Simmer (Midnight Fire Series Book Two)

by Kaitlyn Davis

  "But I will be waiting," he said and dropped his head into his hands, letting out a long ragged breath. He ran his fingers over his blond hair, flattening it to his head. "I," he started to say but then needed to swallow the breath that caught in his throat, "I have this feeling deep in my gut that even if I tell myself I've moved on and I start dating other people, a small part of me will still be waiting."

  Screw it, Kira thought. She scooted over next to him and wrapped him in her arms. "You can't think like that."

  "But you don't know Kira," he whispered, "you don't know what it was like to wake up covered in blood with no memory of what happened and to see your best friend lying dead on the ground next to you. You don't know what it was like for me to see you so pale, to see you asleep and attached to machines for three months, to see what life would be like without you. That's when I realized I loved you, that we were so much more than best friends. Even if you were still in that hospital bed I would be there holding your hand, just waiting for you to open your eyes and wake up."

  Kira really didn't know what to say, but she guessed sometimes that was the point. Sometimes people moved beyond words. She kept her mind closed, not wanting to read his tumultuous thoughts, but hugged him closer. It was strange to feel heat drain into her skin. Tristan's was normally cool, but when she pulled Luke close he was hot to the touch, just like Kira — always a few degrees warmer than everybody else.

  What was she going to do? Now that everything had been said and let out into the open, she wouldn't be able to pretend. She wouldn't be able to ignore the moments when his desire leaked into her own mind. If she caught him looking at her and Tristan, she would know it was jealously and not annoyance. When they were alone together, joking and laughing, it would always mean something else to him.

  Kira knew she was being selfish, but she wouldn't be able to let him go. He was her rock, just like he had said before, and she needed him. But, was it possible to need two people — to have two people she couldn't live without?

  "Kira?" He moved away from her and sat up, but Kira didn't drop her arms. Instead they moved with him, changing places from around his waist to over his shoulders. Luke looked at her arms around his neck and followed the trail back to her face. Shifting his gaze left and right, he tried to read her expression. Kira suddenly found herself not just looking but gazing into his heavily lidded eyes. Realizing how close they were, Kira unlatched her hands and slowly pulled them away, but the more she retreated, the more her heart began to hurt. At first, it felt like a dull twinge, but as she rested her hands in her lap, it felt as though someone had taken a hammer to her chest.

  Looking into his eyes, Kira couldn't deny that the pain she was feeling was purely her own. Was it the pain of knowing their friendship would never be the same? Or the pain of knowing that eventually she would lose him, that eventually he wouldn't be okay with second place? Or was it something deeper, an idea she had buried so far down in her heart that it needed to forcefully dig itself out?

  Ever since she had met Tristan, she had thought of no one else and hadn't allowed her mind to even stray in that direction. And maybe it was only because Luke finally admitted his feelings, but Kira couldn't lie to herself anymore. Here she was, staring deep into the fiery depths of Luke's soul, finally admitting that she couldn't survive without him. Finally admitting that when she saw him lying dead on the ground and risked her life to save his, there was far more than just friendship in her heart.

  Inside the house, a light turned on, sending bright rays deep into the forest where Kira and Luke sat. The sudden spotlight filled the darkness, blinding them. Kira dropped her gaze, the spell broken, and rubbed her eyes.

  "Ow," she said nervously.

  "I think that's our signal," Luke said. He stared into her face for a moment, burning Kira with his gaze, before standing up. "We had better go."

  Kira stood too, looking towards the house just in time to see a shadow pass through the light in the open window: Tristan, her boyfriend, the love of her life. She needed to stop spending so much time in the woods, Kira thought while shaking her head. The insects were getting to her brain.

  She focused back to the mission. Tonight was not about deep conversations or professions of love, it was about payback. To Tristan and Luke, it was maybe about keeping her safe and keeping the people around her safe. But to Kira, this was sweet revenge. She wanted that battle with Diana, the one that should have happened months ago. And nothing, not even Luke, would distract her. Which is why Kira stopped paying attention to the dirt and the muck and the bugs and started paying attention to the house. What was going on inside of those walls was the only thing that mattered.

  When Kira and Luke reached the edge of the forest, they stopped to think of the best approach. Would a mad dash across the open field work best? Would going slowly make them less noticeable? The vampires in the ballroom could still see out of a few windows, might have even been able to spot Kira and Luke where they stood. But the two of them needed to get the study, and the sooner the better.

  "What are you thinking?" Luke asked. Kira eyed the distance. It couldn't be more than twenty yards.

  "I say we make a run for it. And hey, it's not like that approach hasn't worked for us before," she said, thinking back to the airport. The run from the parking lot worked out perfectly fine and this one would too.

  "Okay, you ready?"

  Kira nodded. With his fingers, Luke counted down from three. As soon as his hand balled into a fist, Kira sprinted for the house, bee-lining to the open window. While she ran, her sneakers sank into the grass, creating divets with her toes.

  Sliding in the mud to a halt, Kira slammed against the side of the house, smacking the wood, and Luke banged beside her a moment later. Not my finest, Kira thought and touched her temple to feel a slight bruise. That was when she realized that the first floor of the mansion was raised. Arching up, she saw that the window was two feet above her head and completely out of reach.

  Luke scanned the tree line, making sure nothing had come out after them. Then, he knelt down and cupped his hands together. Understanding the move, Kira stepped one foot into the pocket he created and Luke lifted her up. She reached for the windowsill, clutching the opening with both hands and pulled herself in with a little help from Luke.

  Grace had never really been one of her strong suits and Kira rolled head first into the study. After a somersault and slight crash on the floor, she stood up and dusted herself off to make room for Luke, who easily slid through the window a minute later.

  Nicely done, Kira thought, impressed by Luke's stealth. She was about to point it out to him, but before she could, someone else spoke.

  "Well, well. Bronson really will let anything inside these days," a high-pitched voice laced with iron spoke from the other side of the room. Kira immediately flipped around.

  On the far end of the study, sprawled out lengthwise along a mahogany desk and draped in pearly necklaces, was Diana.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Kira tried to still her beating heart, not wanting the vampires in the room to feel her nerves. She had been waiting for this moment for a long time. Tonight she would find out the truth about her mother and tonight she would end Diana once and for all.

  "What's a party without some crashers?" Luke said smoothly. He walked past Kira to stand next to Tristan. Both boys leaned casually against a tall bookshelf, but Kira saw the aggression in their eyes. They were alert as ever and ready to nab Diana if she tried to run.

  For her part, Diana looked completely at ease. She wore a long, midnight blue shift dress that fit snugly against her body, leaving very little to anyone's imagination. Strings and strings of pearls dangled from her neck and a feathered headpiece decorated her hair, clipped to keep the long black strands from falling over her face. Mostly, Kira took in her attitude. Diana exuded arrogance and smugness, like everything was going her way rather than the other way around. Even the manner in which she reclined over the desk suggested
she was in control. And all Kira wanted to do was wipe the smirk from her face.

  So, she got right down to business: no witty comments and no games. Kira stretched out her hand, sending a wave of Protector flames at Diana. Immediately the vampire catapulted off the desk and slammed against the wall, cracking the painting that had been hanging there. Kira walked slowly across the room, not letting up until her thighs hit the curved edge of the desk.

  Finally, she dropped her powers and let Diana crash to the floor. "Where is my mother?"

  Diana stood slowly, smiling as if nothing had happened. But, Kira saw the angry flash in her eyes, how the blue of her iris lit up for a moment.

  "Oh Kira," Diana sighed. "You got a little bit of training and now you think you're my worst nightmare. Well, don't get too full of yourself sweetie because tonight I am untouchable."

  "If I were you, I would listen to my own advice. You have no idea what I'm capable of, Diana." No one does, Kira thought remembering the pages she had read. No one in the world, not even Kira herself, knew what she was capable of. Diana may have Punisher blood running through her veins, but that was not the same at being invincible.

  "Yes, well, whatever you say," Diana smiled sweetly at Kira, looking down on her like a child before turning her gaze to Luke. "You look wonderful for a corpse, Luke. Didn't I kill you months ago?"

  "People just can't seem to stay dead anymore, can they? It's an epidemic," Luke replied with a nonchalant shrug.

  "I have always liked a challenge," Diana said while twirling her beads around her pointer fingers.

  "Drop the attitude Diana and tell us what we want to know," Tristan said, "it is three against one if you can't see that already."

  "And what? We can do this the easy way or the hard way?" Diana said, laughing. Tristan crossed his arms and raised his eyebrows, responding to the challenge. It was Diana's choice how all of this went down.

  "Do I need to throw you against another wall?" Kira asked while placing her palms on the desk and leaning over in an attempt at intimidation. "Tell us what we want to know — where is my mother?"

  "I'd rather not say."

  In the blink of an eye, Tristan had grabbed Diana by the throat and lifted her against the wall.

  "Spit it out, Diana," he yelled. He squeezed her throat tighter. At first, Diana pulled against his hands and kicked at him, struggling against his grip. But the tighter he squeeze, the stiller she went, until his fingers dug deep into her body ready to rip her head off. Just as Kira was about to speak out and tell him to stop, tell him that they needed Diana alive, Tristan dropped her.

  From the floor, Diana breathed heavily and looked up at Tristan. She stood, still looking him in the eye, and ran her hand up the length of his arm. "I love it when you play rough," she whispered, loud enough for everyone to hear and soft enough to come off as sensual.

  Tristan shirked her hold and stepped back, blinking away the lethal look in his eyes. Kira clearly wasn't the only one who wanted Diana to pay.

  "What is it going to take for you to tell me more about my mother," Kira asked and ignored the lusty look Diana was throwing in Tristan's direction. They didn't have time for all of this. A group of immensely powerful vampires was in the room next door and they could bust in at any moment. All it would take was for one of them to notice that Diana and Tristan had disappeared, for one of them to go searching, and then the jig would be up. She needed answers now and all three of them needed to move fast if the conduits in the woods were going to have any shot at a surprise attack.

  "The only thing I want is to ruin your life," Diana said. Kira rolled her eyes.

  "Yes, I got that from all of the vampires you've been sending my way and by the fact that you tried to kill me. Is there anything else you want?" Kira hated this, she wanted to burn the answers out of Diana, but Diana was immune to those flames. Her Protector powers wouldn't be enough. Tristan had told her one time about how different the two flames felt. Punisher fire, he had said, burned him to his very core, lighting his body up like a bomb about to explode. Protector powers felt different though, less painful and more solid. Rather than burning a vampire, it acted like a wall pushing the vampire away — weakening but not lethal.

  If her flames weren't burning Diana from the inside out, they wouldn't be effective in getting answers. All three of them had been naive to think that Diana would just give everything up without a fight. And a physical battle wouldn't accomplish anything right now. Well, Kira thought, at least throwing Diana against a wall again would make her laugh. But no, Kira stilled her hand in midair, she just had to play whatever game Diana wanted to for the time being.

  Diana sat down in the desk chair, lifting one leg over the other and folding her hands in her lap. Kira's stance over the desk hadn't affected Diana at all. She was the picture of ease. "I want to play a game."

  "Darn," Luke said with a smile, "I knew I should have brought Monopoly with me."

  "A game?" Kira asked, ignoring Luke. She did not like where this was headed. Why wasn't Diana a little more afraid? Sure, she knew they wouldn't kill her right away, not until she told them what Kira wanted to hear, but the girl didn't even look frightened at all. It was like she knew they couldn't touch her.

  "How about a game of truth or dare? Girl to girl? I'm sure the boys wouldn't mind."

  Kira looked across the room at Luke and Tristan where they stood next to each other, backed by the wall of old books. Each boy was just as confused as Kira was. What was Diana's angle? Tristan nodded at her, telling her to go with it for now.

  "Fine," Kira said, sitting down across from Diana in an armchair next to the desk.

  "Excellent," Diana said, "I'll go first: truth or dare?"

  "Truth," Kira said. No reason to let Diana dare her to bust into the other room or something. And it wasn't like she had anything to hide.

  Diana let her gaze rest on the two boys, each one staring intently at Kira. With a smirk and a cocked brow, Diana asked, "Have you ever lied to Tristan?"

  "No, of course not," she said immediately. But her body betrayed her. A rush of blood filled Kira's cheeks, warming them to a slight blush. A jolt in her heart brought a hammering sound to her ears. And, from the corner of her eye, she watched Tristan shift the weight from one foot to the other. He knew she had lied.

  "Spare me, Kira, I know you're lying right now," Diana said lightly. She lifted her hands, wove her fingers together and rested her elbows on the desk. "If you're not going to play by the rules..."

  "Fine," Kira shifted in her seat, totally uncomfortable by the change of events. "Yes, I have lied to Tristan. Well, not so much lied as hidden parts of the truth."

  "I've been alive for hundreds of years Kira and that distinction still feels old to me. Care to share with us all?" She rested her head on her hand, staring at Kira with an innocent yet almost cunning expression. Her eyes were open like a child's, but her smile was razor thin. "I mean we're all friends here, aren't we?

  Kira really wanted to slap Diana in the face — no, not slap, punch her so hard she doubled over. But instead, she looked at Tristan and played along with Diana's game. He looked so handsome in his tuxedo, but so sad. This wasn't how it was supposed to happen. This wasn't how he should find out about Luke's connection with her or their almost kiss. And, Kira suddenly realized, there was no reason he had to find out now. She had another lie, something she had hidden from both boys and had been meaning to spill. She took a deep breath and fixed her eyes on the them

  "There's something I haven't told either of you, something that I found out about myself." She paused to meet their eyes. Tristan's held concern and confusion. Luke's confusion and a hint of anger, letting Kira know he had been hoping she would spill the other secret. "I found the missing pages. Well, actually my grandfather gave me a copy, but I found out that the immunity isn't really the reason mixed breed conduits have been forbidden." Kira gulped when Diana leaned forward in her chair, listening intently to this secret piece of otherwise los
t information. "Ancient conduits used to be uncontrollable and dangerous. They used to kill more than just vampires. In moments of madness, they burned human beings too. And that's the real reason the species separated, to keep from ever having to sentence one of their own to death."

  She gulped and raised her eyes back up, meeting Luke's first. It would hit him harder because he understood better than anyone else what she meant. All of those times he had pulled her back from insanity had much stronger implications now. And he knew it too. Kira saw the realization pass over his features: curious tilted head to furrowed confused brows to wide shocked eyes to a hard and knowing frown.

  Tristan on the other hand looked relieved in a way, which Kira found darkly humorous. If anything, this realization only brought them closer together and made them more similar. The worse her fate got, the more he could be there for her in a way Luke couldn't. Or maybe he was relieved because he, like Diana judging by her shocked face, was expecting a different confession. And Diana was clearly disappointed. She had obviously been hoping to create a rift between Kira and Tristan, but the fact that her plan backfired only made Kira feel better.

  Kira did make a quick mental note to be more truthful. Not that she ever thought she would find herself playing truth or dare with a vampire ever again, but being a pathological liar wasn't exactly on the to-do list.

  "My turn," Kira said, this time crossing her legs and looking snidely at Diana. "Truth or truth? I don't do dares."

  "Truth then, Kira."

  "Where is my mother?"