Of Flame and Fate: A Weird Girls Novel (Weird Girls Flame Book 2)

by Cecy Robson

  Shayna pokes her head out from the ledge. “Dude!” she says.

  Koda appears, so does Bren, reaching for Gemini as he nears the top and yanking us out.

  “Time to get the fuck out, peeps,” Bren says, tossing Emme over his shoulder and darting toward a nearby grove.

  Gemini hauls me into his arms and races away, placing me down in a small clearing only when the trembles at our feet subside.

  Everything behind us is on fire, everything. Good thing we have that arena size crater sucking it all in.

  “Did I do that?” I ask.

  “Yup,” Bren answers.

  With the exception of me and my sisters, whose clothes hang in pieces, all the weres are naked, not that I see much.

  Everyone is covered in soot and coughing. Including me.

  “What exactly happened?” I ask.

  Shayna and Emme exchange glances. “You sorta blew everything up,” Shayna tells me. “Again.”

  I point to the hole. “But how did I create that? That’s . . . huge.”

  Gemini shakes his head as if he can’t believe it himself. “Your power and Johnny’s had it out. From what we could see the impact broke through the ground and struck a fault line, empowering it with magic and creating the crater.” He frowns, looking out across the hot mess. “The witches are bespelling the first responders and survivors.” He tilts his head, listening closely, not that I hear a damn thing. “They’re inferring the fire started within the arena after the earthquake struck due to defective wiring.”

  I look back at the swirls of blue, white, and gold, my power intermixing with Johnny’s, I suppose. It must have been something to see the colossal amount of energy it took to feed the fault line, and to watch nature respond so brutally in return.

  But it was something else entirely to experience it, and to be the cause.

  I watch the flames eating their way into the sky a while longer before I speak. “Destiny’s dead.”

  The quiet that stretches out among us is almost more than I can take. Bren huffs. “Yeah. That’s what it looked like.”

  I raise my chin. “You saw what happened to her?”

  It’s Gemini who answers. “We all did. The magic that unleashed when you fought Johnny debilitated us. We couldn’t do or see much past the visions.” He looks at me. “They were yours, weren’t they? The ones of Destiny in bed with Tye fighting to revive her?”

  “Not completely. I think she wanted me to see, so I did. With how bad she was hurting, it was the only way she could communicate.”

  I remember how dizzy the strobing images made me, and how hard it was to differentiate between the here and now and what was happening in Tahoe. Tears fill Shayna’s and Emme’s eyes, except I’m the one who cries first.

  “The tattoo was what Johnny used to drain her,” I say. “The one of the snake piercing the heart.”

  “Destiny was our heart,” Shayna says, repeating my exact thoughts. The realization causes her tears to run faster and all at once, she breaks down.

  “She was,” I agree. I sniff, trying uselessly to keep it together. “I just don’t think any of us knew it until it was too late.”

  Koda gathers Shayna into his arms when she cries into her hands. Like the rest of us, his body was battered, and while his wolf has healed him, it can’t protect him from Shayna’s sorrow. He holds her, hurting because she does.

  Gemini pulls me to him. “I just don’t understand how he did it,” I say, my misery making it hard to speak.

  He sighs. “Destiny never knew of him. But the Fate always knew her. I think he baited her with his music, calling to her when he finally believed he could take her.”

  “But he seemed so shocked when he first saw her,” I say. “Like he was seeing something he didn’t know existed.”

  “I think you’re wrong,” he tells me gently, his knuckles passing gently across my skin. “If anything, I think he was shocked to see you, and your sisters. He wasn’t expecting anything like you.”

  I ease away from him, just enough to see his face. “So all that screaming and suffering on the mountain wasn’t real on his part?”

  He strokes my hair, appearing sad. “It was. Except where she hurt because her magic was leaving her, my guess is he was in pain due to the gamut of energy being fed into his body.” He releases my strands. “He probably spent years nourishing the tattoo so he could take Destiny’s power when they finally met. I just don’t think he expected what leeching that power would cost him.”

  “We should have let Tye kill him when he had the chance,” Bren mutters. He spreads his arms out. “Look at all this shit, all these dead humans, the rest of us coming close to biting it. It could have ended before it began.”

  Gemini frowns. “I don’t agree. The amount of energy passing from Destiny into Fate was colossal. If Tye had killed him then, it would have erupted and destroyed us all.”

  “Instead it only killed poor Destiny,” I say.

  Emme edges beside me when I wipe my face. “Here,” she says. “Let me heal you.”

  Gemini releases me and steps toward the other weres to give us space. Like the rest of us, they look aggrieved.

  “I’m all right,” I mumble. I’m not a masochist, but I feel like one then. I should have saved her. I should have done more. But I don’t think I was enough.

  No matter how hard we fought, none of us were enough to save her.

  I stare out in the direction of the fiery pit, pondering all the things that went wrong.

  “Taran,” Emme says. “I don’t think you realize how hurt you are.”

  Maybe I don’t. Maybe I don’t want to.

  I’m having trouble breathing. Mostly though, I’m numb. Johnny was a victim of chance. Like me and my sisters, these powers were shoved upon him whether he wanted them or not. The thing is, we stopped being victims and decided to do something good with all the shit we were handed. Johnny didn’t, he continued to play the victim only to become the aggressor, attacking an innocent and killing her slowly.

  My breath releases in painful bursts. I can’t imagine how much Destiny suffered, not just since meeting Johnny, but in the last few moments of her life. It must have been torture, and yet she used what remained of her strength to help us.

  Oh, Destiny, how I would love to see you bouncing along in your zebra prints one last time.

  “Taran,” Emme pleads.

  “Emme, I’m fine,” I tell her.

  “No, you’re not,” Gemini answers gruffly, evidently articulating what everyone is thinking based on the way their stares hone in on my face. He storms to my side. “You almost died, twice, and your face and body reflect it. Just let Emme heal you.”

  I raise my hands to my face, wincing when the numbing lifts and the pain sharpens. My skin is swollen. “All right,” I say.

  It doesn’t take long for Emme to heal me, everything snapping into place rather viciously once she gets going. She cringes, glancing away even as her fingers slip tenderly away from my face.

  Gemini takes the phone Emme hands him when she finishes and calls the Den. He’s communicating with another were to arrange our flight home when Shayna’s phone rings.

  She reaches into her back pocket, her motions slow, reflecting her exhaustion. “Hello?” Her eyes widen, her head whipping from me, to Emme, and then to Koda whose gaze is just as wide. “Dude, are you serious?”

  “What is it?” I ask, hurrying forward.

  She looks directly at me. “It’s Destiny. She’s alive.”

  My body whips around as I feel a penetrating and familiar pull. From the flames and smoke near the crater, an immense peacock emerges, clutching Johnny’s limp form.

  Gemini barks out orders, alerting the pack to follow.

  But he’s too late.

  The peacock disappears into the horizon, taking Fate with him.

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  There were days so bad, I wasn’t sure how we’d survive, and nights we couldn’t sleep because we were fi
ghting for our lives. Yesterday and last night were one of those moments. Maybe that’s why there aren’t any tears left to cry.

  The air was so dense with regret and worry it was hard to breathe, much less sleep.

  I barely spoke the entire flight back to Tahoe, listening as the Alliance elite scrambled to find Johnny. Each word spoken was another icepick to the heart, spreading the numbness taking me over.

  Gemini opens the passenger side door to his black SUV, allowing me through. And although he climbs inside and cranks the engine, he doesn’t immediately pull away. Instead he greets me with one of those sweet, outrageously sexy kisses he gives me when we’re alone and have no place to go.

  It surprises me, given all the shit the last twenty hours have brought. That doesn’t mean I don’t welcome it and take every bit of love it carries.

  He pulls away as I begin to relax, and strokes my face. “You need to sleep,” he tells me.

  He’s worn. But his two wolves will keep him going for days. I don’t have a beast to energize me, and only now recognize how exhausted I am. “Okay, but with you, in our bed, and in our real home.”

  “Then that’s what we’ll do,” he says, pressing another gentle kiss across my lips.

  He pulls away, the SUV splashing through the large puddles created during last night’s rainfall. I might have burned a good part of South Carolina to ash, but Tahoe is freshly cleansed from last night’s storm.

  As we near the end of the tarmac I catch sight of Emme and Bren. His head is bowed as he speaks to her quietly. She’s wearing his old biker jacket, the long sleeves dangling past her hands. But it’s her small smile that gives me pause.

  There’s something special between them. I’m just not sure he’s ready to see or feel it, no matter how much she needs him to.

  As Gemini pulls away from the airport and onto the main road, my thoughts return to Johnny. But how I wish I could will those thoughts away.

  “All those people killed in the stadium were blood sacrifices,” I say. “Weren’t they?”

  Gemini rubs his jaw, the longer whiskers of his goatee sliding between his fingers. It’s not an irritated gesture, not like it sometimes is. Like me, he’s in deep thought. “That’s what it seemed like,” he agrees.

  “So Johnny will become one of them, won’t he?” I swallow back the anger and maybe more sadness than I should. “He’ll be the next big shapeshifter.”

  “Maybe,” he says.

  “Maybe?” I question. “He’s a witch and killed all those people. He could have sacrificed them on behalf of a dark deity. Babe, he would have done whatever it took to save his own ass.”

  “It’s not as easy as that, Taran. Before becoming shifters, dark witches spend their lives delving in arts laced with evil and ill intent.” He curses. “As much as I didn’t like Johnny, he wasn’t evil. Those feelings he had for you were genuine, and came from someplace good. Good isn’t something dark witches are capable of, and neither is anything that resembles friendship.”

  “Then what will he become?” I ask.

  “I don’t know,” he says, his SUV barreling down the road. “It’s obvious he made a deal with them. The neophytes and shifters wouldn’t have arrived in the numbers that they did just to kill or kidnap him. Johnny summoned them, and based on the information we gathered during the debriefing, it was when you stepped onto the stage to kill him.”

  “That makes sense.” I look up at him. “You know he’ll go to the shifters, right? After everything he did, there’s no other supernatural group who will take him.”

  “No, evil is all he has now,” Gemini says. “There, he’ll either be used, emerge as a neophyte, or become something more.”

  “Either way more powerful,” I conclude.

  “I don’t know about that.” The corner of his mouth lifts with something that appears too much like pride. “Taran, no matter how powerful he was, you inflicted immeasurable damage.” He motions to my arm. “We still don’t know what your arm’s power is capable of. But Johnny does, and now he fears you because of it.” He steals a glance my way. “Just as I saw those visions Destiny presented us, I could sense his fear. He was afraid of you. He knew he’d die at your hands.”

  “But he didn’t.”

  “No,” he says, his voice certain. “But one day he will. Fate now knows you’ll be the one to kill him.”

  Guilt fills me. “If that’s true, why didn’t I kill him? Why did I hesitate?”

  “You hesitated because you’re human, my love.” He reaches for my hand and kisses it. “It’s one of your best qualities and what keeps me from fully surrendering to my beasts.” He smiles softly. “I wouldn’t be the man I am without you.”

  “Don’t be nice,” I say, my voice trembling. “I don’t deserve it.”

  “You do. You may not have killed Fate this time, but you saved Destiny.”

  At least I can take comfort in that.

  I lean my head against his shoulder when he puts his arm around me. “Do you want to stop someplace to eat?”

  “No.” I rub my eyes. “Let’s go home. I want to check on Destiny, and make sure she’s all right. Then we’ll eat. Then we’ll sleep.”

  “Whatever you’d like, Taran.”

  We don’t say much on the short drive back. But what we say is enough, returning to a sense of normal I cling to with everything I have.

  Apparently, normal is a pussy and doesn’t belong in our world. Gemini straightens and I right myself as a plethora of magic bangs into our chests when we reach Dollar Point.

  “Fate,” he growls.

  “Uh-uh,” I say, my heart bursting with enough joy to taste. “It’s Destiny, she’s interacting with the magic from the Lake.”

  Gemini floors it. As the Lake comes into view, I see them, millions of sparkles spreading across the water and flowing in the direction of our home. He peels into our neighborhood, swerving to a stop in front of our house.

  The wolves, the ones who are supposed to be guarding her, stand along our front lawn, watching in awe as the black and silver sparkles swirl like shimmering fireworks.

  One of the wolves jogs toward us when he sees us hurry out. “It’s Destiny,” he says. “She’s become something stronger.” He shakes out his hands as if he can sense the power she emits. “I’ve never felt anything like her.”

  The world is held in a delicate balance, and now that Fate has changed, so will Destiny, evening the odds. I don’t wait. I race up the wooden porch steps and into the house, out of my mind with joy and bearing a smile as large as life.

  That smile drops when I find Destiny and Tye going at it like horny gorillas on my dining room table.

  Tye’s jeans and boxers are down to his ankles, exposing an ass only partially obstructed by a pair of zebra-stripe clad legs crisscrossed over his back. He pumps away, growling deep as hot pink plumage floats away from whatever ungodly headpiece Destiny is wearing.

  I don’t stick around to see it. I walk out, slamming the door shut behind me.

  Gemini pauses at the top of the steps, frowning. “Are they coming?”

  “That’s what it sounds like,” I reply.

  His eyes round as he stares at the door, hearing something I’m more than glad to miss. I shudder as I reach the bottom of the steps, and shudder a little more when another visual of them fills my mind. Son of a bitch, we eat Thanksgiving dinner on that table!

  Gemini jogs after me when I stomp down the walkway and cut into the path leading to the Lake.

  He’s laughing so hard, he’s gripping his sides. “You think this is funny?” I ask. I rub my eyes, but some things you just can’t unsee.

  “Oh, hell yes.” He hauls me to him by the waist. “It’s what mates do, Taran. After everything they’ve been through, they deserve to make up for their time lost. As do we.”

  “I know, but why do they have to make up that time all over our dining room table?”

  He shrugs. “Probably because they’ve already defiled the kitchen
.”

  “Oh, gawd,” I say, wondering where the hell else I’ll be finding feathers.

  I relax into his chest, lifting my chin when he finally finishes laughing. “Now what?” I ask. “Where do we go from here?”

  He adjusts his hold, keeping me close, his embrace and the gentle way he regards me speaking beyond the words that come. “Now, we make our own destiny.”

  Reader’s Guide to the Magical World of the Weird Girls Series

  acute bloodlust A condition that occurs when a vampire goes too long without consuming blood. Increases the vampire’s thirst to lethal levels. It is remedied by feeding the vampire.

  Call The ability of one supernatural creature to reach out to another, through either thoughts or sounds. A vampire can pass his or her call by transferring a bit of magic into the receiving being’s skin.

  Change To transform from one being to another, typically from human to beast, and back again.

  chronic bloodlust A condition caused by a curse placed on a vampire. It makes the vampire’s thirst for blood insatiable and drives the vampire to insanity. The vampire grows in size from gluttony and assumes deformed features. There is no cure.

  claim The method by which a werebeast consummates the union with his or her mate.

  clan A group of werebeasts led by an Alpha. The types of clans differ depending on species. Werewolf clans are called “packs.” Werelions belong to “prides.”

  Creatura The offspring of a demon lord and a werebeast.

  dantem animam A soul giver. A rare being capable of returning a master vampire’s soul. A master with a soul is more powerful than any other vampire in existence, as he or she is balancing life and death at once.

  dark ones Creatures considered to be pure evil, such as shape-shifters or demons.

  demon A creature residing in hell. Only the strongest demons may leave to stalk on earth, but their time is limited; the power of good compels them to return.