Fire Marked

by Val St. Crowe

  “No one will even know I’m there,” I said. “We’re better as a team, and you know it.”

  He rested his forehead against mine. “We’re a hell of team,” he said, and his voice was rough.

  “So, that’s a yes?”

  “Yes,” he breathed. “You can back me up.”

  “Good,” I said, wriggling my pelvis against his.

  He groaned, burrowing his face in the crook of my neck and shoulder. “You’re fearless and beautiful and sexy as hell, you know that?”

  I sucked in breath, tracing the outlines of his muscles in his back.

  “I love you,” he whispered.

  “I love you,” I replied, my lips against his forehead.

  “You should know,” he said in a ragged voice, “we can’t do this halfway.”

  “I know,” I whispered.

  He raised his face, looked me in the eye. “If we’re going to do this, we have to do it.”

  “I’m ready,” I said.

  He kissed me.

  I pulled back, cupping his cheek with one hand. “Now take me to bed.”

  He chuckled. “Yes, ma’am.”

  * * *

  “Didn’t think we’d hear from you,” Jackal said, “on account of you being so settled and all.”

  I was crouched behind a stack of boxes in an abandoned warehouse on the outskirts of town. This was where Lachlan had set up the meeting with Jackal. He and Jackal were standing in the middle of an empty room, sunlight streaming in through mostly-broken windows. I could see them by squinting when I looked between two boxes.

  Lachlan ran a hand through his hair. “Yeah, well, I guess that’s part of why I had to reach out to you. You dangled that carrot in front of me, Olsen Hunter the mage, and my girl latched onto it. She’s pretty sick of being a dragon magnet.”

  “I can imagine,” said Jackal. “So, you want to join back up?”

  “I was thinking maybe a trade,” said Lachlan. “I am settled, as you pointed out, and I can’t be wandering all over with the Bryant clan for the rest of eternity. But if you got something you need help with, then maybe I could help with that, and—in exchange—you’ll take me to Hunter.”

  This was the plan that Lachlan had cooked up. It was the only way to limit our interaction with the clan and hopefully keep them from coming after us once this was all over with.

  Jackal rubbed his chin. “I could see that working out. I’d have to check with Ossian, but he always liked you.”

  “Always liked him too.”

  “Truth is, we got a problem with a rival gang moving in on our territory in Ganeville. They took over all our contacts, and they’re slicing and dicing themselves. Taking the bodies from our slayers and selling to our dealers. Not cool, you know?”

  “Not cool,” Lachlan agreed.

  “So, we been putting together a plan to show them who’s boss, take ‘em over, make ‘em work for us. We been gathering up a team of soldiers to do that. I remember you were a good soldier, Hawk.”

  “You want me to help you with this gang?” said Lachlan.

  “That’d be the deal,” said Jackal. “You help us with that, I’ll take you to Hunter.”

  “I’m game for that,” said Lachlan, offering Jackal his hand.

  “They’re drakes.”

  “Not a problem,” said Lachlan.

  Jackal took it. They shook.

  I guessed I was okay with this. I had tried to get Lachlan to explain to me what kind of help they might want him to give, but he’d been very vague, and I hadn’t gotten much from him. This was violent and possibly dangerous, which I didn’t much like, but I guessed that the people who were going to get hurt were basically scum anyway. This was okay.

  I wished he wasn’t going to have to do it without me, though.

  “Listen,” said Lachlan, “I gotta bring my girl along.”

  Jackal raised his eyebrows.

  “I can’t leave her alone, not when the dragons are attacking her all the time.”

  Jackal pulled on his ear.

  “Any dragons that attack the caravan will be yours, of course,” said Lachlan.

  “Well, that’s not a bad deal,” said Jackal. “All right, then. But you bring your girl, then you better believe you’re going to have trouble with Iona.”

  Iona? What? I sat forward, and I ran into the boxes.

  They shifted, and I was terrified they were going to fall.

  They settled.

  But Jackal was looking around. “What was that?”

  “I didn’t hear anything,” said Lachlan.

  Jackal turned in a circle, concern all over his face.

  “Hey,” said Lachlan. “I don’t see what issue there might be with Iona. There was nothing there, anyway.”

  “Tell that to her,” said Jackal. “I’m sure that’ll calm her right down.”

  What the hell? Lachlan hadn’t told me anything about a woman.

  CHAPTER NINE

  I was sitting in the car when Lachlan got back from finishing his talk with Jackal. I’d come here and sat down in the front seat, feeling sulky and angry with him.

  He opened the door. “There you are. I couldn’t find you in your hiding spot.”

  “Who’s Iona?” I said.

  He sighed, sliding into the car. “You can’t be like that, Penny. If you’re going to freak out about every little thing, this undercover thing isn’t going to work. You can’t be you anymore. You have to be Presley. And what’s more, you can’t do anything that might endanger the mission.”

  “We’re not undercover now,” I said. “And I’m just asking a simple question. I’m not ‘being like’ anything.”

  He put the keys in the ignition. “So, the Bryant clan is not an easy clan to get accepted into. They don’t exactly go out recruiting.” He started the car. “Back about two hundred years ago, they were a traveling family of humans, and then one of them got turned into a vampire, and they turned the whole clan. Nowadays, most often the only way that new blood comes into the family is that it’s born into it. The younger generation of women are encouraged to go out and get pregnant before they get turned into vampires. Those children are raised into the clan and turned when they come of age.”

  “This is all very interesting, Lachlan, but it’s not answering my question.”

  He backed the car up and turned it onto the road. “Well, I obviously wasn’t going to get into the clan that way, was I? There’s only one other way that they sometimes accept new members into the group. And that’s if someone finds a lover or partner that they can’t let go of. So, that was the angle I had to use. The target I picked was Iona. She was young and unstable and easy to manipulate. I got her to introduce me to the clan. Once I was sure they liked me enough to keep me on, I ended things with her. But I never had any actual feelings for her. So, you do not have to act jealous or anything like that, because—”

  “You told me that you hadn’t slept with anyone else since your marriage broke up,” I said, and I realized my voice was shrill. “I can’t believe you lied to me about that. If you’d told me the truth then, I wouldn’t have cared, but you didn’t, and that—”

  “I didn’t sleep with her!” Lachlan was offended.

  “You said lover,” I said.

  “Well, yeah, I didn’t mean that I—”

  “So, you’re telling me that you got this woman to bring you into the inner circle of her family, which you said was really difficult to break into, all without sleeping with her.”

  “Yes!” There was fury in his voice.

  “How?” I said, glaring across the car at him. “How did you do that? Just because you’re so damned handsome?”

  “Well… sort of.”

  “Oh my God, you are so arrogant. And you’re insane if you think I’m going to buy that. You’re pretty, Lachlan, but you’re not that pretty.”

  His jaw dropped. He glanced across the car at me. “Well, don’t hold back, Penny,” he muttered.

  I s
lid down into the seat, feeling a little ashamed of myself. I wished I could make myself small. So small that I didn’t exist. “Just tell me the truth.”

  “I’m not lying to you,” he said in a low, even voice. “I was willing to do a lot of things to establish and preserve my cover with the gang. Some of them horrible things. But I wasn’t going to whore myself out for it. I didn’t want to lose my soul.”

  Suddenly, I started crying. Spontaneously, tears started spilling out of my eyes. I dashed them away, angry.

  “Like I said, she was young and easy to manipulate. I made her a lot of promises, the way men do when they want things from young, pretty girls, and she bought it, and I…” He shook his head. “I don’t know if it’s much better that I didn’t sleep with her, honestly.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “You have to understand, when we get out there, we have to be different people. I will be a different person. And some of the things that I’ll have to do, I might not like. You might not like them either. But we just keep our eye on the prize. This is to get rid of the rogues. This is worth it.”

  “So,” I said, and my voice was thick with my stupid tears, which were still coming, “what did you do with her? Did you kiss her? Did you… touch her?”

  “Jesus Christ.”

  I waited.

  “You really want to know that?” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “I don’t even remember,” he said. “It was a long time ago.”

  “So, the answer is yes to both of those questions, then?”

  He sighed.

  We were quiet.

  “You don’t get to do this,” he said. “This was before I even knew you existed. If I were to do something now, which I never would, then you could be angry about it. But my past… I can’t do anything about my past.”

  “You didn’t tell me.”

  “Oh, for fuck’s sake.” He gripped the steering wheel. “I don’t torture myself by asking you to give me detailed descriptions of things you did with every man you’ve ever been involved with. I assumed you wouldn’t want me to do that to you.”

  I scrubbed at my eyes, trying to keep the tears from flowing, but they wouldn’t stop.

  His voice got lower. “I’m yours, and you know that. You and I are together. We’re bonded. We’re having a child together. There is no reason for you to feel insecure.”

  I bit down on my lip.

  “I love you, Penny.” His voice was dark and soft.

  I let out a little sob. “I love you too. I’m… I’m sorry.”

  “Are you crying?”

  “No,” I said in a tiny voice.

  He took one hand off the steering wheel, and he found me in the darkness as he drove. He rubbed my thigh. “You shouldn’t have found out like that. I should have warned you. I’m sorry too. It was thoughtless of me.”

  “No, I overreacted. It’s the damned hormones.”

  “I know that too,” he said. “I should be a little more understanding.” He squeezed my thigh. “We’re a team, Penny. Nothing gets between us.”

  I sniffed. “Nothing,” I repeated.

  * * *

  Connor was drinking coffee on the patio behind the hotel. It was late evening and the sun had just gone down, so he’d just woken up. Felicity stood behind him, and her brow seemed permanently furrowed.

  “You guys shouldn’t worry so much,” I said.

  “It’s just so quick,” said Connor. “And you’re taking my little nephew away.”

  I patted my stomach. “He’s going to be fine. I’m doing this for him. I need to stop the rogue dragons from attacking us.”

  “Just seems kind of dangerous is all,” said Connor.

  “Very dangerous,” said Felicity. “If I haven’t gone on record as saying I don’t like this, I want to do that now.”

  “You have,” I said.

  “But you didn’t listen to me,” she said, “so I feel like I should say it again.”

  “What if they figure out you’re pregnant?” said Connor. “Then they’ll know you’re not a vampire. They’ll know you’re a liar.”

  “Connor, you were the one that said that no one could tell that I was pregnant,” I said. Anxiously, I looked down at my belly, which still seemed impossibly huge to me.

  “They probably won’t.” He took a drink of his coffee. He looked unsure.

  I sighed. “Listen, guys, I need you to step up here. You need to look after the hotel while I’m gone. If there are any problems, then I know you’ll be able to handle it. That’s why I feel so confident going away for a bit. Because I know how amazing you both are.”

  “Thanks,” said Connor, but he didn’t look happy.

  “Of course I’m amazing.” Felicity glared at me. “But I still don’t understand why you’re doing this. I think it’s a terrible idea.”

  “So you keep saying,” I said.

  “And I’m going to keep saying it until you decide to change your mind and stay at home.”

  “What about the rogue dragons?” I said.

  “What about them?” said Connor. “Clarke was dealing with them just fine, I thought. You have her on speed dial, and that’ll take care of everything.”

  “That doesn’t take care of everything,” I said. “Because they’re going to keep coming unless I do something about it.”

  “Well, we’ll work on that,” said Felicity. “But you can’t trust this gang of vampires to help you out. And you can’t trust their mage either.”

  “Promise me that if you run into trouble, you’ll call us,” said Connor. “Felicity and I will come down and fight off those vampires if they turn on you.”

  “They are not going to turn on me,” I said. “It’s a simple mission. Lachlan helps them out with a rival gang, and then we get—”

  “Wait, what’s this help stuff?” said Felicity.

  “We had to make a deal,” I said. “They weren’t going to take us to this mage out of the goodness of their hearts.”

  “Oh, of course not,” said Felicity.

  I threw my hands up in the air. “Okay, okay. I get that neither of you guys like this. But I’m doing it, so you’d better get used to it.”

  Connor got up and came over to me. He hugged me. “Please be careful, Penny. Please.”

  Felicity folded her arms over her chest. “I don’t accept this. You can’t go.”

  “I’m going,” I said to her.

  Connor hugged me tighter. “Careful. Please.”

  I patted his back. “Of course I’ll be careful, Connor.”

  He sighed and released me. “I hope so. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”

  “You guys are being ridiculous,” I said. “The three of us have done more dangerous things than this before. Like when we took on those feral drakes together?”

  “We didn’t make deals with the bad guys,” said Felicity. “We stop the bad guys. We don’t do them favors and ask them for favors in return. It’s like you’ve just jumped into the deep end. It’s completely out of character for you.”

  “It is not.” I rolled my eyes. “You’re just being dramatic about this, and you’ve convinced Connor to be dramatic too.” I turned to him. “I’m going to be fine.”

  He picked up his coffee cup. “I hope so.” He set it back down. “I really hope so.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  The next day, Lachlan and I piled into our new truck and trailer and headed out to a rendezvous point that he’d agreed on with Jackal. On the drive there, we were quiet. It wasn’t because of the argument we’d had the night before.

  I had to admit that when he said that he hadn’t been with anyone since his ex-wife, some part of me had assumed that meant he’d been a monk. No dating, no kissing, nothing. But I realized now that he’d only told me that he hadn’t had sex with anyone. He hadn’t lied to me.

  And anyway, I wouldn’t have cared about Lachlan having sex with other people in the past. I knew that he hadn’t been out there sav
ing himself for me. I was glad that he hadn’t been. Lachlan wouldn’t have been the man he was if he hadn’t had all the experiences of his past. Everything he’d done made him who he was. And I loved who he was.

  So, I wasn’t thinking about that.

  Instead, I kept pondering the reactions of my two best friends to this excursion I was going on. I thought about how pissed off Felicity had been, how she kept insisting this was a bad idea. And I thought about how morose Connor had seemed. That wasn’t like Connor at all. He was typically bubbly and fun.

  This wasn’t a bad idea.

  So, it just sucked that they couldn’t see that. I wished that I had them behind me. It was hard to do something as big as this without the support of my best friends. It made it even harder to leave them behind.

  At the rendezvous point, we were met by a group of maybe fifty other RVs and cars pulling trailers. It was like joining a circus or something.

  Jackal pulled up next to us in a shiny, silver RV. He leaned out the window. “Good to see you. We’ll meet up at the Blue Hills Campground at 7:30 this evening. We’re not all leaving at the same time or even taking the same route, because we don’t want to be real obvious to local authorities, okay?”

  “Sure,” said Lachlan.

  “Good,” said Jackal. “See you, man.” He rolled up his window and waved.

  Lachlan rolled his up and waved too.

  “That it?” I said. “That was the rendezvous?”

  “Yeah, just a check-in point,” said Lachlan.

  Soon, we were back on the road. We drove in companionable silence on the interstate. I searched for radio stations to listen to as Lachlan consulted the GPS on his phone for the best route. It was fun. We’d never been on a road trip together. There was so much couple stuff that we really hadn’t done, and we were already having a baby.

  I felt a little uneasy suddenly, at that thought. Was it possible that things had gone too fast between Lachlan and me?

  It hadn’t seemed fast, not really. I felt as if we’d been through hell together already. Maybe all that hell had been quick on the heels of each other, though.

  I knew him well enough to know that this would work and that we were right for each other.

  I watched him driving, and I smiled.