Embrace the Fire

by Spring Stevens

  “As always, Alexander, it will be done as ordered,” Varick replied.

  Kreach stood. He was at least six feet and a good six inches or better and weighed in at around three hundred pounds. Angelica cowered in her chair as the words from a night several weeks before made the hair on the back of her neck stand to attention.

  “Run, little girl, before I have you for dinner!”

  Oh, dear God, she wanted to run, wanted to hide and cower from him. As if sensing her fear, Varick cradled her under his arm, gently running his hand through her hair.

  She summoned her courage and looked at Kreach’s arms. Both were covered in twisted snake tattoos. His head was shaved, and the same snake tattoo pattern on his hands ran from his forehead to the base of his neck. He stared at Alexander with his intense green eyes for a few seconds and then bowed stiffly.

  When he bowed, Angelica saw the wide, jagged scar. Damn, he was one scary S.O.B.! The biker boots, black leather pants, spiked gloves, spiked collar, and long black leather jacket did not help matters much. Several piercings graced his would-have-been handsome features, but the sneer on his face easily extinguished any thoughts of actually sidling up to the guy. Angelica’s eyes widened in fascination and then turned to horror as she looked closer and saw several deeply etched scars in his jaw line that resembled dog bites, only bigger — much, much bigger.

  Yeah, he’d most certainly eat me alive!

  Without so much as a word, Kreach left the table and disappeared into the crowd. Angelica frowned as Varick and Alexander toasted each other. What was she doing? She was sitting and listening to three complete strangers talking about God knows what, because it sure as hell made no sense to her. Sweat beaded her forehead as Varick’s hand sent delightful goose bumps up her arm. Good lord, she needed a stiff drink.

  By two in the morning, Angelica was well on her way to being plastered. The closer Varick got and the more he whispered in her ear, the more she drank. The more she drank, the more she was willing to take him up on the licking-her-all-over offer. She was vaguely aware of being pulled to her feet and led across the empty barroom. She held the hand that refused to let go of hers and followed blindly behind.

  She took a deep breath as doors closed behind her. It tasted like rain and felt good in her lungs. She giggled and tripped. The hand that caught her before she fell pushed her up against the brick wall.

  “You’re going with me to my place. Say it.”

  “You’re going with me to my place. Say it,” she repeated with a slight slur.

  “Say it right.”

  “It right.” Angelica giggled as he ran his hand down her face.

  “I want you tonight, and you are coming of your free will. Say it.”

  “Coming?” What a delicious idea!

  “Say it,” he growled.

  “Ask me nicely and I might.” She grinned as the muscles in his jaws twitched. “Beg me and I will.”

  His nostrils flared. “I don’t beg!”

  “That’s a pity. I kinda like a man who begs.” Just where the hell did that come from? I’m flirting with him. Ah, hell, I want him!

  “Dogs beg. I do not.” His voice deepened. “You are coming of your free will.”

  “Not unless you beg first.” Angelica giggled in delight as he ran his hand across her breasts. “You’ll have to work to get what you’re asking of me.”

  Varick growled. The sound was pleasure wrapped in satin and dipped in chocolate.

  Angelica wrapped her arms around his waist and sagged forward. “I’m really drunk. Can you take me home?”

  Varick growled again as he ran his fingers up her spine and grabbed her hair. She moaned softly as his lips touched her neck. She had to feel his chest. The buttons miraculously came undone under her fingers, and she slid her hands inside. Her knees buckled as her hands contacted his skin. He was hot and chiseled like a statue, and Angelica was not about to refuse what she wanted to come next.

  Her fingers tingled as she explored his raw flesh. She smiled when she heard his gasp as she lightly pulled on both of his nipples. Alcohol induced fantasies sizzled through her brain.

  She wondered how she could possibly convince him to strip right here in the alley. Her hands dipped lower, running down over his six pack, inching lower following the line under his navel. She moaned as her fingers contacted the hard, silky skin of his manhood.

  She tilted her head up, parted her lips, and waited for the first man she had ever touched so provocatively to kiss her.

  Yep, that was Angelica Dark.

  A thirty-year-old single woman living and breathing in the sinful city of Fether, California. She was in a dark alley in the middle of a rain shower with a man she barely knew. She was now working for an odd woman who thought Angelica was her niece. And she was totally on board with the fantasy she was having about Varick.

  Well, at least Varick had a fine ass and a beautiful head of hair and muscles and hot skin and was as close to perfection as it gets. And his arrogance — it rolled off of him in tidal waves. What a way to end one of the strangest weeks she had ever had! That was the last thing she thought as she slipped into the numbing whirlpool of alcohol and honeysuckle.

  Chapter 9

  Varick caught Angelica as she stumbled. He rolled his eyes and chuckled as she moaned against his chest. Just his luck to find a woman who turned him on and bam, she passes out. He picked her up and drifted down the street, staying in the shadows and keeping a watchful eye over his shoulder. As he rounded the corner, he stepped back and narrowed his eyes.

  The hair on his neck stood up as a vampire strolled out of the alley in front of him. Damn! Angelica cuddled closer to his chest as he eased back along the wall of the building. A cold rush of air went up his spine, and he pressed his back against the wall. Double damn! Another blood-sucking bastard strolled out of the alley he had just passed.

  He closed his eyes and shimmered. He didn’t like running from a fight, but he couldn’t take the chance on leaving Angelica here in a drunken stupor. She was entirely too tempting a morsel to leave unguarded.

  He looked down, and Angelica smiled groggily. “Key … under pot.”

  Varick laughed as he looked at the porch. A large pot with a dead plant sat next to the front door. Well, she sure didn’t have a green thumb. He walked to the porch and eased her against the door as he slid the pot over with his foot. Sure enough, the key was there, and he picked it up.

  Angelica leaned against his chest as he unlocked the door. She giggled as she fell backwards. Varick caught her as her butt hit the floor. A big, black cat jumped out from behind the door and hissed as Varick stepped in.

  “Easy, friend. I’m just bringing her home. Seems she had a little too much to drink tonight.”

  The cat growled and turned away as Varick picked Angelica up. “Well, cat, lead the way to her room.”

  The cat strolled through the house and down a hallway. He stopped in front of the first door and rubbed up against the doorframe. Varick went in and laid Angelica across the bed. He grinned as he slid her sandals off of her feet. He looked around at the cat and laughed.

  “Don’t worry, friend, I won’t hurt her.”

  As he walked out of her bedroom door, the cat hissed and stalked to the front door. He laughed as the cat glared at him. He locked the door and replaced the key under the pot. It was nearly sunrise, and he needed to get back home; being extra crispy bacon didn’t appeal to him in the slightest.

  Tomorrow was another day, and it was not like he didn’t have all the time in the world; time was as easily found as it was lost. And as for Angelica, she was definitely going to cross his path again.

  As he stepped off the last step, his form misted, swirled, and disappeared. The air was heavy and thick, and it reminded him of when he had been on Grace’s pay role as an assas
sin, reminded him of times best left forgotten. But he couldn’t forget, he would never forget or forgive himself for what he had done.

  • • •

  Two thousand and two years before present time, Grace had a group of assassins under her control. Among the wingless dragons, one male stood out.

  He was known as Varick, and he was the only human-looking male among the lot. Fear was a rare quality to be found among the assassins, but it was the one feeling that he evoked from them all.

  He was neither intimidated nor wary of the large assassins that surrounded the campfire. To look upon him, he seemed eerily out of place, but he was by far superior to any of the other assassins. When he spoke they listened. When he killed they cheered. When he slept they watched him with a wary eye.

  Varick gritted his teeth as the others fed from the harvest pot. Kills had been many, and far too much meat had been wasted. The assassin clan had become gluttonous and annoyingly fearful since Grace’s last visit. It would be justified if the others knew what the goddess had told him or, better yet, what she had ordered him to do.

  He watched in silence as the assassins nervously kept their distance, chewing on bits of deer bones. Their long, sharp fangs scraped against the bones and crunched loudly as the twenty-four others settled in for the night.

  Twenty-six assassins who knew not what was coming.

  Twenty-six black-scaled, horned demons that walked as men, talked as men, and killed for a small payment from Grace.

  For the first time in his life, Varick felt disgust roll through his body, clenching at the pit of his stomach.

  Varick grinned slowly; Grace had offered him more than her usual token to fulfill her wish. He looked at the deerskin tent that stood a hundred paces to the east of the camp. His mother, a female vampire condemned by her own kind for being a handmaiden to the god Gyth, had been resting now for over an hour thanks to the aid of the sandalwood root he had slipped into her nightly goblet of blood that came from his own wrist.

  His gaze traveled farther to the cave at the bottom of the mountain that was barred and the guard who was sleeping at his post. Twenty-seven assassins who took female humans as mates and kept them caged like animals until they died of disease, famine, or brutal torture were waiting.

  Among the females, ten were bearing offspring. Thirty-seven assassins. And along the walls of the cave, hissing and huddled together, were twenty young assassins. Forty-seven assassins lay waiting, and they all would soon be exterminated.

  A loud, crisp roar drew his attention to the night sky. Terror Sky cried out as he flew over the campsite. Varick grinned as his lifelong companion — what had the humans called him? Ah yes, a dragon — sliced through the air and landed on top of the cliffs. He waited eagerly as Varick turned his attention back to his next kill, his last assignment.

  When he stood with swords drawn and a smile on his lips, Grace’s words flooded his mind. “The assassins have dishonored me. They no longer justify the means, and they have become inferior to the other gods’ creations. I want them eliminated, all of them. Do not leave a single survivor. Kill the human females and rip their organs from their bodies. If there is any offspring in their wombs, burn them. The young that huddle in the caves are to die as well. Search every hillside, every mound of rotting Earth until you destroy every last one of them. The exact number is four thousand four hundred and forty-four. Count them, Varick, and do as I command. In exchange for your services, I free you from servitude. And as a token of my appreciation I will give you a gift if the deed is fulfilled. The gift is mine to give at whatever time I choose. Do we have an understanding?”

  He swirled and danced as one with his blades, and the assassins began to fall. Varick’s reign of death lasted well into the early hours of morn.

  As the last assassin fell, Terror Sky landed in front of him, heavy, sulfuric smoke billowing out of his great nostrils. Varick stepped back, his swords dropping to the ground. The great dragon rarely ever made such contact. He stayed off in the distance but close enough Varick could always see him.

  He watched in awe as the giant lifted his neck and spewed a mountain of flames across the sky. His front legs lifted and his great wings stretched wide. Red mist filtered out of his skin as the dragon grew smaller and smaller. Varick fell to his knees as a man’s form appeared where the great dragon had been. Dressed in black robes, the man raised one red-tinged black eyebrow and hunched down in front of him.

  “I am Terror Sky. I am an Elemental.” His sudden smile radiated menace. “Tell me why you have killed these assassins. They raised you, fed you, and trained you. Did they not deserve some respect from you?”

  Varick fell forward, his body suddenly entirely too heavy for his bones. “The goddess I serve, Grace, ordered it of me.”

  “Oh, really? Did she order it or did you make a bargain with her? Can you not think for yourself?” Rage dripped from his voice. “You are pathetically ignorant, Varick. Why do you follow her orders?”

  “She is a goddess. She controls everything here. You don’t decline to accept a bargain with a goddess.” His voice trembled as it had never done before.

  The man — no, the god — snorted. “She controls you because you let her. You could have refused the deal. You could have at least listened to your soul before you took the lives of these assassins.”

  “I have no soul.”

  He laughed, a deep pacifying melody. “Of course you do.”

  “My mother is a vampire. Vampires don’t have souls.”

  Again, the god laughed. “You and your mother are two of a kind. Vampires with souls.”

  Varick stood on shaking legs as the image before him warped back into dragon form. He reached out; he had to feel the scales to convince himself this was not a dream. His fingers slid over smooth scales, his sharp fingernails retracting as his hand dropped.

  The dragon lifted, his great wings expanding. “You made a bargain with Grace and it’s just the beginning of your destiny.”

  “What do you know of my destiny?” Varick stood. “I will make my own destiny.”

  “Is that what you want, to rise above what you were born to be?” Terror Sky circled above him, his voice booming across the mountains. “Accept what you are, learn how to control yourself, and be wary of the treachery of the gods above and below. Then, maybe, you’ll be able to control your own destiny.”

  Varick shrugged. “That’s not an obstacle. It can be easily done.”

  “Not if you’re dead.”

  Varick stepped back, bent to retrieve his swords, and hissed. “Is that why you show yourself? Do you plan to be my assassin?”

  The dragon god circled in the air above him, his fire-filled breath scorching the land around his feet. “You have two years, Varick, son of Vicery Beth, two years to enjoy the rest of this life. Then you will die.”

  Varick laughed with vicious ire. “I’m not afraid of death. It beckons me with such a sweet voice.”

  “No,” Terror Sky roared. “That’s not death that beckons you, it’s the goddess Zena, the queen of the vampires.”

  Chapter 10

  Angelica took a deep breath and knocked on the ancient-looking door that opened into Alera’s office. The door creaked open, and Angelica walked in like a schoolgirl with her tail tucked between her legs. Guilt had a way of doing that to a girl, even if she was thirty years old.

  She looked up and frowned as Alera rose from her chair and waved toward the chair in front of her desk. A strange shiver went up her spine as she heard the door close softly behind her. Just who the hell had opened it if Alera had been behind the desk? And furthermore, who the hell had just closed it?

  “There’s something I would like to speak to you about.” Alera raised one eyebrow in curiosity as Angelica looked over her shoulder at the door. “Is something wrong?”

  “
How did that door just close?”

  Alera shrugged, “The wind?” She pointed to the chair in front of her desk. “Please, sit down.”

  Angelica sat down. “We’re inside, there isn’t any wind.”

  Alera grimaced. “Perhaps the door is off centered. Look, we need to talk about your mother.”

  “Why? I already told you, I never met her.” Angelica vaguely wondered why the woman’s eyes were so bloodshot. “Alera, I think I might quit.”

  Alera leaned back in her chair and frowned. “I see. Is there anything I can offer you to get you to stay? I know you work a lot at the museum and on weekends here. We could change your hours, make sure you have a day off.”

  Angelica knitted her eyebrows together and stared at Alera. “Not really. I think you were right, I’m not waitress material.”

  “I’m aware of what happened.” Alera smiled, a pained look washing over her face. “The security camera caught you and Varick in an embrace right outside the club. Is he the reason you want to quit?”

  “No.” Angelica rubbed her temples and crossed her legs. “The bartender told me that if they asked me to join them, you said to do it. I resent that you used me like some kind of escort for your friends.”

  “Do you regret it? Spending the night with him?”

  Angelica’s face turned three shades of red. “Well, uh, you see, it’s just. Yeah. Oh, good lord, that’s none of your business.”

  “I guess it isn’t.” Alera’s eyes dulled. She rose from her chair and came around the desk and stood in front of Angelica. “Give me your hand.”

  She took Angelica’s hand and pressed a cold metal charm into her palm. Angelica looked at the two-sided charm. On one side there was a dove in front of a sunrise and on the other was a dragon in front of a full moon. Angelica took a deep breath as a wave of heat hit her in the stomach.

  Alera spoke quietly as Angelica ran her fingers over its surface. “I want you to have this. It’s very old and the only one of its kind. If you believe in magic, then you may appreciate that this little object is said to contain the force of our creator’s hand.”