Inside the Flame (Elemental Mages Book 2)

by Rose O'Brien

Crawling across the foot of the bed, she managed not to jostle him and slid into the small unoccupied spot and laid on her left side on top of the blankets, facing him.

  He was gigantic, his massive shoulders and chest taking up entirely too much space. With a shift of his weight, he settled the blanket over her and brought his right arm around her so that she was cradled against him. Her hand came to rest on his chest.

  Instantly, she felt a rush of heat and realized it was him. He was several degrees too warm.

  “You’re hot,” she exclaimed.

  “You’re not so bad yourself, sweetheart.” His teeth flashed in the darkness as he smiled. “I meant temperature. You’re feverish.”

  “That happens,” he said. “Mages heal faster than sapiens. A lot faster. The high body temp is a side effect. I just need rest. A good five or six hours of sleep, and that shoulder will be good as new.”

  She settled against him again and liked the feel of his chest beneath her cheek and hand. He was solid and so very warm. The pain in her muscles started to ease off. He was like sleeping with a heating pad.

  “Would you do me a favor?” he asked.

  “Depends on the favor.”

  “The pain’s got me all wound up. I need a distraction,” he said. “Tell me a story.”

  “What kind of story?”

  “One about you.”

  “I’m boring,” she said.

  “Totally not true. Why don’t you tell me how you learned to set a dislocated shoulder?”

  Where should she start? How much should she share?

  “A few years ago, I went on a hike with my boyfriend, Trevor, and some friends of ours,” she began.

  The six of them had all decided on a whim to hike up to Sandstone Peak outside of LA one Saturday. Trevor had always loved hiking and outdoor stuff. She’d never really enjoyed it, preferring to stay home, but she went because he wanted to go. Her friend Monica had reminded her that it was important for couples to do things together.

  It had been one of the rare Saturdays when she’d been off. Her reporting job at the LA Times tended to eat up evenings and weekends. Breaking news pulling her away at odd hours. Trevor had always gotten angry when she had to bail on plans because of a murder or some breaking scandal, even though as a medical intern at UCLA Medical Center he’d had to cancel more than a few dates because of work emergencies.

  The hike was dusty, but uneventful. Near the top, the guy Monica had brought along had tripped and fallen off an outcropping.

  “I think his name was Chad,” Jen said. “Anyway, when we got down to him, he was screaming. His shoulder was way out of joint. We were at least two hours from the car. I watched Trevor do exactly what I did to you.”

  Trevor had always been a star student and during medical school and his hospital internship, he’d been no different. He’d moved quickly, positioning Chad on his back. He’d explained everything as he’d done it, taking the chance to show off his knowledge and skills to their friends.

  “At the time, he seemed like such a hero. Now that I look back on it, he seems like a showoff and a pedantic little shit,” she told Theron.

  Theron laughed soft and low, creating a pleasant rumbling beneath her ear.

  “I’m guessing Trevor’s not in the picture anymore,” he said.

  “Definitely not.” She could hear the venom in her voice and she didn’t care.

  “Sounds like there’s a story there.”

  She stayed silent on that one, not interested in sharing that bitter tragedy with anyone.

  “Why doesn’t your fire burn you?” she asked Theron.

  “Changing the subject, huh?”

  “Come on. I told you a story.”

  “You’re good at telling stories. Really good,” he said.

  His right hand absently stroked her arm, his fingers trailing up and down her elbow. He probably didn’t even realize he was doing that. It felt nice, so she didn’t say anything.

  “Telling stories is my job,” she said. “But I’m also really good at asking questions. Now, tell me why your fire doesn’t burn you.”

  “It’s not just my fire. It’s all fire,” he said. “It’s just that way for fire mages. It’s probably some biological self-preservation mechanism. I’ve never thought too hard about it.”

  “And you were born like this?”

  “I was born a mage, but I didn’t come into my powers until I was twelve.”

  Mages got their powers around puberty, he explained. By that time, they were already several years into their Academy training. Theron described being sent to the Academy at age seven, as was mandatory for mages, and the intense training he underwent for the next eleven years.

  “That sounds harsh,” Jen told him. “Your parents were okay being separated from you that young?”

  “I’m the third of four,” he said. “Dad was a ranger, like me, and he was gone a lot. Mom is the chief healer of the Citadel and an adviser to the Council. They loved us, but in a way, I think it was easier when we all left for the Academy.”

  He’d spoken of his father in the past tense. Jen was afraid to ask what that meant, but the words slipped from her, quiet as a whisper.

  “What happened to your dad?”

  “He died when I was ten. Killed in combat. Like most mages.” His words trailed off.

  The darkness and the closeness of their bodies were weaving an odd kind of spell. She couldn’t believe she was asking him these things, telling him these things. It felt like something was forming between them. It was tenuous, but it felt almost like a connection.

  Theron had gone silent and the muscles of his chest tensed beneath her hand.

  She moved her hand back and forth a scant inch or two, impossibly slow, and the tension left him.

  “You have siblings?” she asked him. “Two sisters and a brother.”

  “You’re lucky. I’m an only. I’ve always thought it would be nice to have a sibling.”

  “We’re not that close,” he said. “Well, my little sister Alayna and I were kind of close. Once. But I did something, and now I’m pretty sure she’s never going to speak to me again.”

  “What could you have possibly done?”

  He was silent for a moment before he said, “The Council made me deliver the orders for her suicide mission.”

  Jen stayed silent. Yeah, that was bad.

  “She actually died, but her—this guy—managed to resuscitate her. Pissed the brass off. Word is, Citadel’s in an uproar about it. And I couldn’t be prouder of her.”

  Jen knew when to press a subject and when to come back to it. She’d have to dig a little deeper on this subject later.

  She took a breath, about to ask another question, when Theron cut her off.

  “My turn,” he said. “I want another story.”

  Sighing, she thought back through the years, picking up and discarding experiences. Something funny? She didn’t have many of those. Too many of her stories were sad, and she didn’t want his pity. The rest were just scary.

  “Where did you learn to fight like you do?” he said, bringing her thoughts to a grinding halt.

  That was a pretty safe topic.

  “When I first landed in Iraq, I didn’t know my ass from a hole in the ground,” she said, borrowing a phrase the Marines she’d been embedded with had taught her.

  When she’d left LA, she’d been the quintessential SoCal girl. Her hair had always been perfectly styled and cut in the latest fashion. Her heels had been four inches minimum, and her hem lines had been knee-length maximum. Fashion had been her religion and Vogue her bible.

  Having grown up Asian and middle class in Southern California and the daughter of an intermittent Tiger Mother, her after school activities had consisted of homework, tennis, and violin lessons, not martial arts. After graduation, her physical activity consisted of yoga and shopping.

  “Those Marines were shocked at my lack of hand-to-hand skills. Here I was, a twenty-five-year-old woman who’d
never so much as thrown a punch, sitting in the middle of a war zone. In retrospect, my career move to war correspondent wasn’t the brightest idea, but I wasn’t exactly in a clear frame of mind when I picked it.”

  Theron chuckled softly, the barest breath of a laugh, at her assessment of herself.

  “There was a lot of downtime between runs with the Marines and they started teaching me how to fight. I think they considered it a humanitarian project.”

  They’d taught her how to handle a knife, a gun and every dirty hand-to-hand move in the book.

  “They were good teachers. Didn’t hold back just because I was a woman.”

  “No offense to your teachers, but your technique is a little more refined than you usually see from Jarheads.”

  “Well, I did have an on-again-off-again friends-with-benefits thing with an Israeli Mossad agent for a while,” she said, well aware of the slightly wistful smile in her voice. “He showed me more than a few things.”

  Theron tensed and made a slight choking noise, which he tried to cover by clearing his throat.

  Jen sat up, taking in his shocked expression.

  “Don’t worry,” she told him. “I haven’t talked to him in months. It’s not like he’s going to come riding to my rescue or anything.”

  Why had she just said that? Stupid move, Jen. She should have said just the opposite to make Theron think twice about this run to Damascus. With a start, she realized she wasn’t even thinking about escape anymore.

  Somewhere, somehow, she’d gotten on board with the plan, joined the team, signed on the dotted line.

  When all this started, she’d fought so hard to hold on to the meager life she’d built for herself, but this kidnapping had succeeded in showing her that it wasn’t much of a life. No one was going to miss her. Literally, no one. Her family was dead. When she stopped answering her emails, her editors, sources and contacts would just assume she’d disappeared, like so many others in the war zones of the Middle East.

  Theron said that his people needed her. Her powers made her rare and special to them, and she wasn’t going to lie to herself—that made her feel special. He made her feel special, like something to be protected.

  Jen was good at looking at things objectively. It was what made her good at her job. A big part of the reason she was going along with this plan had a lot to do with the funny, infuriating, gorgeous, deliciously solid man lying beside her.

  She tilted her head back where it lay against his chest and looked up at him through her lashes. He’d been staring at her and her gaze locked with his. They stayed like that for a moment, neither one moving. A tingling heat bloomed across Jen’s chest and crept up her neck.

  She swallowed hard and looked away. Can you say, Stockholm Syndrome, Jen?

  Realizing that she’d been quiet for a while, she blurted the first thing that popped into her head.

  “Do you have a girlfriend?”

  Ugh. Smooth move, Jiang.

  He just laughed. Hard. He groaned when the movement jostled his shoulder and Jen lifted her head rather than getting bounced around by his chest as he laughed. When he fell into a light chuckle, he said, “No. God, no. I’m never in one place long enough.”

  “Sorry, that question was out of bounds,” Jen said, feeling supremely awkward. The darkness and the closeness had woven its spell too well and she’d started saying things and asking things she shouldn’t have.

  “I’ll forgive you if you tell me what happened to Trevor,” he said.

  Chapter 9

  Jen froze. Shit. No way was she going there. She was literally the only person on the planet that knew all the details about that tragedy. Trevor was one piece of the bomb that had gone off in the middle of her old life and left the bitter shell that used to be Jen Jiang willingly living in one of the worst hell holes on Earth.

  That story was a pot of hot mess stew and the lid should be left on forever.

  His hand pressed against her back and urged her to lay back down. She melted against him and felt his warmth flow into her. Every muscle within her relaxed and her anxiety bled away.

  Maybe she could just give the short version.

  “We were engaged. He left.”

  “How long were you together?” His voice was soft, barely above a whisper. It was like he was afraid he was going to spook her. She should have known that he wouldn’t let her off that easy.

  For some reason she didn’t really understand, she told him. “I met him freshman year of college, so, six years.”

  “Why would he leave?”

  Frowning, she thought, that was an odd way to phrase that question.

  “I got pregnant.”

  She felt him tense beneath her, but she didn’t dare look at him. The pain in her chest was a distant echo of what it had been five years ago when it all went down, but it still threatened to bring tears to her eyes.

  A tense silence stretched between them and she felt compelled to fill it. She started talking.

  “It all started a little over five years ago…”

  Jen had been on top of the world then. She was one of the youngest metro reporters for the Los Angeles Times, the newspaper she’d dreamed of working at since she was a little girl. She’d worked her ass off and clawed her way up through unpaid internships, and shitty jobs at shitty regional papers until she’d finally caught the attention of the senior editors.

  She’d sacrificed having a life beyond her work, but she’d broken some amazing stories. She’d exposed corrupt officials, given a voice to the voiceless, done everything that she had set out to do as a young idealistic reporter. Saving the world had been her goal, and in some small ways, she’d been doing that.

  The awards had come early and often, but she hadn’t cared about that. It was all about the work.

  And Trevor had gone through all of that with an easy-going smile on his handsome face. She’d supported them both while he’d gone through medical school. He didn’t mind the long hours she worked, because he also worked long hours. It wasn’t unusual for them to go an entire week without spending any real time together. They would pass each other in their little condo, occasionally exchanging an exhausted kiss and asking how the other’s day had gone. There had been a lot of days when he’d fall into bed just as she was getting up for the day.

  She’d been in her second year at the Times and he’d been at the end of his internship at UCLA when everything fell apart.

  Jen’s mother had been diagnosed with late stage breast cancer, and it had fallen like a hammer blow. Jen had never known her father since he had taken off when she’d been a baby. It had always been her and mom. Her mother had demanded a lot from her, but they’d been close. It had been the two of them against the world for as long as Jen could remember.

  “Up until then, everything in my life had gone exactly according to plan. I’d made straight As in school. Was the editor of my college paper. Landed the perfect job. Had the perfect doctor boyfriend. Had the perfect LA condo. Had the perfect LA wardrobe,” Jen said, her voice surprisingly clear despite the pain throbbing behind her breastbone. “The diagnosis changed everything.”

  They’d tried chemo and radiation, but they both knew they were just buying time. Jen had taken vacation days for the first time in her career, desperate to spend every spare moment she could with her mother before it was too late.

  Editors at the paper had started to notice, but Jen hadn’t known that at the time. It was the unspoken rule in the do-more-with-less atmosphere of the Times that vacation days were given but were never to be taken.

  For the first time, Jen had begun to resent the long overtime hours she was asked to work but was never paid for. The paper was struggling financially. Just take one for the team, she’d been told.

  “Somewhere along the way, with the stress and everything, I must have forgotten to take some of my birth control pills,” she said.

  She’d had a moment of pure panic when that second pink line had shown up on the home p
regnancy test, but a feeling of overwhelming joy that she hadn’t expected was close on its heels.

  It had never been a question in her mind that she would keep the pregnancy. With all the sadness surrounding her mother’s terminal diagnosis, this pregnancy was a gift that she was gladly going to accept.

  “Trevor hit the ceiling when he found out,” she said.

  A baby was not in his five-year plan. He was staring down the barrel of a three-year medical residency and at least a two-year fellowship after that. There was no way they could handle a baby, he said.

  Jen had been adamant. This was a surprise, but they were keeping it.

  Trevor had screamed at her that she had ruined his life. He’d stormed out of the condo and had never come back.

  “That was the last time I ever saw him.”

  She’d gotten an email a few days later. He’d accepted a residency in Seattle instead of the one he’d had lined up in LA. Movers would come and collect his things. She could file for child support after the kid was born. He wasn’t interested in visitation and would be happy if he never saw their child.

  Theron tensed beneath her and she lifted her head to look at him. His jaw was clenched and his lips had thinned to an angry line. With a start, she realized that he was trembling slightly, his fists clenched.

  She frowned, touching his arm. “What is it?”

  He was silent for a moment before he answered.

  “I just don’t understand how he—how anyone—could do that.” He looked down at the floor. “Ugh. If the woman I loved told me she was carrying my child, I’d get down on my damn knees and thank my lucky stars, the universe, and all the gods.”

  His words shocked her for a moment. Genuine anger was written all over his body and face.

  “That’s the problem. I don’t think he ever really loved me,” she said, putting her head back down on his shoulder. “I was just convenient. I checked the girlfriend box on his five-year plan. I kept the condo clean. I picked up his dry cleaning. I was an assistant he got to sleep with.”

  The fist resting on his thigh clenched again.

  Theron looked at her and seemed to be about to say something, but then he looked away and stayed silent.