Kiss of Fire Read online

  “You’re the Wyvern,” she whispered with awe.

  The woman nodded weakly. “Or you can just call me Sophie.”

  “I hear you in my dreams.”

  “Yes, I know.” The Wyvern smiled slightly. She seemed to be lethargic—or maybe she was hurt.

  Sara eased closer, trying to see the dried blood better. “Are you all right?”

  Sophie almost laughed. “Are you?” She sighed, not waiting for an answer. “I am sorry, Sara. They asked me for your name and I surrendered it to them. I was afraid, but I should never have told them.”

  “They were hurting you. What else could you have done?”

  “You may not be so forgiving if they kill us both.”

  Sara crouched beside the other woman. She could see that the Wyvern’s wrists were also shackled together and a heavy chain ran between her wrists and ankles. “They aren’t taking any chances, are they?”

  “Shape shifting is an unpredictable business,” Sophie said and looked away. Sara sensed that she was hiding something.

  “Can you become anything other than a dragon?” she whispered.

  Sophie looked at her intently and shook her head. “Of course not,” she said, but there was a current of steel beneath her words. “That’s just mythology.”

  Sara understood that the Wyvern could take other shapes.

  She also got the message that they were being watched.

  Her gaze dropped to the dried blood on Sophie’s shoulder. “Do you want me to look at that?”

  Sophie’s words were tinged with humor. “Are you a healer as well as the Seer?”

  “No, but I was a Girl Scout. I can wash a cut as well as anybody.”

  Sophie smiled and rolled to her stomach. Her hair fell over her shoulders in a tangle, but it was the most beautiful and ethereal pale blond that Sara had ever seen. It might have been made of silver. Sara eased its silkiness aside and winced at the length of the gash across the Wyvern’s shoulder. It had scabbed over, but even in this light, Sara could see that there was red puffiness at one end.

  “I think it might be infected.”

  “How surprising, in such conditions,” Sophie said, a thread of laughter in her tone. She sighed again and Sara wondered how much blood she had lost. If the wound had been left untended as it appeared to have been, it could have been quite a lot. Sophie certainly couldn’t reach it herself, not with those shackles.

  There was a bucket of water inside the door. “Is that for you? All the way over there?”

  “They enjoy watching me slither on my belly,” Sophie said, and again Sara heard that force of will in her voice.

  “Is it clean?”

  “Clean is a relative term.” Sophie licked her lips. “If they wanted to poison me, there are more effective ways to do so than with polluted water.”

  Sara had enough rudimentary knowledge of emergency care to treat a basic wound. The water smelled as if it had been drawn from a river or pond, and using it to clean the wound might add to Sophie’s troubles.

  Sara’s purse was dumped on the floor inside the door as well, its contents clearly having been rummaged through first. She habitually carried some sanitary wipes, for those scary moments in public restrooms, and they were still there.

  She warned Sophie to expect the sting as she tore one open, and did her best to disinfect the wound. The scab lifted away easily, revealing a pocket of infection that Sara also cleaned away as well as she was able. It bled a bit, but the blood was clear and bright. Sophie quivered beneath Sara’s ministrations, but didn’t complain.

  Sara tore a strip of fabric from the hem of her dress to make a makeshift bandage. “I meant to shorten it, anyway,” she said when Sophie looked alarmed. Sara helped the Wyvern to sit up and used another wipe to clean her companion’s face.

  “That feels wonderful.” Sophie sighed with pleasure and closed her eyes.

  “Washing my face makes a huge difference in the middle of a long travel day.” Sara grimaced. “Or a bad travel day. With these, I can do it anytime anywhere.”

  Sophie slanted a glance at Sara. “Funny. I did not think that you traveled much.”

  “I don’t anymore.”

  “Since?”

  “Since everything changed.” Sara sighed. “I used to have a fistful of frequent flier cards and hotel guest cards.”

  “A glamorous life.”

  “An exhausting one. It paid well,” Sara admitted. “But money isn’t everything. I learned that this year.”

  “By losing what you had not realized you held so dear?”

  “How did you know that?”

  Sophie smiled enigmatically and said nothing.

  “Anyway, I decided it was time to make a change and I did.”

  “You chose to pursue your desire for a home to call your own. A place to put down roots.”

  Sara felt self-conscious beneath that considering gaze. “Well, sure. I’ve always had this fantasy of planting a tree from seed and being there, in the same place, when it was big enough and tall enough for me to sit under it and read.”

  “An enchanting vision.”

  “Hasn’t happened yet.” Sara opened her purse instead of thinking about her current predicament. “This was a recent decision, and I haven’t cleaned out my purse yet. I’m still ready for scary bathrooms and twenty hour travel delays.” She dug a brush and comb out of her purse. She waved them like the trophies they were and Sophie’s eyes lit with anticipation. Sara set to making some order out of Sophie’s hair.

  “I can’t begin to tell you how good that feels.”

  “I think I know,” Sara said and the women exchanged a smile. When she was done, Sara dug through her purse some more. Her wallet was still there and the book on the Cathars was jammed in the side. Magda’s tarot cards were safely nestled in their red velvet bag and her keys were at the bottom, just the way they always were. The Swiss Army knife was gone, but that would probably have been too much to hope for.

  “Breath mint?” she asked Sophie, holding up two packages.

  “That bad?” Sophie asked with a wince.

  Sara smiled. “No, but it might be the best we can do in terms of nutrition. Spearmint or peppermint?”

  “I like a balanced meal. How about one of each?” Sophie opened her mouth. Sara put the two mints on the Wyvern’s tongue, then had a pair herself. She leaned back against the wall beside the other woman to consider their prison.

  “I’ll guess that the door is locked and that there’s no other way out,” she said finally.

  “You are the Seer,” Sophie teased.

  “Are you really a prophetess?”

  Sophie sighed. “Yes, but prophecy is a mysterious business.”

  “You mean in terms of how it works?”

  “I mean in terms of what it means.” Sophie shrugged. “My visions are not even as clear as dreams. And the verses that come to me are so enigmatic. It is hard to know what they mean.”

  “Like riddles.”

  Sophie nodded. “Sometimes they make sense only in hindsight.” She shrugged. “Or perhaps I am not very good at my craft.”

  “Don’t say that! Everyone needs time to learn.”

  “I did not anticipate these Slayers coming for me.”

  “Even if you had, it might not have made any difference. They’re pretty brutal and you’re just one Wyvern.”

  Sophie shuddered. “Brutal does not begin to describe them.”

  Sara looked around the cabin. “So, how are we going to get out of here?”

  “We are not, not unless someone breaks in and releases us.”

  “I’m not waiting,” Sara said and pushed to her feet.

  “Is that so?”

  Sara ignored the Wyvern. She prowled the perimeter of the cabin and peered through the cracks between the logs. All she could see was forest on all sides.

  That didn’t mean they were alone, though. Screaming might just annoy their captors, if they were around.

  Where co
uld they be?

  On the roof?

  Sara looked up at the trusses that held up the steel roof, then at the Wyvern. Sophie nodded once, so quickly that Sara almost thought she had imagined the gesture.

  “You will tire yourself out for no good reason,” Sophie warned, her tone despondent, but Sara saw the glint of determination in her eyes.

  Sara tried the door, not really surprised to find it locked and barred from the other side. The boards over the windows must have been nailed down in two layers, judging by the pattern of light that came through the chinks. Without tools—and breath mints hardly counted—she couldn’t break out.

  Every puzzle has a solution.

  Sara heard her father’s voice echo in her thoughts, his familiar saying uttered with such conviction that she half thought the Slayers would hear it.

  Maybe Quinn would come for her. She pivoted to face Sophie, struck by a thought. The Wyvern’s eyes glinted with watchfulness. “Is there smoke?” Sara mouthed the words, hoping the Wyvern knew she meant the Pyr’s territory mark.

  Sophie nodded once, so emphatically that Sara couldn’t misunderstand. “They breathed it together,” she mouthed but Sara refused to accept defeat. “It is stronger that way.”

  Quinn couldn’t come to her and neither could the other Pyr. Unless they were permitted to pass through the territory mark, which could only be an invitation to disaster.

  There had to be a way to escape.

  Sara just had to figure out what it was.

  Soon.

  Chapter 11

  By morning, Quinn was restless and even more irritated than he had been before.

  Which was saying something.

  Rafferty had led the pair of Pyr to a copse of trees near the cabin but too far for Quinn to hear what was going on there. Niall had seemed to guess the other Pyr’s intent, even though Quinn hadn’t known what to expect.

  Rafferty had lain on the ground and shifted to human form. He had put his ear to the soil and closed his eyes, listening.

  Quinn tried to ask a question, but Niall shushed him to silence.

  And they sat, the three of them motionless. The sky, which had been pale blue and bright when they arrived, gradually darkened to indigo. The stars came out. The sounds of the forest around them changed to night whispers and still Rafferty hadn’t moved.

  Quinn had tried to push himself to his feet several times, but Niall had scowled at him and gestured him back to his seat. Erik and the others had come, and after a brief consultation, had returned to Ann Arbor to pack up Quinn’s booth and secure his truck.

  Quinn waited. The sky had begun to brighten in the east when Rafferty sat up. He took a deep breath, shifted to dragon form, and without opening his eyes, began to hum.

  Quinn was fed up and might have left then, but a hole began to open in front of Rafferty, as if an invisible finger stirred the earth.

  Sara settled back against the wall beside the Wyvern, impatient that there was so little she could do but wait.

  Maybe she could find out something while they waited. The Wyvern should know pretty much everything, after all.

  “I don’t really understand all of this dragon stuff,” she said lightly. “It’s so very different from my real life.”

  “And seems so much less real,” Sophie guessed. She tilted her head to study Sara, her slow perusal reminding Sara of the way Quinn looked at her.

  As if he could watch her all day.

  She yearned suddenly to be with him again, to feel his strength and heat beside her. She wished that she had had more than one kiss from him.

  And maybe a little bit more. Her mother had told her that she should start living life instead of marking time—in fact, that had been the crux of their last discussion at JFK—and Sara was wondering whether she’d missed her chance.

  “Are you frightened of the Smith?” Sophie asked.

  Sara shook her head. “No. I’m not afraid of Quinn. I know he’d never hurt me.” What she felt for Quinn was both simple and complicated. She wanted him more intensely than she’d ever wanted any man, but it wasn’t just lust. She was fascinated by him, and she loved talking to him. He had a way of explaining things that made even the most bizarre notion make sense, and she liked how he challenged her to look at things from a different angle. She had a feeling that the way he smiled slowly would captivate her for the rest of her life.

  Maybe he was happy to watch her: she was happy to watch his expression change from solemnity to humor.

  And she loved the progress of that slow smile.

  Sophie smiled. “But you are frightened of the firestorm?”

  Sara summoned a smile of her own, feeling as if the discussion was a bit personal. “Well, it’s not what we learned in Sex Ed, if you know what I mean.”

  “How so?”

  “It’s powerful.”

  “Yes.”

  Sara shrugged. “I’m used to being a little bit more in charge of my emotions.”

  The Wyvern considered that for a moment, then looked at Sara. “How interesting that your emotions are already engaged.”

  Sara was startled. “Isn’t that the point? Isn’t the firestorm about destined love?” She shrugged, feeling silly even saying the words. “I mean, assuming that you believe in that kind of thing.”

  Sophie smiled. “The firestorm is a mating sign.”

  “You mean it’s about sex.”

  “Many Pyr believe as much.”

  Sara had the definite sense that the Wyvern wasn’t telling her all of the truth. “What about Quinn?”

  Sophie met her gaze steadily. “What about him?”

  “Does he think the firestorm is about sex or love?”

  “I have never met the Smith. How would I determine such a thing?”

  “I thought you were the Wyvern.”

  Sophie smiled.

  Sara leaned back against the wall with frustration. It was obviously important that she ask the right question to get a useful answer, but unfortunately, she didn’t know what that question was.

  “I sense your resistance to Quinn’s courtship,” Sophie said, when they’d sat in silence for a long while. “Is it the prospect of mating with a dragon that troubles you?”

  “Why?”

  “I assure you that the shift is to a fighting pose: you need not worry about surprises in intimate moments, unless you are physically attacked in those moments.”

  “And then we’d have other problems,” Sara mused.

  Sophie chuckled. “Indeed. Are you worried then about the Smith’s intentions, to use an old expression?”

  Sara looked away, not particularly inclined to answer all of Sophie’s questions when the Wyvern wasn’t answering all of hers. As the silence stretched long again, she decided she had nothing to lose. “I don’t think it’s a crime to be a romantic, to hope for a long-term relationship based on love. The idea of being useful to a man who wants a son, like a brood mare, isn’t appealing at all.”

  Sophie smiled, as if the notion amused her. “You believe in happily ever after,” she teased, “regardless of how you express it.”

  “Well, it works. My parents were crazy in love with each other. It made them happy. It gave them a way to face obstacles and challenges. They worked together and gave each other strength; they balanced each other’s strengths. When one was blue, the other lightened the mood.” Sara stopped, her throat closing as she realized the weight of her loss.

  Again.

  Sophie didn’t seem to notice. “And you do not believe you can have this with the Smith?”

  “He seems very practical. And solitary.”

  “Those with the largest hearts often learn to hide them.”

  Sara studied her companion with interest. “Are you saying that Quinn was hurt?”

  “I am saying that the greatest romantics are often idealists,” Sophie mused. “Even if they hide that behind skepticism.”

  “Like Quinn?”

  “You tell me.”

>   Sara paused, needing to think about that. Quinn was practical and sensible, as far as she could see. He recycled materials so he appreciated the past and took the long view. He protected and defended her, even at his own expense. They were traits she admired, but she wasn’t sure they made him idealistic, much less romantic. “He’s purposeful. Focused on the end goal.”

  “Which is?”

  “The firestorm, or its culmination.”

  “Is it?” Once again Sara found herself looking into the Wyvern’s aquamarine eyes, so filled with mystery and humor. “Even the Seer is blind in a storm,” she said quietly.

  “Or a firestorm,” Sara amended.

  Sophie laughed lightly. “Fair enough,” she said, speaking at so low a pitch that Sara knew she was mimicking Quinn.

  Sara leaned against the wall, tired and impatient. The heat was making her irritable, and being hungry and thirsty didn’t help. She thought about Quinn’s experience with Ambrose and could see how he would have come to trust the Slayer—especially if the Slayer presented himself as a Pyr mentor. Quinn had no basis of comparison.

  And he had been hungry for knowledge of his own powers.

  Seeing Erik at the site of his parents’ death, as well as witnessing Erik’s killing of Ambrose, could explain Quinn’s distrust of the leader of the Pyr. All the same, her sense that Quinn had it backward was even stronger than it had been before. She wondered if there was more to the story than either she or Quinn knew. She reviewed her dream, feeling as if she was missing something. There had been something that had struck her as odd.

  It was the look in Ambrose’s eyes as he threw the coin.

  As if the gesture should mean something. His expression of benign friendliness had changed for an instant, as if a mask had slipped, to reveal a brutal determination.

  What was it with gold coins? There had been a coin on the threshold of her shop the day before. Sara rummaged in her purse and dug it out of the bottom. It shone in the dim light and she had a feeling that it held a secret she needed to know.

  There had been a coin in the arcade before she had been attacked, as well. Had it been the same kind? She wished in a way that she’d seen it.