The Fire Inside

by Skye Ryan

  CHAPTER SIX

  Jessica looked at the two men, beaten within an inch of their lives, and wanted to slap them upside their heads for being so stupid. She applied ointment to several different cuts and used body wrap to make sure the broken bones would have the necessary support to heal. She was amazed that they were still standing after attacking each other with such brute force.

  “I don’t think that it was a good idea for you to see that, Jessica. I want you to stay here. I need some air and some time to clear my head. Being around you has made me feel like I don’t even know myself anymore. I’ve never had to say that in my life and I don’t like thinking somebody has that kind of power over me.” Jack got up on unsteady legs and headed towards the door. He looked back one last time and slammed it behind him.

  Jessica wanted to go after him, but had to stop herself. She turned to try and help Stephen instead and found he was not alone. Women were taking turns administering to his needs. The look in their eyes showed admiration and their exposed skin flushed in arousal to his touch. He was definitely going to get some tender loving care from the three sexy women surrounding him.

  Jessica heard the sound of an engine roaring to life and dashed across the room to see the lights from his motorcycle moving away from the house. She ran out to the street after him, not knowing what to do next. Spying keys in one of the motorcycles parked out front, she ceased all rational thought and jumped on it, knowing she had only sipped her drink and still had the reflexes to handle such a machine. Years of riding her own Harley-Davidson Sportster 883 Super Low gave her the confidence to tackle this FX Super Glide without a hitch. Grabbing the old-style helmet, she strapped it on and took off after Jack. Jessica knew she was going to be in some serious hot water for taking off on one of the club’s bikes. She didn’t want to piss them off, but knew none of them were in any condition to chase after her that night.

  She swerved a few times before she found her road legs. She pulled back on the throttle, feeling it lurch and holding on with the engine supplying her with more than enough speed to jump Jack’s bones.

  She stayed a fair distance behind without losing sight of him. He must’ve been preoccupied not to notice that she was behind him keeping pace. She was not letting him get lost ahead of her. At this time of night, there was very little traffic, but enough twists and turns in the road to keep her undetected.

  She found herself pushing the machine harder as her confidence with the powerful engine between her legs grew. For the first time since Kenneth died, she found herself smiling as the wind rushed passed her and she felt the freedom of the ride. It was hard for her to accept that she would never see his smiling face again and would take days before it finally sank in. She felt like she had an obligation to make sure that whoever did this to her brother was brought to justice by her own hand.

  Jessica saw him pull off the side of the road to a sleazy looking motel that boasted hourly rates. There in the parking lot, was another motorcycle with a feminine form dismounting from it. When she took off her helmet, a cascade of flaming red hair tumbled out from underneath. The red head took off her jacket and embraced Jack for several moments. A work of art adorned her arms, even Jessica could tell that whoever had laid her ink was a creative genius.

  She was struck in the moment that the way to commemorate her brother was to have a piece of him living with her all the time. His name on her skin would be the perfect way to keep his memory alive.

  They looked like they were having a deep discussion. They walked side by side until she opened the door to room number six. It was obvious from the way that she was looking at Jack that there was some history between the two of them.

  Jessica rolled the bike to a stop underneath the shadow of a tree a few yards away from the motel. She went the rest of the way on foot, feeling her heart sinking with the distinct possibility that the two had come here to lose themselves in the moment. It wasn’t all that difficult for her to picture them comforting one another. She wanted to be the one to do that for Jack and for him to help her to forget for an hour. She could only hope that it would last longer than that, spending hours twisted up in each other's sweaty, naked bodies

  She was afraid to step closer, not wanting to see them in a state of undress. She thought that it might be nice to get a glimpse of his naked body, but that came with the price of seeing him with another woman. That was not something that she was ready to do and it took some calming breaths to quell the paralyzing fear that was holding her in place.

  The window was cracked open and their voices carried to where she could hear most of what was being said. She wasn’t expecting them to be talking about what happened to her brother. They were about to learn that walls sometimes have ears.

  “I would say that it was nice to see you again, Stella, but I can’t do that with a straight face. You said that you had information for me. I hope this wasn’t your way of trying to rekindle a flame that has long been extinguished. We are not good for one another. We burned brightly for a moment and I will never forget any of the time that we have spent together, but now I need to know where he’s at.” Jack’s voice was all business.

  “What makes you think that I would have any idea of where he’s at? Let’s say for argument’s sake that I do. What kind of incentive do I have to give you that information? You know better than anyone else how he feels about betrayal. I could tell you, but what exactly does that give me. I’m not just going to give you his whereabouts out of the goodness of my heart. You need to work for it. Taking off your clothes would be a good start.” Stella was a woman who knew what she wanted and the leverage to get it was in her hands.

  “If that’s what it takes to get my hands on him then it is a small price to pay. I’ve never been shy about my body and for good reason. You could easily close your eyes and envision me in any way that you want. That is the beauty of being with me in a physical way. We did sleep together several times, but as I recall, I don’t think that we got much sleep.” Jack took off his shirt, letting her bask in the chemistry of the dragon.

  “I have to say that I thought it was going to take more convincing. This must be really important to you. I only agreed to meet you because I figured that we could mix a little bit of business with pleasure.” She reached out to touch his cheek and he pulled away like her touch scalded him.

  “It’s not a good idea. You can look, but you cannot touch.” He was trying his best not to succumb to something that was familiar. It would’ve been so easy to fall back into old habits with a woman that made him feel like he was losing a part of himself.

  “I know that I can use a little bit of alone time and there’s no reason why we can’t do that together. If you’re worried that I’m going to touch you, then you have nothing to fear. I’m going to do a whole lot more than touch you, but don’t worry, I don’t bite…but I think you know that I’m lying about that.” She grabbed him, hearing him gasp and she knew that his reaction was the instinct of a man.

  Jessica heard what sounded like Jack giving in. She worked up the courage to peer through the crack in the curtain. She noticed the way Stella was manhandling Jack and the awkward expression on his face, but that wasn’t the only thing she saw in that room.

  On the bed spread out on the ugly orange comforter were various implements of persuasion. There were several guns, knives, brass knuckles, and even cans of what she guessed to be tear gas. This girl was not taking any chances. What she was doing at the motel had nothing to do with seduction.

  Being with Jack was a surprise and one that Stella wasn’t going to back down from until she was satisfied beyond words.

  Stella massaged the bulge between his legs and wondered how delicious he would taste spearing in and out of her mouth. Her hand stopped moving all at once and she looked around the room, looking as though she were trying to sniff something out.

  “Don’t you even think about it!” Stella moved like lightening. She opened the door and roughly yanked Jessica in thr
ough it.

  One minute she was standing outside, and the next, she found herself flung onto the putrid orange bedspread of the motel room bed. It disgusted her to think of what a black light would reveal if someone were to use it to find evidence of sexual activity. She could almost imagine that the scene would look like something out of a Jackson Pollock painting.

  Her body was splayed out on the bed and a crazed woman with a wild mane of red hair straddled and pinned her arms down with her knees. She hadn’t yet realized just how much danger she had stumbled into.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  I t was the sound of Stella’s blouse ripping into shreds that got Jessica’s attention. She didn’t know what to make of it. She was a woman of scientific curiosity, but nothing that she had learned in school prepared her for what she was about to see. Stella’s face twisted into something like a wild animal. Wings expanded to fill the room with Jessica able to see the veins throbbing on the underside like they were a living embodiment of what Stella really was.

  “Spying is an unforgivable offense and action must be taken. You cannot be allowed to live long enough to tell anybody what you saw here today. I can’t have anybody knowing my business, especially a dirty human. You are the worst of them all and I can’t even look at you without wanting to lose my lunch.” Stella had her wings ready to slice across Jessica’s throat with one movement and put an end her struggling.

  Jack came face to face with her “Stella, you don’t know what you’re doing. This is the last thing that I wanted when I came to see you. Don’t make me do something that I’m going to regret. We had an understanding and I thought you knew that going against me was never a good idea. I’m going to ask you to get off her and let me handle this. I can’t be responsible for my actions if you hurt her in any way. If you resist the urge to kill her then we might be able to talk about this in a calm and civil manner.” Jack could see that talking was not something that Stella was good at. She had always been impulsive, acting without thinking about the consequences and this was one of those times.

  “You have no idea what you’re saying. Humans should not know of our existence. Why is this concept hard for you to understand? They are weak and they will perish by our hand. There is no way around that. There is a war on the horizon and he has taken steps to make sure that humans are not going to be part of evolution.” Stella believed everything she was told about the law of the jungle. It was something she felt strongly about and had done some despicable things in the name of freedom.

  “This is your final warning and I’m not going to say it again. Step away from her. If you can’t do it for yourself, then do it for me as a favor. I will owe you one. I always pay back my debts.” Jack was doing everything he could to stop Stella from killing the only woman that had ever meant anything to him. He didn’t know how sudden those feelings could come about, but his main objective was to make sure Jessica was safe from harm.

  “You don’t understand, but you will. It surprises me that you have any compassion for those who are weaker. Can’t you see that there’s no way that we can live with them? Perish the thought that I would ever have a friend that was a human. I want nothing more than the complete extinction of the entire human race. You used to think the same way until Dexter got in your head. I thought I had a chance of bringing you back into the fold, but then you met Kenneth. I had no choice but to tell him of your bond with that man. Did you really think that he was going to stand idly by and let you be seduced by the possibility of living in harmony?” Stella had the razor edge of her wing ready to kill this woman when she was pulled away. Her body slammed into the wall.

  Jack had no choice but to take action against a woman he claimed to love at one time. At one time, had gotten lost in the bible thumping sermon she had dragged him to. She seduced him and how he was able to wrench free of her seductive grasp was beyond him.

  “Stella, I don’t know where we went wrong. We both know that there’s only one way to end this. We’ve tried to bring your faction around, but they seem unable to compromise. I’ve tried talking, but you just don’t want to listen. I’m done trying to get through to any of you. What you really understand most of all is the biblical phrase of an eye for an eye.” He had her pinned against the wall with his knee up against her crotch keeping her excited enough that she wouldn’t be able to transform completely.

  Jessica was up at the headboard with her hands wrapped around her knees not quite understanding what she had seen. The one thing that was clear was that Jack intended to kill this woman. She knew that he had an edge, but she didn’t think that he was capable of cold-blooded murder.

  “There’s no way you would kill me over…a…a…human. Tell me that you haven’t fallen so far that you don’t know the way back to salvation. He would gladly make room for you at his feet. All you have to do is take that step and stop deluding yourself that these humans have any place with us.” Stella would have said anything to bring an end to these hostilities. She was not opposed to dying, but she wanted to do it the right way, on the battlefield.

  “I used to think you were right, but now I know you’re wrong. You have convinced me that there is no chance for a peaceful reconciliation. The mouth breathers will never be satisfied with anything less than the humans either dying or bowing in servitude at their feet.”

  “He will be livid with you, Jack.”

  “Perhaps, I can send a painful reminder that we’re not going to go away. You can be that message and one that will show him that I’m not a pacifist. I may not want to fight, but that doesn’t mean I can’t.”

  Jack looked at Stella and began to dig his thumbs into the socket of her eyes. He could feel the spongy material begin to give under his pressure. He could see the rivers of blood running in tears down her cheek.

  “Please…you don’t have to do this.” Stella felt powerless to resist his attack and thoughts of her allegiance to her master were the only things that gave her the will to fight.

  Jessica didn’t think that there was any way back if Jack were to kill this woman in cold blood. She found the strength and forced herself to stand at the edge of the bed and place her hand on Jack’s shoulder. She was stunned when he turned to her and she saw his eyes, glowing red and engulfed in rage. She gave her head a shake, sure that it must have been an optical illusion or maybe a trick of the light that streamed through the crack in the curtains. She’d seen too much and didn’t want to believe that Jack could be anything more than human.

  “I think you should leave before you see something you shouldn’t. I don’t know what’s going to happen, but it’s not going to be pretty. I don’t know why you’re looking at me like that. She has left me no choice.” The clock by the bed was moving incredibly slow. Everything that had transpired took less than a few minutes, but the danger persisted.

  “I want… I want her to stay and witness this.” Stella uttered. “She needs to know what we are capable of. This woman doesn’t deserve the kind devotion that you have been waiting to show her. I can’t stop you. My limbs are limp like a rag doll. What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger. I should’ve known better to push you too far. It was only asking for trouble.” Stella knew from personal experience that what Jack was doing was the worst possible hell for their kind. Being blind would make her damaged goods. That was one wound that a dragon could not heal and was only used in the heat of the moment.

  “She’s not like us and I don’t know how many times I have to tell you this. Humans are better and we should strive to emulate them. We let the beast out of its cage and it flies free to hurt others. We have the power to determine the fate of a weaker species. I have been guilty of that sin myself, and I’ve done everything I can to make up for it. I’m desperately clinging to the last vestige of humanity inside me. I was not born the same way you were. That’s the reason why we made such an explosive couple.” He kept pressing and wondering if he was capable of stepping over that line. His kind would never look at him the same way.


  The hand on his shoulder had softened his approach slightly, but it wasn’t keeping him from doing what he felt that he needed to do.

  “He will take what you do to me personally. Giving him license to act on his own is going to have blood running in the streets. Are you sure that you want innocent deaths on your hands? In the old days, you wouldn’t even care, but I see something more. It makes me sick to my stomach.” She was trying to move, but whatever he was doing to her eyes made her a willing victim.

  “It was in the way you looked at me and I think that you know the kind of power that you had over me. You were steady on my mind, but you’re not right in the head. I’m doing the world a favor by getting rid of you. There’s nothing you can say to sway me from my course of action. No matter how distasteful I feel about doing this, I know that letting you go will only bring them back in force.” It was the hardest thing that he would ever do, but death had a funny way of following him around waiting to see if his blood lust was still right there where everybody could see it.

  “I know you won’t kill me, but what you’re doing is worse than death. You’re opening yourself to the full resources at his disposal. He has left you alone for a reason. You know what that is and it’s something that neither one of you want to talk about openly.” Stella felt that dying would be preferable to a life of relying on her other senses. They would pity her and it would be with a heavy heart that her beloved would end her life. That action would turn into a campaign of destruction. The master would reign supreme over anybody that stood in his way. His mind was fragile. It wouldn’t take much to make him snap.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  J essica was totally at a loss for words and didn’t know what to do. She had to believe that Jack was not capable of such despicable actions.

  “I want you to take a step back and look at things with an unbiased perspective. Do you really want to be the person she wants you to be? I don’t really know what’s going on here and what I have seen makes me question everything I believe in. I need you to be the bigger person. I don’t know why it needs to be said, but I will never forgive you if you kill her. I could never be with somebody who could kill without having second thoughts.” Jessica hoped her words would break through whatever it was that had turned Jack into somebody she no longer recognized.