First Flame (Stories of Frost and Fire Book 1)

by Kimbra Swain

  I hugged Callum and Aydan, then greeted Isabella. Nick sat at his desk while Malphas and Echo stood in the back of the room. When I turned to sit in my chair, I found it occupied. Long waves of red hair tumbled down around a porcelain face and red lips.

  “Ruby, why are you here?” I asked. She checked her fingernail polish, ignoring my question.

  “She was the compromise I made with Astor. She will go with us and help get Soraya and Rory out,” Nick explained.

  “Let’s get this clear. I’m here for my brother, not your genie,” she said.

  “You are just a ray of sunshine,” Kyrie said.

  “You are addressing the Princess of the Summer realm, and I suggest you adopt a little respect in your tone,” she returned.

  “Why, of course, your majesty,” Kyrie said with a flourishing bow.

  “That’s enough. Could we adopt some maturity instead?” Nick suggested. “You kids are going to be the death of me. Winnie will set up in the alley, and Kyrie will drop her crystals from the clouds into the ward. As soon as it goes down, we go inside. In and out. Everyone know their job?”

  We nodded our heads, and Kyrie squeezed my hand.

  “Winnie, are you sure?” Callum asked. “Mom would…”

  “Mom is not here,” I said, cutting him off.

  He nodded in concession. Aydan started to speak when we were interrupted by someone at the office door. Seamus, the vampirate, sauntered in with a sly grin.

  “Well, what do we have here?” he asked.

  “Seamus, whatever you’ve got to say will have to wait. We have business to take care of this morning,” Nick said.

  “Must be pretty important to have three of the queen’s children involved,” Seamus said. “And a Summer princess.” Seamus bowed to Ruby, then kissed the back of her hand. She fluttered her eyelashes at him.

  “You honor me, Mr. Daragh.”

  “I honor all women. You are the reason I choose to continue my long life,” Seamus said. “I’ve come to give you news.”

  “Give us news about what?” I asked.

  “The Sanhedrin have disappeared, taking your friends with them,” he said.

  “What?!” I exclaimed.

  “I had a couple of my guys keeping an eye on the house. I saw your confrontation with them. After you were gone, Scarlett O’Lear arrived. She stayed for a few hours, then left. The Sanhedrin took your friends, loaded them into a van, and drove toward the docks,” Seamus said.

  “Where did they go from there?” I asked.

  “Alas, I do not know. My guys lost their trail. My minions are good at sniffing out fresh blood, but alas, the Sanhedrin are crafty bastards,” Seamus said.

  “Then we go to Scarlett and find out what she knows,” I said.

  “Are you running this outfit now?” Seamus asked.

  We hadn’t talked about it with everyone else, but I couldn’t deny it. “I am,” I said.

  “Good to hear it. Never liked wolves dealing with fairy issues. No offense, Hook,” Seamus said to Nick.

  “Hook?”

  “He’s missing a hand. Just like the old captain,” Seamus said.

  “Captain Hook is real?” I asked.

  “Neverland is real. So is Wonderland. I’m sure you know of the Netherworld. It’s like that only not an afterlife,” Seamus said.

  “Narnia real too?” Kyrie scoffed.

  “No, that’s fiction,” Seamus replied without emotion.

  “I’m going down to talk to Scarlett,” I said. Kyrie stood up to go with me.

  “Cool your heels, Wildfire. She’s not at the Palace. She won’t be there until the show tonight. Why don’t you accompany me to the show, and I’ll get you backstage?” Seamus said.

  “No,” Kyrie said, then shook his head. “I mean. You do whatever you think is best.”

  “Whipped,” Callum coughed out, causing Nick to hide his grin.

  “Pay them no mind. I’d pay gold to be whipped by a woman like Wynonna,” Seamus said. It didn’t make Kyrie feel any better, but I sure as hell was impressed. “Pick you up at 8?”

  “I’ll be ready,” I said.

  “Try to stay out of trouble until then. And congratulations on your first rise,” Seamus said.

  “How do you know about that?” I asked.

  “It’s not every day a fiery meteor streaks across the Steelshore skies,” he replied with a grin, then slipped out the front door.

  “So much for the planned attack, we should have gone last night. Now we don’t know where they are,” I said. “When is Astor expecting word from us?”

  “Soon, I would guess,” Nick replied.

  “You are not going to tell him anything,” I said toward Ruby.

  She rolled her eyes. “I’ll tell him whatever the hell I want to tell him. He’s my father.”

  I leaned over the desk to get closer to her. “Wanna play with fire, Ruby? Go ahead. You may be Summer, honey, but I guarantee, you can burn.”

  She giggled nervously. “Wynonna Riggs, I am here to get my brother back. Not to be a tattle-tale to my father.”

  “I’m glad we see eye to eye on that point,” I said, giving her one last try-me look. She turned her attention to her nails again, pretending not to see me.

  “So, Winnie is in charge?” Callum asked.

  “She is,” Nick said.

  “Okay, cool,” Callum replied.

  “I’m not taking things over completely. It’s more like an internship,” I offered. “But while I’m waiting to talk to Scarlett. Why don’t we canvas as much of the town as we can? We know that their wards look like sparkling kitty litter using fairy sight. We can use this manpower while we have it.”

  “Let’s divide the city into sectors. I’ll go with Callum to the Northwest. Aydan, you and Isabella take the Southwest. Malphas and Echo will take the Southeast. Winnie and Kyrie take the Northeast. Report back in two hours,” Nick said.

  “What about me?” Ruby asked.

  “Answer the phone if it rings,” I said.

  “Alright,” she agreed. I hoped she wouldn’t break a nail. Actually, I hoped she did. Then, she would have something to look at on her fingers.

  “Move out,” Nick ordered.

  We filed out of the office, but Aydan hung back. Kyrie tried to slip out the door, but my brother wasn’t having it.

  “Kyrie, hold up. I want to talk to you and Winnie,” Aydan said.

  “Aydan, please don’t,” I begged.

  “It is my brotherly duty,” he said, staring down Kyrie. I’d seen my brother threaten Uncle Levi. He wasn’t afraid to stand up to anyone. “If you so much as harm a hair on her head or break her heart, I will break you.”

  “Judge, jury, and executioner,” Kyrie quipped.

  “I’m not joking with you, Kyrie,” Aydan said, stepping closer to him.

  “Please, stop,” I pleaded.

  Kyrie stepped up to him, and they stood chest to chest. “I’d do anything for that woman. If you knew me, you would know that I don’t have the capacity to hurt her. My only reason for being in Steelshore is her. So, you can try to bully me all you want, Aydan Riggs, but I love your sister and nothing you say or do can change that.”

  “Well, fuck me,” I muttered.

  “I did that, too,” Kyrie said.

  Aydan swung at him with his fist, and Kyrie dodged it. “My goddess, Aydan, calm down!” I grabbed his fist before he could throw another punch. Kyrie didn’t attempt to fight back. He waited on Aydan to calm down. I shoved Aydan backward.

  “I’m watching you, Babineau,” he said, pointing at Kyrie.

  “I swear I am going to call Mom if you don’t stop,” I fussed at Aydan. His nose wrinkled up, and he huffed out a long breath.

  Isabella came back into the office. “The cops are here,” she said.

  “Cops? Why?” I asked.

  “I dunno. I was just giving you a heads-up,” she said, taking Aydan’s hand. She dragged him into the back room leaving me with Kyrie. I sho
ok my head at him, but he just shrugged.

  A man entered the office wearing a grey suit and black tie. He wore a badge on his waistband. A woman walked in behind him. She wore a navy women’s business suit. Her badge hung down around her neck. Her dark hair was cropped short but messy in a cute way. It was the only part of her that didn’t seem completely put together.

  “Good morning. I’m Detective Jacob Carpenter. This is my partner, Detective Moira Nunnelly,” he said.

  “Good morning. How may I help you?” I responded. The detective looked to Kyrie, then back to me. I hated when men assumed the other man in the room was in charge. Kyrie pointed to me with a smile.

  “We would like to speak with Dominic Meyer and Wynonna Riggs,” he said.

  “I’m Wynonna Riggs. What is this about?” I asked.

  “We would like to ask you a few questions about an incident at Ely House,” he said.

  I’d never dealt with human cops concerning a supernatural event. Nick and I hadn’t even talked about what to say to them. We’d been lurking around Steelshore for a while and had never gotten caught. “Call Nick,” I muttered to Kyrie. He dialed his phone quickly, stepping away to speak to Nick. “Dominick will be back in a minute. He only just left.”

  “May we ask you a few questions?” Detective Carpenter asked.

  “Of course. I don’t know what I can tell you though,” I said.

  “You were there the night of the shooting?” he asked. It hadn’t been a shooting, but I’d play along.

  “Yes,” I replied. They knew I was there, or they wouldn’t be here asking questions.

  “Did you see the intruders?” he asked.

  “I ducked behind the table in our booth. I didn’t see much,” I said.

  “Can you tell us who all was there with you?” he asked.

  “Nick, Kyrie, and I were there,” I said, leaving out the others. Kyrie hung up his phone and stood next to me.

  “What is your full-name?” Detective Nunnelly asked Kyrie.

  “Kyrie Babineau of the New Orleans Babineaus,” Kyrie said.

  “That means nothing to me,” she responded.

  “That’s too bad for you,” Kyrie replied. I elbowed him. “Sorry for my insolence. It comes naturally.”

  I sighed and shook my head. “I’m sorry I don’t have much more to tell you.”

  Nick entered behind the detectives. “What’s going on here?”

  “Nick, these are some detectives. They are asking about the incident at Ely House,” I explained.

  “We were hoping to get a description of the attackers,” Detective Carpenter said.

  “It was too dark to see them. We just ducked and ran when we saw the chance,” Nick said.

  “Which way did you run?” the detective asked.

  “We went out behind the stage into the alley,” Nick said, sticking to the facts.

  “Were any of you hurt in the exchange?” the detective persisted.

  “No,” Nick replied. My heart began to pound in my chest. Were there cameras or something that saw my death and subsequent rise? We were in deep shit.

  “Then why was Miss Riggs’ blood found in the hallway leading to the back door and in the alley beside a dumpster?” He dropped the bomb we knew had to be there.

  “My blood? How do you know it was my blood?” I asked.

  “It wasn’t so long ago, Miss Riggs, that you were a child in the system. Your blood and fingerprints were recorded before you were returned to your guardian and adoptive parents. We have no record of Dylan Riggs’ death, but we do know that he died. Your mother is elusive and hasn’t returned our calls. It’s strange that you were recorded as a six-year-old child, but you stand before us very grown up,” he said.

  Kyrie stepped up behind me and put his hand on my back. “There must be something wrong with your paperwork. I’ve known Winnie almost all of my life. She was 16 when she was taken by the state after her mother’s death.”

  “No, when my mother died, I went straight home with Grace and Dylan. The state didn’t take me,” I corrected.

  “Then how did we get these records?” the detective asked.

  “Do we need a lawyer? I know a few good ones,” Nick interrupted.

  “No, we aren’t charging any of you with a crime. We just want answers for these discrepancies,” Detective Nunnelly responded.

  “Mistakes in your paperwork are hardly our problem,” Kyrie said. He sounded like Remington Blake, my mother’s lawyer who had been a friend to Kyrie’s family for a long time.

  “I’ll call Remington Blake. He was my mother’s lawyer when all of this paperwork was done. I’m sure he will have whatever information you need,” I said.

  “Judge Remington Blake?” Detective Carpenter asked.

  “Yes, he was my mother’s lawyer before becoming a judge,” I replied.

  “And he handled your adoption papers?” the detective asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Perhaps there is some mistake in the paperwork, but your blood was found in that building and, in the alley,” he said.

  I looked at Nick who barely shook his head. Kyrie’s hand tightened around mine. “When we were running, I fell. I don’t have any injuries now. Perhaps I got banged up a little. We were running for our lives, so forgive me if I don’t remember the details,” I said.

  Detective Carpenter took a business card out of his pocket and handed it to me. “If you think of anything that might help our investigation, please give me a call.”

  “I will, and I’m sure when I talk to Judge Blake, he will contact you,” I said.

  He nodded, then slipped past Nick who made no room for him. We waited a moment for them to get away from the door.

  “Call Remy now. Tell him what is going on. He can take care of it,” Nick said.

  “By falsifying documents,” I said.

  “Kyrie was smart to say you were 16. That way it’s just a one number typo. Remy can cover it up,” Nick said.

  “More importantly, they have my blood. They know I was hurt. What if there are cameras or something?” I asked.

  “Malphas and Echo took care of that. The cops are here because they have nothing to go on. We damaged all the cameras or destroyed the evidence. We’ve been doing that since I got here. It’s something you will have to learn to do. We don’t need the cops in fairy business,” Nick said.

  “Do some of them know about us?” I asked.

  “Probably, but there is no way to know which ones,” Nick replied. “So, in the meantime, we make excuses or refuse to talk to them.”

  “We don’t have time for this,” I huffed.

  “You are right, but sometimes shit happens. Let’s get to looking for Soraya and Rory,” he said.

  While Kyrie drove us to the area we were assigned to search, I called Remy. He assured me that he would take care of all of it. I apologized, but in his kind way, he told me that he’d do anything for me and my mother. He and my mom had once had a thing. I didn’t know much about it, except that they broke up and she met my dad, Dylan. But despite the break-up, Remy always had our back.

  Kyrie parked in a lot at Steelshore University. I’d looked at taking classes for shits and giggles, but I decided against it. Too much paperwork and too many things to cover up. I was better off working with the F.B.I.

  “We will start here,” Kyrie said.

  “Sounds good to me.”

  Kyrie and I walked across the campus to the two-story library which was the largest building on campus. Steelshore University wasn’t nearly as big as the other major universities in the state. However, it tended to be popular because it was so close to the beaches.

  Students walked across the campus, hurrying to their classes. For a moment, I allowed myself to imagine being here as a student. I’d have a cute, but practical backpack, and I’d take all the classes I wanted, especially history and art. I’d always hated math, even though Uncle Levi helped me with it when I was younger, and I turned out to be pretty good a
t it. I found no joy in it.

  “You okay?” Kyrie asked.

  “Yeah, just distracted,” I replied.

  He stopped walking. I turned to face him. “Are you really okay?”

  “About us?” I got the feeling this was deeper than just normal small talk.

  “Yeah,” he replied.

  “We are great. I promise. Just want to find Raya. The longer she is gone…”

  “Let’s get to the top of this building.” He grabbed my hand and guided me to the side where we couldn’t be seen behind some tall bushes. I felt his power move around us to conceal us in a cloud. We lifted off the ground, then landed on top of the building. We didn’t go into the clouds because we needed a lower vantage point. Looking over the edge of the building, I watched students walking back and forth. Opening my sight, I saw the pale flicker of two changelings walking into the library. I looked off each side of the building until something caught my eye on the back side.

  I recognized one of the students. Colton Walker carried a backpack and walked beside a man who looked to be a little bit older than him. Through my sight, I could see the bright blue glow of a Winter fairy.

  “Kyrie,” I said, pointing at Colton.

  “It’s your neighbor.”

  “The man with him is a fairy. Winter. I want to follow them,” I said.

  “Why?”

  “Because there is a sparkling residue around him that looks like the ward of the Sanhedrin,” I said.

  Kyrie grabbed my hand, and we shot up into the sky. He flew us over the clouds to a building near Colton and the other man. We walked out of the shadows about the time Colton passed by us.

  “Hi, Colton,” I said.

  “Wynonna! It’s good to see you. Are you taking classes here?” he asked.

  “No. I’m just taking a tour of the campus,” I said. The man beside him cleared his throat.

  “Oh, sorry. Wynonna Riggs, this is Seth Karis. He’s my history professor,” Colton said.

  “Nice to meet you. This is my boyfriend, Kyrie Babineau,” I said.

  “What do you want to study?” Professor Karis asked.

  “I love history, actually. I was better at it than some of the other subjects,” I said.