by Debra Dunbar
If I was human. Irix wasn’t the only non-mortal in this relationship. I was even more a freak with my elven half. But for this moment, I could pretend and dream.
Kai held up a bottle of wine at our return — her payment if I managed to get Irix dancing in a skirt. What she didn’t know was there was no need for effort on my part. He’d always had a great sense of humor — so unexpected in a demon — and never was embarrassed to do something silly for a laugh.
“Pour that wine,” he teased without the slightest hint of sexual innuendo. “Dancing makes a guy thirsty.”
She laughed, and I was so happy to see she’d relaxed around Irix, as well as around me. When she first arrived, dragging the snorkeling instructor from this morning as a date, I feared we were in for a long evening filled with agonizingly painful silences. Luckily Aaron, in spite of a confused ‘I don’t know why I’m here’ introduction, was a social guy. And Irix put everyone at ease, even without the use of his incubus skills.
“Pig is ready,” Aaron announced. He’d been watching the food closely. No doubt watersports burned off a lot of calories.
Irix stood, placing a kiss on the top of my head. “Why don’t Aaron and I get us all food while you ladies make inroads on that excellent bottle of Riesling?”
I lifted my head and smiled at him, fantasy intact and going strong.
“I can’t believe you’re sleeping with anyone but him,” Kai said the moment the guys were out of earshot. So much for my fantasy. “That’s your boyfriend? Half the resort is having wet dreams over him. And he’s freaking a-mazing. The way he looks at you.... I’d cut off an arm to have a guy look at me that way.”
“It’s different. What we have with each other is not the same as what we do with others. Love is more than sex.”
Actually, with others it was more than sex, too. But love didn’t enter into those equations at all. I couldn’t truly make Kai understand without getting into the whole demon explanation. If she’d been freaked at me being a sleazy ho, at us being kinky swingers, I could imagine what she’d do if she learned we were demons.
She cast another glance toward Irix and shook her head. “I really don’t understand. But then, I don’t understand Belinda liking it when her husband takes a paddle to her rear end. If some guy tried that with me, I’d punch him.”
Yeah, I wasn’t really a fan either, although it was always kind of a turn on when Irix threatened it. Luckily, most of my partners didn’t have that as a fantasy. Oddly enough, a surprising number of men seemed to fantasize the paddling on their asses. Go figure.
“Seriously, you don’t ever get jealous?”
I opened my mouth to reply ‘no’, but Kai’s gaze was particularly intense. Even with the romantic lighting, I got the feeling she’d spot a lie. “Yes. I’ll be honest that sometimes I wish things were different.”
She sipped her wine. “Are you sure he doesn’t feel the same way? He adores you. Maybe it bothers him when you’re sleeping with other guys.”
“Nope.” That came out a little faster, and probably harsher, than I’d wanted. I took a gulp from my own glass and tried to make my reply less emotion charged. “It doesn’t bother him at all.”
Her hand shot across the table to grasp mine. “Amber, you don’t have to put up with this. If you don’t like the swinger thing, you don’t have to do it. He’s gorgeous, and I think he does love you, but there are other men out there — or women — ones who won’t demand this of you.”
The fantasy shattered. Because if Irix and I were both human, I wouldn’t put up with this.
I squeezed her hand. “Please trust me. I can’t explain this to you. I really can’t. But I meant what I said earlier; even if Irix and I weren’t together, he’d still need to sleep with multiple partners, and so would I. I don’t like it, but this is the way things are — for me as well as him. Having him with me, loving him, makes it easier. It means I can do the things I need to do and not worry about what society says, or that someone is going to think less of me because of it.”
There was one of those silences, poignant with the kind of understanding two women seem to have between them when it comes to men and love.
“I don’t think less of you. But if you ever need some space to breathe and think, you let me know.” A smile trembled on her lips. “I’ve slept in the surf shack a few times. Say the word, and it’s yours for the night.”
“I’ll drink to that.” With those words, the tension vanished, and we were just two young women drinking wine, laughing, and making inappropriate comments about the fire jugglers. Irix and Aaron worked their way back to us, plates loaded with food.
“’Bout time. I’m starved.” Kai grinned up at Aaron, and he nearly dropped her plate, his face doing the deer-in-headlights expression. I was guessing Kai probably hadn’t said more than two words socially to him before tonight.
The pork was divine. The poi, not so much. Irix made a face after taking a bite, carefully shoving the purple pile away from his other food as if he were isolating everything else from its contaminating influence.
“It’s kind of bland,” I commented. I’d had high hopes upon seeing the substance, which was the consistency and color of pudding. Well, it was a bit more mauve than pudding, but in the dim luau lighting, I gave it the benefit of the doubt. One bite removed all that doubt. Pudding, this stuff was not.
“Bland? Throw a pound of butter in it and maybe I’ll eat it.” Irix said, wrinkling his nose.
Aaron laughed. “You get used to it. I mean, they sell it in the grocery stores here in big tubs. You eat mashed potatoes? Sweet potatoes? Same thing, only runnier.”
“Hence the need for butter,” Irix added.
Kai waved her fork at the poi. “It’s a first food for babies here and actually is very versatile. The poi that’s been fermented is actually on the sour side. It’s delicious with salmon and other fish. I’m not a fan of this pasty stuff, but I always loved my grandmother’s poi.”
I mixed my grilled vegetables in the runny purple mess and took a bite. “Not bad. I think it’s one of those foods that needs something mixed in — like peas and rice.”
Aaron recoiled. “Peas and rice? You’re not human!”
No, I wasn’t, but we all laughed and took to brainstorming the best food to mix with the poi. Kai and I voted for the grilled veggies, Aaron said it was tolerable if he scooped some on the pork and washed it down immediately with a swig of wine. Irix said the only way he’d have another bite is if he were in a coma and someone stuck it in his feeding tube. Sometimes demons could be so stubborn.
“What’s going on down there?” I pointed to orange lights dotting the beach. “Is there another party?”
Aaron followed my gaze. “Yeah. Beach bonfires. They’re informal parties, although the resort has a big one they sponsor on Friday nights.”
“That one looks pretty big.” As I gestured toward a larger orange glow that looked a bit too close for comfort, sirens sounded in the distance.
“Ugh, that does look awfully close.” Kai tensed. “Some partiers must have hit the booze a bit too hard and let their bonfire get out of control.”
The beach wasn’t exactly narrow. How in the fuck had someone managed to spread a fire fifty feet into the brush line? Either they were having one hell of a party, or someone was playing around with flammables.
“Could have been fireworks,” Aaron noted, echoing my thoughts. “They tip over in the sand sometimes and shoot into the bushes.”
Idiots. I warred with the desire to go check it out, but Kai made the decision for me. Pushing back her chair, she frowned at the now-visible flames.
“I... that’s really near the surf shack. I should go, just to be sure everything is okay.”
“We’ll all go,” Irix chimed in, giving me a stern look. What the hell was that for?
I didn’t have time to question him. Abandoning the luau, we raced down the beach. I could feel Kai’s panic increase with every step. As we hit the e
nd of the brick pathway and stepped onto the beach, she cried out and bolted. What had clearly been a beach bonfire had spread impossibly fast into the treeline. A lone man stood on the beach, beating at the fire with his shirt. I felt momentarily angry that his friends had run off, leaving one responsible partier to battle the blaze alone. Maybe if they’d stayed, this thing wouldn’t have gotten out of hand.
And then I saw what Kai had. Bits of burning palm fronds were dropping onto the top of the surf shack, and golden flames licked along its thatched roof.
“Irix, help!” I ran after Kai, putting every bit of my elven speed into the sprint and not caring if any of the humans saw me. I couldn’t do anything about the fire, but at least I could stop Kai before she ran into the shack.
A surge of energy whispered past me, setting my hair on end. The two trees closest to the shack cracked with a mighty sound, falling backwards. I winced. The shack was safe from any more burning leaves, but now the gardens behind the tree line ignited. I reached Kai and grabbed her arm, spinning her toward me. “Don’t. That thatched roof is going to come down on you. Whatever is in there isn’t worth your life.”
She twisted, pulling her arm from my grasp. “They’re my boards in there, not the company’s. I need to get them out.”
I might be fast, but I’m not that strong. I grabbed at her again, but she pulled free, and, with a quick twist of the lock, was through the door. I hesitated, thinking about the fire behind the shack as well as the growing one over Kai’s head. And then I ran through the door after her.
The sound of sirens and Irix’s panicked shout reached inside the shack, muffled by the crackling of the roof on fire. Bits of burning ash and plant matter floated down like pixie dust, and smoke hazed the darkness of the moonlit interior. Wood scraped noisily against the floor.
“Kai, hand me a board.”
She thrust one in my hand, and my eyesight cleared enough to see her, grabbing as many of them as she could in her arms. Then there was a deafening crack, and a beam crashed down with a shower of sparks. One of us screamed; I wasn’t sure who. There was another crack, and I reached out with my awareness, grabbing any bit of dormant or dead plant life I could find and willing it to life.
“Down!” I grabbed Kai and threw her and the boards to the ground. Everything happened at once. The ceiling fell, revealing the sky and stars. A forest of bamboo shot up, splintering the floor and arcing above us. Thick, green, waxy, and so close together they made a wall. The bamboo reverberated from the impact of the burning roof, easily shrugging off the beams and thatch with a quick bounce. Kai stared at me openmouthed, her face shadowed in the shelter of the mini forest I’d created.
“How? You?”
An explosion rocked our bamboo dome, and the orange glow on the outside of the bamboo vanished in a puff of smoke. Canes cracked and separated. I looked up. Irix loomed over us, furious.
“I ought to whip both of your asses so hard you can’t sit for a week.” He glared at us. Kai stared at him, her eyes wide. Then Irix turned to me. “Especially you. What were you thinking, running in here?”
There was that whole spanking thing again. I started to laugh, realizing I was right on the edge of hysterics, then stopped as I felt the heat of Irix’s anger. “I couldn’t just stand by while Kai went into a burning building. What did you expect me to do?”
“I expected you to use your fucking brain. You can’t heal or fix injuries like I can. And I can’t help you if you go up in flames. I don’t give a damn about this woman or her surfboards, but I do care about you. Stop risking your life for stupid shit.”
Kai gasped. I bristled. I know he was pissed, but there was no need to treat me like a child, and no need to turn into a total asshole. So I punched him in the shoulder. And it hurt — me. I don’t know if it did anything more than surprise him.
“Fuck you!” Sirens nearly drowned out my words, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw firefighters racing to put out the blaze in the tree line. “I’m not going to do nothing while someone runs into a burning building. This is who I am, and if you don’t like it, then shove off.”
Irix’s eyes blazed. He reached out to grab my arm and stopped, curling his fingers into a tight fist before dropping his arm. “You... I can’t take this, Amber. I can’t watch you throw your life away for these stupid humans.”
I snarled. “Up until last year, I thought I was one of these stupid humans. Don’t you dare speak about them in that fashion. Do you understand me?”
Kai and Aaron stood like statues beside us, their heads jerking back and forth as they tried to follow our confusing conversation. The air crackled with tension. Irix towered over me, staring me down. I faltered, for a moment doubting myself in the face of his power and two-thousand years of experience. Then I straightened my spine and glared back. I stood by my decision. And he’d need to learn to live with that.
“We’ll discuss this later. In private.”
I winced at the barely contained violence in his voice. Damn, this wasn’t going to be the pleasant evening I’d hoped for. Still, I had to do what I felt was right. Kai could have been severely injured when that roof went down — heck, she could have died. Turning around to admire my handiwork, I blinked. Holy shit, there weren’t just a few bamboo shoots; there was a whole forest of them amid the smoldering roof and twisted walls.
I’d accelerated growth in young plants before. I’d sprouted seeds. I’d even brought some pretty dire brown husks back to health, but I’d never grown a mature forest from long-dead, processed and poly-coated bamboo flooring.
Regaining control over my mental faculties, I helped Kai pull surfboards out from under the debris, passing them to Aaron. “We saved the boards,” I said, not sure whether I was talking to the still-furious demon or Kai.
“And almost got yourselves killed,” Irix ground out.
I turned to Kai for support and saw her still staring at me as she handed the boards over. “Amber, why is there a mature bamboo forest in my shack? And what was all that about how you used to be a human?”
Here comes the other conversation, the one where she runs screaming and never wants to see me again. I’d just gotten her to accept Amber-the-swinger. I had no idea how she’d feel about Amber-the-half-elf-half-demon swinger.
“Well, your floor is bamboo, and it was sort of a Hail Mary on my part to turn it into a protective shelter.”
She held tight to the last board, as if it were a shield. “And how did my floor become a live bamboo grove?”
I took a deep breath. “Remember when I told you I was a botany major in college? Well, I’ve got a bit of a green thumb, too.”
“I’ll say,” she muttered, passing me the last board. And that was it. No more questions, no look of fear, no running and screaming. We searched the debris as best we could, avoiding the still-smoldering areas, collecting paddles and gear that had escaped the roof collapse. The fire crew was busy taking care of trees and shrubbery that had caught fire when Irix had toppled the trees.
I looked around for the partygoer who had been single-handedly trying to stop the blaze, but he was gone. Not that I blamed him. He’d done all he could, and it would have been a shame for him to be arrested for the fire while his irresponsible buddies got away. We were just finishing with the last of the salvageable equipment when someone shouted, and a figure in fire gear ran our way.
“Makani!” Kai stood and wrapped her arms around the man who clearly was her brother. “We’re okay, and we got most of the boards out.”
He squeezed her tight and pulled back, staring at the tall stalks waving gently in the ocean breeze. “Where the heck did these come from?”
Kai shot me a quick look before turning back to her brother. “I don’t know. Mom would say our ancestors were looking over me.”
He tilted his head, regarding the bamboo. “Okay. Pretty freaky when fully grown plants appear out of nowhere, but, then again, everything about this fire was freaky.”
“Fireworks?�
��
I’d completely forgotten Aaron was here and turned to him in surprise.
“No,” Makani’s voice was thoughtful. “No sign of fireworks or any kind of incendiary device that I can tell. The original bonfire was well away from the trees, with only a few bits of wood. It was a small fire, and there’s not enough wind to explain how it grew so fast or managed to spread like that. It’s almost as though it had a life of its own.”
I shivered, wrapping my arms around myself. Hopefully that was just an expression, because I really didn’t want to contemplate a fire with a life of its own.
Chapter 6
By the time Irix and I headed back to our room, the smoldering fire was no more than a haze of smoke obscuring a strip of stars. The luau guests had meandered off to other activities, and my thoughts turned to Irix. He was still pissed at me, and although I was getting ready to dig in my heels for a fight, I’d had time to think about the situation more objectively. It couldn’t have been easy watching me run into danger. And I’d completely forgotten about his safety, and the repercussions of my decision on him.
Irix had felled two trees as well as created an explosion that put out the fire on the shack. When I’d yelled for him to help, I’d not remembered that in doing so, he’d be risking his life. Were his actions enough to bring about an angel’s notice? Would we be separated again after only a day together?
I twined my fingers in his. “I’m not sorry for what I did, but I am sorry for scaring you. Next time I promise I’ll try to come up with a solution that doesn’t risk my life.”
He grunted.
“If I can help, I have to. It’s who I am, Irix. And humans mean something to me. Their lives are important.”
He stopped, pulling me around to face him. “If I have to choose between you and a human, that human is dying. That’s who I am. You mean something to me. Your life is important. I won’t allow you to do that sort of thing again, even if it means you end up hating me.”
I squeezed his hand gently. “I’m a grown woman, Irix. I’ll try not to worry you or do something foolish, but I have to make my own decisions about what’s worth risking my life over and what’s not.”