Kiss of Fire

by Deborah Cooke

  He blew fire at her and Elizabeth retreated into the kitchen. She thought to bar the door against him but heard him moving something across the farmyard.

  It was Quinn’s anvil. He moved it with ease to block the door and smiled at her through the window.

  “I hope you have said your prayers, Elizabeth,” he taunted, then loosed the flames.

  Sara shivers in her sleep, remembering Ambrose taunting her with the same words. She knows the moment Elizabeth realizes she is doomed, the instant that the last spark of hope is extinguished. It is when the hungry flames catch the hem of Elizabeth’s skirt. She beats at her clothing as the flames surround her, lick at her, devour her. Her golden ring flashes in the light, a mark of her vows, a reminder of the reason she is paying this price.

  But Elizabeth has no regrets. She would love Quinn again, without hesitation. Her only disappointment is that she never bore Quinn’s son. It was the only desire she ever had that Quinn didn’t fulfill.

  She fears then that he will blame himself for her death, and she wishes there was some way she could tell him not to do so. She chose to love Quinn, or chose not to deny the love she felt for him.

  And that, Elizabeth knows in her heart, made their short life together worth every breath. The fire takes her clothing, her hair, her skin, and the pain seems more than she can possibly bear. The ring burns on her finger but she will not remove it.

  Elizabeth does not scream and she does not beg for mercy. She has loved with all her heart and soul, and she has been loved in return.

  And that, for her, is eulogy enough.

  Sara awakened in the darkness, her breath coming in quick pants. Her dream had been so vivid that she got up to check the room for stray sparks. She sniffed for smoke and smelled only freshly brewed coffee. There was no fire, just the light waft of a cool breeze coming through the open window. She could feel Quinn’s presence in the living room.

  He hadn’t left yet. For the moment, that was enough.

  Before she spoke to him, Sara had to think about her dream. She lay back down and pulled a sheet over herself. If Quinn had been gone to Boston, then he and Elizabeth had lived near there. Sara reviewed the glimpses she’d had through Elizabeth’s eyes of Elizabeth’s dress and the simplicity of her kitchen.

  Quinn had lived with Elizabeth in colonial America.

  She recalled the golden ring and her heart clenched. No, Quinn had been married to Elizabeth in colonial America. But they had had no child. Did that mean that there had been no firestorm between them?

  Sara curled up beneath the sheet, feeling again the power of Elizabeth’s feelings for Quinn. She could understand that woman’s love pretty easily.

  Elizabeth had loved Quinn. She had known what he was and had accepted him, despite the censure of her father, despite the condemnation of everyone she knew.

  And Ambrose had murdered her. It couldn’t have been a coincidence that Quinn had been too far away to save Elizabeth.

  Sara didn’t doubt that Quinn blamed himself for failing her.

  She rolled to her back, thinking furiously. Was this why Quinn insisted on being alone? Did he still love Elizabeth? Was he afraid of putting anyone he cared about in danger? Sara could imagine as much, given how protective he was.

  Her stomach grumbled and she couldn’t remember when she’d last eaten. She got out of bed and had grabbed a robe before she thought of something.

  Quinn had a damaged scale on his chest when he was in dragon form. She had seen it when he had saved her from falling from the bell tower. His skin was exposed there and it was obviously a vulnerable spot.

  It was also obviously something he didn’t want to talk about, given how he’d avoided Sara’s question when she’d first seen it.

  How did the Pyr lose scales? Sara had a whimsical idea of what might have damaged that scale, one that she’d seen in the children’s book that Erik had chosen for her. She’d flipped through the story before putting the book away, enchanted by the illustrations.

  The dragon next door had a problem, in that he had loved someone he had lost and he had lost a scale from his chest as a result. That made him vulnerable when the other dragons fought, but the child in the story had proven so helpful that the dragon had loved again. And his love for the child next door had healed his wound.

  It made a kind of sense. After all, Ambrose’s chest showed no such vulnerability. She could imagine that the Slayer had never loved anyone, other than maybe himself.

  Was Quinn vulnerable because he had loved Elizabeth?

  If she could find out for certain what had damaged that scale of Quinn’s, she might be able to figure out how to repair it.

  Another woman might have been daunted by the revelation that he had loved and lost before, but Sara had loved and lost before and she was still standing. She thought it gave them something else in common. The feelings she was starting to have for Quinn proved that the heart could take a hit and recover. She interpreted her dream as evidence that Quinn could love again.

  Besides, Sara Keegan wasn’t afraid to work for what she wanted.

  She knotted the belt of her teal silk kimono and headed for the living room. There was only one way to get an answer to her question, although she wasn’t at all sure that Quinn would be eager to enumerate his weak spots.

  It wouldn’t stop her from solving the puzzle, either way.

  Quinn wasn’t surprised when the smell of fresh coffee drew Sara from the bedroom. She wore a robe in greenish blue that made her look fresh from the sea. The fabric was smooth and silky and flowed over her curves like water over a beach. Her feet were bare and he could see the tan lines from her sandals, as well as the shell pink polish she had used on her toenails. He thought of her wrapped around him, all softness and strength, and was ready for another round.

  He smiled that she had left her hair loose, although he didn’t know whether she’d left it that way because he liked it or because she’d forgotten to knot it up.

  She did look preoccupied.

  Come to think of it, she looked determined. Quinn knew enough about Sara to brace himself for trouble.

  “Good morning,” Erik said, saluting Sara with his coffee cup.

  “Hi,” she said, smiling for him. If she was surprised to find that they had company, she hid it well. “I’m glad you’re here,” she said, looking serious again. “We’ve got to talk about saving the Wyvern.”

  “I agree,” Erik said, sparing a pointed glance at Quinn.

  Quinn ignored them both. He got a mug out of the cupboard and poured Sara a cup of coffee, placing it on the end of the counter near the fridge and sugar bowl, then returned to the juicer.

  “You’re making yourself at home,” she teased as she got out the cream and he smiled at her.

  He fed another carrot into the juicer. “A guy’s got to keep up his strength,” he teased in return, liking how she flushed.

  “Wheat germ?” she asked, holding up a jar from the fridge. “It’s really good in carrot juice.”

  “I’ll take all the vitamins I can get,” Quinn agreed easily. He took the jar from her and their fingers brushed in the transfer. There was no spark, no kindling of heat. Sara didn’t seem to notice but Quinn was shocked to see evidence of what he already suspected.

  Erik nodded once slowly, looking wise as he sipped his coffee. Sara meanwhile was stirring raw sugar into her coffee, blissfully unaware of what was lacking.

  That wouldn’t last. The woman was almost observant enough to be Pyr. Obviously, she was feeling a lack of caffeine.

  Quinn returned to making his breakfast. He’d known the connection with Sara would be fleeting, but still. He supposed that the firestorm had to burn hot, so it couldn’t last long. All the same, it seemed unfair to wait so long for something that endured only a couple of days.

  He should have taken longer to court her.

  On the other hand, the urgency of the firestorm was undeniable. Maybe it would have been over by this morning, anyway.r />
  The next carrot had a rougher time going into the juicer.

  “So, when do we save the Wyvern?” Sara asked brightly.

  “Ask Quinn,” Erik demurred.

  Quinn gave them both a dark look, disliking how readily they looked like coconspirators. “The Wyvern told me to leave her behind.”

  “Time was of the essence,” Sara agreed. “Now we have to go back.”

  “I don’t think so,” Quinn said with force. “She said it was more important to ensure your safety, and I’m inclined to agree.”

  “She can’t have meant that she wanted to stay there.” Sara was dismissive. “How long do you think it will take to assemble the other Pyr?” she asked Erik.

  Before he could answer, Quinn interjected. “This isn’t going to happen, Sara. We aren’t going to save the Wyvern.”

  She looked between him and Erik. “Are you?”

  “Possibly,” Quinn said. Erik said nothing.

  Sara’s lips set. “I think you need me there.”

  “I think it would be smart for you to stay safe.”

  “I think you’re forgetting that she’s surrounded by Slayer smoke. Who else can cross it but me?”

  Quinn glared at Sara because he couldn’t think of a reply.

  “She’s right,” Erik said mildly when the silence had stretched long.

  Quinn shoveled wheat germ into his juice with undisguised irritation. “No, Sara’s not right. She’s not going anywhere near the Wyvern, seeing as the Wyvern is guarded by a team of Slayers determined to kill Sara.” He glared at the two, and threw back a swallow of juice.

  “You could all work together the way you did before,” Sara began but Quinn interrupted her.

  “No. There will be no working together. Erik has his team of Pyr: they have their agenda and I have mine. Our goals intersected and while I’m grateful for the help of the Pyr, it’s not a long-term alliance. Understood?”

  “Perfectly,” Erik said tightly.

  Sara pushed to her feet and came to face Quinn over the counter. “You still blame Erik for Elizabeth’s death, but he didn’t kill her. It was Ambrose. I saw him laugh when Elizabeth called him Erik.”

  Quinn nearly dropped his glass of juice.

  Chapter 14

  He stared at Sara but saw complete conviction in her eyes. “You’ve been dreaming again.”

  She nodded. “I saw it. I was there. It was awful and I can’t imagine how you felt when you came back to the farm you had shared with her and found it in ashes.”

  Quinn looked away, his throat working in silence.

  “But it was Ambrose who killed her,” Sara whispered urgently.

  Quinn studied Erik, who was listening avidly but didn’t seem to know what Sara was talking about. Quinn couldn’t sense any guile in him at all.

  Was it true? He turned to Sara, who watched him with sympathy in her eyes. “Her last thought was that she would make the choice to love you again,” she whispered, tears shimmering in her eyes. “Her only regret was that she hadn’t bore your child.”

  Quinn had to turn away. He paced the length of Sara’s small kitchen, his chest tight with emotion that he’d long pushed away.

  “You had a firestorm already?” Erik asked with obvious surprise. “I should have felt it. I should have been able to find you.”

  Quinn shook his head. “There was no firestorm,” he said gruffly and stared out the window. “She wanted a child so badly. I couldn’t tell her that it was impossible.”

  Erik sighed, as if sympathetic with that view. When Quinn glanced his way, the other Pyr was sipping coffee and looking out that window, lost in his own thoughts.

  Quinn turned to face Sara across the kitchen, liking how she stood straight and proud. She was so fearless, and he thought it was because she didn’t understand. “I can’t do it, Sara. I can’t take you toward the Slayers.”

  She grimaced and put down her mug of coffee, looking as if she was choosing her words. “You think I don’t understand how awful it is to lose somebody,” she said, her words thick.

  “Not like that.”

  “Wrong.” She impaled him with a glance. “My parents were burned to death. Their rental car went off the road, and turned end over end until it exploded. The military sent dental records to the consulate for their bodies to be identified. The final identification came from this.”

  She crossed the kitchen and opened a drawer near Quinn. There was only a padded mailing envelope in it, one that had already been opened. Sara opened it again, dumped two rings into her palm, then showed them to Quinn. They were blackened and bent, and her hand shook as she held them out.

  The breath was stolen right out of him, not just by the power of her anguish but by the parallel with his own.

  Not to mention the similarity of the mementos they had.

  “My father’s West Point graduation ring and my mother’s plain sterling wedding band, although you can hardly tell now,” Sara said. “It was all they could afford when they got married and she would never let him buy a fancier one.” Her tears fell then, splashing on her hand as her words caught. “She said it would be like saying the original model wasn’t good enough anymore.”

  “I’m sorry, Sara.”

  “Yes. So am I.” She spoke quickly but there was no sting in her voice. He wanted to touch her but wasn’t sure that he should. Her grip on her composure seemed tenuous and he knew it was important to her to appear strong.

  If Erik hadn’t been there, he would have worried about it less.

  Sara meanwhile touched her lips to the rings, then put them back into the envelope. She placed the envelope back in the drawer, which she then closed, her hands remaining across the front for a moment. “I don’t know what to do with them,” she admitted softly, her hands moving in a helpless gesture. “But I have to keep them.”

  “Of course you do,” Quinn said. “But it’s your memories that are more important.” Her breath caught at the truth in that, and then Quinn knew what to do. He slipped an arm around her shoulders and drew her closer. She turned into his embrace easily, intuitively, and laid her cheek on his chest as she quietly cried. Quinn held her close, feeling her arms steal around his waist. He wished more than he’d ever wished for anything that he could erase the ache of her loss.

  Erik cleared his throat. “Your parents were killed, with fire?”

  “It was a car accident,” Sara said, glancing up but not moving out of Quinn’s embrace. “The consul said those roads near Machu Picchu are dangerous.”

  “And they’re isolated.” Erik drained his cup, frowning. “There are seldom witnesses to what happens in the mountains. When did this happen, if you don’t mind me asking?”

  “In March. Just this past winter.”

  “After the seventh?”

  Sara seemed confused. She looked at Quinn before turning to Erik. “It was later in the month. My mother wanted to see Machu Picchu on the equinox.”

  “After the eclipse that signaled your firestorm then,” Erik said without surprise.

  “What are you saying?” Sara asked.

  “When the moon is devoured once not twice,” Erik quoted quietly. “There was a lunar eclipse on March 7, the first one after the moon’s node changed. The second one will be in August, and I knew that there would be a firestorm between the two eclipses.”

  “But what about the bit about the Dragon’s Tail?”

  “The moon’s node changed in June 2006. It moves backward through the signs and moved from Aries into Pisces then, which has long been considered a time of reckoning and karmic balance. The ascending node is called the Dragon’s Head and the descending node the Dragon’s Tail.”

  Sara was fascinated. “So, an astrologer could date that prediction pretty accurately.” Erik nodded as if this wasn’t any big deal.

  Quinn supposed that it wasn’t. He was still horrified by Erik’s earlier implication. “Sara’s parents had their accident right after the eclipse that marked our firestorm
,” he said and Erik nodded. “She was supposed to be with them.” The other Pyr’s gaze brightened.

  “I was,” she agreed easily. “But we had a potential deal come up and I changed my mind on the day of departure. I met them at JFK to tell them and my mother wasn’t happy…oh!” She lifted a hand to her lips as she followed the direction of Quinn’s thoughts, and she looked between the two of them. “You don’t think that they meant to kill me?”

  “They hold the Wyvern captive,” Erik said curtly. “They could know your name.”

  Sara turned pale. “She apologized to me for telling them my name.”

  Quinn swore and held Sara more tightly. Erik looked grim. “You must know what this means, Quinn. You are your father’s son.”

  Quinn’s gaze flicked to the coin still on Sara’s counter. He knew what it meant. Sara would never be safe as long as Ambrose was alive, and for once, he knew exactly where to find the Slayer that had killed so many people and Pyr dear to him. Ambrose wasn’t going to survive to do that again.

  He had to avenge the past to ensure the future. Sara had given him this gift of a fresh perspective, by compelling him to reexamine what he believed to be true. Resolving the past was the only way to move forward, to begin anew.

  Later, he’d tease her about auditing and balancing his books. First, there was work to do.

  “It means we have to save the Wyvern,” Quinn said with determination. “And we need to do it today.”

  “You’re not going without me,” Sara said, lifting her chin in that stubborn way she had. As much as Quinn wanted to protect her, he knew he could do that only if she stayed with him.

  And that meant that she was right, again.

  Saturday was the first morning that Sara hadn’t heard the Wyvern cry for help and that made her nervous.

  It troubled the other Pyr when she told them about it.

  The Pyr discussion to which they were all summoned that morning had been short but not sweet. They all recognized that they might not return from this attempt to save the Wyvern. They all knew that they had no choice. The Wyvern needed their aid, and hers was a call no decent Pyr could ignore.