Forged from Flame

by Kasey Mackenzie

  The fierce smiles she and Nic gave indicated they couldn’t agree more.

  Chapter 8

  We spent the next hour brainstorming, picking apart, and discarding several plans before formulating one everybody was happy with. Isaac assigned his people tasks related to that plan, and they all filed out of the room except for an Indian-American Dragon named Avani Singh. She appeared to be his right-hand woman in a strictly platonic way, seeing as how she eyeballed Dia just as much as Isaac did.

  Dia might have been open to Avani’s come-hither looks had she not been so hung up on Isaac. She’d casually mentioned both an ex-boyfriend and ex-girlfriend during the ride to St. Louis. Nic and Dia had been discussing ex-lovers with Liam, of all people. I hadn’t pegged him for something so mundane as gossip. Apparently, all three of them had dated the same Freeholder guy (not Isaac) in the past.

  Ha! So Liam isn’t a complete celibate robot like I was starting to suspect. He actually has ex-boyfriends!

  I hadn’t ventured a guess as to his sexuality one way or the other in the past, but I had wondered why he hadn’t yet bonded with anyone. Turned out it was even harder for LGBTQ Elementals to find ideal bondmates than usual, by virtue of it being a numbers game. Liam wasn’t willing to settle, and he’d gotten lucky in that the wildness hadn’t yet touched him. Then again, he was younger than both Jake and Colin. He likely still had years or even decades until he had to worry.

  Isaac murmured something to Avani, and she ushered Breena and her Quatrain toward their upstairs bedrooms. Dia caught my attention when she sent Avani a death glare. I blinked, wondering what the heck the Dragon could possibly have done to piss off my sister.

  Isaac reclaimed my attention by herding the rest of us toward the basement, where several other bedrooms were waiting. He pointed toward separate bedrooms for Nic and Liam, gestured toward one across the hall for Jake and me, and then turned toward Dia. She sidestepped the hand he tried to place on her arm and gave a pointed look toward the door next to Jake’s and mine.

  “Amadia,” Isaac said with an even more pointed look of his own. “I need a word in private.”

  “Oh no you do not!” she snapped back, eyes blazing more brightly than the Fire I could summon.

  Nic’s eyes widened as he glanced from Dia to Isaac and back again. He appeared surprised in the extreme, as if he hadn’t known they knew each other. He then glanced over his shoulder at Liam, and the two decided that retreating to their rooms was the far better part of valor. Jake, not to be outdone, scrambled into our room and then reached back to tug me along since I was walking as slowly as possible, eyes locked on the popcorn-worthy scene just feet away.

  Dia shot Jake a dirty look and reached out to pull my other arm. “Anything you have to say to me you can say in front of my sister!”

  Pleasure that she called me that again warred with annoyance over being pulled in two directions, but Jake surrendered to the heat in Dia’s expression and voice. “See you in bed,” he muttered and beat a hasty retreat.

  Isaac turned an exasperated look upon Dia. “Really, Amadia? This how you want to play it?”

  She gave him the same death glare earlier sent in Avani’s direction. “I’m not the one who likes to play games, if I remember correctly. And I don’t see what either of us could possibly have to say to the other. We’re history, remember?”

  He let out an explosive breath, running a hand along the multitude of braids hanging over his shoulder. “No, Amadia, we didn’t decide any such thing. You declared us history by sneaking off in the middle of the night. Didn’t even have the balls to tell me you’d changed your mind about bonding. All you left was that bullshit letter before you skipped out on me. Didn’t leave that 10k engagement ring when you left, though, did you?”

  Oh. My. God. This was even more drama than I’d expected. And damn, Isaac definitely wasn’t cheap if he’d sprung for a $10,000 engagement ring.

  Her cheeks colored bright red, Dia placed hands on her waist and glared even harder at Isaac.

  If looks could kill…

  “You know damned well I’ll pay you back for the ring. I needed the money a thousand times more than you did.”

  Isaac’s expression softened. “To pay for your mother’s surgery. I know. What I don’t know is A. Why you didn’t tell me what she needed. You know I would have helped. And B. Why the fuck did you run away from the best thing either of us ever had?”

  Her eyes widened again. “Are you seriously going to stand there in this house, with your other woman here under the same damn roof, and act like you don’t know why I left?”

  Proving he could be just as oblivious as any other person, Isaac shook his head with a perplexed expression. “Amadia, I truly have no clue what you’re talking about.”

  Oh dear, I thought, getting a sinking feeling that jealousy had made my sister overlook one very obvious thing. “Uh, Dia,” I ventured, trying to save her a little dignity.

  She pointedly ignored me, despite having insisted that I stay. “I saw you that night!” she shouted, loud enough I’m sure all three of the other men could hear. “The night before I left the letter. I know what you did when you thought I was still at Mom’s bedside. I heard every. Single. Disgusting. Sound.”

  Isaac’s continued confusion had me giving a glare of my own. “Avani, for God’s sake. She means Avani.” His mouth opened as she sputtered out empty monosyllables. I rolled my eyes and turned to Dia. “And you, Amadia. Avani is completely and obviously—judging by her eyeing you like you were the main course at dinner—a lesbian. Or bisexual. Or pansexual, I guess. But either way, she was not in the slightest way showing any interest in our Tall, Dark, and Handsome Selkie right here. She only had eyes for you. Now, I am exhausted after this Day from Hell, so I’m going to bed. I suggest you two actually talk—not yell—talk to each other in a way you apparently failed to do whenever all this mess—” I gestured wildly between them, “—was going on. Now good night.”

  I opened the door Jake had disappeared behind and then threw over my shoulder, “Also, you be nice to my sister, or I’ll have to burn your house down when we leave.”

  With that empty threat, I flounced into the bedroom and shut the door with a solid thud. And then I got ready for bed with a big, goofy grin on my face because man, had I ever been right about those two and man, was it going to be fun watching the fireworks…

  Aching sadness tugged at my heartstrings a few hours later, pulling me out of a deep slumber and halfway toward the bedroom door before I’d fully woken up. Jake mumbled something, and I sleepily reassured him all was well. He rolled over and fell back to sleep, making me hate him just a little bit that it came so easily to him. I was the one who’d nearly burned out using my new evil powers. At that thought, I realized just what had awakened me.

  Dia was sobbing her heart out in the room next door, not that I could hear it through the thick basement walls. My Mindbending powers were picking up her emotions through the liegebond. I slipped out of our bedroom, down the hall, and found myself hesitating outside Dia’s room. For all that she’d called me sister more than once, we were virtual strangers. We’d found ourselves thrust together by circumstances and the plotting of an evil mastermind who also happened to be our father. What if she just wanted to cry in peace and I made things worse?

  Then a sense of soul-crushing loneliness swept across our bond, nearly bringing me to my knees, and that was that. Dia was my sister, my bonded liegesworn, and when you came right down to it, a fellow human being. I couldn’t stand by without trying to help.

  It seemed natural to extend a gentle thought along the link between us. ((Knock knock. You up for some company?))

  Surprise flashed along the bond, followed quickly by a blend of embarrassment and resentment. I pushed my own matter-of-fact urge to help and my true admiration for Dia as a person across the link between us. Surprise came from her again, and then that loneliness flared a second time, accompanied by a tiny spark of hope and longin
g.

  I caught my breath and waited, determined not to push lest I chase her away. Seconds later, a soft sound heralded the opening of her door, followed by a whispered, “Come on in then, Firebird.”

  I pretended that the nickname didn’t have me nearly melting on the inside by glancing around her room. A small bedside lamp provided the bedroom’s only illumination. The room was identical to the one I shared with Jake: queen-sized bed with matching comforter and pillowcases, dresser and closet on one side of the room and small desk, chair, and tiny bathroom visible through a doorway on the other. Dia’s oversized duffel bag loaded with the few possessions she’d managed to carry from Garrett’s enclave covered the desk’s surface. A framed photo sat next to the bedside lamp. A pretty middle-aged Black woman had her arms around a younger Amadia. The two wore huge grins that communicated their love better than mere words could.

  Dia caught my glance at the picture, and an echo of that love flared, along with intense pain that flashed across our bond. “That’s my mom. The one who adopted me after six other families passed me around like unwanted luggage.”

  Her voice was equal parts bitter and defensive, as if she expected me to either feel sorry for her or look down upon her. I did neither.

  “What are you, some kind of amateur? I went through at least 12 foster families.”

  The offbeat humor was the right tack to take. She gave an unexpected laugh before motioning to the desk chair. “If we’re gonna have our first late-night sister chat, we may as well get comfy.”

  I settled onto the cheap but cushioned office chair while she perched at the end of her bed. My voice was soft when I pointed toward her photo. “I can tell how much you and your mom love each other.”

  She heaved a sigh. “Loved, as in past tense. That surgery you heard us mention…it didn’t work. Mom’s lung cancer was too far gone.”

  “Oh, jeez, I’m so sorry. Cancer sucks.”

  “True that,” she agreed. “At least she didn’t pass until I was in my 20s. And she gave me a lot of good years, years I needed to get my head screwed on straight. And now I can pay that…that man back with her insurance money. Once I figure out how to get it without Garrett’s evil ass tracking me down again.”

  Obviously they did not sort things out between them the night before. “Easy enough solution for that problem.”

  She arched a brow curiously.

  “Make that man use his leet hacker skillz to funnel the money in some untraceable way. I’m sure it’d be quick and easy for him.”

  She got a stubborn look in her eyes. “Hell no. I don’t need his help.”

  I shrugged casually. “I mean, part of the money’s for him. Only fair he share in the burden of getting it. Plus, you’re officially a Freeholder, right? No Beholden Clan?”

  She shook her head as a crafty gleam replaced the stubbornness.

  “Then it’s like his contractual obligation to help you. And you can always tack on an extra small percentage to him as a finder’s fee if it makes you feel better.”

  “The hell I will!” she said, indignation coloring her voice. “You said it yourself, no real reason he shouldn’t work for his money the same as us.” Then she caught my teasing tone and let out a bark of laughter. “Girl, you got the same snark my mama passed on to me.”

  I grinned. “Well, we are sisters. From everything I’ve heard about my birth mother, she was all fire and sass like you’d expect from a Phoenix. Although my poor adoptive mother had her hands full with me the few years we had together…”

  A lump filled my throat as my voice trailed off. Dia reached a hand over, a complete reversal given that I’d come here to comfort her.

  “We’re gonna get your mama back,” she said in a fierce tone. “That Dorian’s a giant prick for sure. Skeevy as all get-out. He came on to me like a dozen times back at Garrett’s compound. Till I convinced him I was a lesbian, just so he’d leave me the hell alone.”

  That had me laughing at the visual image. “Oh jeez, that’d probably be the only way his gigantic ego would believe you could possibly be uninterested in him.”

  “Yeah, and I didn’t really flat-out lie. I do sleep with my fair share of women. I may also sleep with an equal number of men, but he’s never gonna be one of them!”

  We shared a small fit of giggles before I tilted my head and pursed my lips. “So then how the hell did a smart woman like you completely miss the fact that Avani was attracted to you and most definitely not into Tall, Dark, and Handsome?”

  “Can you stop calling him that? Besides, shouldn’t you be focusing your attention on your man? Bondmates and all that.”

  “Dia, I’m bonded to Jake, and he is definitely my number one. But I am certainly not blind. Isaac is so hot it gives me palpitations. Plus, I feel like it’s a sister’s prerogative to give you shit. Gotta make up for missing out on our teenage years together.”

  She got a weird look on her face. “I wouldn’t know. Never had a sister.”

  “Me neither,” I confessed. “Not for long enough to get used to it, anyway. By the time I wound up with a crazy survivalist family that had a crap-ton of kids, I was in my late teens so it was too late for me to really bond with any of the girls like real sisters.”

  Dia’s expression grew more serious. “We actually do have another sister, but Garrett kept her far away from Nic and me. I get the impression Lily’s his favorite daughter the way Drew’s his favorite son.”

  My pulse picked up speed slightly. “They’re his two youngest, right?”

  She nodded. “Two youngest I know about next to Bianca’s. Lily’s half-British, a Dragon, and another who was raised by rich folks. Friends of Garrett’s actually, and an Elemental couple. Drew is like the chosen heir to Garrett’s evil-ass throne. The only one who was raised for even a little bit by Garrett. Also the only one whose biological mother survived childbirth.”

  I blinked and filed that information away. A pang of sadness that my own mother hadn’t been the lucky one hit. “What makes him—and his mom—so special?”

  “Like I mentioned before, only you and Drew have any Mindbending abilities. And he came into his before he even hit puberty. Given that he was not at all Elementally inclined—just pure Mindbender like Garrett—his Phoenix of a mother made it through childbirth just fine. Well…physically speaking.”

  The envy from moments earlier faded as I thought through her words and what I knew of Garrett. “Let me guess. She’s pretty much a slave to the will of both Garrett and Drew.”

  Dia nodded grimly. “Pretty much. I mean, Garrett left her alone to raise Drew for like the first eight or nine years of his life, until his abilities became too obvious to ignore. And then his mom had the pleasure of brain-scrambling from both father and son.”

  I shivered and then tried to decide whether my mother was better off dead and me raised by others but at least free of Garrett’s mind control. Not really a hard choice. Of course we were better off this way. And the world would be better off once we ended his reign of terror.

  Something niggled at my memory as I thought back over the documents left by Michael Somers, the man who’d once run the Hearts in Need Adoption Agency that had kept tabs on children potentially sired by Garrett. “Wait, I thought Garrett had five children who were bounced around from foster family to foster family. But you say Lily was raised by one set of adoptive parents and that Drew was raised mostly by his birth mother. And the names I remember from adoption agency paperwork weren’t Lily or Drew. Do we have even more siblings out there?”

  Dia shrugged her shoulders. “I never heard him mention others, but given he impregnated Bianca as recently as months ago, that doesn’t mean there aren’t a dozen more running around out there.”

  The mere thought gave me a headache. On the one hand, I’d once dreamed of having a big family. On the other, what if any of them turned out to be as diabolical as Garrett? It was already a pretty safe bet that Drew would be following in his evil footsteps. The world so
did not need more of them!

  I shook my head and turned my thoughts elsewhere. We’d have plenty of time to stress about saving the world as we knew it later. Right now, I had other fish to fry. And sisters to tease.

  “So don’t think I didn’t notice you trying to change the subject. You never answered my question. Did the green-eyed monster completely blind you to the truth?”

  She pinched her lips like she’d just swallowed a gallon of prune juice. “I swear that if you weren’t my sister…”

  I batted my eyelashes and gave a saucy smile. “But I am.” My expression grew more serious. “I really do want to help, Dia. Anything you tell me here goes no further; not even to Nic. Keeping secrets is another sister’s prerogative.”

  My words must have struck a chord, because her face softened, and she relaxed ever-so-slightly. “I was a damned young fool three years ago, is what I was. And let’s just say I had not yet discovered the appeal of my own gender.”

  Realization lit in my eyes. “Ah, so you only had eyes for Isaac and didn’t notice that Avani only had eyes for you.”

  Red suffused her cheeks. “I was under a lot of stress back then. Mama wasn’t an Elemental, but someone told her what I could become when she adopted me, and where she could get help if it turned out I needed it.”

  “Which you did.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, I came into my powers at 16. Started training with a Freeholder tutor. Eventually met Nic, although we had no clue we were related. He introduced me to Isaac, but he never knew that we started dating a few years later.”

  My lips twitched. “Wait. How the hell did you manage to hide a $10,000 engagement ring from anyone, much less a friend? Also…not that I’m judging, because Jake’s like 50 years older than me, but weren’t you a little young for Isaac? Even if he’d been only human.”

  At that, Dia let out one of her saucy grins. “I’ll answer your last question first. Isaac may have been under the impression I was in my 30s when we started dating.