Love Beyond Flames

by Rebecca Royce

  And me not showing up the second I gained knowledge of all this mess was as much to protect everyone else as me not wanting to participate in an eternal war that sometimes kills me."

  Zane stopped moving. "You think I can't handle some human?"

  "Don't ever underestimate the capability to hurt us from anyone who wishes us harm. Human or not, he's pretty scary. Trust me. I make fire and he scares the heck out of me."

  She was a woman who had been burned…maybe literally…by life. He leaned forward on the counter. "Tell you what. Let's shelve this discussion. You need to eat that soup and then we have to go group-think with the others about what we should be doing and why everything we've been trying up till now hasn't worked. They didn't take the news of everyone's impending doom very well."

  "I'd imagine not." She shook her head. "The soup was good. Thank you."

  He couldn't think of anything he'd like more than to spend every day feeding her, making sure she always had whatever she needed it whenever she did. Even if he had to rob a million safes to do so. Zane let out a breath he didn't know he held. Who was he kidding? When it came down to it, he was a common thief. She was way too good for him.

  She pursed her lips. "You're making the funniest face."

  "What are you thinking about?"

  Her last words were spoken in his mind. He loved the caress of the private communication. It was like a butterfly fluttered through his mind. Still, this was no time for gentleness.

  "Death. When it comes down to it, I'm almost always thinking about living and dying. What else is there these days?"

  She stood, her eyebrows raised when she did. "And you're lying. I just know you are. That's okay. We all get to lie sometimes, don't we? You should know I know, is all."

  "Right." This was going to be complicated. What was he going to do in a relationship with someone he couldn't be false with? Telling people untruths had kept him alive for most of his life. Oh yeah, man, I have no idea why those weird people with the dead eyes were wandering around… "Just out of curiosity, can you tell when everyone lies? Or it is just me?"

  She raised her eyebrows. "Only you."

  He walked with her toward the others. Somehow, he'd thought when he found her, everything would be easy. The others made it look downright easy. Why was his woman arguing with him when all he wanted was to keep her safe?

  Isabelle didn't seem to object when Kal stepped in the way of danger for her.

  Was he simply deficient when it came to keeping a soul mate happy?

  The others were talking at a low hum when he entered the room. Everyone except the ever-missing Gia— no one had met her yet except him—and Alexa who was still in her room. He had to agree with Raquel. Leaving Alexa in the room, away from everyone else, wasn't going to make things better.

  "Took you long enough." Kal shook his head. "I thought Marina was going to in there and drag you out of the kitchen."

  "My girl was hungry." His answer was going to have to do.

  He wouldn't explain himself to the others, not when they should understand. From the moment he'd seen Raquel out his window, there had been a part of him dying, being denied the ability to take care of her. When he'd arrived in the Outsider caves, it had been explained to him that the instincts he struggled with were standard male Outsider issues. They wanted to keep everyone safe, particularly their females.

  The only problem was the nine male Outsiders currently residing on the Earth had long since learned they couldn't keep anyone safe, let alone the women they loved.

  Not when everyone had to fight the same war.

  And that was just the problem—Raquel's powers were arguably more powerful than his. She was going to be called upon to fight even more than he was. The very idea made him want to throw something…

  "Zane." Leonardo shouted his name. "Are you

  listening?"

  He sat down next to Raquel who had apparently sat when he'd been obsessing. "No, Leonardo. I'm afraid I was in my own world. Were you saying something important?"

  Their leader snorted. "Every word out of my mouth is canon. Don't you remember that from the orientation?"

  Laughter sounded in the room and Zane was able to take a deep breath. If they could all manage to still crack up when something was funny—or even Leonardo's ability to make a joke—then maybe there was hope for them. If amusement could be found then all was not lost, not yet.

  "What I said, before you started daydreaming, was that we've been doing some accounting of things. And we have serious issues although the argument could be made that having problems is nothing new." Leonardo rolled his eyes.

  "Like what?"

  Marina sat forward. "We were told when the sign was given—in this case when the scribe was murdered by Sebastian…" She trailed off and Leonardo interrupted her.

  "Let's be honest here. Sebastian couldn't have been anywhere near that scribe. My soul mate in the other room took care of that for him."

  Zane's soul mate lifted her eyebrows. When she spoke, it was directly to their leader. "She's no more responsible for what's happening to her than if he placed himself inside of her body and walked around wearing her skin."

  Raquel must not have cared for Leonardo's accusation any more than he did. Or maybe it was the tone Leonardo used. Zane would have to ask her later. If he tried to mind-talk with her right then he'd lose focus again.

  "We can talk about Alexa another time." Zane had heard Leonardo use that tone enough to know he was done with the subject. "The point is that we really don't know why, despite the fact that the scribe died, we didn't receive our memories of previous lives."

  "And you think that's important?" Zane realized he was playing catchup but he wasn't exactly sure he wanted to know everything that had happened to him in countless other lives.

  Birth, pain, death. Didn't he have enough shit to

  handle with this one?

  "We learn from our mistakes, we remember strategies that work. Right now, I'm the only one with all of that information. I can't relay it properly and I don't know all of it anyway. You did things, Zane, and I know about them. But I don't know why you made decisions; I'm not in your head. Only my own."

  He supposed that made sense. "The benefits we got from the scribe didn't come through. Only you got the big reveal."

  "Ruby and Christophe have spent countless hours combing through the scribe's home to see if they could come up with anything."

  Christophe, looking much better than he had in the future Zane would very much like to avoid, nodded his head. "Surprising how much in the man's house had absolutely nothing to do with anything. He lived his life with no one knowing he was preforming a job where everything depended on him. We didn't even have knowledge of his existence. Half of his stuff was newspaper clippings about local farmers' markets. His human name was Mark. I don't know why it feels important to know that but it does."

  "So, nothing useful in Mark's house?"

  Ruby sighed loudly. "We've gotten into everything

  except one spot and that's where we're hoping you can help, Zane."

  "Me?" His skills had never been particularly useful before. "Not sure I can make the ghosts appear to whisk me away to points unknown. They seem to come and go as they want. Although the ghost-you, Kal, took full advantage of my abilities yesterday."

  Kal snorted. "Can't take the blame for something I've yet to do. And hopefully won't have to." He stroked the side of Isabelle's face.

  Zane would love to feel so easy with Raquel. Although to do so he'd have to be the kind of guy who wanted public displays of affection. Much as he did, he also didn't want to push things. He wasn't Kal. His background wasn't something he would inflict on anyone. The more she knew him, the less likely Raquel would want him touching her at all.

  "Don't assume to know me that well yet, either. I set fires for a crazy man. Don't make me too good in your mind. I'm all kinds of flawed."

  He nearly jumped at her presence in his mind. How did
she manage to get in and out of there so easily without him noticing?

  "Just going to have to get used to it, I guess." Her lips twisted slightly, the only outside indication of the havoc she played privately on his emotions.

  "We're actually thinking your other skill set is what we need right now," Marina said. "Not the ghosts and whatever happens to you there. But the safe cracking."

  He shifted in his seat. He'd always been able to hear things differently and occasionally use his voice to get people to do things for him, although the latter wasn't his primary power, more like a secondary ability. One of the gifts his special hearing gave him was opening safes. He'd survived as a thief that way.

  "I need to see the safe."

  Whatever it turned out to be, he was fairly certain he could handle it. Still, he wouldn't make promises to them until he saw for himself it wasn't some weird unbreakable magic thing he couldn't crack.

  "Fair enough." Leonardo nodded. "Gabe will take you over there to see it. We need to get inside. Whatever the scribe was hiding, we need to know what it is and, hopefully, it'll lead to some answers we don't have."

  "All right." Zane stood. "But if it turns out that all this scribe had hidden in his safe were some nude pictures of his neighbor and an unfinished detective novel, I am not taking the blame for that crap."

  Leonardo laughed, spitting out a sip of the water he'd taken. The whole room erupted at the sight and soon they were all roaring with laughter. But Zane wasn't kidding and he didn't join in the joy. He knew better than anyone what happened when he didn't deliver for a client. His eyes met Raquel's. She smiled at him and not at the scene in the room around them.

  In this case, his client was his fellow Outsiders but it didn't mean they would be any less unsatisfied if he couldn't give them what they wanted.

  He had a soul mate with him now, someone to protect. Raquel couldn't be harmed in any way by his inability to deliver.

  "I'd like to think you're overthinking this but you know them better than I do." She raised her eyebrows.

  "We'll go to the scribe's now." Marina wiped a tear off her face. "That was a great joke, Zane. Thanks for that."

  Raquel stood and walked next to him. She squeezed his hand. "Someone has to let me know what or who this scribe is."

  "He's basically the dude who controlled our lives for a very long time. Without us even knowing it. And now he's dead. So we're all fair game to the demon."

  "Wow." She sucked in her breath. "Then let's go break into his safe."

  Zane's head pounded. Yeah, he really knew how to show a girl a good time.

  *****

  Raquel felt itchy. It was a funny way to think of the sensations moving through her body but it was the best description nonetheless. Zane knelt in front of a large safe with Marina, Gabriel, Drew, and Loraine on all sides of him. She'd wanted to come and no one had suggested she not. The soul mate thing. They all went together in groups.

  "You okay?" Zane's voice in her head. She smiled. Why was she surprised? She'd been pushing her statements into his whenever she wanted. It made sense he'd soon do the same.

  "Just off…"

  How to explain it?

  "Well." Zane's voice boomed in the room. "I can get it open. But you have to get the magic off it first."

  Marina shook her head. "What magic?"

  "The magic that is surrounding it."

  Silence filled the room and she stepped closer to the others. Why were they reacting the way they were? Zane needed the magic removed. What little she understood about these things, it was Marina's job to get the stuff off.

  "I don't see any." She looked at Drew. "Do you?"

  The man's response was only to shake his head.

  Drew didn't say much, it seemed.

  "I can undo a spell anywhere. But there's no spell here."

  Zane breathed out loudly. "There is. I can see it. Black lines all over the thing. Either I'm losing my mind and seeing things. Or it's spelled. I'm going to go with the second option. If I put my hand on the dial and turn it's going to get all over me."

  Raquel stared at the device. She could see it. The same way he could. "Black lines. Yes, I see them."

  Marina scratched her head. "You do?"

  "What's the big deal? We can see it. You can't? Why does it matter?"

  "I'm the one who can see the power weaves in spells. And Drew too, sometimes."

  "Marina." Drew spoke aloud presumably so they could all hear it since Raquel knew they could speak the way she and Zane did privately. Or, maybe they couldn't. She didn't really know how these things worked. "Magic doesn't make mistakes."

  "Oh for the love of…" Gabriel shook his head.

  "Don't start that shit again please."

  Marina put her hand on Drew's arm. "He makes a good point. We can't see it and we should be able to. You two can see it. Maybe it belongs to you."

  Raquel's whole body shook hard. She gasped, gripping at her stomach before she doubled over. Zane rushed to her, his arms coming against her while he pulled her against him. "What's wrong?"

  "I don't know. My body, it hurts."

  Zane whirled around, his eyes on Gabe. "Take me back. We need Jason. Now."

  The world went black around her. Voices floated over her head and she cried out as wave after wave of pain rocked her body. And then the blackness passed. Colors floated into her vision even though her eyes remained closed. The sounds of the other Outsiders—frantic Zane, calm Jason, reassuring Charma—fled and she floated.

  Peace took over her body. Minutes passed. Maybe hours. And then…knowledge. Lifetimes flew in front of her. All her lives. The stories her ancestors had told became more than words, instead becoming real. She could see them. And moreover she could remember how she'd felt in those lives. So many battles, so many lives lost, and always her steady Zane.

  Her eyes flew open. He sat next to her bed, holding her hand, his eyes closed. His mouth hung open slightly and he breathed deeply. Dark circles marred his skin. He was tired. Raquel let herself drink in his sight. They'd always been together. He didn't remember yet, neither did the others, and it was going to be hard to wait until they all did. Marina had hers. Did she remember it all? Or couldn't she see any better than the others?

  Zane shifted slightly but didn't wake. If she closed her eyes, could she join him? In their spot? The garden where it was always the two of them with no disturbance from the rest of the world. Unfortunately, she didn't think she could sleep again. In fact, her whole body was energized. She had a purpose and it went beyond burning the zombies—although she'd be happy to do so any time it was required of her.

  The others had their powers stagnated and it was because they weren't altogether as a group yet. Everyone should have their memories back. The holdup was a sign of just how bad everything had gotten. Gia, she could do nothing about. Colin had to find her. They had their path to take in this strange world, in their odd circumstances.

  Alexa, however, who she'd been drawn to since the ancestors pointed out her troubles, could be fixed. And she was just the woman to do it.

  Zane was going to hate it. Thief, liar, criminal, saint, prophet, leader, sculptor—whatever role he played in the various dimensions—he was always the same. Hers. Sometimes he died for her. She shuddered at the memories.

  Raquel wasn't losing him in this lifetime. They were going to win, damn it, and have their time together until they both died of old age, for a change.

  They deserved it and Sebastian needed to go back and rot in hell with his whole family.

  She swung her legs over the side of the bed and stood. Zane dropped her hand and didn't wake. She crept away from him. Better to ask forgiveness than permission.

  Of course if he did to her what she was about to him she'd be pissed. Somehow she'd have to make it up to him. And she had to get to know him in this lifetime. They were both different, they always were.

  But their souls knew each other.

  Raquel crept on silent f
eet toward Alexa's room. The caves were dark and quiet. Hard to tell if it was day or night but the lack of bellowing, pacing, and noise told her either everyone else was gone or they slept. She was going to go with the second choice since it worked better for her plan.

  Seeing a figure on the floor outside of Alexa's room brought her up short. Leonardo was sleeping there. Raquel rubbed at her eyes. Apparently, he was keeping watch on his soul mate. She didn't know him in this lifetime yet but she'd lay money on the idea he'd hate anyone knowing he did this.

  Not so unaffected by Alexa as he'd like everyone to

  think.

  Raquel supposed she could scoot by him and hope she didn't wake him up. It was easier, however, to get his consent to do what had to be done.

  She kicked his leg gently in the shin and his eyes flew open. "You're awake." His voice cracked, heavy from sleep.

  "I am. I remember all my old past lives."

  His eyebrows rose slowly. "I see."

  "You're all going to get them back"—she pointed at the door—"after I fix her."

  He got to his feet. "She's covered in demon filth down to her very bones. How do you propose to get it out of her if Jason and Charma can't?"

  "I have a couple of ideas." She crossed her arms over her chest. "I know her. The version of Alexa now and the ones that always were. You and I talking like this? It's not so odd. You don't remember but sometimes we're actually related. You've been my brother a dozen times. Like Marina, I always tell you the truth. So here it is. You're Leonardo. The power enhancer. The natural leader. You are powerful as anything. In lifetimes where you and Alexa have your shit together, we win. In ones where we don't? Opposite problem."

  "Very easy for you to be judgy while you stand

  there with your memories. I haven't gotten mine yet. I'm still working with the shit I'm muddled in now."

  "Let me fix her."

  He had to understand. What she was about to do was going to be hard as hell. But it was necessary. She and Zane had seen the black lines. In the past they would have understood, because it would have been explained to them, that it was a signal of change for the ones who could see it.