Born Into Fire

by Waters, KyAnn

  “Calm down,” he said. “This is an investigation into the occurrences here today.”

  “Investigation?” Occurrences? Had they watched her and Erion fuck? She narrowed her eyes. “Who—” She cast a glance at the Drakaura. Despite the anger, she couldn’t keep emotion from choking her words. “How are you real?”

  “We need to know what happened here,” he said.

  She gave a harsh laugh. “I was here, and I don’t know what happened.”

  “There are greater forces than us at work here,” the dragon man said.

  She snapped her gaze to him. “How do I know of you? You’re a dream. I dreamed of you as a child.”

  His expression remained impassive. “I am one of many.”

  “The Fire Element could return any minute,” the man interjected. “You must tell us everything.”

  Kenna frowned. “Fire Element—you mean Aiden. He’s—” She halted, her insides twisting. Was her part in the murder of another human being something she wanted to admit to complete strangers—to dragons? “What are you doing in my home?” she demanded.

  “Hunting the Fire Element.”

  “Hunting?”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, you’re too late. He’s gone.” She glanced at the dragon man, then looked back at the man and pinned him with a hard stare. “And what gives you the right to hunt people?”

  “We are sentinels. Our purpose is to deal with criminals.”

  “Like some sort of supernatural police?”

  “We are descendants of the Watchtower Lords, the great watchers. Today, we are simple sentinels.”

  “Sentinels? Shouldn’t you be here to protect me then?” She studied him. “Look around. I don’t know anything about this, and I’m tired of guessing. You must know a lot more than I do.” She raised her hand to indicate the shambles of her garage. “You tell me what’s happening.”

  His gaze sharpened. “We know you merged with the Air Element.”

  Kenna flushed. They had been watching. A flush of scorching heat surged through her. “How dare you invade my privacy? Get out!”

  “Enough,” the dragon man roared, and Kenna took a startled step backward. “The battle you fought with Aiden is just the beginning,” he said. “Now that your element has emerged, the Fire Element will become desperate. When he returns, he will claim you.”

  “Claim me? No one claims me.” The unexpected realization that Erion could claim her and she wouldn’t fight him took her breath.

  Ormond gave a condescending laugh. “She is completely ignorant, Wyvern. The Fire Element will claim her. We cannot wait.”

  “Can’t wait for what?” Kenna blurted. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “When in element form, you are energy,” Wyvern said. “Until you learn how to control that energy, you are vulnerable, and that energy—your power—can be enslaved.”

  “Why didn’t you intervene? He was here for the taking.”

  Wyvern shrugged. “We hoped you would kill Aiden.”

  She opened her mouth to deny being a killer, but guilt stabbed soul-deep. “You son of a bitch. What the hell is wrong with you?” What kind of lunatics inhabited this world she’d been thrown into? “What police force hopes innocent bystanders will kill their criminals for them?”

  “He will kill you.”

  “Then protect me,” she snapped.

  Wyvern shook his head impatiently. “We aren’t here to guard you. We protect the world from your kind.”

  “My kind? No one has to be protected from me.”

  “No?”

  She ignored the heat that pulsed in her. “No.”

  “Only moments ago you were ready to kill me and Ormond.”

  “You broke into my home, and he”—Kenna jabbed a finger in the dragon man’s direction—”scared the shit out of me! He’s Drakaura. I’ve carried his image in my mind for as long as I can remember. How would you feel if Santa Claus actually came down your chimney?”

  Wyvern gave a slow, implacable shake of his head that made her want to singe his eyebrows. “Ormond was only trying to escape. If you had hit him with your fire, you would have killed him.”

  “I could have killed you both,” she retorted with false bravado, “but I threw the fire on the floor instead.” Not that she’d aimed her attack. The fireball could have landed anywhere as she tried to fling it from her hand. “As for Aiden, you’ll have to figure out for yourself what happened. I won’t help you.”

  “He will claim you…or kill you,” Wyvern said.

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “The Fire Element will destroy anything or anyone to attain that which he desires,” Ormond said. “What of your art and your bond with the Air Element?”

  “You know nothing of our bond,” she snarled. “You’re wasting your time. What kind of police—” Kenna halted. “What the hell are you?”

  “We are Drakaura,” Wyvern said.

  She narrowed her eyes. “That’s a name. What are you?”

  A corner of his mouth lifted, and Kenna wasn’t sure if it was pity or condescension. She didn’t like these Drakaura.

  “How would you explain to a planet of cats what humans are?” he asked. Before she could reply that she didn’t give a damn, he went on. “Like you, we live as humans. But, instead of having the ability to shift into element form as you do, we become dragons. In dragon form we exert power over Elements.”

  Dread began to seep through her. “What sort of power?”

  “We have the ability to counter your element. You saw how Ormond extinguished your fire. It is our destiny to defeat Elements.”

  “Defeat Elements?”

  Wyvern frowned. “Are you all right?”

  “Not if you plan on killing me.”

  He looked stunned. “We have no authority to kill you. You have not transgressed. Aiden is the transgressor. He must be destroyed.”

  “What has he done?”

  “He decimated a village in Scotland.”

  “A whole village?” She looked from Wyvern to Ormond. “Impossible. A murder spree that large would be international news.”

  “Today, yes. But this village was destroyed one hundred and ninety years ago.”

  “Almost two hundred years? How old is he?” Her mind spun. How old was Erion?

  “Our earliest report on Aiden was two hundred and fifty years ago.”

  “Kenna?”

  She whirled at the sound of Mrs. Patrick’s voice.

  The old woman stood in the doorway, staring. “What happened?” She stepped into the garage. “I knew it. I’ve always said those beasts were a hazard.”

  Kenna startled, then realized Mrs. Patrick referred to the furnaces.

  “You could’ve burned down the neighborhood.” The old busybody pinned Wyvern with a glare. Kenna tensed when she shifted her focus to Ormond. “Tsk. Tsk,” she clucked. “A different man every hour.”

  “We’d better get going, Kenna,” Wyvern said. “Be sure to call that professional locksmith as we suggested.”

  She didn’t need a locksmith to keep anyone out. She’d needed Erion to stay, “I’ll do that.”

  “We’ll file a report and see if we can track down the people who did this.”

  “Vandals?” Mrs. Patrick repeated.

  Wyvern strode to her side. “That’s right. Someone took a blowtorch to Kenna’s glass.”

  Mrs. Patrick looked around the workshop as if seeing it with new eyes. “Oh, yes. How terrible.” Her gaze stopped on Kenna, brow furrowed in distaste. “It looks as if they took a blowtorch to your hair as well.”

  “Oh, this.” Dammit. She’d forgotten about her hair. Kenna lifted a lock. “I’m just experimenting with color.”

  “Can we escort you home?” Wyvern asked Mrs. Patrick. “With the perpetrator on the loose, we can’t be too careful.”

  “Oh, yes,” she said with a nervous shake of her head. “Kenna, you do as these detectives say and get a proper lock on this d
oor.” Mrs. Patrick looked up at Wyvern. “I worry about her, a young woman alone in that big house.”

  Ormond flanked Mrs. Patrick’s right. He cast Kenna a glance. “We worry about her, too.”

  Kenna started forward, then stopped. She wanted them to leave, yet the idea of being alone frightened her. “I—”

  “Yes, Kenna,” Wyvern said, “we’ll check on you later.”

  She gave a stiff nod. Not that she needed their protection because Aiden was dead. She didn’t need them. She didn’t need anyone. Pain knifed through her heart. Most of all, she didn’t want to need Erion. She’d keep telling herself that until she believed it.

  Chapter Ten

  The soft chime of the doorbell jarred Kenna from the turkey sandwich she’d been staring at for the last half hour. She jerked her gaze to the Copper Harbor wall clock hanging over the kitchen bay window: five-thirty. She wasn’t expecting anyone. Her stomach twisted. She hadn’t been expecting anyone when Erion blew into her room—her bed—in the early hours of the morning either. Or Aiden with his demented machinations. Erion left her, and Aiden was dead. Neither would be standing outside her front door, and—Kenna swallowed against a dry throat—Erion had proven he wouldn’t bother knocking.

  This newest surprise visitor was probably Mrs. Patrick come to check on her after the break-in. A quiver radiated through Kenna. She couldn’t chance seeing anyone. Mrs. Patrick had commented on the copper streaks that stood out against Kenna’s natural auburn color. Someone else, someone more intuitive, more observant, someone who knew her, would know the difference went beyond the new hair color. The doorbell rang again.

  Kenna jumped. She shoved the chair back, rose, and took three steps to the window. She inched open the curtain and scanned the driveway and curb in front. Only her gray sedan sat in the driveway. Dammit, anyone standing at the front door wasn’t visible from the window. Had to be Mrs. Patrick. She would go away.

  Kenna returned to the table and eased into the seat. She had to cancel the show at Michael Laird’s gallery. Her chest tightened. Once word spread of the cancellation, no other gallery would take a chance on a diva who had bowed out of her first show. Her career was over.

  But Erion had a career. Surely she could live a normal life like he did? Damn him. For all she knew, he’d spent the last thousand years learning how to be normal. Still, was it possible she could live as she had before? She imagined Michael’s gallery in flames, dozens of people trapped inside while she consumed the building and them with her flames.

  A sob broke through the morbid vision, and she dropped her head onto her folded forearms and gave in to tears. A tap on the window snapped her head up. Kenna gasped. Marshall stared at her through the paned glass of the back door’s upper half. What the—what was he doing here?

  “Kenna?” His deep voice penetrated the glass.

  She stared, unable to move. She couldn’t open the door, couldn’t talk to this man who knew her better than anyone—except Jared. Her heart beat faster. She hadn’t considered how many people her situation was going to affect. How would she hide from her brother what had happened?

  “Kenna, what’s wrong?” Marshall demanded.

  The knob turned. She leaped to her feet, then froze when the door opened and he filled the doorway, tall, dark, and ruggedly handsome. Just as she remembered. At forty-five years old, he was as fit as most men her age, his broad shoulders and angled features mature, dark eyes penetrating…knowing. He’d been the father she lost at fourteen, taking on the surrogate role, but she wasn’t naive enough not to understand why women chased him halfway around the world.

  “What’s wrong?” he demanded again.

  “What are you doing here? The show isn’t for a few weeks.” She extended a hand as if to touch him, recalled the play of color beneath her skin, then yanked it back before the fire phenomena could reemerge.

  “I decided to surprise you by coming early,” Marshall said. “I want to bask in the excitement with you.”

  “More like stress.”

  He took a step toward her. “This is your moment, but sweetheart, you look like hell. What’s happened? Jared?”

  Her heart wrenched at the concern in his voice. She shook her head. “No, no, Jared’s fine. I—” Her mind worked double time for an answer. “I had a break-in, lost everything.”

  Marshall dropped the leather duffel she hadn’t noticed him carrying and stepped up to her. He enfolded her in his arms. She stiffened, recollection of bursting into flames while in Erion’s embrace still too real to call mere memory.

  Marshall leaned back and looked into her face. “I know I pissed you off, but are you going to hold a grudge for two years?” He lifted a corner of his mouth just as she’d seen him do a million times before, and the dam burst. Tears rolled down her cheeks. He pulled her close, and she buried her face in his chest. He stroked her hair. “It’ll be all right.”

  She wanted to shout that it wouldn’t be all right, could never again be all right, that he should run as far and as fast as he could, but she cried until the tears ran dry, then allowed him to gently push her back into the chair. He lowered himself onto the seat to her left.

  “What happened?”

  “Someone torched my garage. The glass is destroyed. Everything I still had here is gone.”

  Surprise flickered in his eyes, but he said in a level voice, “What did the police say?”

  “They aren’t hopeful. They’ll do what they can and follow up with any leads.” Kenna held her breath, praying he wouldn’t demand to see a report or an officer who had taken the imaginary report.

  “Any idea who would do something like this?”

  She shook her head.

  “A competitor maybe?”

  Kenna stared. “I…I can’t believe such a thing. I’ve never heard of anything like that.”

  He shrugged. “You know how competitive the art world is. You’re up and coming. Stranger things have happened.”

  He didn’t know the half of it. “They hinted it was probably just some kids. Vandalism, at its best.”

  Marshall rose. “Let’s take a look.”

  Kenna shot to her feet. “No—I mean, I don’t want to deal with this right now. You just arrived, and—”

  “The show is in two weeks. You have to replace the lost pieces. There’s no time to fool around.” He started for the door.

  Kenna shoved past him and whirled. “Not now, Marshall.”

  “It can’t be that bad. Let me take a look at what we’re up against.” He grasped her shoulders and gently moved her aside.

  Her heart pounded as if running a race against greyhounds, yet she remained frozen as he opened the door. How would she explain the melted glass to a man who had glass instead of blood flowing through his veins? He wouldn’t be fooled by the someone took a torch to the glass line as Mrs. Patrick had been. Kenna broke from the trance and lunged after him. He reached the garage door a second before her and stepped inside.

  “Christ.”

  She halted at his side, her gaze transfixed on the glass pieces that rippled around the room from shelves nearest the marver to the outer corners of the garage in a wave that transitioned melted globs to barely marred edges. Aiden’s fire and her fire had destroyed her art, had created this mess. She startled at the realization that neither the shelves nor the walls were burned.

  Kenna jerked her eyes to the ovens. Not a hint of damage. She swung her gaze to the curtains, and tears sprang to the surface. The short, sheer apple print looked as new as the day she’d put it up. Erion. Heat had melted the glass, but he had contained the flames, saved the ovens and the building…her life.

  “What the hell happened?” Marshall’s hard voice yanked her back to him.

  She met his gaze. “I told you, vandals.”

  As expected, he stared, the gears in his head clearly churning, looking for some reasonable explanation for the strange apparition that surrounded them. She kept her eyes locked with his. No matter how much he
might wonder, he couldn’t know. After returning to human form, she’d seen the garage as being in shambles. Shock of morphing into flames had skewed her perception. The damage was bad—she’d lost at least a year’s work—but the fact the fire hadn’t touched anything but the glass made it more unexplainable.

  “No one could possibly cause this much damage without the fire being visible from outside,” he said. “Someone had to see something.” His tone said he wasn’t ignoring the oddity, but simply hadn’t put his finger on it—yet. She would make sure he was gone before he had the chance to get any closer to the truth.

  Kenna shook her head. “My neighbors know I’m a glassblower. They wouldn’t know the difference. They could easily mistake a blowtorch glow for the ovens.”

  His gaze bore into her, and the sliver of relief she’d allowed herself to feel drowned in the apprehension that burrowed into the pit of her stomach.

  “What’s going on, Kenna? Your workshop looks like an atom bomb leveled the glass, you—” He lifted a lock of her copper-streaked hair. “It’s gorgeous, but what vat did you dip your head in? And that tan. I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  She shoved his hand aside. “It’s been two years, Marshall. People change.”

  He studied her. “Change, or have been changed?”

  She stared. He knew. Impossible. The garage, her appearance, was odd, but not odd enough for him to know, really know. Fear strained her nerves. It wasn’t the strangeness of the things around her. It was her—and he knew her.

  She opened her mouth to weave another lie into her story, but Marshall halted her lie with another question. “How much did you lose?”

  ****

  Kenna sat across the kitchen table from Marshall, a list of the glass pieces she’d lost in front of him. One more hour of her life had passed, and the dream was now not the last few hours, but the twenty-seven years that had preceded them. Reality now encompassed the hours since she’d met Erion. Life changed, reality changed. Who she was, what she was, had changed beyond recognition.

  Marshall looked up from the paper. “Get a clean-up crew in here tomorrow, and you’ll be back in business day after tomorrow.”