Touch of Fire

by Michele Callahan

  “Can we go home now?”

  “What?” She was staring after the unicorns and answered him with a very distracted tone. “Do you think they share a common ancestor with horses? I wonder how close their DNA is. I’d love to get my hands on some unicorn hair. Do you think they’d let me have some?” She took a step in the direction the unicorns had run and slapped herself on the thigh. “Darn it! I should have asked him when he was here. But it just happened so fast. I mean, unicorns! Holy shit.”

  “Kayla.”

  “Hmmm?” She turned in a circle and whirled around with her head tilted back to look up at the sky. “That was so cool.”

  Xander gave up trying to understand her and simply walked forward, lifted her face to his with a gentle nudge to her chin, and claimed her mouth the way he wanted to, the way he’d not allowed himself before. A lifetime’s worth of longing was in the kiss. An eternity of need. Desperation.

  He held her in place and plundered, his hands lifting her with a firm grip on her curvy ass and his stance aggressive, bending her back with his ferocity, his need to make sure she knew exactly what he wanted.

  Her.

  Chapter Six

  The man was dangerous. Deadly. One kiss and she forgot everything else. Everything.

  Kayla gave up trying to resist and wrapped her arms around his neck, holding tight as he kissed her like she’d never been kissed before. His huge hands were lifting her off the ground and the heat of his touch on her bottom was driving her wild, making her whole body ache to be touched by this wild man.

  When the kiss was over she didn’t let go of him. She couldn’t. Not and remain standing. With his forehead pressed to hers and their breaths mingling in the breeze, she buried her fingers in his hair and gave in to the urge to explore a little. A shudder raced down his body at her touch and she sighed happily, knowing she wasn’t the only one losing her mind a little.

  “Why do you keep doing that?”

  “Doing what?”

  “Kissing me. I don’t even know you.” What she wanted to say, she didn’t dare. What the hell was a hot guy like him doing kissing an average girl like her? She wasn’t ugly, but she wasn’t a great beauty either. She was short, and a bit too curvy in the hips, and her hair was a plain old shade of brown that matched her completely unremarkable hazel eyes. Her chest was average size and she had a sprinkling of freckles across her nose. No makeup. No heels. No game. In short, he was way out of her league.

  He lifted his head and before she realized he had moved, his hands were cupping her face in a hold so tender, so gentle, tears gathered in her eyes as he stared down at her. “Because you are beautiful, Kayla. And I can’t resist.”

  Holy shit. Was this guy for real? She found it hard to believe, but looking into his dark brown eyes, all she saw was desire and raw emotion, and a hint of vulnerability she’d never noticed before, as if he were afraid that she was going to reject him. His touch felt real, and somehow, the softest slide of his hands under her jaw made her feel treasured.

  Not to mention that his kiss melted her all the way to her toes.

  “Okay.”

  A loud booming bass beat came from the direction of the truck and Xander turned his head in that direction, breaking the spell that had held her immobile in his arms. She stepped back, but he grumbled at her and took her hand to lead her back to the parked vehicle.

  As soon as they cleared the rock formation that had been blocking their view, Kayla doubled over with laughter. The fairies had rolled down the windows and were lined up on the dash dancing to a club beat like professional back-up dancers in a music video.

  “They’re going to blow my speakers.” Xander grumbled and ran to the passenger door. He opened it and turned down the stereo over loud protests. “You’re going to go deaf, Glitter.”

  The little fairy was still swinging her hips and grooving to the much quieter beat as Kayla walked up behind Xander with a huge grin on her face. She had to go up on her tiptoes to peek over Xander’s shoulder at the tiny dancers. “Nice moves. Can you teach me some?”

  “You know it!” Glitter twirled around and her babies, still attached to her long hair, twirled in a circle around her head laughing hysterically and screaming for more.

  Xander’s shook his head as Kayla laughed, but he helped her into the truck and drove her to his home. When they arrived, Kayla grabbed Glitter and her babies and waited as Xander opened the door for her and then helped her step out of the truck with her precious cargo. “Which way to the garden?”

  Kayla looked around, but all she saw was red dirt, dry grass, and what looked like an endless sea of more of the same.

  “It’s inside. Come.”

  “Inside the house?” Kayla looked over the structure. Yes, it was a smallish house, maybe a three-bedroom ranch, if she had to guess. It did not look like there was room for a garden and a fountain, or the exam room she’d been in earlier. But there was something about the place that felt homey, and comfortable, like an old favorite pair of shoes. No, like her mom’s house used to feel when she visited during college. Like home.

  “Yes. The garden is inside.”

  He led her through the front door and Kayla paused, looking up at a sparkling red stone imbedded just above the entrance. It was about the size of her palm, and looked like it was worth a small fortune. “Is that a ruby?”

  Xander paused with his hand at the small of her back and a burst of heat entered her body where he touched her, going straight to her core. Did that ruby have a light inside it? Because she would swear she just saw it flare.

  “No. It is not a ruby. It is the only stone like it in existence. It was created by a magical dragon specifically for this house.” He tried to nudge her forward, but she refused to budge.

  “You know a dragon?” Holy cow. Yesterday she wouldn’t have believed him. But today she’d already met a talking fairy, a witch, and a unicorn. She stared at the stone until it was out of sight as he gently nudged her through the doorway. “That is so cool. Do you think you could get me some dragon scales? Or maybe a clipping off its claws? Do they have saliva? Because that could work too, but not if they can actually breathe fire because then their mouth would be all dried out.”

  Xander shook his head. “That’s not going to happen, Kayla. I’m sorry. She would most likely bite my head off my body if I even asked.”

  “Seriously? ” Kayla was shocked, but his face was very solemn, not a hint of levity in his eyes, not a twitch of a grin on his lips. A dragon! A female dragon!

  “Seriously.” He closed the door behind them and Glitter let out a whoop as she freed her little ones from their leashes of long, silvery hair. The little ones buzzed around the edges of the room, exploring.

  “I don’t have claws, but you can have a piece of my hair, Kayla.” Glitter reached up and plucked a silver strand from her head, holding it out to Kayla with an innocent smile on her face.

  “Thank you!” Kayla wondered where she was going to keep it, and finally dug around in her purse and laid the delicate silver strand in the bill compartment of her wallet. “I’ll check it out when I get back to the lab.”

  “Why?” Glitter was sparkling again as her children’s laughter filled the entire room.

  “So I can look at your DNA.”

  Glitter’s laugh sounded like tiny bells. “We don’t have DNA, silly.”

  That got Kayla’s attention and she swung her head to look at the fairy. “What do you mean? Every living thing has DNA.”

  “Nope. We don’t.”

  Xander was watching her too closely, and she knew he probably saw the doubt on Kayla’s face, but he didn’t say a word.

  “Well, I’ll check it out in my lab anyway. If that’s okay.”

  Glitter flipped around in the air twice and looked like she was dancing to music only she could hear. “Kayla the scientist. You are going to try to figure us out? Figure out where we come from?”

  “Yes.”

  Glitter inspected her
tiny fingernails. “Waste of time. Lots of scientists have tried before. But we don’t have DNA. We have music.”

  “What?”

  Glitter raised an eyebrow, looking all too pleased with herself. “At the center of our cells, in the deepest parts of us, in the nucleus, we have music. The music is magic. The magic creates us.”

  “Okay. Well, do you mind if I have a look anyway?”

  Glitter bowed low. “Of course. Help yourself. But you won’t find what you’re looking for, Kayla.” With that, she flew off to round up her babies.

  Kayla took the extra time to look around herself.

  The floor was dark red tile. The walls were stucco and a warm, soft beige. But there wasn’t much furniture. A large, kiva style fireplace took up most of one wall and a single wood chair with a lamp beside it faced the grate. There was no art on the walls or other decorations. No plush couch or recliners. No knickknacks or throws.

  Xander tensed behind her, but Kayla didn’t care about any of that. He must have just moved in. “Did you just move in? Because you really need to get some furniture.”

  “I have a bed.”

  Kayla grinned at that, but didn’t say anything else. Of course he had a bed. And of course she was now going to start think about spending time in it. With him hot, naked, and buried deep inside her.

  But, the house was larger than she’d suspected. Two hallways branched off the foyer and she could now distinctly hear the sound of running water.

  Apparently, so could the fairies, for all four of them were already flying down the hall toward the sound.

  With a grin she followed them down the side corridor, curious to see this garden Xander claimed he’d built for her.

  Glitter’s squeal of delight reached Kayla’s ears moments before she stepped around the corner and stopped dead in her tracks.

  An oasis greeted her. One entire wall was covered with a slow-flowing river of water that fed a large pond that looked big enough to comfortably hold a couple dolphins. The pool’s water was clear and so blue Kayla wondered if she would be able to see to the bottom. Lily pads and other greenery floated along the edges. The rest of the outdoor room looked like a jungle of flowers, trees and vines that should have taken twenty or thirty years to grow. There was barely an inch of ground not covered by something soft and beautiful, and completely out of place in the middle of a New Mexico desert.

  A pair of matching benches gave a welcoming feeling, one next to the water and one beneath the gently draping greenery hanging from a tree.

  Glitter flew around so quickly she became a silver blur, inspecting everything. The little fairy even disappeared beneath the water to pop back up again a few moments later with a joy-filled laugh. “This is perfect, Xander! Thank you.”

  Kayla smiled as the fairy flew right up to Xander and kissed him on the cheek. The big guy turned an adorable shade of pink and Kayla felt her heart thump inside her chest. That sinking, aching, gnawing feeling in her heart was trouble, trouble, trouble. She couldn’t afford to fall in love this week. She had a job to get back to, a life she’d worked very, very hard to create for herself. Unicorns and fairies were cool, but they didn’t pay the student loans or help her establish a successful research career.

  Staring at his lips, she realized her mistake. She should never have kissed him. That had been her first mistake. Kissing him the second time? Well, that hadn’t been a mistake, that had been just plain foolish, because now all she could think about was kissing him again.

  Tearing her gaze from his firm mouth, she walked into the garden and sat down on the bench next to the water. Beneath the tranquil surface, a handful of large, gorgeous koi fish swam through the water with long, lazy swishes of their tails.

  Xander sat down next to her and she knew he was waiting to hear what she thought of the place. So she told him the truth. “It’s beautiful, Xander.”

  “Thank you.”

  “But, I don’t understand. How did you do this? Where is the water coming from? We’re in the middle of a desert.”

  Xander leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest. “My brothers helped me.”

  “I don’t understand what that means.” She shifted her foot as a frog hopped by with Spring riding his back like a human child would climb on a large dog. She smiled at the sight and wondered where the other little ones were.

  “My family is not exactly normal.”

  The hesitation in his tone caught her attention more than his words and she turned to face him. “What do you mean?”

  He took a deep breath and acted as if telling her about his family was akin to putting his head on a chopping block. Kayla held in her smile. So, he had family issues? Who didn’t?

  “I am what some people call an elemental. So are my brothers. I was born to fire. My brother, Zach, controls water and my brother Andres controls earth. I have many more brothers I have never met. Andres and Zach stopped by and helped me create this garden for you. Zach pulled the water from a deep, underground spring and created the river while Andres grew the plants and trees and called the animals for me.”

  “What animals?”

  Xander grinned. “The butterflies, fish, and frogs.”

  Kayla looked around with new eyes. What he was saying was amazing. And just as unbelievable as a unicorn family or a talking rabbit. “How is this possible? What are you?”

  Xander shifted in his seat but answered her question. “My mother is an immortal, a daughter of the sea god Nereus. She’s a sea nymph who was tied up while she was sleeping and forced to marry against her will. She escaped, eventually. But for the last couple thousand years, since the death of her favorite son, Achilles, she’s been seducing human men and casting a curse on her mortal sons.”

  “Wait, what?” Achilles? Had he just said Achilles? And Nereus? “Your mother is Thetis? The goddess?” This had to be a joke. Seriously. Xander was supposed to be the son of the queen of the Nereids? A goddess of the sea who could take the form of flame, water, a lioness and a serpent? The legendary Achilles was one of his brothers?

  Well, it would explain his ridiculous level of hotness. He looked like a Greek god because he was a descendant of one?

  “Unfortunately, yes.” He raised his eyebrows, surprise clearly evident on his features. “You know of my mother?”

  “I read the Illiad three times. And I took mythology in high school and college. I always loved the stories about Achilles. They were so sad…” Kayla looked from his earnest expression to Glitter, who hovered above the water talking to all of the fish. The koi had gathered around her, their heads held just above the water as the little fairy laid down the law, telling the creatures that under no circumstances were they allowed to try to eat her babies. The fact that Kayla could understand everything being said was just one more weird thing to add to a day full of crazy.

  “Are you immortal?”

  “No. I am all too human. I age just like my human father.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Omaha, Nebraska.”

  “Omaha? How did you end up here?”

  “I felt the magic. The creatures here, their energy called to me. When I was ready to build my home, I knew this was the place.”

  “This place is incredible, but…” Kayla waved her hand, her head shaking. “The son of a sea nymph born in Omaha? How did a mythical sea creature end up in Nebraska?”

  “I was not born there. I was taken there when I was six months old, abandoned by my mother and cursed to a lifetime of loneliness until…” His voice faded away and Kayla turned from watching Glitter make friends with the fish to catch the shadows behind Xander’s eyes.

  “Cursed? Until what?”

  “Until today, when my mother arrived and gave me the stone.”

  “But you said a dragon made it for you.”

  “Yes. She was in her dragon form today.”

  “Of course, your mom is a dragon.” Kayla felt like pulling her hair out, trying to absorb all this information. Unic
orns. Fairies. Dragons. Witches. Sea gods and half-mortal men whose kisses made her forget her own name. If she could study them, get DNA samples, catalog their diseases… She could create an entirely new branch of medicine. Who knew what could come of it. Cures for cancer? Immortality? Magic. Maybe she could discover the genetic coding for magic.

  Flame and Daffodil chose that moment to zip in front of Kayla’s nose and fly right past her to circle Xander’s head in a flurry of sparkles and giggling.

  “All right. Enough.” Glitter’s voice boomed through the large area and the little ones zipped straight through the air like bullets headed back to her. Little Spring hopped off his frog friend to join them as their mother instructed them to choose an area of the garden and bind themselves to the energy there.

  Spring hopped right back on the frog’s back and headed for a dense patch of lily pads and pond fronds, his faint green light making them glow on the surface of the water like stars at night.

  Daffodil raced for a patch of flowers on the other side of the pond where a small bush and a wide area covered by clover and mushrooms grew. Bright yellow light flowed from the tiny body and a new batch of bright yellow flowers rose from the ground as Daffodil whirled in happy circles around it.

  Little Flame wandered for a few minutes before stopping near a tall vine near the base of the waterfall. But as her red energy flowed into the vine, it began to wilt. Glitter frowned and hurried to her daughter’s side. “Oh, dear. No. This just won’t do.”

  Chapter Seven

  Flame withdrew her tiny hand and her small hiccups made Kayla’s heart hurt for the little red fairy. She was extremely upset. Her magic was killing the plants, not helping them grow.

  Xander got to his feet and walked to the tiny girl. He held out his hand and the little one crawled onto his palm. “Don’t worry, Flame. I made the perfect place for you.”

  The tiny girl stopped crying at once and jumped to her feet as Xander carried her over to the farthest corner from the waterfall where a stack of black rock and forged metal created a monument nearly as tall as Kayla was herself. Curious, Kayla got to her feet and walked over. The stones were partially hidden behind the trees, and she hadn’t noticed the odd structure before. Nor had she seen the stunning red-and-gold bird standing on the small ledge next to it.