Somebody was following her.
Felicia was sure she was not alone on her walk from the city center to the outskirts of Selfoss where they lived. What had started as a prickling feeling at the back of her neck, like the itch after a mosquito bite, had turned into the strange, piercing knowledge that someone was following her. She had turned several times to look over her shoulder, had stood in front of a shop window and searched the reflection, but to no avail. There were a few locals out, mostly mothers with their children in tow, but everyone seemed to mind their own business.
A shiver of fear slithered across her spine like a cold, scaly-skinned snake.
Was it the being Joshua had sensed on his radar? Had it come for her? And more importantly, was it hostile?
Although she felt slightly threatened by the certainty that she was being followed, she couldn’t bring herself to be fully alarmed. Somehow, there was nothing malicious associated with the presence she could feel hovering nearby. And on top of that, her dragon looked more alert and excited than scared.
Felicia straightened her shoulders and back, deliberately inserting some confidence into her posture and gait. She let her heels click loudly on the pavement. She lifted her chin a little, tossing her braided red hair over her shoulder to hang down her back and thump against the dark grey blazer of her uniform.
Let it be known to whoever was watching and waiting that she wasn’t afraid.
She had half a mind to allow a little of her fire magic to shine through so as to make the stalking worth it, but she tsked at her daredevil thoughts and decided against it. Not on a semi-crowded evening street filled with calm, smiling, self-contained people who were intrinsically hospitable and harmless.
Felicia rounded two corners and crossed the ring-road of the city’s heart to turn onto a lane and leave the bustle behind. All around her, lights winked on in the neat, if a little bland, houses closed off against the cold. She liked walking home at this time of the day, when dusk turned into night and she had the street mostly to herself.
Soon enough, she was the only one walking—or so she thought until the hovering presence turned into an actual sign of someone following her. A second set of footsteps thudded through the almost-silence with its reassuringly normal backdrop of far-off car engines.
The steps sounded as surely and boldly as hers, as if her stalker had given up all pretense now, thrown caution to the wind because he wanted her to know he was near.
When had the "it", the nameless, faceless being, become a "he"? But she was sure as could be that it had to be a man. Curiosity became too much after some more minutes of being followed without the footsteps coming closer. She stopped and squatted down, pretending to retie her shoe laces. Cursing softly that she wore her hair in a braid and couldn’t use it as a veil to hide behind, she bent her head and scanned the street behind her from the corner of her eye.
About 100 feet back, someone had stopped, a still figure dressed in a knee-length black coat and faded blue jeans. A man indeed, with shortish brown hair, his face too far away and too dimly lit to be recognizable.
A surge of excitement grabbed a hold of her, and she felt the blood pump through her veins. The dragon inside her rose and stretched, flapping its wings as if preparing to be let out and challenge—or welcome?—the stranger. Still, there was no fear. For a brief instant, she remembered Joshua’s plea to be careful, three days ago on their midnight walk through the wilderness. She had given her promise not to take any risks.
Well, this isn’t really a risk, she reasoned silently. She could certainly defend herself with her fire magic. A single man, gifted or not, shouldn’t be a threat to someone who had escaped a high-security area swarming with armed policemen.
She was tired of waiting. And she wouldn’t put up with any more following and being toyed with. If this was a game, she’d make the first move. She had spent more than 20 years of her life idling and fearing, and look what it had brought her, only misery.
Felicia straightened up, folding her arms across her chest. Holding her head high, she turned and walked toward the immobile figure instead of continuing on her way home.
The man didn’t budge from his place. He lifted his arms and folded them across his broad chest to mirror her gesture, and something about the way he did it struck a familiar chord inside her.
When she took several more steps closer, vibrating with tension and thrill, she knew why it had looked familiar.
Raising her eyebrows, she walked even closer and asked, “You?”
Here she had been expecting someone with preternatural abilities, someone menacing or at least impressive—and all she got was the cocky tourist who had come to the hotel looking for a job. She could taste disappointment on her tongue, but she swallowed it back and scowled at the man. He grinned at her, slowly and oddly intimately.
“Yes, me.”
Her scowl intensified.
“What do you want? I thought the HR manager called you to let you know he doesn’t have a job for you?”
Instead of reacting to her question, the man—what was his name, Kyle?—gave her a none too discrete once-over before saying, “You’re a courageous woman.”
She snorted dismissively.
“There’s no use buttering up to me, I can’t provide you with a job.”
He tutted and waved her words aside, and she realized how big his hands were. It made her remember his firm, almost too firm grip, and the heat he had radiated. Inside her, the dragon was still as excited and attentive as before, even though she had lost interest and was on the verge of being annoyed.
“I found a job, but thanks for caring.” Before she could protest that she didn’t care at all, he went on, “I didn’t want to meet you because of that.”
She squared her jaw. “Then why are you stalking me? It doesn’t exactly make you look normal, you know.”
He chuckled and said in that rough-soft steel-velvet voice of his. “That’s good, because I’m certainly not normal.”
Felicia raised her eyebrows skeptically, although he had caught her attention somewhere deep down. He was so freaking full of himself, he set her on edge, but on a different level she enjoyed the verbal banter.
“Fascinating. Is that your pick-up line?” She feigned a bored yawn. “So what next? Will you tell me you’re hiding a second head under that coat?” She let sarcasm drip from her tone.
He guffawed, and in that instant he looked so young he could have been mistaken for a teenager. It was an uncanny contrast to his stature, which was clearly that of a well-muscled, powerful man with an animalistic appeal.
Her mouth curled in a responding grin, but she didn’t have much patience left. Before he could get a word in, she said seriously, “Look, I have no idea why you’re running after me, but let me tell you it’s useless. I’m not interested, normal or not.”
The man grew serious again too. Peering into her eyes, he said, “I bet you will be if you give me a second and hear me out.”
She sighed. “Sorry, I’m not into betting.” With that, she turned and made to go, angry at herself for having expected so much and mistaken him for the ominous being with supernatural powers.
He shot out a hand to stop her, and heat exploded in her, making her jerk away and stare at him. How could he be hotter than her? He used her moment of surprise to finally get his point across.
“I know who you are,” he said, and the soft words rang loudly in her ears.
For a second her breath hitched, but she shrugged the feeling of worry off. He couldn’t mean what she had thought he meant.
“So what?” she said as nonchalantly as possible, “Even if you have wheedled out information from Ada or someone else in the hotel, it won’t make me more interested in you. It just proves that you are interested in me.”
His gaze penetrated and traveled right through her the way only Joshua’s icy glare usually did.
“I don’t need to speak to any hotel staff to find out more about you. I know.”
; The worry was back, gnawing away at her mind while the heat inside her stepped up a notch to match the high temperature he was giving off in palpable waves.
“What do you know?” she asked, sounding not half as uninterested as she wanted to sound.
What he said next completely caught her by surprise and made her gasp.
“The fire in me recognizes the fire in you.”
Did he…did he really know? Something in his eyes, so much like a golden fire, gave her the answer. Without leaving her more time to react, he took one step closer. Lifting his arm, he presented his outstretched palm. She watched in fascination as a small ball of fire formed on it, tiny flames curling in on themselves and shining extra bright in the dark of the deserted side street.
Her eyes widened, taking in the little fire ball that grew with every breath he took until it was as big as a tennis ball and produced heat as much as light. Her dragon chose the very moment to burst out of her, vibrating with excitement.
It was his turn to gasp when the fiery dragon shape hovered close to his hand, mesmerized by the pulsating fire ball shimmering in the air over his palm.
“That’s a beauty,” he breathed, genuine admiration for once making him sound less cocky.
Hearing his voice broke the magic. Felicia looked from the ball of fire to his face and back, her dragon flapping its wings quickly like a glowing hummingbird and wondering whether to zoom closer. After what felt like endlessly stretching moments of silence, she found her tongue.
“You…you’re a fire wizard!”
So he was the supernatural being after all! Joshua had been right all along, he had been near her—or rather—with her that day too. Thinking of Joshua helped clear her mind, although her thoughts were still running helter-skelter inside her head.
“I sure am,” came the confident answer.
He grinned at her and breathed on his fire ball. It erupted in a miniature explosion, shooting the tiniest flames everywhere and making her fire dragon spit a flame of its own in the direction of his hand.
This was…plain surreal. Of all the powers he could have had, of all the beings she had secretly hoped for, it had to be someone who shared her gift. For a moment, she didn’t know whether to be happy that she had someone who’d understand her perfectly or whether to be disappointed that she wasn’t the only one who could control fire.
His voice intruded on her introspection. “So now that we’ve introduced each other properly, will you tell me your name?”
She blinked at him. He sure had a strange way of revealing himself…strange, but admittedly also efficient. “Felicia,” she replied automatically.
He executed a mock salute and stood at attention. “Pleased to meet you, Felicia the Fire Witch.”
She snorted again. “You’re Kyle, right?”
Nodding, he bestowed her with another of his grins. It was actually quite adorable, boyish and such an interesting contrast to his hard, broad, strong features and body. And it always highlighted the glow of his unsettlingly light eye color.
This meeting was downright awkward. How high were the chances that two specially gifted people with the element fire—who were from neighboring countries miles and miles across the globe—stumbled upon each other in this godforsaken country? It boggled her mind, made her thoughts fuzzy and her reactions unpredictable.
Felicia had a million questions inside her, and she was all too ready to forgive him the stalking act. After all, he couldn’t very well have stepped up to her at the reception desk and said, “Hey, how d’ya do, I’m a fire wizard and I know you can do fire magic too. Let’s hook up some time, eh?”
She almost giggled at her thoughts, but something registered with her and she let one pressing question slip out. “How did you know?”
Yes, how come he had been sure when she hadn’t had a clue? How come everyone—well, Joshua and Kyle—knew and she was the only dumb one?
He shrugged his impossibly broad shoulders, and despite the coat she could see the muscles in his torso ripple when he ran his now empty hand back through his shoulder-length hair.
“I didn’t. Well, okay, I sort of did… I had this freaky dream that I’d find someone like me in Iceland, quite some time ago actually. And once I came to the country, I felt this inexplicable pull that brought me to Selfoss. And voila, I just had to follow the heat that seemed to radiate from somewhere or someone, an irresistible invitation. And here I am.”
Although his tone was casual and half humorous, he wasn’t grinning. In fact, she could sense it was his way of dealing with some insecurity, and that he wasn’t entirely comfortable with how it had happened.
She frowned. “Freaky indeed,” she muttered half to herself. It dawned on her that her dragon had probably known long before her. It would explain why it had been so excited that day, and why she had never felt any fear but a sense of longing.
“Were you really looking for a job or was that your way of checking me out?”
“Both.” The grin was back, reminding her oddly of the proverbial Cheshire cat.
She could see his gaze dart from her face to her dragon, hovering on the sidelines and clearly more fascinated with him than Felicia was. He followed her gaze.
“I wish I had a dragon too. It’s so cool.”
Her dragon preened itself, drawing itself to its full—currently diminutive—height.
“It’s a she,” she corrected automatically, and Kyle’s eyebrows rose so high they vanished beneath the hair falling into his forehead.
“Are you now?” he asked softly, in a seductive, purring tone, addressing the fire dragon instead of her. Her dragon glowed brighter and brighter, lapping up the attention that it never got from anyone, least of all from Joshua.
Joshua!
He’d know about this meeting, wouldn’t he? He’d sense that the being—how ridiculous that term seemed now in the face of this young man who was outwardly so normal—was near or with her again. And he’d worry his head off, of course.
Felicia snapped back to reality.
“What now?” she asked, of herself as much as of him.
He peered at her, one brow raised.
“Why, now we catch up on the fascinating stories of our lives, and then we unite to rock and rule the world, of course.”
When he saw the look on her face, he laughed again, throwing his head back, and she wondered whether to him everything was a joke. She didn’t laugh with him, so he sobered up quickly.
“No, seriously,” she insisted, and he nodded.
“Yes, seriously. I mean it. C’mon, let’s go somewhere and chat.”
He didn’t mention the ‘rule the world’ part again, but she couldn’t help wondering whether he had been—at least partly—serious about that too. And about the uniting part… She needed to get something off her chest first, although talking with him seemed a great idea indeed.
“Erm…don’t get me wrong, Kyle… It’s complicated… I’m not in this alone.”
Narrowing his eyes at her, he grew more serious than she had ever seen him before.
“Which means what exactly?”
“I’m not the only…gifted one.”
His eyes were as big as saucers now.
“You’ve gotta be kidding me! Don’t tell me there’s another one of us hidden away here somewhere!”
Did he sound eager or alarmed? Impossible to say because he reacted so strongly and openly to everything.
“Not the way you probably think. But yes, there are three of us in this city. You, me, and my boyfriend Joshua. He’s an ice wizard.”
Silence. For a moment, Kyle looked completely dumbfounded.
“Fire and ice? Together?”
He collected himself before she could say something else, although she didn’t miss the dark look that had crossed his perpetually cheerful face.
“Sounds intriguing. Another reason why we have to talk. Ice boyfriend or not, I’ve been waiting all my life to find someone like me, I’m not going to back do
wn now.”
He had been waiting all his life? Did that mean he’d known forever how special he was? Bitterness rose inside Felicia, as it had so often in the past. Looked like she was doomed to be the blundering fool. All the more reason to take things into her own hands now.
“Let’s go and celebrate that fire and fire have found each other!” she blurted out. A moment later she wanted to bite her tongue because it sounded more significant than she had intended it.
Beaming, Kyle looped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her to the left. Felicia ducked out from under his touch, disconcerted by how amazing heat against heat felt, and by how much her dragon—once more inside her—enjoyed it.
They walked in silence, and her jumbled thoughts were so loud inside her head that she wondered whether he could hear them too.
Chapter 5
Playing with Fire (Book 1 of the FIRE Trilogy) Page 45