Tempted by Fire

by Kimber White

  At that moment, I hated Kian. I hated myself even more for feeling that way. I hated that he was right. I hated that once again, I had to deny what I was. I hated carrying the burden of my family’s security against what I knew to be true in my heart. Grace was mine. She was my fated mate. From the second I saw her in that damn bagel shop those weeks ago, there had been no denying it. Except, that’s exactly what I had to do. I had to deny it. For her safety and for mine.

  “I don’t want to talk about this anymore,” I said. “Especially not with you.” My voice came out in a hiss of smoke. Kian stepped back, understanding the turmoil inside of me. His eyes went dark. I was still rational enough to recognize that he registered some guilt at what he’d said, even if we both knew every word was true.

  “I think we’ve talked enough,” Loch said. “At least among the five of us. Avelina’s another matter.”

  “When does she get back?” Finn asked. My mother had gone to Perth last month on another quest to find more dragonstone. She still firmly believed enough of the stuff was out there. For decades, we’d all just quietly gone along to humor her. Fossilized dragon egg was the only substance on earth that could hurt us. And she still held out hope it would provide a clue to finding another dragon.

  “A few more days,” Xander said. While the others had already moved toward the door of the conference room, Xander stayed on the couch, his arm draped casually over the back. He showed no signs of leaving, and my anger rose knowing what that meant. He may have just said we’d talked about Grace and the wolves enough among ourselves. Clearly, he still had some things to say to me alone.

  Loch and Finn took their cues from Xander. Loch tried to put an arm around Kian to lead him away. Kian’s eyes flashed blue flame, warding him off. Of the five of us, I’d always thought he would be the one to lose control for good first. Now, I knew he wouldn’t. The glint in Xander’s eyes as he regarded me told me he knew too.

  I turned back to the window as Loch, Kian, and Finn left the room. I stared down at the city below. The room faced east, toward Lake Michigan. Boats dotted the churning blue waters and a mist covered the horizon. What I wouldn’t give to just break out of here and soar.

  Xander was at my side. “I know what you feel, brother,” he said. He raised a hand. He was going to try to put an arm around my shoulder, but he must have sensed the tension in me. He had every idea how close to the edge I was.

  “What if I’m wrong about it all?” I asked. “What if this isn’t real? I’m losing control, Xander.”

  He dropped his head. “You’re not wrong,” he said. “If what you feel for Grace is what I think...you’re not wrong. You knew who she was before you even touched her, didn’t you? You felt her the first time she entered the room. First it’s like a string wrapped around your heart, pulling you toward her. Then you feel like you’re fused to her. When she breathes, you breathe. When she hurts, you hurt. Then there’s the heat and the things you want to do to her…”

  I let out my fire. Protective anger roiled through me and I turned on my brother. I still had enough sense in some far corner of my brain to realize my reaction wasn’t warranted. Still, just the hint of the idea that Xander was thinking about Grace in any way that I did made me want to incinerate him where he stood.

  He just gave me a cool smile and leaned one shoulder against the window. “No,” he said. “I’d say you’re exactly right about what Grace is to you. It was the same for me with Shae. Instant. Combustible. And it made her do things that should have terrified her. Why in the hell do you think Grace agreed to get into your limo and follow you up to the damn roof today, Gideon? Regular girls don’t generally agree to shit like that. She’s pulled to you too. She can’t help it any more than you can. If you want to ask Shae about it, go right ahead. She and the baby will be back the day after tomorrow.”

  Xander and Shae had been splitting their time between Chicago and a quieter lake house on the other side of Lake Michigan. Xander knew that any of us would protect his mate with our lives, but I couldn’t blame him for wanting to shield her from what was happening to us.

  The day after tomorrow. A bitter taste filled my mouth. I’d lived for three hundred years and should have lived a thousand or more. I’d never before counted time. It was almost meaningless. Now, I felt every hour. Because each minute, I knew, brought me closer to the thing I feared the most.

  I’d hidden it from even my brothers for the last couple of days, hoping I could get it under control. Now, standing here with Xander, I knew lying might bring them more danger I didn’t want. I turned my palm up and showed him.

  Xander’s expression went stony. Only the gold glint in his eyes betrayed his understanding.

  “How long?” he said as he brushed his hand over the iridescent green scales along my arm.

  “A few days,” I said. “It started out as just a small patch on my palm. Now…” Now, my dragon scales went all the way up my arm to my shoulder. No matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t call it back.

  “You can’t stay here,” he said, his voice grim and flat.

  “I know. Knoydart?”

  Xander shook his head. “No. It hasn’t come to that just yet. For now, just head for the tunnels. I think it’s a good idea if we’re all close by. In case…”

  I knew what he meant. In case I was too far gone, my brothers would need to be there to subdue me. It was the pact we all made to each other. Before we lost total control, we would do what had to be done to spare our mother the task.

  “Will you watch out for her?” I asked, knowing Xander understood me perfectly. I may never have been able to take Grace as a proper mate, but at least I could give her this.

  Xander put a hard hand on my shoulder. His eyes met mine. “With my life, I’ll protect her. You have my word.”

  Clenching my jaw, I gave him a nod, then turned toward the door.

  Chapter Nine

  Grace

  I made it through Sunday dinner surrounded by wolves but with dragons on my mind. It was easy to blend in, go unnoticed. There was enough turmoil and testosterone among the men at the table. I sat between Milo and Leo pretending to eat the ribeye steak Val had cooked on the grill. He sat across from me, brooding. Erik and Edward sat across from each other at the far end of the table. My father, as always, sat at the head.

  “You draw too much attention to yourself,” Papa said, waving his fork at Val. Things between them had been getting tenser by the day. It was bound to happen. At thirty-five, Val was my father’s youngest brother. He’d been exiled from the Russian pack just for sharing the same DNA. Though we never spoke of it, I always wondered if Val would have stayed in Kazan if not for that association.

  “I can’t do what you do,” Val said, throwing his napkin on his plate. “I’m sorry, Andre, but I can’t spend the rest of my life on a construction site.”

  “It’s good, honest work,” Papa said. “And you work for me. We keep it in the family.”

  Val gritted his teeth. Milo and the others were unusually quiet. I had the distinct sense Val had maybe already talked to them about his plans. That they weren’t jumping right away to my father’s defense was interesting to say the least.

  “You’re not my Alpha,” Val said. He punctuated it with a growl.

  Oh, shit.

  I wiped the corners of my mouth with my napkin and scooted away from the table. “This is wolf business. I’ll leave you all to it.”

  “You sit!” Papa shouted. “You’re another one.”

  My pulse hammered. So much for staying under the radar. Papa took his time cleaning his teeth with a toothpick. It seemed like nobody was getting away from this table scot free.

  There were times I was jealous of them all. Some ancient curse that had nothing to do with me had mutated my DNA. I always marveled at what it might be like to shift and come into such power like they did. Right now, I was damn glad I was just human. If Papa could sense even a little of my thoughts, I’d be sunk. Gideon permeated the
m. In the two days since I left him, the fire dreams had grown even more intense. I ached to be near him. It was getting out of control.

  “You’re all spoiled,” Papa said, finally throwing down the toothpick. “You come and go as you please. You’re careless. You think nothing bad can ever happen to you. You have no idea what it’s like to live where you can’t make your own choices.”

  “Uncle Andre,” Leo said, his voice calm, almost soothing. “We all know what you sacrificed to build a life for us here. But, isn’t freedom of choice the reason you came here? So you could raise Milo and Grace out from under Vadim’s pack?”

  The Pack. Others threw the word around about my family. But, they weren’t a real pack. Val was right. Every man here was an Alpha in his own right. Or could be. Back in Russia, they all might be leading their own packs. The Pack was the most powerful group of Alphas in the mother country. They were mob-connected, and my father cringed when Leo mentioned them.

  My father leaned in close, his wolf eyes flashing. “And that is where you are careless. To think this family is ever fully out from under that...Vadim’s pack. It wasn’t his to begin with. It was my family. Your family.”

  He lost his English after that. He spewed out a stream of words in Russian so quickly I had trouble keeping up. Something about dictators and tyrants. Sacrifices. How we were soft. He had some special, choice words for the current, most powerful Russian pack leader, Pavel Vadim. Papa ended it with the same warnings I’d heard my whole life. We needed to watch our steps. Even here in America, bad things could happen.

  “Right,” Val said. “Spies everywhere. That’s what you always say, Andre.”

  My father slammed his fist against the table, making the silverware jump.

  “Do not make light of this! You of all people should know what’s at stake.” Val went instantly silent. My father wouldn’t and didn’t need to say more. There were secrets he kept about what went on back in Russia. Things he refused to tell me.

  I’d had enough for one day. “Like I said, this is wolf business. I have a shift in about twenty minutes. I need to get to the Bagel Bureau. Nico’s not going to be there.”

  “What do you mean?” Papa asked. Milo shot me a look. All the evidence about Nico was right in front of Papa; we all knew it. He just refused to see.

  “We can talk about it later,” I said, not wanting to get into it. I just wanted to get away from wolf testosterone for a little while.

  “Do I need to talk to Nico?” Papa asked. I bit my lip to keep from answering the way I wanted. No amount of talking would do any good. Nico needed help and he needed to sign over his share of the business before he ruined everything for good. In my father’s current mood, it just wasn’t the time to bring it up.

  “I need to get going is all,” I said. I cleared my plate and grabbed Milo and Leo’s plates too. I leaned down and kissed my father’s head as I passed him. He lifted his hand to touch my face then froze.

  He grabbed my arm, threatening to unsettle the stack of plates I carried. My father’s nose crinkled. Milo was too quick. He took the plates from me just before they crashed to the ground. He brushed my arm when he did it and his own nostrils flared.

  “What the actual hell?” I said, trying to slip my arm out of my father’s grasp. The commotion was enough to make Edward and Erik rise to their feet. Before I could do anything about it, all six of them formed a circle around me.

  “Grace,” Milo said, his voice flat, expressionless. “What in the hell is that smell?”

  My father let go of me. He rose slowly, towering over me. His face had taken on a mottled purple color and his blue wolf eyes glinted.

  “You all just want to back off?” I asked. “You’re freaking me out.”

  I tried to slip around them, but the men in my family formed a wall of muscle. Now, they were all sniffing the air and six pairs of wolf eyes glowed in every direction.

  “You smell wrong,” Val said.

  “Mind your own business,” I said, panic making spots float in front of my eyes. I hadn’t seen Gideon in almost two days. Could they possibly still smell him on me? “You smell like wet dog most of the time. All of you.”

  My father made a quick gesture with his fingers. The others moved away, clearing a path for me.

  “Grace,” my father said, quietly. “You must tell me the truth. Has someone approached you? That man Father Dmitriev said something about?”

  It was as if I were split into two people. This was my father. My family. Every man in this room would easily lay down their lives to get between me and danger. Did they drive me crazy half the time? Was it smothering? Of course it was. But, I loved them all the same.

  Then there was Gideon. He’d just came into my life. Blasted into it, more like. From the moment he did, he took over my thoughts. I dreamed about him. Burned for him. And he’d shared with me the most dangerous secret of all.

  “No,” I lied. God forgive me. “No one has approached me. I don’t know what you smell. If you don’t mind though, I really do need to get back to the bagel shop. Kimmie and Darren can’t handle closing on their own.”

  The air between my father and me seemed to thicken. He regarded me with cool eyes. I stayed stock still under his gaze. He knew me so well. Of course he sensed I was holding something back, and I hated myself a little for betraying him.

  No. Not a betrayal. He was worried about some nebulous member of the Russian pack approaching me. It’s what he always feared. I may never find a way to explain what Gideon was, but he wasn’t out to hurt my family or me.

  “Let one of your cousins walk you,” Papa said.

  I opened my mouth to argue, but his cold stare stopped me. This was a rare compromise on my father’s part and I’d have to accept it as such.

  “I’ll go with her,” Leo offered. I mouthed a quiet thank you and grabbed my purse off the couch near the front door.

  To his credit, Leo didn’t play twenty questions with me as we walked the six blocks to the Bagel Bureau. He was on guard though. I decided to divert attention from me back to the dispute between Papa and Val.

  “So what is Val doing that’s got Papa so angry?” I asked.

  I saw a look go over Leo’s face. Just like me, he seemed to struggle with his loyalties. Finally, he just let out a sigh. “Security work,” he said. “Val’s got a friend who runs one of those rent-a-cop places.”

  “Oh, Lord,” I said. “He’s a mall cop?”

  Leo laughed. “No. Not like that. His friend knows what Val is. He thought he might be suited to some uh...specialized work. Bodyguard type stuff. He put Val in touch with a security firm. He’s been taking side jobs for the last few months. The money’s amazing. He’s got an investor now. He’s thinking about starting his own firm. Going into business for himself.”

  Leo was using his hands as he spoke. His eyes lit up. We were just across the street from the bagel shop and I stopped him.

  “Leo,” I said. “He’s asked you to come to work for him too, hasn’t he?”

  Leo bit his lip. It was no good lying. I could see the truth written all over him. “Yeah. I’ve taken a couple of jobs. For the love of God, don’t tell your father. Not yet. I mean, he already suspects. There’s not much that goes on in the Chicago shifter scene that Andre Kalenkov doesn’t know about.”

  My eyes widened. “It’s all of you, isn’t it? That’s why none of you spoke up at dinner.”

  Leo’s sheepish grin told me all I needed to know. I couldn’t help it. I loved him for it even though I knew how dangerous this little side hustle might be. I gave him a peck on the cheek. “Well,” I said. “At least Papa can be pissed at someone besides me for a change.”

  No sooner had I said it before Leo’s eyes changed. He looked over my shoulder and sniffed the air. For an instant, I felt that familiar weight between my shoulder blades and heat across my skin.

  It wasn’t Gideon though. As I turned, I saw Finn Brandhart sitting inside the Bagel Bureau at a table next to
the window. He was quick enough to look away before Leo could see the gold glint in his eyes. There was no question though. Finn would never come here unless he wanted to talk to me.

  “About that,” Leo said. “Anything you want to tell me about? I trust you to keep my confidence, Grace. You know you can do the same.”

  I brushed a lock of hair away from his eyes. “Not this time, Leo. Maybe soon though.”

  “Right,” he said. “Well, you know your father’s asked me to stay close tonight. I’ll stay out of your way, but I can’t leave.”

  I let out a defeated sigh and nodded. There was nothing left to say. I straightened my back and left him standing across the street as I walked into the restaurant.

  I waved to Darren behind the counter and grabbed an apron from the hook on the wall. I knew Leo was still watching, so I put on my best waitress smile and headed over to Finn’s table, hoping Leo’s super sensitive hearing wouldn’t pick anything up.

  Finn held a menu in front of him, understanding my need to make this look natural. I made small talk and asked him if he’d decided on anything yet.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I know my coming here might make trouble for you.”

  “It could make trouble for you too, Finn,” I said. “So why did you?”

  “Gideon’s in trouble,” he said. His words felt like an anvil dropping on my heart.

  “Did he send you?” I asked.

  “No. In fact, if he knew I’d come, he’d probably blast me. But he’s in bad shape, Grace. I know you have a lot of questions. Gideon owes you answers. We all do. But I know what I saw up on that rooftop. If you hadn’t been there, my brother would still be stuck in his dragon. So, I’m hoping you can help him.”

  God. I knew in my heart what he was asking me. Leo was still across the street. He’d struck up a conversation with someone I recognized from the church, but he’d be here in a second if he sensed anything wrong.