Waltz into Fire

by L. J. Garland

“I’m fine.” She tried to ignore the warmth of his touch, the tingles swirling low in her tummy. “I wonder if there are some candles in the kitchen.”

  “Did you two knock out the power this time?” came Erik’s voice in the back of her mind.

  “We didn’t do anything,” she shot back. “It was the storm.”

  The lights in the room flickered to life, and she rounded toward Zane, who stood too close. She gazed up at him, and her breath hitched. Oh, how she wanted him, to kiss his lips, to skim her hands over his body.

  She backed up. No, she couldn’t be this close to him, couldn’t let her physical reaction to him override the need to protect her heart. To do so would be insane. Whirling away from him, she exited the library.

  He followed after her, pausing in the doorway. “Where are you going?”

  “Forget the candles. It’s late. I’m calling it a night.” She pointed toward the ceiling. “I’m heading to bed. Get an early start in the morning.” Without waiting for his response, she escaped up the stairs, taking the steps two at a time, and called, “Night.”

  Fallon closed her bedroom door behind her and turned the lock—whether to keep Zane out or herself in, she wasn’t sure. Either way, she needed space, some time to think. Stripping to her shirt and panties and crawling into the plush bed, she pulled the thick down comforter up to her chin and wished for sleep. But rest only came in fitful dozes and sighs. Outside, the hurricane raged, the wild turbulence seeming to mirror the storm in her heart.

  When the bedside clock at last displayed six o’clock, Fallon dragged herself from bed, took a quick shower, and dressed. While pulling a clean shirt over her head, she glimpsed herself in the mirror and paused. With a tentative touch, she skimmed her hands over her side and frowned. The bruises had vanished. She moved closer to the mirror for a better inspection, and after some gentle prodding, she realized the pain had disappeared as well. Had her ribs mended?

  She shook her head and tugged her shirt down. She’d always been a fast healer, but never this fast—though she would admit to not missing the limited movement her injured ribs had induced. At least now she could breathe deep without a stitch catching her side.

  Tiptoeing down the stairs, she crept into the kitchen and, after digging through a couple of cabinets, found a canister of rich French roast coffee. She brewed a pot and carried a large mug with her to the library.

  She’d just pulled several books and set them on the coffee table when Erik wandered in.

  “Morning.” Holding up an identical cup to hers, he said, “The coffee called to me.”

  She grinned. “Me, too. Storm kept me up all night.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “Are you sure it was just the storm that kept you up?”

  “Yes.” She didn’t want to rehash the same details of her love life. Erik had heard Zane’s confession and had sensed his belief in the reasons behind his hateful actions. But, for Fallon, nothing had changed. She busied herself with the books, flipping the top one open.

  Erik sat next to her on the couch. “So, what have you found?”

  “I’m not really sure yet. I just grabbed a couple books that might be interesting.” She looked up at the towering shelves loaded with volumes, papers, parchments, scrolls, and more, and sighed. “This place is huge. It’s like everything since the beginning of time has been stuffed in here. I don’t know how it’s categorized or how to find what we need. I’ve got no idea where to even start.”

  Erik followed her gaze and shrugged. “I guess you start on one end. I’ll take the other. And if the two slugs upstairs ever show up, we’ll set them on the areas in between.”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  A little over an hour later, Wyatt and Zane arrived, carrying a carafe of fresh coffee and a plate of toasted bagels and cream cheese. Zane slathered one and offered it to Fallon.

  “Thanks.” She bit into the crunchy bread.

  He took a gulp from his mug. “Find anything yet?”

  “Lots of stuff. Amazing things from centuries ago.” She pointed to a thick book sitting on a side table. “And I can’t be positive, but I think the pages in that one are made of animal skins. How it’s survived this long without decaying, I have no clue.”

  “Magic.”

  She looked up at him. “What?”

  He shrugged. “Well, you said your Aunt Serida admitted to using a spell to cloak the four of you from all the evil stuff out there. If she could make you invisible to demons, why couldn’t she put some kind of spell on a book so it doesn’t rot?” He took a healthy bite of bagel and mumbled around it, “Sounds easier to me.”

  She twisted to stare at the innumerable records and tomes lining the walls. “You think they’re all protected?”

  “I’d think so. Why go to all the trouble of creating something and then have it fall apart over time?” His gaze slid along a line of books and settled back on her. “If what your aunt said is true, then preserving all this—your birthright, your family history—would only make sense.”

  Spells. Magic. Lineage. Fallon jolted with a disturbing thought. “If my parents practiced magic, does that mean Erik, Wyatt, Amber, and I are witches, too?”

  He tilted his head. “I wouldn’t think so. From what I understand from the time I spent in New Orleans searching for Mia, it’s a craft like any other. It takes dedication and repetition.”

  She sighed. “Good. ’Cause after hearing what Mia did to you, I couldn’t stand it if—”

  Zane took her hand in his, his gaze dark and fierce. “Fallon, you are nothing like Mia. You’re good and pure and decent. You’re beautiful.”

  Desire quaked through her at his touch and the intensity of his words. She wanted to forgive him, allow herself to see him again as the incredible man he was, but she couldn’t. She needed to defuse the situation, or she might give over despite her aching heart. Tugging her fingers free from his, she quipped, “Careful. Don’t put me too high on the pedestal. I’m terrified of heights.”

  “Fallon—”

  “Hey, guys,” Wyatt called. “Come check this out.”

  He sat at the desk in front of a lit computer screen. The three of them gathered around behind him.

  “I got the system up, and there’s a lot of good stuff on here.” He glanced over his shoulder at them. “Bills, bank accounts, housekeeping, and staff. Did you guys know we have a corporate jet?”

  “I did.” Fallon said. And when they all looked at her, she shrugged. “Captain Corbin might’ve mentioned it was in for some type of maintenance or something. We’ve got a helicopter, too.”

  “Seems the captain’s been holding out on us.” Erik smirked. “Maybe we need to pull the old seadog aside and grill him.”

  “Ah-yuh,” Wyatt snorted. “And right after, we’d be loading your sorry ass into an ambulance.”

  Fallon pointed toward the computer screen. “What did you find, Wyatt?”

  “I think all this”—he circled his finger in the air, indicating the whole library—“is on here. Which would be smart because then you could search and cross-reference stuff faster.” He moved the mouse and clicked an icon similar to yin-yang, but the curve that split the black and white swirled around, forming an artistic letter S. A moment later, an empty box popped up on the screen, the cursor blinking inside. “The only problem is I don’t know the password to access any of it.”

  The four of them spent the next twenty minutes typing in various words in an attempt to unlock the files. But nothing worked. Fallon returned to perusing the shelves when she remembered the word she’d seen scrawled on the door to little David’s hiding place in his parents’ closet and again on the door at the apartment fire. The flames had spoken to her, led her to safety, and, apparently, seemed to help her shoot fireballs from her hands. She closed her eyes, still trying to reconcile with that last one.

  “You okay?” Zane sat at the desk, typing in letter and number combinations that might open the files—birth dates, aircraft tail numbers,
social security numbers. But none had done the trick.

  “Yeah.” She bit her lip and decided to take a chance. “Why don’t you try R E D S as a password?”

  “Reds?” He typed the letters in. “Nope.”

  “Did you do all caps?”

  His fingers flew over the keyboard again, and he shook his head. “Doesn’t work either.”

  “Just a thought.” She sighed. She hadn’t really expected the word to be the password, but it seemed they’d tried everything else, so why not? She stood. “I say we take a break for lunch.”

  “I agree,” Wyatt said from the top of a sliding library ladder. With a quick jump, he hooked his feet around the chrome side rails and slid to the bottom. A boyish grin lit his face. “I’m starved.”

  After a hearty lunch of homemade clam chowder, hot French rolls, and salad, they returned to the library. Fallon wasn’t about to give up until they found the answers they needed. She had noticed, however, that Zane had been quieter than usual during the meal. Grabbing a book entitled Base Creatures and Marks from the shelf, she crossed the library to sit near him.

  “You tired?” Taking the closest chair to him, she set the hefty tome on her lap and ran her hand over the tooled leather. Who had taken the time to create such an ornate cover?

  “No.” He looked up from the hardbound book he was flipping through, and though he denied being worn out, his face told a different story. “Just wondering how we’re going to find any answers. I know your aunt said they were here, but without knowing the magic filing system to all this, I can’t see how we can locate anything specific.”

  She opened the tome in her lap and turned a few pages. “I know. It would help if there were a set of instructions or a reference book. Anything. Even a card catalog would be great.”

  He shot a glance toward Erik, who now sat at the computer. “The catalog is probably what’s in those files.”

  “Probably.” Fallon turned another page and jolted in surprise. “Here it is.” Excitement dashed through her.

  Zane leaned forward, his brows drawn together. “What?”

  She moved to sit next to him on the couch, placing the book on the coffee table in front of them. “The demon who attacked us. The symbol on your arm. It’s right here.”

  “Haileon?”

  “It says he’s the lord demon of the Helvistine plane—wherever that is,” she said, reporting what she thought were the highlights as she scanned the page. “He supposedly survives on souls. Has a legion of demons he sends out to other planes, ours included, to gather what he needs to survive, and then consumes them bit by bit.”

  “So he was telling the truth about the soul gathering,” Zane murmured, anxiety lacing his words.

  She flipped the page. “This looks like some kind of magical chant to summon him.” She glanced at Zane, who sat next to her, his head in his hands while he glanced at the book. “Do you think it would actually work?”

  With a growl, he bolted from the couch. “How the hell should I know? Why don’t you give it a try, see if the son of a bitch shows up?”

  Shock flashed through Fallon at Zane’s abrupt outburst. What was wrong with him? Was it something she’d said?

  He threw his hands up in exasperation and stalked toward the door. “Do whatever the hell you want,” he raged. “I’m done.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Zane slammed the door behind him, leaving Fallon and her brothers to root out whatever answers might be in that room. But for him, digging through all those books had been a monumental waste of time—and it wasn’t like he had an infinite amount to begin with. He marched toward the stairway and had climbed halfway up when the library door banged closed again.

  “Where the hell are you going?” Fallon said from below him, the anger in her voice unmistakable.

  “What do you care?” he shot back, twisting to face her. Damn. A confrontation was not what he wanted right now, but holding his feelings back had worn on him. He loved her, and it was killing him. But everything he did or said only drove her farther away.

  She bolted up the stairs, her face flushed, eyes wide. “In case you hadn’t noticed, we’re all here to find a way to save your life.”

  He snorted. “And doesn’t that just frost your ass?”

  She stopped on the same stair he stood on and, frowning, whirled toward him, the scent of some flowery shampoo she’d used permeating the air. “What are you talking about?”

  “Don’t you get it, Fallon?” He ran a hand through his hair to keep from touching her. “There’s no way to save me.”

  “But the book—”

  He gestured toward the library door. “That book tells you how to call the damn beast, not how to defeat it. What good is that?” To live for even a moment knowing her determination to save him had caused her death would be agony.

  She clenched her fists at her sides. “So we keep looking until we do find something.”

  “That’s just it. You’re not going to find anything. Not to save me anyway.” He glanced up the stairs so he wouldn’t have to stare into her eyes. God, he just wanted to hold her, to be with her, but to give in would mean to leave her behind with a broken heart. “Save your time, and start looking for a way to defeat that asshole. Stop being stupid. Stop trying to save someone you don’t even care about.”

  She whistled. “Jesus. This is quite the pity party you’re holding here.”

  Anger spiked through him. Pity party? Did she really believe he was thinking only of himself? He rounded back to her. “Well, hell, excuse me for being a little pissed at a fate I don’t deserve. But you and your brothers don’t seem to understand that searching for a way to save me is futile.” He almost grabbed her arms but stopped himself, knowing that if he touched her, he wouldn’t be able to stop. He pointed a finger at her instead. “Save your own ass, Fallon. Search your precious, damn books for a way to defeat this thing. You’re gonna need it.”

  Itching to escape before he gave in to the lust banging through his veins, he stalked farther up the staircase. He managed three steps before she shoved past him, turning to face him down from a step higher than his.

  “So, that’s it? You just skulk away and feel sorry for yourself? Wait to shrivel up and die?” She jabbed her finger into his chest. “I thought you were a fighter. I thought you gave a crap about your life.”

  “I am a fighter,” he argued and glanced down at the hand poking him. Even her spiky fingertip was enough to edge him closer to relenting, to ripping off her clothes and taking her right here on the steps. Frustration mounted. Why the hell couldn’t she just understand? “Damn it, Fallon. I give a shit about you. Go find the answers that’ll save you. Forget about me.”

  “So much for the strong man, passionate about life,” she jeered. Giving him a once-over, she shook her head. “Christ, you’re a doctor. You’re supposed to value the time you have and not quit before you find the answers.”

  Her words sliced through him. Stomping up a step, Zane advanced on her until she bumped into the wall. He slapped his palms against the paneling behind her, caging her between his arms. Damn, she smelled good, looked hot with that luscious mouth tilted up toward him, begging to be kissed.

  “What do you think this is? Some disease I can whip up a cure for in my handy-dandy lab?” he growled. “Hell, I wish it were that easy.”

  “Nothing worth having is easy.” She lifted her chin, and he knew right then he was too close to her. “If you care so much for me,” she said, staring at him with defiance, “why don’t you fight for us?”

  Not waiting for his answer, she reared back and shoved him. Zane lurched under the sudden assault but caught his balance. Damn, but she was strong. And the unexpected sensation of her hands on him sent his self-control hurtling over the brink.

  Grasping her shoulders, he pushed her back to the wall and crushed his lips to hers. She resisted, twisting to break free, but he held her tight, carnal hunger blazing through him. How could one woman piss him
off, capture his heart, and get him so hot all at the same time?

  He tore his mouth from hers, ending the kiss with the same abrupt savagery he’d started it. “Is this the fight you want?”

  She glared at him, her eyes dark and rebellious, and said nothing. Snaking one hand up, he plowed his fingers through her soft hair to clutch the nape of her neck. His gaze dipped to her wet, swollen lips, and lust poured through him. Damn, the things she did to him…the things she made him want to do to her.

  He took her mouth again, ravishing her supple sweetness, and she bucked against him, clawing at his chest and shoulders. But his passion for her rode high, and he deepened the kiss, thrusting his tongue between her parted lips. He kissed her with all the fear and dread he’d bottled up, the anger that eroded his spirit, the tenuous hope that had all but abandoned him, and his immeasurable love for her that had lodged in his heart. He poured all that he was, his very soul, into the joining of their lips, the wild caresses of their tongues, and she stopped pushing him away.

  Curling her fingers into his shirt, Fallon drew him closer, matching his ardor. She kissed him hard, moaning into his mouth. The erotic sound set his senses on fire. Need settled, hot and heavy in his groin, and he ground his erection against her in a silent plea.

  With deliberate attention, he grazed his lips down the side of her neck, licking and kissing the fragrant skin. She rewarded him with a soft gasp and then shivered in his arms.

  “Give yourself to me,” he demanded and nipped her shoulder. “Give me what I need. What we both need.”

  “Zane….”

  He trailed his hands over her waist and grasped her rounded hips. God, he wanted this woman more than he wanted his next breath. But she still held his hurtful words between them, using them as a wall to keep her safe. He needed to find a way to knock that barrier down and release the barrage of her emotions.

  “You want me, Fallon.”

  “Wanting you has nothing to do with it,” she panted.

  “It has everything to do with it,” he rumbled.

  Dipping his head, he lowered his mouth to the soft mound of her breast and the taut nipples begging for his attention. He caught one tight bud between his teeth and suckled through the thin shirt she wore. With a desperate whimper, she arched toward him and drove her fingers through his hair, digging her nails into his scalp to hold him in place.