Inside the Flame (Elemental Mages Book 2)

by Rose O'Brien

  “Well, hello, lo—” the woman began.

  The new arrival turned eyes that were yellow as a cat’s and thickly lined in kohl on Jen. A puzzled look crossed her face. The bombshell turned to where Theron was buried under a writhing pile of zombies.

  “I like orgies as much as the next girl, Theron, but I have to say, this is a bit weird, even for me,” the woman said.

  She spoke with a British accent and sounded just a little bit bored.

  “They’re trying to kill us, Bast. Help!” Theron’s strangled voice emerged from the pile of zombies.

  Those yellow eyes narrowed into a predator’s stare and black daggers appeared in her perfectly manicured hands, delicately painted gold nails wrapping around the hilts of wavy blades that looked to be made of black glass or obsidian.

  “The human is with me, Bast. Protect her, kill everyone else.”

  The woman sprang toward Jen, her daggers moving faster than Jen could track. Before Jen could process what was happening, the crumbling remains of the zombies were falling around her. Jen stumbled as the weight pulling her down suddenly fell away.

  The Serena Williams lookalike smiled at her, revealing canines that were long and sharp, those eerie yellow eyes flashing.

  She was having fun, Jen realized.

  The woman Theron had called Bast turned and caught the zombie queen as she moved toward Theron, cradling the shoulder he had put a bullet in. Bast glared and raised her hand. The zombie queen went sailing back, crashing into the bone throne with a scream, her body landing in a heap.

  “I’ll deal with you later,” Bast said quietly.

  While the newcomer stalked over to where Theron was struggling to rise under the flaming pile of zombies, Jen ran to him.

  She tried to grab a body part that wasn’t on fire to start pulling the creatures off him, but the flames licked out and left a blinding trail of pain across her wrist. She snatched her arm back with a hiss.

  A hand landed on Jen’s shoulder and yanked her backwards. As she stumbled back, a roar sounded from within the pile. An explosion sent the rotting bodies flying, flames leaping toward the unseen ceiling of the cavern.

  Most of the zombies crumbled to dust in midair as Theron rose to his feet, smoke curling off his chest, shoulders and back.

  His eyes were narrowed, and his jaw was set as he stood. Soot clung to the hollows of his cheeks and the creases around the muscles in his arms, making everything stand in sharp relief. He looked dangerous and terrifying, a warrior bent on destruction. A shiver chased through her at the sight of him, but it wasn’t fear.

  “We have incoming,” Bast said, bringing their attention to a group of at least two dozen zombies moving into the cavern from the tunnel.

  They didn’t move quickly, but their advance was inexorable.

  Theron launched a fireball into the middle of the group, and the explosion sent several flying. He waded in, fists flying as flames surged up his arms.

  Bast took a running leap and launched herself into the horde, daggers flying, whirling at impossible speeds. She was a dark blur that left crumbling clay dust in her wake.

  Several of the shambling forms broke away and headed for Jen. Switchblade in her right hand, she widened her stance and braced herself.

  ***

  Theron palmed the skull of another zombie, poured his fire into the center of it, and felt it explode, the bones crumbling like brittle pottery in his hand.

  To his left, Bast had become a whirling dervish of death and destruction, those obsidian daggers of hers flashing in the light of his flames.

  It was a gamble calling the goddess here. She had a legendary temper and was notoriously quick to anger. She’d given him that claw as a way to contact her, but for a very different reason than saving his ass from a horde of fake zombies.

  Still, Bast was a predator at heart and loved to kill, especially if she could play with her prey first. She might not be too mad at him for summoning her into the middle of a fight.

  He turned in time to see a zombie rake its sharp, bony fingers across the back of Bast’s dagger hand, drawing shimmering gold blood that stood in stark relief against her dark skin. Her scream of rage shifted an octave and morphed into something more feline.

  Before his eyes, she released her other form, a gigantic black panther suddenly moving among the zombies.

  Her obsidian claws flashed in her huge paws as she swatted three zombies to the ground at once. Long gleaming white fangs descended to crush the skulls of the three in quick succession.

  Before he could blink, she was moving, her long black tail whipping back and forth as she impatiently searched for her next target.

  But there were none. At least not in front of them.

  A shout brought his attention around and he smiled. Jen had leapt onto the back of a zombie, her legs wrapped around its chest, one arm hooked under its chin. Her switchblade was stabbing over and over into the skull. As the creature disintegrated, she fell back, landing squarely on her ass.

  She rose slowly and stiffly to her feet, her face grimacing in pain. Her right hand clutched her ribs, and he could see blood soaking through the cotton of her T-shirt from three long gashes. One of the zombies had gotten a good swipe in before she’d destroyed it.

  He was by her side before he could even think about moving. He pulled her hand back from the wound, and she hissed. The gashes looked painful, but they hadn’t hit anything vital.

  “You’ll live,” he told her, feeling a little awkward as he released her hand.

  He’d felt actual terror at the sight of her blood. What was wrong with him? Flaming zombies were annoying, but Jen bleeding was what got his heart pounding? He decided now was not the time to start analyzing himself. He’d made it twenty-eight years without doing much of that, no reason to start now.

  A scream rose up from the direction of the throne. Bast was standing over the elven sorceress. The black fur was gone and she was back in human form, daggers gleaming in her hands.

  The sorceress’s face sported a long bloody slice that hadn’t been there before, and she was trying to crawl away as Bast loomed over her.

  “I am Ereshkig—” the sorceress stammered.

  “Bitch, I know Ereshkigal. I saw her two weeks ago in Ibiza. You’re an imposter, and I don’t appreciate fucking imposters.”

  Her dagger flashed overhead.

  “B,” Theron’s voice held a note of warning and her hand stilled in midair. “I need to talk to her. Please.”

  Those yellow eyes met his, and a look of mild annoyance crossed her face, but she stepped back. Whew. That could have gone badly. Bast didn’t like being denied a kill.

  He left Jen clutching her ribs and stepped onto the raised stone platform where the throne and the crumpled form of the sorceress lay.

  “Who are you, really?” he asked.

  “I am Ersh—” she began.

  Cutting her off, he said, “Whatever. Doesn’t matter.”

  Clearly the chick was off her rocker.

  “Who do you work for?” he continued.

  “I am death. I serve no one.”

  “Great. I knew it. You’re the one stirring up all these death cult fuckers, aren’t you?”

  “My dark children go forth to do my bidding.”

  He was really starting to lose patience. This woman was deep in character. She really believed this shit, and so did the cultists following her. Now that he was up close to her, he realized that she had serious crazy eyes going on. They were just a little too wide, a little too bright.

  “How did you track us?”

  “I have eyes everywhere. It was easy enough to draw you here.”

  “It was the stupid traffic accidents wasn’t it? We got herded.”

  His frustration was bleeding through into his voice. He could see now how the trap had been sprung, and even though he’d seen it closing around them, he hadn’t acted fast enough to avoid it. His gaze landed on Jen’s bloody wounds and guilt clawed a
t him.

  The sorceress nodded, casting a nervous glance at Bast.

  “What do you want with the seer?” he asked.

  “It is another who seeks her, offering great rewards for her capture.”

  “Who?” His voice came out as more of a growl. He could feel his inner fire leaping to get at the one who had hurt Jen.

  “It was one called Eurus. It promises that when the demons invade this realm, those who help them will be raised up.”

  The name of the unlucky east wind? That didn’t tell him much.

  “Where is this Eurus?”

  “This I cannot answer. I do not know.”

  Fear was edging into the sorceress’s voice now. She’d realized her usefulness had just come to an end.

  “She’s all yours, Bast. We’ll see you upstairs.”

  He turned and took Jen’s hand in his, leading her to the tunnel.

  “Don’t look back,” he whispered to her.

  Chapter 8

  As he and Jen limped out of the cavern entrance concealed in the mausoleum, Theron scanned the graveyard. The white stone of the necropolis glowed in the bright moonlight, the above-ground graves stretching for acres around them.

  Theron spotted a stone ledge nearby and steered Jen in that direction. His heart was still pounding. It didn’t normally take him this long to come down from a fight, but seeing Jen’s wounds had left him more worked up than usual.

  He tried to lift her up so she could sit on the ledge, but pain screamed up his shoulder, nearly bringing him to his knees. That shoulder wasn’t right, but he’d deal with that later, when they got someplace safe.

  Theron used his good arm to hoist Jen up on the ledge, putting her eyes level with his. Her sigh of relief as she sat was music to him.

  His hands rested on the stone on either side of her knees as he breathed through the pain in that shoulder. She leaned forward and touched the bare skin of his arm, just below the injury. He hissed in pain, but didn’t jerk back.

  “Dislocated,” she said.

  Glancing at the shoulder, which was quickly swelling and showing the promise of wicked bruises to come, he said, “You think?”

  “It’s not moving right and the angle’s off. We’ll have to pop it back into joint when we get somewhere safe,” she said, looking around the graveyard, as if such a place might appear. “It’s going to hurt like a bitch. Hope you’ve got some pain meds and some anti-inflammatories.”

  His eyes narrowed on her.

  “I thought you were a reporter, not a doctor.”

  “I was engaged to one once, a long time ago. You pick up a few things,” she told him, meeting his eyes.

  Those dark eyes of hers were black as night, but there was something a little more open about them. The hostility had faded and had been replaced with something else, something that felt like connection.

  His pain faded to the background for a moment as he got lost in those eyes. For once, they weren’t narrowed at him in anger, snapping with sarcasm or searching for the nearest exit. Lines of exhaustion marked her face. Maybe she was just too tired to be pissed at him right now.

  He froze as she reached out, gently touching his face.

  “You’re cut,” she said. “We’re going to have to stitch that up.”

  Her fingers were cold against the inflamed skin above his eyebrow where it had split. His eyes slid closed. Instead of being painful, her touch was like a balm as she wiped some of his blood away with her thumb.

  Theron thought about telling her that stitches wouldn’t be necessary. Mages healed too fast for that. But if it meant she would keep touching him and getting this close, she could do what she liked with him.

  Opening his eyes, he realized that her face was very close to his as she inspected the gash. Her mouth was so close, her lips slightly parted as she concentrated. For a split second he had a crazy thought. What if he leaned forward and pressed his mouth to hers? What would she taste like? Would she kiss him back?

  He mentally slammed the brakes on and squeezed his eyes shut to keep from looking at those soft, pink lips of hers. Not cool, man.

  He was acutely aware of the insane situation he’d put her in. He’d basically kidnapped the woman, pulling her away from her life, her work, and had thrust her into his incredibly dangerous world entirely against her will.

  Coming on to her would be unbelievably creepy, not to mention absurdly stupid. Can you say Stockholm syndrome?

  Having put the kibosh on any thoughts about kissing her, he opened his eyes again, only to find he was staring down her shirt at a gorgeous pair of breasts. Jesus. He closed his eyes again and left them that way until he felt her move back.

  Quiet footsteps whispered across the sandy ground behind him. Jen probably hadn’t heard them, but mage senses were just a little sharper.

  “Hey, B,” he said quietly, knowing Bast would hear him.

  “Hello, lover,” she purred right beside his ear.

  He opened his eyes just in time to see Jen’s eyebrows shoot up at the endearment as she tried to look anywhere but at him and Bast.

  Bast’s fingers gently drifted up the bare skin of his uninjured arm.

  “I hope that fight was just foreplay,” she said, her voice dark and husky.

  He turned and saw her wiping elf blood from her lips, the spaces around her canines showing dark in the moonlight where the blood had collected.

  She was just as beautiful as he remembered. Dark skin, midnight eyes and hair as black as her obsidian daggers. Her curves were dangerous, betraying her true feline form, and her body was intensely athletic, that catsuit showing every muscle.

  She was also just as terrifying.

  “This isn’t a booty call, B.”

  She pouted and tossed her silky black hair over her shoulder. “Are you sure?” she asked. “I was hoping we could recreate that weekend in Cairo.”

  He laughed softly and caressed her shoulder.

  “I almost didn’t survive that weekend in Cairo, if you’ll remember,” he said, trying to keep his voice light. “As busted up as I am, I wouldn’t last a minute with you.”

  Bast gave him an up and down look that said she doubted that. She glanced behind him at Jen.

  “If you’re worried about her, your friend is welcome to join us,” Bast said in that low sultry tone, her fingers continuing to drift up and down his arm.

  Theron almost choked.

  “Uh, it’s not like that,” he said quickly, trying to clear his throat.

  Bast eyed Jen again and Theron glanced back to see her face was red and she was desperately trying not to look at them.

  “If you’re not into it,” Bast said, “maybe she is.”

  Bast’s eyes gleamed with sexual hunger. Jen’s cheeks got a shade darker.

  “Um, very flattered,” Jen stammered, her gaze locked on the ground, ”but, um, I don’t really swing that way.”

  Bast sighed dramatically. “Humans.”

  Eyeing Theron, the goddess continued, “Well, if that’s all you need me for, I’ll be on my way.”

  “Don’t suppose you could patch up our wounds?” he asked.

  Bast laughed, the sound coming out like a low growl. She cocked a hip out, one hand resting on it. “I’m the assassin of the gods, the goddess of war, do I look like a nurse? You want healing, talk to Isis.”

  “I can’t afford her,” Theron said.

  “Damn straight. Sister’s got expensive taste.”

  “My ride’s busted, and we could use a safe place to stay for the night,” Theron said, not at all hopeful that the goddess would help.

  “Those two things I can help with,” Bast responded. “Lead the way.”

  He wasn’t sure why the goddess was willing to help them, but he’d take whatever he could get. Anything Bast expected in return, he’d deal with that later, even if it meant being her cat toy for a weekend. But only after Jen was safe in the Citadel.

  Theron helped Jen down from the ledge and they follo
wed Bast in the direction of the wrecked SUV outside the cemetery gates. He had no idea how she could move so quietly across the rocky path in those spike-heeled boots. The goddess was all feline grace as she walked, moving with a boneless sensuality that made her hips sway.

  As they made it to the SUV, Theron got a good look at the damage for the first time. The driver’s side door was demolished where the truck had hit it. He was lucky to have only walked away with a dislocated shoulder.

  The windshield was a mass of spiderweb cracks where the zombies had tried to smash through it, the passenger side window was a mess of jagged broken glass and all four of the tires were shredded.

  Bast waved her hand and the bent metal began to mold itself into its original shape, the cracks reversing themselves and the tires re-inflated themselves. It was like watching all the damage happen in reverse. In a few moments, the SUV looked just as it had before the attack.

  “Your battle chariot is repaired, my warrior,” the goddess said, waving at her handiwork and striking a pose, elbow bent, palm upraised. The pose was disconcertingly similar to paintings on the walls of ancient tombs. It also showed her considerable assets to their best advantage.

  Theron’s eyes were on Jen. Her mouth had fallen open, and her eyes had gone wide as she watched the transformation.

  It was still odd to watch someone who could speak with ghosts get her mind boggled by his fire slinging or some light divine influence. It was all relative, he supposed.

  Without a word, Bast stalked over to the SUV and slid into the backseat, before shutting the door.

  “I think that’s our cue,” Theron told Jen. She shook her head, blinked and straightened her shoulders.

  “Is she really an Egyptian goddess?” Jen whispered as they walked over.

  “Yes,” he whispered back, fully aware that Bast could hear them. “And I know this is going to be hard for you, but try your best not to piss her off.”

  As Jen reached for the door handle, she said, “Despite your limited opinion of me, I can make friends. I have people skills.” A small smile tugged at the corner of her mouth and his stomach fluttered a little at the sight.