Kindling Flames: Smoke Rising (The Ancient Fire Series Book 3)

by Julie Wetzel

  Zak gurgled his anxiety too.

  Darien nodded his head and sat up. “I think she will be okay.” He wiped a few loose bits of hair back from his face as he sat back. “I did what I could, but I think Dakine should look at her.” Darien sighed as he looked at Vicky’s sleeping face. “We should get her to bed for now.” He stood up and went to pick Vicky up.

  Zak scampered up her and growled at him.

  Darien held his hands up defensively. “I’m not going to hurt her.”

  Zak growled again.

  “I’m sorry,” Darien apologized to the fay. “It was not my intention to try to turn her,” he explained. Darien had only wanted what the fay shared with Vicky, but Elliot had pulled his mark out when he had pulled the power from her.

  Zak whined at Darien. He knew the vampire would not intentionally do anything to hurt her.

  Darien petted the fay, and he jumped down to let the vampire pick her up.

  “Do you need a hand?” Elliot asked as Darien scooped Vicky from the couch.

  “Yes,” Darien said. “Getting her out of this corset is going to take more hands than I have.”

  Elliot smiled. “You’ve taken plenty of limp women out of their corsets,” he teased his friend.

  Darien rolled his eyes as he carried Vicky out of the room. “True, but that was, what, over a hundred years ago?” The hint of a smile curled his lips.

  “Oh…” Elliot smiled, “so you’re just out of practice.”

  Darien shook his head as he carried Vicky up the steps. “Zak,” he called to the fay near his feet. “Get her something to sleep in.”

  The fay yipped and scuttled off to Vicky’s room.

  Kicking the door to his suite open, Darien took her down the short hall to the bedroom.

  “Damn it, Darien.” Elliot staggered past the cross on the wall. “Did that thing get stronger since the last time I was here?”

  Darien laid Vicky on the bed and looked back at his friend. “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “You wouldn’t notice if someone dropped a church on you.” Elliot leaned against the wall, recovering.

  Darien took out dry clothing and stripped out of his wet ones. “Yes, I would.” Amusement was thick in his voice. “It would crush me. Those things are heavy.” He smiled as he stepped into the dry pants.

  “Not your head.” Elliot smiled as he stood back up. “Your skull is too dense for that.”

  Darien chuckled at the jab.

  “It’s good to see you’re feeling better.” Elliot grew serious. “What’s going on with you?”

  Darien looked at the shirt he had ready to pull over his head. “I don’t know.” He pulled the shirt on and settled it around his body. “But I think I need to call Dakine. You staying?” Gathering up his wet clothing from the floor, he dumped them in the hamper.

  “Well, since it is nearly dawn…” Elliot let the stupid question go.

  “Point.” Darien turned to his friend. “Elliot, thank you. I owe you for this one.”

  He waved Darien’s offer away. “Just take it off my tab.”

  Darien chuckled at him. “I think I burnt that up a long time ago,” he sighed.

  “Okay, then the next time I do something incredibly stupid because I’m blitzed out of my mind, I expect you to come to my rescue.” Elliot smiled to take the sting out of his words. “Tell me, Darien. How does a vampire get so stupidly drunk? What were you drinking?”

  Darien sighed. “I have no idea.” He shook his head as he went back over to the bed to tend to Vicky. “Victoria’s friend, Beth, was making me Bloody Marys. I had four of them.”

  “You mean, like, tomato juice and vodka?” Elliot asked.

  “Exactly,” Darien answered as he started pulling the pins from Vicky’s hair. “I watched her make the second one. She was a little heavy handed with the vodka, but she didn’t put anything unusual in there.”

  Elliot watched Darien run his fingers through Vicky’s curls. “Is the woman a witch?” He tried to come up with an answer. The only way he knew of for a vampire to get a buzz was to drink the blood of someone that was already drunk, but it would take several people way over the limit to get Darien as drunk as he was.

  “No,” Darien shook his head, “she’s just a normal human.”

  Elliot thought about it as Zak came wiggling into the room with a piece of fabric.

  “Thank you.” Darien rubbed the fay as he jumped up on the bed with the sleep shirt. “Do you want to hold her or take off the dress?” he asked Elliot.

  “I didn’t know you were going to share,” Elliot teased as he came over to the bed.

  Darien glared up at him.

  Elliot laughed. “You hold her, and I will take off the dress.” The two vampires worked together until Darien was left holding her in the last layers of the outfit and the dress was tossed, forgotten, on the couch.

  Darien took the nightshirt from Zak and went to pull it over her head.

  “You finish with her, and I will go get the stuff to contact Dakine.”

  Darien nodded his head. “What you need should be in the desk in my study.” He pulled Vicky’s hair out of the shirt as he talked. “Use the mirror in Vicky’s room.” Darien licked his finger and wiped the dried blood from Vicky’s neck.

  “Yeah, about that.” Elliot looked over to the empty wall above the dresser. “What happened to yours?”

  “It got broken,” Darien answered flatly without looking up at him.

  “Kay,” Elliot said, and went out, leaving him to finish changing Vicky.

  Darien moved the limp woman into the bed and covered her up. He kissed her lightly on the forehead as Zak snuggled into the bed next to her. Darien touched her with his power, checking to see how the patch was holding up. It seemed fine, so he pulled back and tucked the covers up around her tighter.

  “Watch her, Zak.” Darien looked over the pair. “If anything should happen, come get me, quick as you can.” He left to go make the call to Dakine. Pausing in the hallway, he looked at the cross from his past. It didn’t feel any different than normal to him, but the reaction Elliot had to it was unexpected. He reached his hand out to touch it. Just before his fingers made contact, he felt the angry bite associated with holy objects. It wasn’t any stronger than he remembered. Darien shook his head and went to find Elliot. Maybe it was responding to the fact that he had sent up a few prayers of his own recently. Snorting a soft laugh at that idea, he grinned. Who would imagine a vampire praying to God for help? He had sent up many prayers in his lifetime. He had, after all, been raised in a monastery.

  “What are you doing?” Darien asked as he walked into Vicky’s room. His friend stood at one end of the dappled green room, drawing on the antique mirror. The carved, wooden trees framed a series of red lines Elliot was working onto the reflective surface. Darien recognized the symbols of the communication spell he hadn’t finished on his own mirror a few nights ago.

  “Calling Lord Dakin,” Elliot answered without stopping his work.

  Darien leaned against one of the corners of the large, four-poster bed. “What are you using?” He crossed his arms over his chest.

  “Lipstick,” Elliot answered as he drew on.

  Darien let out a deep breath. “Couldn’t you find the grease in my desk?”

  Elliot moved his free hand down and tapped a jar on the dresser. “I found it.” He continued to use the lipstick on the mirror.

  “Then why aren’t you using it?” Darien asked and raised his hand up to rub his face.

  “Because this is easier.” Elliot stepped back from the finished circle. “It has the same stuff in it as your grease does, plus it’s nice and easy to draw with. He put the cap back on and tossed the lipstick over to Darien.

  He caught it before it hit him.

  “Of course, you’ll need to get Vicky some more.”

  Darien pulled the top off and looked at the mess Elliot had made of the stick. “This is her favorite color, too.” Darien sighed and recapped
the tube. He put the ruined lipstick into his pocket and left his hand there, fingering the container. “Whatever possessed you to use Victoria’s lipstick?”

  Elliot leaned back against the dresser. “One of my kiss members used to use her lipstick to leave messages on the mirror so I knew where she went when I woke up. It’s neater than trying to use this stuff.” He flicked the jar next to him lightly. “Don’t worry. It works just the same.”

  Darien let out a little laugh. “All right,” he said as Elliot pushed off the dresser so they could call Dakine. “Hey, Elliot,” Darien stopped him before he started to cast the spell, “I really need to thank you again for tonight. I don’t know what I would do if I lost her.”

  “You wouldn’t have had to worry about it for long,” Elliot chuckled, trying to make light of the situation. “Zak is almost as attached to her as you are.”

  “More so.” Darien sighed. “He marked her after the accident the other day.”

  Elliot’s eyes widened at this development. “No wonder you were so keen on marking her yourself.”

  “I can’t believe how stupid I was,” Darien growled, exasperated with himself. “If you hadn’t been there…”

  “Hey,” Elliot interrupted Darien’s self-hating. “Don’t worry about it. It’s my duty to make sure you don’t do stupid shit that will get you killed. You’re practically my sire.”

  “I had nothing to do with bringing you over,” Darien scoffed jokingly at his friend.

  “Maybe not,” Elliot smiled back. “But you did save me, and you stuck around until I could survive on my own.”

  “Well, I did kill the woman that turned you.” Darien shrugged. “It was only right; although, you nearly got me staked a time or two. Remember France?” He smiled.

  Elliot laughed at his old folly. “How was I to know she had a twin?”

  Darien laughed. “You could have tried talking to her before you started sucking on her neck.” The two men chuckled as they thought about their past escapades.

  “Darien.” Elliot sighed as his mirth ended. “I would do anything to make sure that nothing happened to Vicky.”

  Darien chuckled lightly at him. “I see she has made an impression on you, too.” He stood up from the post he was leaning on.

  “Don’t get me wrong,” Elliot said, “I like the girl, but I’m not doing this for her.”

  Darien cocked his head at his friend in confusion.

  Elliot went on to explain. “I’ve been worried about you, Darien. You changed after Teagen died.”

  Darien stiffened at the name of his old love. No one had spoken that name around him for a very long time.

  Elliot looked at Darien with concerned eyes. “We didn’t know what to do when you withdrew from the world.”

  Darien crossed his arms back over his chest defiantly. “I did not withdraw from the world.”

  “Yes, you did,” Elliot scoffed at him. “You turned your menagerie out and practically stopped talking to everyone. You buried yourself in that business so you wouldn’t have time to do anything else,” he said, exasperated. “Clara was sure you were just going to walk out into the day and let yourself burn. It got better after a while, but you were never yourself again.”

  Darien dropped his arms as he listened to the concern in his friend’s voice.

  “When that plane crashed and you didn’t immediately come back, we thought that you have finally given up. It wasn’t until you showed up at Clara’s with Vicky that she stopped worrying about you. That woman brings out who you used to be.”

  Darien blinked at him, shocked. He hadn’t known he had caused his friends so much grief as he dealt with the loss of his loved one. “I didn’t realize.” He gawked at his friend.

  “What were we supposed to say?” Elliot snarked at him, “‘Sorry you had to kill your girlfriend. Let’s go pick up some hookers to take your mind off it’?”

  Darien glared at the sarcasm.

  Elliot grew more serious. “Look, I know how much Teagen meant to you. I was there, remember? It doesn’t take a genius to see how much Vicky means to you now.” Closing his eyes, he rubbed the bridge of his nose for a moment, collecting his thoughts.

  Darien just stared at him, letting this information sink in.

  Elliot drew in a calming breath and looked at his friend before continuing. “We would do just about anything to make sure she is safe, Darien, simply because she makes sure you are okay. We want to see you happy.”

  “I… I… I don’t know what to say,” Darien stuttered, at a loss for words.

  “You don’t have to say anything.” Elliot stepped over to his friend and patted him on the upper arm. “Just don’t screw it up.” He turned back to the dresser. “Come on, let’s see if we can get a hold of Dakine. He may have some answers for us.”

  Darien nodded and came over to the mirror to help activate the spell.

  “Oh, by the way, when did you start using the Irish accent again?” Elliot looked over a Darien.

  Darien’s brow wrinkled in confusion. “What?”

  “Yeah, you’ve had that stupid brogue since you woke up,” Elliot informed him.

  Darien’s mouth dropped open in shock; he hadn’t noticed the change in his speech. “I think we need to call Dakine.” He turned his attention back to the mirror.

  The soft vibrations along her stomach woke Vicky from her sleep. Lifting the blanket up, she found Zak snoring happily against her. Stretching, she looked around for the presence that wasn’t there. She almost always woke up to Darien pressed into her. It didn’t take long for her eyes to find the man stretched out on the couch across the room. Rubbing the sleeping fay softly, Vicky slipped out of the bed to go and check on Darien. Her memories of last night were fuzzy, but she clearly remembered how drunk he had been when they left the party. She paused as a strange memory surfaced. Reaching up, she rubbed the side of her neck. Vaguely, she recalled Elliot biting her, but there were no marks on her skin that she could feel. In fact, the bite that Darien had left on her before the party was gone, too. Vicky shrugged and let it go; Darien had probably healed them while she was asleep. It wouldn’t have been the first time.

  Walking over to him, she looked down at the man she loved, stretched out on the couch. Vicky noted that he was more still than usual as he rested. Concern filled her, and she reached out and touched his arm to make sure he was all right. His skin was colder than he had been recently. Worry filled Vicky until Darien drew in a deep breath and opened his eyes. She let out the breath she had been holding as relief filled her.

  “Victoria,” Darien said as his senses came back to him. “How are you?” He shifted so he could sit up more.

  “I was going to ask you the same thing,” Vicky answered. “What are you doing on the couch?” She stood up straighter so Darien could sit properly.

  “I was resting,” Darien told her. “But, that doesn’t matter right now. How are you?” He took one of Vicky’s hands.

  She raised an eyebrow at the concern in Darien’s voice. Pausing, she thought about how she felt. “Okay,” Vicky said. “A little weird,” she added. Something felt slightly off, but she thought it might just be the after effects of the alcohol in her system.

  “God, Vicky, I’m so sorry.” Darien drew her down and folded her into his lap. He wrapped his arms around her and held on for dear life.

  Vicky cuddled with him, confused by his actions. “What’s wrong, Darien?” she asked, leaning back so she could look into his face. Guilt was written all over him.

  Darien sighed and leaned his head forwards to rest on her shoulder. “I should never have pushed you to let me mark you.”

  “It’s okay.” Vicky wrapped her arms around him. “I told you I would give you anything you wanted.”

  He shook his head where it laid against her shoulder. “No,” Darien tried to explain, “I screwed up.” Pressing his face harder into Vicky’s shoulder, he tightened his grip on her. “I didn’t pull the power out after I marked you, an
d it nearly killed you.”

  Her hands stilled as she took in this information. She remembered the hot ball that had curled in her chest.

  “Elliot got here in time and pulled it out, but… Victoria, I’m so sorry.”

  Her attention was drawn by a soft gurgle, and she turned to look at Zak, sitting next to them on the floor.

  The fay reached up and touched her softly on the leg.

  Vicky pushed Darien away from her so she could see his face. “Darien, what happened?” she asked, frightened by his reaction.

  Drawing his fingers down her arm, he took hold of her hand. Taking a deep breath, he looked at his thumb rubbing across her knuckles. “The power burnt away part of what holds your life force to you—for lack of a better word, your soul,” Darien explained. He looked up into Vicky’s shocked face as he went on. “Elliot tore it more, pulling the power out. I’ve fixed it the best I could, but I’ve never done anything like that before.”

  Vicky sat quietly for a moment, taking in what he had just said. “Am I going to die from this?” Her voice came out as barely a whisper.

  “If the hole was left, your soul would have unraveled, and your life force would have been lost,” Darien explained. “I patched it, and it seems to be holding, but this is beyond my knowledge. Elliot and I called Dakine this morning, and he is on his way over to check us both out.”

  Vicky nodded her head, turning over his words. She took a deep, cleansing breath and let it out slowly. “Next time I tell you you’re too drunk to do something, you will listen to me, yes?” Vicky gave Darien a stern look.

  Darien sighed deeply and nodded his agreement. “Yes.”

  “All right then.” Vicky squeezed Darien’s hand and leaned over to place a kiss on his temple. “If we are having company, I should probably get cleaned up.” She stood up from his lap.

  Darien looked up at her, shocked. “You’re not mad?” he asked, surprised at her reaction.

  “I should be furious with you.” Vicky smiled at him and squeezed his hand again. “But, let’s wait until Lord Dakine gets here and tells me how mad I should be.” Her smiled widened. “Anyway, how can I be mad at someone with such a sweet singing voice?” Releasing Darien’s hand, Vicky turned out of the room humming one of the Gaelic songs Darien had sung in the car last night.