Blaze: A Firefighter Romance

by Lisa Lace

  Finally, I lay still with my head on his chest. He was still deep inside me. I didn't want him to pull out. I knew then that I loved Airik. More than life, more than anything.

  "I love you," I whispered in English.

  "Lights," he murmured. Indirect lights sprang to life, making us visible to each other.

  "What are you saying, Quinn?" he said, in Standard, kissing my sweaty cheek as I lifted my head. I looked at him and smiled, unable to keep the love from my gaze.

  "Nothing important. It's a common expression from back home."

  "What was it again?"

  I hesitated for a moment. But what could it hurt to tell him? He would never know what it meant. "I love you," I said again.

  He studied me with an odd look on his face. "Just an expression?" he said.

  "Pretty much."

  He kissed me again. We lay twined up together, kissing. I didn't want the feeling of closeness to end.

  "Why did you do this, Quinn?" he whispered.

  I frowned. "I wanted to. Didn't you?"

  "Of course. But you said something different before."

  "Oh. That's right." I looked away from him and felt the distance come between us again.

  "Did something change?"

  I pulled myself away from him. The cold air hit my sweaty, naked body and chilled me.

  "I thought that since we'll be getting divorced in a couple of weeks, it didn't matter what we did or didn't do."

  His face fell, and my heart cracked. "You want to get a divorce?"

  "Don't you?" I said, my voice full of pain. "I'm nobody. You don't know which planet I'm from because you never asked. I'm bothering you, cutting my hair, and making you jealous. I'm a big pain in your ass, Airik. Don't pretend I'm not. I'm sure you are counting the days until we can get divorced."

  He looked at me, still shocked. "I hadn't considered it a possibility."

  "Because things were going so well between us? I can't do this anymore. You've kept me at arm's length since the beginning. You don't trust me. You don't want me, except for sex."

  "Quinn."

  I went on as if he hadn't spoken. "You don't love me, Airik. I thought I could live in a marriage without love, but it's harder than I imagined. I'm sorry, but I don't see what else there is for us to do."

  I started to get out of bed. He put his hand on my arm to stop me.

  "Wait, Quinn. There's something I need to tell you. It's part of the reason I push you away."

  I turned around and met his gaze, which was honest and bare. I felt like he was showing himself to me for the first time.

  "I had a vision of the woman I would fall in love with."

  "You knew who your true love was, but you still married me?"

  "I saw her death, Quinn." He swallowed hard and looked so pained it hurt my heart. "I couldn't tell the particular time, but she might be dead already."

  "She isn't me," I said. "Now your behavior makes more sense."

  "I don't know if she isn't you because I don't know who she is. I didn't see her face. My vision was interrupted. I'm fairly confident she can't be you."

  "Why not?"

  "Because the woman wasn't Koccoran. She was from…" he hesitated, not wanting to tell me. "She was from Earth. She was a human."

  He looked ashamed of the fact that his true love was supposed to be a human. I rolled my eyes. Were we insignificant to these stuck-up Koccorans?

  "She was human. Like me." I said. I got out of bed and grabbed my clothes, putting them on with jerky movements. "Didn't Kartar tell you anything about me? I guess this cements our divorce now. You couldn't possibly stay married to a human."

  I looked up from putting on my socks when I became aware of his silence. Airik stared at me.

  "You're human?"

  "Airik, the company is called TerraMates. Where do you think they get all the women? For someone who thinks he's so smart, you can be pretty dumb sometimes. Do you want a divorce right now?"

  He got up and pulled me back to the bed.

  "You're not what I expected a human to be. In fact, I thought you were Susohnnan."

  "If you meant to compliment me, you just failed."

  "It doesn't matter that you're human, Quinn. I care about you. I don't want to divorce you."

  "But what about your true love? It looks like you married a human, but not the right one."

  He looked tormented.

  "Have you told anyone about your vision?" I said, feeling compassion rising in me despite myself.

  "Not really."

  "You know how that bothers you," I said, chiding him.

  He looked surprised.

  "Come on. Every time you have a big vision, you can't sleep for days. Just like me. But to see your true love die..." I stopped the train of thought before I told him that I had a similar vision. "It must be horrible."

  "It was." He stared down at his strong hands, clenching them into fists.

  "Do you want to tell me about it?" I asked. I held my breath and wondered what he would do. Would he make light of everything and push me away again? Or would he confide in me?

  "No." My heart dropped into my shoes. I got up to finish getting dressed, but he grabbed my arm again to stop me.

  "Airik," I barked. He still wasn't going to let me in.

  "I don't want to, but I think I should."

  He looked up at me. It felt like he was showing me his real self for the first time. Tears started to fill my eyes.

  "She was driving at night. With an older man. It was her father, I think. She was scared. Someone was following them. People wanted to hurt her."

  I frowned.

  "They decided to go to a police station. The police stations on Earth are different than ours. They let some bad things happen, and they only came out when it was too late to protect her."

  "What things?" I said, feeling lightheaded. This story seemed familiar.

  "Her father said she should make a run for it. She ran right to the door. She almost got in, but someone..." He was getting choked up. "Someone shot her," he managed to get out.

  I put my hand up to the scar. "Was it in the neck, right here?"

  "How do you know that?" He couldn't take his eyes off my neck as I rubbed at the scar.

  "The woman was me."

  Chapter Thirteen

  AIRIK

  My legs were heavy, and I couldn't move. I was stunned. How could Quinn be the woman from my vision? I thought I was shocked when she told me she was human. But she was still speaking. Her face was filled with emotion. I tried to pay attention to her.

  "I was conscious, but my body wouldn't respond. Some men picked me up and carried me down the street. My father wanted to get help, but someone held a gun to his head, so he wasn't able to do anything."

  She gazed off into space as she saw everything in her mind's eye again.

  "I was angry and frustrated. I had been bothered my whole life for being myself. People had hurt me and said cruel things to me before. These guys were in a different league altogether. They thought I was a witch. They were going to burn me."

  Though I already knew bits and pieces of this story, I was filled with horror at the thought of what happened to Quinn. I hadn't been entirely wrong about humans.

  "My skin started burning up. My body was so hot that I started to hurt him."

  "You mentioned that before. Somehow you turned your emotions into heat?"

  "Something like that. They dropped me. That's where my father and the police found me. After that, Dad convinced me to use TerraMates to get off Earth. They wouldn't have stopped until I was dead. They didn't stop. But we stopped them, I guess." I pulled her into my arms as she shook, remembering terrible things.

  "My vision was interrupted," I murmured. "That's why I thought she...you...had died."

  "But Airik," she said, sitting back and looking up at me. I could tell she didn't want to hope for our future. "What does it mean if I'm the woman from your vision?"

  I rubbed
my hands over my face, trying to come to terms with everything I had just learned.

  "I don't know, Quinn."

  She nodded. The light in her eyes flickered out. I knew I had given the wrong answer.

  "I know what this means," she said, looking devastated. "It means that even though I'm supposed to be the one for you..."

  Her eyes were filled with tears again, and one rolled down her cheek.

  "You still don't love me," she said, getting up and running to the bathroom.

  I didn't stop her because it was true.

  QUINN

  I knocked on Neesa's apartment door and waited.

  "Quinn?" She took one look at my tear-stained face and pulled me inside. "What's wrong?"

  "Just about everything," I said, my voice breaking.

  "Wash your face. I'll make us a cup of tea, and you can tell me the whole story," she said, heading to the kitchen.

  I went into her bathroom and splashed cold water on my face. When I went back out, I huddled up in a corner of the couch. I took off my shoes and pulled my knees up to my chest, feeling minuscule.

  Neesa came back and handed me a delicate china teacup with a beautiful blue rose on it. "Now, what's going on?" she asked, sitting down in a chair across from me.

  "Airik." I stopped, feeling tears coming again. I took a trembling breath and tried to calm myself.

  "I should have known it would be him. What has the big oaf done now? I know you love him, Quinn. But he's not the best at relationships. Tell me what he did and I'll kick his ass."

  That got a tiny smile out of me, but it disappeared immediately.

  "It's not just him, Neesa. We're not working. Do you remember how I tried to get his attention? That just made him upset. He hasn't let me in until today. He told me about a woman he's supposed to fall in love with."

  "Yes, I've heard about that too. The human."

  "As it turns out, I'm the woman." I watched her, wondering if there would be an adverse reaction.

  She frowned. "You can't be. I always thought you were Susohnnan."

  I laughed. "That's what Airik said. Doesn't anyone on this planet know the origin of the word Terra in TerraMates?"

  "But you're sophisticated. How can you be human?"

  "Maybe humans aren't what you thought they were."

  "I'm not prejudiced," she said, holding up her hands. "But that means that you're his true love. Isn't this good news? It's what you wanted, isn't it?"

  "But Neesa," I said, feeling my tears spilling out again. "He doesn't love me. I can see it in his eyes. When the year is up, I'm filing for divorce."

  "Divorce." She stared at me. All traces of amusement vanished from her face. "Why would you want to do that?"

  "He doesn't love me, and I know now he never will," I said, crying in earnest now. "It's stupid to keep trying when it's not going to work."

  "I agree that it doesn't make sense to keep pushing something that isn't going to happen. But Quinn, you can't give up. He had a vision he would love you." She took my hand and put her other hand on top. "Airik's visions are incredibly accurate."

  "Not this time, Neesa. I'm one of the mistakes."

  She looked at me with an eyebrow raised.

  I smiled. "You're right. It wasn't a mistake. In many ways, this has been the best year of my life. Now that I have Koccoran citizenship, I'm staying. This is the only place I've ever fit in. And having you for a sister, well..." I started crying again.

  "That's right," she said. Her eyes were tear-filled as well. "Even if you divorce my idiot brother, we're still going to be sisters. I'm not giving you up."

  "You already have a lot of sisters, Neesa," I said.

  "None of them are pale little human Precogs that have blown up Precog testing machines."

  I shook my head. "I didn't destroy that machine. It was going to break eventually. It needed maintenance."

  "Whatever you say. The way I hear it, you're one of the most powerful Precogs the Division's ever seen."

  "I'm going to focus on my career. That will have to make me happy."

  "You're going to knock them dead at the Division," she said, putting her arm around my shoulder. "Are you crashing here tonight or are you going home?"

  "I guess I'll go back. Airik might be worried. I didn't tell him where I was going."

  "He'll be freaking out." she said, frowning at me. "I'm contacting him right now to tell him you're here and okay, but I'm also saying you are leaving to go home now. He may not love you, but he cares about you, Quinn. Don't worry him for no reason."

  "I'm sorry," I said, feeling contrite. I grabbed my cold-weather clothes and got dressed. When I returned home, Airik was at the door the moment I walked through the threshold.

  "Quinn, please don't worry me like that again. I didn't know where you'd gone or if something had happened to you." His eyes were troubled. "You were so upset when you left."

  I stared at him and knew that his heart was hurting nearly as much as mine was. He swept me up into his arms and kissed me until I felt like I was going to melt into a puddle on the floor.

  "Please, Quinn. Let me show you how I feel," he said, his eyes begging for forgiveness.

  I didn't say anything, but I nodded my head. Sex was the only way we could get close to each other. I wouldn't fight it again. I loved him. I wanted him to make love to me and help me forget all the pain I felt.

  It was slow, passionate, and exquisitely pleasurable. I thought I would explode before he finally let me come. When my orgasm finally hit me, the mind-numbing sensation seemed like it would never end. Finally, we both lay still, our bodies twisted up together.

  "Have you ever had an orgasm like that before, Quinn?" he whispered.

  "Never," I said, almost unable to form words.

  "Me neither," he said.

  Then I saw a change come over his face.

  "What is it?" I said.

  "A vision's coming." He started to untangle himself, but it was too late. His eyes were looking right at me, but he didn't see me. In a different voice, he activated his computer to call his Recorder.

  "Precog," he said.

  I lay still. I couldn't move now, or I might break his vision. At that moment, I felt a vision coming to me. "Precog." I activated my computer and called my Recorder. After that, I was lost in the Precog.

  I was walking by myself in a snowy forest that seemed vaguely familiar. I came to a log cabin. I had been sent to help a woman who was sick. I was a nurse. Her daughter had just died. The woman was hysterical and running a fever. We had barely been able to get her coordinates before we lost contact.

  The silence in the cabin was stifling. The girl and her mother were already dead. I walked over to the bedroom and saw the two lying side by side. My stomach heaved. I got to work, preparing to bring them back on the stretcher I pulled behind me. The cabin was deep in the northern mountains, far from any towns. I packed up the bodies and headed back to civilization.

  The vision jumped ahead. I was dying in the hospital where I worked. My supervisor was asking me to tell her everyone I had contacted.

  "Keela, we need to quarantine them. It's important."

  My supervisor looked frantic, but I felt as hot as a volcano. Whatever she needed to know didn't matter.

  "Please try and remember," she said, but my eyes closed.

  I knew she was dead then, but the Precog went on. Millions of people would die of the same disease the nurse contracted. The planet-wide catastrophe could end the whole Koccoran race.

  Suddenly I was back in my body. My Recorder's voice kept asking me questions, drawing more and more details out of me until I couldn't answer anymore.

  "That's great, Quinn," she said. "Would you mind coming into Headquarters as soon as you have dressed?"

  "Right now?"

  "Yes. We need to speak with you and Airik."

  "Okay," I said, feeling curious.

  I opened my eyes and looked into Airik's. We were still intimately wrapped aroun
d each other. The feeling of him inside me made my hips buck.

  "If you do that again, Quinn, we're not going to make it to Headquarters anytime soon," he said. The look in his eyes made my hips shift again.

  I could feel him hardening inside of me, and I quivered at the thought.

  "We can't be slow this time, Quinn," he whispered before he kissed me deeply.

  We were at headquarters within the hour. We moved rapidly, all things considered. Airik's wink made me blush as we walked through the doors. I was going to miss him. I wondered why they were calling us to the office at midnight.

  Airik's Recorder, Miroll, met us as we walked into a room where the on-duty Recorders worked. They were all doing different things. All were wearing their earpieces, but they were either walking or curled up on the couch while talking to their Precogs.

  "Airik, will you and Quinn come this way, please?" she said, leading us into a glass room.

  "What's going on, Miroll?" Airik asked.

  She hesitated. "We've never had this many details from either of you before. Your numbers were off the charts, double what you both usually get. And they came in simultaneously."

  "Double?" Airik said, frowning. "That can't be right."

  "This is the report," she said, scrolling through page after page of details.

  "That's long, yeah, but there were two of us."

  She cut him off.

  "That's just yours, Airik. You've never done anything like this before. I would know. I've been your primary Recorder for over a decade."

  "Why so long?" he said, glancing at me. "And how could they be simultaneous?"

  "Nothing like this has happened before?" she asked, looking back and forth between us.

  "Well," I said, looking at him. "There was that time when we found the apartment."

  "That's right," he said, remembering.

  "You've had simultaneous visions before?"

  We both nodded.

  "What was different about this vision? Did something change between this one and your normal Precogs?" she said. "We need to know if we can reproduce this level of detail.

  Airik turned to look at me. I knew my face was turning bright red, and there was nothing I could do about it.

  Miroll looked back and forth at us. "What is it?" she said.