demanded aloud. “Where have you been, Smith? Don’t you think we could have used your services for the past centuries?” He glared at Sara. “You need to know the truth about this Pyr, if you’re going to have his child. Why should his legacy continue, when he contributes so little to the rest of us?”

  Sara blinked in surprise but said nothing. Quinn knew without looking at her that she’d have plenty of questions for him later and he liked that she didn’t enter the fray now. She listened. That made things easier.

  “I don’t have to serve those who don’t appreciate me,” he told Donovan.

  Donovan took a step closer and jabbed a finger through the air at Quinn’s chest. “No one appreciates a craftsman who can’t—or won’t—do his destined job.”

  Quinn held his ground. “Why should I arm those who use their weapons against me?”

  “No one attacked you,” Erik contributed.

  “No, not directly.” Quinn eased Sara behind him. They were fighting with words, but that could change. The hostility in the room was rising steadily. “But I saw you kill Ambrose.”

  “Ambrose was a Slayer,” Erik said.

  “Ambrose was my friend,” Quinn retorted.

  “Then you place your trust poorly, Smith.”

  “Where were all of you when I had no one?” Quinn asked. He hadn’t chosen to live in solitude and he knew that Erik knew it.

  “Your past is your problem,” Donovan snapped.

  “Ambrose was the problem in your past,” Erik insisted. “And I saw to it you were rid of him. You should thank me, not blame me.”

  “Because you say he was a Slayer.” Quinn’s eyes narrowed. “How convenient to make that charge when no one can challenge it.”

  Erik’s eyes snapped. “You have my word upon it.”

  “Maybe that’s not good enough,” Quinn retorted.

  “Maybe you should mind your manners, Smith,” Niall interjected, getting to his feet as well.

  “Maybe there is more to the truth than any of us guess,” Rafferty drawled. His relaxed tone broke the tension and Quinn stepped back. He shoved a hand through his hair, certain that coming had been a bad idea. The others moved into a line as if creating a barrier before him. He was used to that.

  “Ambrose was my mentor and my friend,” Quinn said with quiet force. “He was my only mentor and my only friend. Where were the Pyr when I was alone, if my abilities were so important to you all?”

  “Perhaps you did not see that we were there,” Erik said.

  “Perhaps you were not there at all,” Quinn replied. “Why would I join forces with Ambrose’s murderer?”

  “Because he was a Slayer,” hissed Niall. “Because his death was right.”

  “It didn’t seem right to me.” Quinn glared at Niall. “And what do you know about it? You’re too young to remember Ambrose.”

  “I know what I’ve been taught.”

  “And anyone can be taught lies,” Quinn concluded.

  “That’s precisely my point,” Erik said crisply. “How do you know that what Ambrose taught you was the truth?”

  “No one else offered lessons. Ambrose taught me to breathe smoke and he taught me to shift shape more quickly. He taught me to control my body’s urges and to whisper to the fire. All that in less than two years. How much more could he have taught me if you hadn’t cut him down?”

  “How much indeed?” Erik asked softly. “Pyr are born but Slayers are made. Perhaps he would have taken the Smith to the other side.”

  “Don’t insult me with such garbage,” Quinn s
aid, not hiding his disgust. The pair’s gazes locked, anger simmering between them, until Quinn remembered Sara and stepped back. If a fight erupted, she alone would be undefended, and he was one against five.

  “We’re not here to talk about Ambrose,” Erik said, his tone indicating that he also wanted to make peace. “The past is in the past. We need to think about the future and how to protect ourselves. The time of reckoning is upon us and we must fulfill our mission.”

  Donovan paced the room and looked unwilling to abandon the argument. “Even if our numbers were just diminished for nothing.” He pointed at Quinn. “Delaney died for you today, because Erik abandoned him to defend your mate.”

  “That wasn’t my choice,” Quinn said. “I appreciate what he did, but your argument is with Erik.”

  “My intent was to serve the greater good,” Erik said when Donovan turned upon him.

  “You always say things like that, as if you can see the future,” Donovan muttered. Quinn noticed again that Erik almost smiled. “Delaney is dead! And for what?” He faced Quinn in his frustration. “What have you ever done for the rest of us? What do you propose to do for us now?”

  “They even took his body,” grumbled Sloane. “We can’t honor our fallen properly, or know that his body has been treated with respect. Why would they do that? What was the point?”

  “They did it to demoralize us,” Donovan said flatly.

  “Looks like it’s working,” contributed Rafferty. He shrugged as the others glared at him. “But you’re being distracted by details. Delaney was dead. You can’t let the loss of his body affect your attitude, as unpleasant a fact as it is.”

  “I don’t think that disrespect shown to the dead is just a detail,” Donovan asserted and animosity rose between the two older Pyr. “And neither do I think that Delaney’s death was irrelevant, or inevitable, or regrettable but unimportant.” He threw himself into a chair and glared at the rest of them. “But maybe I’m biased about losing one of my kin for nothing.”

  Quinn could relate to that.

  Before argument could continue, Sara cleared her throat. “Well, I appreciate everyone’s assistance today. I have no doubt that the one dragon would have happily incinerated me.” She turned to Donovan and her voice softened. “My parents died in an accident last winter, while they were on vacation, so I think I know how you feel. It’s hard to lose someone so abruptly, without the chance to say good-bye.”

  “’Tis,” Donovan agreed grimly. Quinn felt the mood lighten slightly in the room.

  To Quinn’s surprise, Sara crossed the room and touched the other Pyr’s arm. “I wish Delaney hadn’t died today,” she said softly. “As glad as I am to be alive, I would never have asked anyone to pay such a price.”

  Donovan scowled at his boots and spoke gruffly. “Thanks.”

  “I wish they hadn’t taken his body,” Sloane grumbled. “It wouldn’t have made any difference for them to do the decent thing.”

  “Slayers don’t do the decent thing,” Erik said.

  “Malicious bastards,” Donovan muttered.

  But Sara shook her head. “No. That’s where you’re wrong.” She had the undivided attention of the Pyr then, including Quinn. She had a set to her chin that Quinn had already learned was a sign that she knew she was right.

  “They took his body to make sure that he stayed dead,” she said.

  All six Pyr stared at her in astonishment, but Quinn felt pride seeping into his own expression. His warrior princess was turning the tables on his fellows and Quinn liked it.

  He liked it a lot.

  “What are you talking about?” Rafferty demanded after a heartbeat of silence. He roused himself, his eyes snapping with annoyance as he turned on Erik. “What nonsense is this that we’re learning our own lore from a human?”

  Erik looked embarrassed. “Much has been lost.”

  “Then it should be found!” Rafferty snarled.

  Once again, Sara interjected and changed the tone of the conversation.

  “It’s better to learn it from me than not to know it at all,” she said with her usual practicality. Quinn stifled a smile at Rafferty’s obvious shock.

  Sara rummaged in her purse, then triumphantly displayed a leather-bound book. “You should have read it before you left it for me,” she told Erik, much to Quinn’s confusion and Erik’s surprise. “Sigmund Guthrie explains in his book how to make sure a dead dragon stays dead. It’s not a pleasant read, but apparently it’s informative. And factual.”

  A ripple of mingled interest and alarm passed through the group. Quinn was surprised and intrigued himself.

  Sara looked around for a seat. Donovan pulled one forward for her. The other Pyr sat attentively, waiting for whatever she had to say. Erik looked particularly grim and his gaze was fixed on the book Sara had.

  She sat down and fanned the pages of the book. “I thought it was garbage when I read it,” she said, nodding at Rafferty. “But now that Quinn has told me about your relationship with the four elements, it makes perfect sense. I think Guthrie was writing about Pyr, not mythical dragons, because he wrote that a dragon corpse has to be exposed to all four elements to remain dead.”

  Quinn straightened in surprise.

  “Or?” prompted Erik.

  Sara looked up at him. “Or the dragon can heal and return to fight again.”

  A murmur passed through the group. “That’s why they took their own fallen back with them,” muttered Niall. “They’re going to heal them.”

  “Rouse them from the dead,” agreed Sloane and shuddered.

  The others agreed and noisy speculation launched about how that healing might be done. Everyone was talking at once, it seemed, leaning forward and fixing upon Sara.

  “Does the book say how to do the healing?”

  “What are the conditions?”

  “How long does it take?”

  “Are there any aftereffects?”

  “Well, that part is a bit vague,” Sara said, flipping through the book rapidly. “Let me see if I can find what it does say.”

  Quinn averted his gaze, ignoring the conversation for the moment. He was remembering. It hadn’t rained on the night that Ambrose had died. That meant there had been fire, earth, and air, but no water. He thought about the golden dragon he’d seen slipping away from the tower on this very day, the one whose scales and rhythm of movement were so reminiscent of his old friend.

  He found his gaze rising to meet Erik’s and guessed that their thoughts were as one.

  “What if Ambrose isn’t dead?” Erik murmured in old-speak and Quinn could only shake his head.

  It was incomprehensible. It had been more than seven centuries.

  How long did this healing take?

  It was crazy, and yet, it made a certain sense. He remembered the coin he’d picked up in the arcade the night before, the one he’d changed to his own mark to protect Sara’s home.

  It had been a gold florin. He’d thought that it had been a message from someone who knew that he was old, but Ambrose had introduced himself to Quinn with a gold florin, all those centuries ago.

  Quinn saw the coin now as a message from an old friend.

  Or an announcement.

  Or a taunt.

  Quinn thought again of the golden dragon trying to kill Sara earlier and had to wonder. He had trusted Ambrose implicitly. He’d believed everything Ambrose had told him. Had he been too young to detect an older Pyr’s guile? He glanced down and saw the redness rising on Sara’s arm, a burn that was the result of the golden dragon’s assault upon her.

  Had that golden dragon been Ambrose?

  But why would Ambrose try to kill Quinn’s mate? The only logical reason was that Ambrose was a Slayer, that Erik had been right, and that Erik was true Pyr.

  But what about the other deaths? What about the assassination of Quinn’s parents and brothers? What about Elizabeth? Removing one crime from Erik’s list didn’t make that dragon innocent.

  “
Don’t you know this lore?” Quinn asked Erik in old-speak as the others talked aloud.

  The other Pyr shook his head slowly, with more than an increment of regret. “It must have been lost to us.”

  But the Slayers had the knowledge. The fact that they had taken the corpses with them was proof of that. They had advantage on their side in the old battle.

  Quinn stared at the floor, feeling for the first time in centuries the burden of his responsibility to his kind. He knew that it was his obligation as the Smith to aid his fellows, but having been betrayed, he had focused on self-reliance instead.

  It would have been easier to join the Pyr if Quinn hadn’t had such mixed feelings about Erik Sorensson.

  It would have been easier if he’d had only his own safety to consider. But there was Sara and she was vulnerable, and his first responsibility had to be to her.

  “You saved my mate,” Quinn said, continuing their conversation in old-speak.

  “That puts you in my debt,” Erik said and Quinn knew he didn’t imagine the other Pyr’s smile of satisfaction.

  Had Ambrose deceived Quinn in the past?

  Or was Erik trying to deceive him now?

  “Perhaps not, since you then cast her to what might have been her death.”

  Erik shrugged. “You needed a shock to return to the battle at hand. I chose one.”

  “You chose mercilessly.”

  “No. I had no doubt of the outcome.”

  “You sacrificed one of your own.”

  For the first time, Erik looked pained. “I had no choice. Your mate could not die, not if the Smith and the Seer are to unite right now.”

  “You can’t believe that prophecy.”

  “You can’t disbelieve it.”

  “I do. Prophecies are inaccurate nonsense.”

  “No.” Erik shook his head. “They are infallible, once you understand them.”

  “And you claim that you do?”

  “I do. The union of the Smith and the Seer is the key to our survival and to our victory. Without your mate, you cannot become what we need.”

  Quinn was dismissive of this attempt to draw him into a conflict he didn’t want or need. “The Pyr do not need me, and I do not need the Pyr.”