Cradle the Fire

by Milana Jacks

  Mechatronic fingers flexed, the noise grating on my foul mood. The cyborg reached into her pocket and pulled out a purple velvet pouch. She tossed it to me. “The girl’s dowry.”

  My mood improved. I caught the pouch and weighed it in my hand but didn’t open it. I dumped it on the table. “You insult me. First you imply that women are forced to come here. I assure you, they are all very willing. Apart from this one.” I pointed at the girl, who kept standing. She seemed frozen in that state. “And then you offer me…what? A few hundred grams of gold worth maybe ten grand? I wouldn’t buy a bitch for my dog for ten grand.

  “And besides, the girl’s nothing special. She’s simple and, frankly, would bore me by tomorrow.” Annie Trahan had the most exquisite black-rimmed green eyes, which stood in stark contrast with her flawless caramel complexion, small nose, and wide, puffy lips. Her kinky brown hair framed a cute oval face, and she had hips a man could grip real well when he fucked her doggy style. I found her pretty, another thing that annoyed me since she found me…plain.

  But I needed to see the contents of that briefcase. The less interested I appeared, the more money the stepmom would offer me. I would take her money and dump the girl the moment I found my spirit. This cyborg couldn’t keep a reject who hurt her social status and blocked her Cy benefits. The girl couldn’t carry the Trahan family name and work at the bottom of the habitat either. My gut said the stepmom didn’t have a choice, which meant she would pay me every last penny she’d brought with her. If she was smart, she’d know to leave the jewelry on the table as well. It might be only a few hundred grams, but I hoarded jewels. All dragons hoarded jewels.

  I expected the cyborg to argue some more, but she reached for the black case and put it on the table. She spun it around, pressed a finger on the scan reader, and opened the case to reveal stacks of cash. I estimated a quarter of a million roges, which would pay for the ball.

  I closed the case. I loved money, but I was pretty sure I could milk some more from this cyborg. “Nice. I ain’t offended anymore.”

  The stepmom assumed her poker face, letting me stew on her offer.

  “Have a seat, Annie,” I told the girl.

  “Thank you.”

  “Welcome.” Annie seemed scared out of her mind.

  I had no need to buy brides or even accept money for brides, and I sure as hell wasn’t gonna force myself on one. “Would you marry me?” I asked her.

  Virgins were already banging on my doors, just as I thought they would be, but this one didn’t seem impressed. I could see she was fighting the urge to tell me off and accept her situation at the same time.

  “I’d work instead,” she said.

  I lifted an eyebrow. She would rather work than marry me? I reckoned women labeled me the hottest bachelor in the South. Apparently, not as hot as manual labor.

  Her stepmom stared daggers at her. That’s right!

  The girl continued. “I would like a job in exchange for a place to stay.”

  I cocked my head. “You’re not interested in a marriage?”

  “I’m interested in staying here and working, like George and everyone else I saw when we landed. If I go back, she might kill me.”

  “Heavens, child,” the cyborg said, horror evident on her face. “Why would you say that?”

  The girl didn’t pay her any mind. She watched me, her pretty green eyes wide and hopeful. I glanced at George. “Do we need help?”

  George chewed on his lip, thinking, then said, “It depends on what she can do.”

  “I agree,” the cyborg said. “She’s welcome to stay and work. Stupid girl.” Mechatronic fingers closed over the briefcase.

  I slapped my hand on it. “Not so fast.” If cyborgs could produce fumes, this one would make sulfur come out of her ears. “I’m curious why you haven’t driven her out of the habitat and simply abandoned her.”

  “I promised her father I would take care of her.”

  “And this is taking care of her?” Good Lord.

  “It’s the best I can do for her and for my other daughter.”

  “I could plan your big event,” Annie said, then added, “My lord.”

  My lord. Not stupid, but a fast learner, resourceful, maybe a bit defiant. She wasn’t too hard on the eye either. B-cup tits? Yeah, those were Bs. Nice eyes, but otherwise just a girl with a Jersey accent and Southern roots. I sighed. “What can you do?”

  “Plan a wedding.”

  “You have experience?”

  “My parents married when I was fifteen, so I got to plan the wedding with my mom. Over five hundred invitations.”

  “Where’s your mother now?”

  “She died.” Annie lowered her gaze, and that was when I saw it. The yellow stone on her ring. Amber?

  “Come here, miss,” I said.

  She lifted her head.

  I wiggled two fingers, gesturing for her to approach. When she did, I sat up, patted the couch, and extended my hand. “Give me your hand.”

  She sat and put her left hand into mine. Pulling her close, I noticed yellow flecks in her green eyes. That made them hazel now. I stared, spellbound, and it took George’s throat clearing to bring me back into the moment. “The other hand.”

  She put it into mine. At the contact, my chest tightened, my beast stirring. He slithered over my muscles, making goose bumps rise over my skin. My jaw slackened and my throat tightened, but I forced the beast back under my control. Mine, he whispered in my head. I loved amber, a warm stone, a fire element stone. So appropriate for me to have.

  My thumb slid over the top of the girl’s skin. It was smooth. I stared at her small wrist, her elegant fingers with red-painted fingernails. I stared at her hand as if I’d never seen a woman’s hand before, and then I bent and kissed the top of it. I licked my lips for a taste. Jasmine soap. Mmmm. And a beautiful ring. I wanted the ring. It would be mine. “Is that real amber?” I asked, though I knew my amber the way I knew this girl would sleep with me whenever I felt like putting in some extra work.

  “Yes.”

  “It’s very old,” I said.

  “It was my gran’s, then Mom’s, then mine.”

  “Give it to me.”

  “I can’t.”

  “But you will.”

  “You can have anything else,” she whispered.

  So said the girl completely uninterested in me. I took the offer. “Are you a virgin?”

  She snapped her gaze up. “Define virgin.”

  “Someone who’s never had sexual intercourse.”

  “Then no.”

  “I’m a little frightened I had to define it.”

  Annie shrugged.

  A spirit should be a virgin. Lance’s spirit was a virgin. “Hordes of virgins are banging on my doors and begging entry to my ball. So you can see why I’m picky, right?”

  She gave me a blank stare.

  My beast stirred at the contact with her hand, and I paid attention to his cues. But I couldn’t get Annie even remotely excited. This girl couldn’t be a spirit. If she were, she would already be crawling all over me. I’d witnessed Lance pissing on his spirit, and Selena, Lance’s spirit, ate out of his hand the very same night. My spirit would eat out of my hand, and if I wanted to piss on her to mark her, she’d damn well let me. Done with this nonsense, I said, “I’ll walk you out.”

  The cyborg grabbed the money and the pouch. She stormed out of the room first, followed by her reluctant daughter, Marcy. Annie lingered, but as I stood, she got the clue and joined me. I walked them to the door and watched them cross my yard to their car. Annie’s skirt swayed, the hem brushing the backs of her thighs, and at about five eight, she had long legs. I admitted I found her sexy. Those legs could wrap around my waist and lock my body with hers. Too bad.

  My gaze found the sad little flame coming from one of the two torches on each side of the gate. I’d lit those torches and kept them burning oil for when the spirit came to the ball. I could try to raise the fire. The flame twiddle
d and died out. I blinked. It shouldn’t have done that. I’d tended to them myself and made sure I checked the oil levels. Annie paused in her step, and I guessed she’d noticed the flame going out too.

  The pressure in my chest grew, my mouth opened at my beast’s command, and this time, I couldn’t hold him back. He imposed his strength on my mind, took control of me, and forced my mouth open, made my throat work: “Mine.” A whisper the wind carried over my property and through the mansion. Next to me, Jason’s wolf’s ear twitched. “George,” I said when I heard his footsteps. “Did you hear that?”

  “Sure thing.”

  “Get the girl’s suitcase, the money, and the dowry jewels.”

  The old man brushed past me and crossed the lawn.

  I waited with bated breath as he spoke with Annie. She could refuse to stay, in which case I’d shift into my beast and chew up the car. With the driver inside it. I didn’t want to have to retrieve her from the habitat, where I’d chew through the cyborg army standing in my way.

  George unloaded her suitcase along with the money. He pocketed the pouch, and I released my breath. Today, Annie had saved many cyborg lives, one car, and its driver. Her family lifted off and left her. She should be scared, but she just looked indifferent standing there in the middle of the yard. She didn’t even wave after them. Instead, she stared at me.

  Behind her back, the fire in the torches burned again. I focused on it, trying to make it flare or really do anything beside flicker in the wind. But nothing happened. Just as well. With the beast rising and staking his claim, I was pretty sure every wolf on my property knew my spirit had come.

  Annie paused at the door, probably waiting for me to move aside. I pecked the top of her head. “Welcome home.”

  “Um, yeah. When do I start?”

  I was having an epic moment. A decade of searching for a way to control the fire had resulted in nothing, and now I could almost taste the burn of it on my skin, because when the dragon mated his spirit, he gained control of the element, in my case, fire. And the spirit? Annie, the most unlikely girl to ignite any fire. I admitted I’d thought my spirit would be a redhead. Or at the very least, spirited, a firecracker. Annie was…ice. “Start what?”

  “The ball planning.”

  I rubbed my neck. No need for the ball anymore, sugar. I glanced at George, who offered me his back and climbed the steps. What to do, what to do?

  Annie didn’t let me wonder for long. She looked around the foyer. “This ball is going to be the talk of the habitat.” She pointed at the archway. “We do twinkling lights and ribbons there. Punch service in the corner, and we—”

  “You want to start working right now?”

  “Sure.”

  Now this excited her. Working. Planning. Organizing. I hated all those things.

  “Did you have breakfast yet?”

  “Yes.”

  “I haven’t. Join me.”

  3

  Amy

  The outlaw had changed his mind about letting me stay. A spark of joy I hadn’t felt since before my mom passed away snuck up on me. I kept hope in check as I did all other positive emotions. They all proved a waste of my time. Everything hopeful, positive, or even remotely good, including the people I cared about, had died, and so I’d learned to guard against feeling great about shit.

  We walked through the sitting room and under another archway into a dining room with a long table that would comfortably seat twenty people. I should probably ask him why he’d changed his mind, but I didn’t care apart from that he had changed his mind. Frankly, I didn’t want to press my luck either.

  Boxes were stacked on the floors and labeled with my habitat’s seals. My former habitat. A pile of ribbons lay on top of the boxes, and I presumed someone had already ordered the material for the party. I took a purple ribbon between my fingertips while the outlaw who fancied himself a lord walked to the other end of the table. The velvet was soft. I dropped the ribbon. “Mister…?” I asked, because nobody had told me the outlaw’s name.

  “Nentres.”

  That sounded foreign even though his accent sounded Southern. “A unique name,” I said.

  “For a unique guy, I’d like to think.” He sat down, picked up a golden bell, and jiggled it. I’d left the current century and gotten transported into another time period where lords of manors jingled service bells. You didn’t see this kind of stuff in Jersey.

  Sure enough, the young blonde who’d brought us tea came in with a tray and set it in front of Nentres. She stood by him, hands clasped in front of her, her big brown eyes on me. “Hi,” she said, lifting the corners of her lips.

  I smiled in turn. “Hi.”

  “I’m Cindy.”

  I walked the length of the table and extended my hand. “Amy,” I said, voice pitched slightly higher, hoping Nentres would catch on and quit calling me Annie. “Nice to meet you.”

  Nentres didn’t seem to pick up on my subtle correction. Instead, he picked up a napkin and placed it over his lap, then uncovered the plates. I stared at the fresh eggs, cheese…and when he uncovered another plate, I swallowed drool. A pile of bacon. “Is it real?” I asked.

  Under the table, he kicked out a chair on his right. “Sit and try.”

  I sat down and looked around for a fork.

  “I’ll bring the second setting,” Cindy said.

  “We’re fine,” he said. “Thank you. Goodbye.”

  Cindy lingered and kept staring at me, a strange look in her eyes. Maybe I had something on my face?

  “Off you go,” Nentres repeated.

  “If you need something,” she told me, “I’ll be around. Just ring the bell.”

  “Would you bring me a paper and a pen, please?”

  She squealed and spun on her heel.

  Was that a yes? I ran a hand over my face, nonchalantly trying to remove whatever I had stuck on there. I hoped it wasn’t something awful like a booger. Oh boy. I looked around and spotted a mirror, then went to check my face. All clear. A picture of an older couple and a blond boy right on the porch of this very home sat on top of an antique dresser under the mirror. Nentres and his parents? I wanted to ask about them, but when I sat back down at the table, Nentres picked up a piece of bacon and offered it to me. “Taste the real thing.”

  The smell of bacon made my empty stomach growl. I’d lied about having breakfast. My nerves had eaten at me this morning and curbed my appetite. I leaned away from the meal. “I don’t actually eat meat.” Most people in the habitat didn’t.

  He blinked. “What do you eat?”

  “Do you mean from the fresh selection?”

  “Any selection.”

  “Vegetables.”

  He looked down at his plate. “Do you eat eggs?”

  “No.”

  “It’s not meat.”

  “It’s a murdered chick.”

  “Only if the egg is fertilized,” he said.

  “But how do you know if it’s not?”

  He smirked. “I’m gonna eat it anyway.”

  I shrugged. “To each his own.”

  Cindy returned with a black pen and a baby-blue pad of paper. I picked up the pen while Nentres crunched on bacon. “Sugar?”

  I glanced up from the paper.

  “Yes, my lord,” Cindy said.

  “Amy, here”—he looked pointedly at me, telling me he’d heard my subtle note about my name—“doesn’t eat meat or eggs.”

  “Oh, okay. She’s a vegan.”

  “I’m happy you know what that is. Make sure Mary knows too.”

  Cindy made a face. “She’s prepping crawfish for dinner.”

  “That’s fine. I’m not a vegetarian. Potatoes, zucchini, rice? What do you like, Amy?”

  “Oh, please, don’t inconvenience yourself. It’s really simple. I could have the side dishes. Whatever is already on the menu.”

  “What do you like?” he asked again.

  “Anything. I’m not picky.”

  Nentres’
s jaw worked. He seemed pissed. “Name one thing that you like, something that excites you.”

  “A food thing?”

  “Anything at all.”

  As a child, I used to like strawberries. I remembered the taste, the way the seeds stuck between my teeth, and the mess I used to make when I’d dipped them in sugar. Mom never scolded me for the mess. Stepmom always scolded me, so I learned how to eat like a lady. A lot of good it did me. I’d ended up sharing a table with an outlaw instead of a level-four cyborg inside the warm habitat. A cursed reject.

  I wished there was a way I could get to Pittsburgh and see my cousins. They’d help me out, let me stay with them. Both my cousins worked in the local market inside a settlement guarded by one of the four Creatures of Earth, a mighty white dragon. They told me all about him. He took care of his people, and I could actually make my own money instead of depending on Stepmother for a monthly allowance. Now I depended on an outlaw’s mercy and how well I’d organize his ball.

  I opened my mouth to answer him, but he interrupted. “We’ll have breakfast tomorrow morning. By tonight, you will have told Cindy three foods you enjoy. And as an additional assignment, you will make a list of five things you like. Any five things will do. Understood?”

  I suppressed an eye roll. “Yes, my lord.”

  “You can write it as a letter to me. Something starting with: To my dear lord and master Nentres.”

  I chuckled.

  “What’s funny?”

  “You’re funny. I thought outlaw life was hard, and you don’t seem to have it too bad. What am I missing? Are you a secret cyborg outside the habitat or something?”

  “Cyborg? Hell, no.”

  “Aren’t you an outlaw, though?”

  He chewed on a piece of bread. “How can anyone be an outlaw in a land with no law?”

  “Good point.”