by Oxford, Rain
Furious Flames
Elemental Book 3
Rain Oxford
Furious Flames © 2015 Rain Oxford
All Rights Reserved
Edited by Crystal Potts
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Epilogue
Chapter 1
August 28, 11pm
The lights flickered above me, nearly in tune with the police officer’s footsteps. Every hallway was sectioned with security doors that had to be unlocked from the main office. I concealed my apathy, but only barely. Any wizard could disarm and disband the entire compound in seconds.
The officer opened another door revealing eight cells lining the left and right walls, each built of bars with a concrete back wall. They were furnished with the typical cell features; a thin mattress, a simple toilet, and a sink. The officer pulled out his collection of keys, unlocked the door of the nearest cell, and stepped back, holding it open.
“Is that the best you have?”
“Yes, sir.”
I sighed and entered the cell. I turned, less than a foot from the door, and watched him as he quickly locked the cell and removed the key, obviously afraid I would change my mind and stop being cooperative. He stepped back and I reached through the bars to rest my wrists on the crossbars.
“Sorry about this,” he said.
“You’re just doing your job.”
Right before he left, I let my magic spread into the bars, visualized the lock, and imagined the lock releasing. The door opened about an inch until my hand stopped it. The officer heard it and turned, trying his best to glare at me. I laughed.
“I’m just teasing. I’ll stay in my cage.” I pulled it closed and it clicked as it locked automatically.
He left without another word. The only other person nearby was a man in the cell across from me. Because of the stench of alcohol and vomit emanating from him and the fact that he was lying in bed motionless, I assumed he was a drunk. However, as soon as we were alone, he sat up. His brown eyes were glossy and his dark facial hair was matted with leftover food, spit, and liquor.
“What are you in for?” he asked with a slur.
“Killing my ex-wife.”
* * *
August 25
A sharp bang had me out of bed and reaching for my bat against the nightstand before I recognized the shape moving at the foot of my bed. The light flipped on, nearly blinding me since I had blackout curtains on the window. “Amelia, what are you doing in my room?” I asked, lowering the bat. My heart thudded out of control, but the fae’s apologetic expression was too sincere to warrant anger. She was the last woman on Earth who would do anything vindictive or offensive on purpose.
“I’m sorry…” she said, indicating the plate and coffee cup in her hands. “I was trying to bring you breakfast.”
The red-haired, green-eyed woman was about a hundred and ten pounds, five-four, and the epitome of Celtic beauty. The kittens on her oversized t-shirt and hearts on her light blue pajama bottoms didn’t make her appear any fiercer. After living with her for two months, I was convinced that she was the most submissive, courteous, and selfless woman alive.
I tossed the bat under my bed and took the coffee from her. “I don’t mean to be jumpy, but I’m not used to people in my house,” I said, hoping that would calm her. More than three months and I’m still not used to it. Then again, Regina was rarely home for the short time I lived with her. “What’s the occasion?”
She smiled hesitantly. “No occasion; I just thought it would be nice.”
I sipped my coffee, slowly, watching her over the rim. She fidgeted with the plate of eggs, bacon, and toast in her hands and looked away. The nervousness darkened her bright green eyes. I set my coffee on my nightstand and took the plate. “I’m going to get some butter for–”
“I’ll get it!” she interrupted, bolting for the door.
“Stop,” I said. She did, but wouldn’t look at me. “Why don’t you want me to see my kitchen?”
She gulped audibly. “Kitchen? What kitchen?”
“I see Darwin has been teaching you to lie.”
“I know how to lie. Darwin is going to clean it up. He promised. He just… got hungry last night… or something. Really, it’s not a big thing.”
“Really? Because my coffee tastes a lot like the coffee from the diner down the street.” She opened her mouth to apologize. “I’m not mad,” I said, patting her shoulder. “When have I ever gotten mad at you?” I put the plate down on the foot of the bed and opened the door.
“Last week, when Darwin was showing me how to make water balloons.”
“Okay, yes, I did get upset, but that was because he was throwing them at people out the window.” At that point, I rounded the corner, saw my kitchen, and froze. Darwin himself was sitting on the floor with two laptops, way too many wires, and a bag of popcorn. I could forgive the cereal all over the floor and counters, I didn’t even mind that every drawer, cabinet, and appliance was open, and the live chicken bathing in the overflowing sink was a minor thing.
But every inch of every surface in the kitchen ranged from hot pink to baby pink.
* * *
May 15
I agreed to teach Darwin magic or to shift because the alternative was unacceptable. Hunt may not have wanted to expel him, but the council would push and make life difficult for everyone. However, I hadn’t agreed to be the one to tell him.
I made my way to my new dorm room as slowly as I could, hoping that he would be gone by the time I made it there. The improvements to the dorms were those only students would make, despite the fact that the professors lived in them as well.
Because Logan Hunt’s ultimate goal in creating this school was to make life better for paranormals and to improve relations, students only ever shared rooms with others of the same type of paranormal if they were related or married. This was why I ended up with the two roommates I did in the first place. Traditionally, rooms were assigned to a wizard, shifter, and fae, but sometimes a wizard only had one other roommate, since wizards outnumbered other paranormals at Quintessence. However, because a portion of the students dropped out when the vampires attended, our rooms were now assigned to a wizard, a shifter, and a fae or vampire. That was actually our idea.
We also made the actual building fewer floors high because we couldn’t put an elevator in. Although the rooms were designed the same, we allowed for the students to change their wall colors as long as they painted them back to white at the end of the semester.
I stopped at my door and leaned my head against it. Hunt and Maseré left it up to me to tell Darwin that he either needed to do magic or shift. I knew he wouldn’t understand. Resigned, I opened the door. Darwin was writing notes in a notebook at his desk while Henry packed his books.
My younger roommate smiled at me. “Check this out, bro! I got an itinerary ready for my trip to Sydney. I’m gonna take pictures and Henry’s gonna draw them when we get back to school.”
“You may want to hold off on packing your wetsuit.”
“Didn’t intend to, yo. They got nude beaches.”
“Then you had better be very careful of what you take pictures of,” Henry warned.
“Actually, you won’t be going on vacation this summer.” When I told him what was going on and that it was because the council was pressuring Hunt, Henry had to restrain him.
It took an entire half an hour to get him to calm down enough for us to come up with a plan.
Darwin’s definition of a throwback was a person who couldn’t fit into the human or paranormal community, which included him because it hurt him to even touch someone. For the council, it was a person born to paranormal parents who couldn’t control their powers. In order to continue his studies at Quintessence, Darwin needed to get that label off him.
“You’re not really a throwback, according to their rules, so this should be easy,” I said when he sat back down. Henry stood in front of the door so Darwin couldn’t hunt down the wizard council. “You shifted your hands into paws twice.”
“That was… unusual circumstances and only happened when our lives were in danger.”
“What about your color changing power?”
He blushed with shame. “That’s a power I got from my mother. It’s actually supposed to be camouflage; she can change colors and textures of objects in order to hide her tribe’s den. I can’t even get that right; my power makes things look like a crayon box puked everywhere. Even then I can’t control it. The color that comes out is completely determined by my mood.”
“Well, at least it’s a starting place, so practice it as much as possible over the summer. Your father and Hunt have already talked and Maseré has agreed to let you stay with me. I’m not going to force you, but be prepared for whatever Hunt’s decision may be if you refuse.”
He was quiet for a moment. “I… I appreciate you helping me. I don’t think the school can teach me anything, but I like being here.”
* * *
August 25
I walked back to my room in silence, picked up my phone, and pressed the first number I had on speed-dial. I listened for the familiar voice and heard an even more familiar sigh. “What has he done now?”
“He turned my kitchen pink.”
Silence.
“The… uh… fridge too?”
“Yes, the fridge is the pinkest damn thing I’d ever seen.”
Then there were snickers. “Well, you did tell him to practice.”
“And that’s why I’m strangling my phone and not your son’s neck. Send a painter over. If my apartment manager sees this, we’re out on the street.”
“I’ll do ya one better; my wife and I thought we might drop by for a visit. I hate going so long without seeing my boy and Anya can fix your pink problem.”
His “boy” was twenty-two and he was going to be redder than a tomato introducing his mother to Amelia. Despite the fact that Darwin couldn’t touch anyone, I knew Anya was trying to get him married. At least they wanted what was best for their son, unlike Henry’s parents.
I peeked into guest room, which Amelia was using. I hadn’t bothered to furnish it when I was living alone, so it was recently renovated with the best air mattress Walmart had and a wooden table that took all of five minutes to set up. Her suitcases were neatly stacked in the corner.
Darwin, on the other hand, had a chaotic sleep schedule at best, so he slept on the couch. Therefore, the entire living room was piled high with his clothes, books, and electronics. Apparently, his mess was spreading. I had found out within half an hour of Darwin walking into the apartment that it was Henry who contained the chaos of Darwin’s living habits in our room at school. I was very tempted to call the jaguar myself.
“Devon?”
“Yep, sorry, I was daydreaming. Come on over, I’m sure Darwin would love to see you.”
“How is Amelia working out?”
“Good.”
“Really? Darwin isn’t teaching her bad habits, then?”
“Um…”
* * *
May 22
“I thought there was going to be some action and shit,” Darwin moaned. Sitting in the chair opposite of me from the desk, he plopped his head down on the wood with a dull thud. My desk was real wood, not that cheap stuff, so his subsequent moan was to be expected.
It hadn’t even been a week since Darwin and I left the school and I wanted to ship the guy back to his parents in a box. It was my first official day back at work and I was in my office, going over a contract. Since he didn’t bring his laptop that morning, Darwin had a fit when he discovered my computer was little more than a paperweight. Maseré had dropped off clothes, books, and case after case of electronics. This included everything from laptops to special drives that Darwin warned me to trash if the cops ever came by. When I asked how much of it was legal, he answered with, “In what country?”
“Being a P.I. isn’t always eventful,” I told him.
“You should have told me that before I agreed to stay with you this summer! I could be in Australia.”
“First of all, I did tell you that. Second, it wasn’t really your choice. If you want to come back to Quintessence, you have to control your magic or shift. Isn’t it winter in Australia?”
“The end of winter, yeah.”
“Here, you’re brilliant; you can read the contract over,” I said, sliding the packet and pen across the desk.
He scowled at it like it was rotten food. “No way. I hate legal crap. You can play lawyer, I’m gonna go to the library and hack the–” The bell rang as the door opened and when he turned to see who it was entering the office, his face lit up. “Amelia!” He looked like he wanted to hug her so badly.
Amelia was dressed in a long, elegant, satin, emerald green dress with silver ribbons around her slim waist. Her red hair was pulled back in a tie, but a few locks hung loose around her face. The man who followed her in was tall and thin with long, braided, dark brown hair and the same intensely green eyes as Amelia.
“You must be Devon,” he said with a slight Irish accent. His tone was not warm, but it wasn’t hostile either.
“I am. This is Darwin Mason.”
“I’m Sean Bell.” He nodded politely to my younger friend. “I’ve not seen you since you were four or five,” he said.
“I didn’t know we met.”
“Maseré and I met in Northolt, quite by chance. It’s how we came to live here, actually.” He turned to me. “How much of our situation has Maseré explained to you?”
“Nothing really, other than that you need a bodyguard for Amelia.”
Sean nodded. “Amelia’s mother, Gracie, was human. When my tribe found out that I was with her, they promised to kill her if I didn’t break off the relationship. I did, but they continued watching her. Then Amelia was born. I had no idea she even existed until my tribe went after them. I was able to get them out, but Gracie was already mortally wounded and died before I could heal her. Amelia and I moved to Northolt to get away from them.”
“What about joining another fae tribe?”
“There are many fae in that region, but you must be born or married into one. Maseré made an alliance with one such tribe by taking a wife and having a child. We became friends and I moved here with Maseré and his family. Because Maseré moved around all over the world after that, we lost touch for many years.”
“So Amelia and I met before?” Darwin asked. Amelia and Darwin studied each other, as if memories would suddenly crop up.
“You have, but in order to stay in hiding, I colored her hair and eyes and called her–”
“Amy!” Darwin interrupted. “I remember. I fell out of my mother’s apple tree trying to get you an apple.”
Her eyes widened. “You were the one with gloves who tied me to an apple tree!”
Darwin blushed and turned away. “No, that was the neighbor’s kid.”
“So what’s the problem?” I asked, trying to get back to the case.
“Three months ago, a friend told us that someone named Gale was going after powerful paranormals in order to attain their magic. Since Amelia was at school, I wasn’t too concerned about it, until I came home one night to find my house destroyed. Two days later, Logan sent Amelia home with Rosin, saying she was a witness to a murder and needed to get as far away as possible. We contacted Drake, but since there were
other murders going on, he couldn’t help me. Instead, we found out that one of our friends, Bryson, was killed and his son, Jake, was missing. Logan later told me you saved Jake.”
“Is Gale still after you?” He didn’t have the amulet, so he had no reason to kill people. Of course, that never stopped the rest of the psychopaths out there.
“No, he doesn’t appear to be. It seems my old tribe is more vindictive than I had ever considered. There is a new leader and he is adamant about tracking us down. He would never have even known we were in this country except that the council is setting up some kind of record on all of the fae in North America. We have been staying at a house Drake told us about, but they found us in just a few days and we were attacked repeatedly.
“Well, you’ll be safe with us,” Darwin said brightly.
Sean didn’t look so sure. “I understand this is not your typical kind of job. You were recommended by several people and, according to Amelia, you are very peaceful unless you’re friends or family is threatened. To our people, that is the strongest kind of man.”
“Surely your own powers are the best matched for–”
“Amelia has a rare variation of the Vouxeng gene,” Sean interrupted. “She can control emotions and feed off of emotional energy. My parents were both Vouxeng, so my abilities are a more standard type. I control dreams. There was a reason I wasn’t the leader of my tribe. Aside from this particular power, I am no more equipped to handle this than a human would be. All I need is for you to protect her this summer and check in on her at the university. Once she returns to Quintessence, I’m hoping that Logan’s wards can protect her.”
“And you don’t need help?”
“On my own, I can travel until they lose track of me. I just need to know that Amelia is safe.”
I nodded. “I’ll do it.”
“So…” Sean began slowly, blushing slightly. There was a definite resemblance between him and his daughter. “We don’t have a lot of money like Maseré or Stephen. Fae live off of what is provided by nature. I did hear that you lacked a car, however, and I believe I can provide you with a suitable one in exchange for you protecting my daughter.”