“I will never stop defending you,” he vowed and meant it. “I do intend, though, to stop hunting vipers.”
Veronica shook her head, her vehemence surprising him. “No, not yet. Spend the next six months exterminating every Slayer and viper you can find and make the world a place where there are Pyr not Slayers.” She arched a brow, her mischievous smile making his heart pound. “Then you’re all mine.”
It was an offer Drake could not refuse.
“There is an agreement to seal with a kiss,” he murmured, rising from his place at the table.
Veronica stood to step into his arms, lifting her face for his kiss. “I’m hoping we can do a little better than one kiss,” she whispered with a smile that heated his blood, then he kissed her and forgot all in the world but the allure of his mate.
* * *
Marco knew from the change in Jac’s tone that he’d made a mistake.
There was more than the firestorm between them. In fact, he wondered if it burned hotter because of the attraction that already existed between them. The darkfire’s spark was at work, as well. Jac had changed her mind at least a little bit about dragon shifters, because she’d chosen to save him. He’d thought that put him and the firestorm on safe ground, but clearly things weren’t resolved yet.
The remarkable thing was how much he cared. Marco didn’t remember the first centuries of his life because he’d been enchanted and had slept through most of them. Since being awakened by Rafferty, he felt apart from the world around him. He participated in the battles and he tried to help the Pyr, but none of it really touched him.
Until Jac had injured Rafferty. That had infuriated him beyond all expectation. He hadn’t known what to do with so much anger and passion. He hadn’t been certain whether to kill her or seduce her. It had been almost overwhelming and more than a little confusing.
Had it been the darkfire? The pending firestorm? Or just Jac’s influence upon him? Marco didn’t know, but he recognized that her disappointment bothered him more than anything any other human had ever said to him. She’d truly awakened him and then she’d helped him to survive Jorge’s assault.
He had to make this right.
Jac was standing on the far side of the room, her arms wrapped around herself as she stared out the window. Her body language was far from welcoming, and he felt the rapid pulse of her heart. The firestorm glowed between them, so golden and inviting that Marco knew it was trying to urge him to close the distance.
He sensed that would be the wrong move. He could overwhelm her with his touch, especially with the firestorm on his side, but he wanted her to come willingly to him.
It appeared that he would choose his mate’s favor over the firestorm’s demand.
Marco had to acknowledge that she’d experienced a lot since meeting him and a great deal since the spark of the eclipse. Was the firestorm changing her as well? If he had to choose between the darkfire and the firestorm, which would he pick?
“Do you want to have a shower?” he asked.
She spared him a glance. “Alone or with assistance?” she asked, and he understood her expectation.
He folded his own arms across his chest and leaned in the doorway of the bathroom. “I’m not going to use the firestorm against you,” he said quietly. “If it’s satisfied, it’ll be because you’ve decided it should be.”
“Why would I decide that?” Jac shrugged. “If you leave it up to logic, there’s no reason to go there. That must be why it’s such a powerful force, so women don’t think about it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that conceiving and carrying a child is a big obligation. It’s life-changing stuff. It’s a path that should be chosen for a better reason than just making more.”
“Don’t you want kids?”
“I’ve always wanted kids,” she admitted, a yearning in her voice that touched his heart. “But I’ve never wanted to raise them alone, and I’ve never wanted a child who felt like an accessory.”
“I don’t understand.”
Jac sighed. She pivoted and marched to the couch, then sat down on the edge of it, facing him. “My sister is goal-oriented. Her life is all about setting objectives and achieving them, so when she got married, I wasn’t surprised that they not only had a kid but had a boy.”
“Why?” Marco sat on the chair opposite Jac. He echoed her pose, sitting on the edge of the chair, but leaned forward, bracing his elbows on his knees. They were closer this way, which had been his motivation, but when the firestorm flared to new power between them, he saw that Jac thought he was breaking his word. “Sorry.” He stood up and paced the floor behind the chair. He grimaced. “I forgot for a minute.”
Jac watched him, then nodded, as if she accepted his explanation. “Having the eldest be a boy is a traditional choice, I guess, and satisfies people who still prefer to have a male heir.”
“People?”
“My father. Oh, he was really proud of Sam, then.” Jac sighed. “But the thing was that kid was like an accessory. He could have been the right kind of car or a house in the right neighborhood. They both continued working as much as ever—which was too much—and I don’t even think they noticed how lonely Nathaniel was.” She shook her head and Marco saw the glitter of her tears. “Maybe they didn’t know how amazing he was.”
“Tell me about him.”
She smiled then. “Oh, he was totally a science geek. He wanted to be an astronaut and establish colonies in space. I don’t know how many space stations we made out of Lego. He’d finish up the one illustrated on the box, then take it apart and make a bigger and better one. He was a sweet, smart, lovable kid.” She shrugged. “We bought two sets of sticky fluorescent stars at a museum one time, one for his room and one for my apartment, because he insisted we should always be looking at the same stars at night. He organized them with a map of the solar system, and it took us a whole day to get them just right in both rooms.” She sighed. “We celebrated with ice cream sundaes.”
“Sounds like you loved him.”
“I adored him.” Jac shook her head. “I would have chosen to be with him in a heartbeat. But it seemed that it only happened because to them I was useful. They were working all the time, after all.”
Marco looked down at the carpet. “There’s that word useful again.”
“That’s how my family saw me. Useful. Jac doesn’t have a plan for her life, so we can use her as a cheap resource.” She lifted her gaze to his. “The thing is that none of them ever valued the tasks they expected me to do, so none of them ever saw the value in my doing them. I chose to be with my mom at the end, because I wanted every minute possible with her. It wasn’t easy to be her caregiver as she died, and there were times that it just broke my heart to see her slipping away, but there were sweet moments, too. I wouldn’t trade those or lose them for the world.”
“Tell me one,” Marco encouraged.
Jac took a breath, as if composing herself. “Mom loved her garden and had always tended it herself. When she couldn’t, I did it. We went outside in the afternoons, when the weather was good, and she told me what to do. She knew that garden and its seasons better than anything else in her world. She remembered the Latin names for every single plant and also the useful traits of the herbs, so we played a game. I’d bring her flowers, one at a time, and she’d tell me about each one. Every day that we were in the garden, we built a little bouquet that way, then I’d put it on her nightstand when we went inside. She always studied it in the evening, whispering the names of the plants. It seemed to both anchor her in the world and distract her from the pain.”
She swallowed as Marco watched. “In time, she didn’t talk as much and she wasn’t as physically capable as she’d been. I had to practically carry her outside, but I knew she loved it so I did.” He watched her blink back her tears. “She was pretty light by then. When I brought her flowers, her lips would work but no sound came out. I told her what I remembered of what she’d told me
, and she’d nod.”
Marco said nothing, but put his hand over Jac’s. He had no recollection of having any family, not except a brief memory of Pwyll. He supposed that the Pyr were his family and wished he knew them better.
Jac cleared her throat. “Near the end, her favorite rose bloomed. It was June and I knew it would bloom soon, but she was slipping away and I wasn’t sure there would be a flower in time for her. There was, although she was in a lot of pain and staying in her bed by then. I put the flower under her nose and she inhaled the scent, then gave me the sweetest smile in the world. She whispered its name. I wrapped its stem in a damp paper towel and wrapped her fingers around it, so she wouldn’t have to move to smell its perfume.”
She took a shaking breath. “I believe it put her back in her garden in her mind at least and that she died in her favorite place in the world. I’ll never forget the serenity of her expression or my conviction that her pain was finally gone.” Jac cleared her throat. “I couldn’t care about much of anything for a long time after that.”
“Your family must have appreciated that you were there.”
Jac shrugged. “I guess so. The thing is that they didn’t think I had anything else to do. Sam had to fly in from grad school and she almost arrived too late to say goodbye. My father had been working like a fiend, as if he had to find a reason not to be home, so even he nearly missed her passing. They were there for the funeral, of course, and my father gave me money for helping out. He sold the house right away and the new owner backhoed the garden to put in a swimming pool.” She exhaled. “It’s funny, but that’s the incident that sticks in my craw, even though it wasn’t his fault. I couldn’t bear that her garden was gone, and that I didn’t even have the chance to dig up that rose. It probably wouldn’t have survived a transplant, anyway, it was that old, but still.”
“You could plant one of the same variety beside her grave,” Marco suggested, more than ready to help with that task.
Jac glanced up at him with surprise. “I did, although I’m the only one who ever goes there.” She shook her head. “I’m not even sure my father even knew that I did it. I’m sure Sam doesn’t.”
Marco leaned on the back of the chair and held her gaze. “Did Nathaniel know?”
Her smile sent a pang through his heart. “Yes. We always went there together and took care of the rose. Mom died before he was born, of course, so I felt like she needed to get to know him a bit.”
Marco nodded, understanding her impulse very well even though he’d never had a similar experience. He knew that he had to tell her as much.
He had to share a bit of his past to put them on even footing.
He was surprised by how instinctively right the choice felt, and by how much he wanted to do it.
Chapter Twenty-Two
“I never knew my parents,” Marco admitted quietly and felt Jac’s heart leap as she watched him. “My father was killed by a Slayer right after the consummation of his firestorm. He died without revealing my mother’s identity, in order to protect her.”
Jac’s lips parted in surprise.
“I always thought that said a good thing about his character.”
“Was he tormented?”
“Probably. He was killed and incinerated.”
She paled. “And your mom?”
“She died in childbirth or shortly thereafter.” Marco frowned, knowing the story but not actually remembering it. “I’d been rescued by another Pyr who realized what the Slayer had done. He knew my father and wanted to help my mother. He managed to get my mother to a sanctuary where she could have me.”
“Is there a sanctuary from Slayers?”
“There was then, at least for a while. There wasn’t any Elixir so they couldn’t spontaneously manifest elsewhere. In those days, only the Wyvern could do that. My mother was taken to the lair of another Pyr. His name was Pwyll and he was the grandfather of Rafferty, the Pyr who saved my mother from the Slayer.” He fell silent then, thinking of Pwyll.
“The same Rafferty I shot?” Jac whispered.
Marco nodded.
She exhaled. “I’m sorry. Did he die?”
“Not yet.”
She winced. “Is he okay?”
“Not yet.” Marco didn’t actually know Rafferty’s state, but he feared it was bad.
They sat in silence for a moment, their hands clasped. “What happened after Pwyll took your mom in?” Jac asked softly.
“She had me.” Marco frowned. “Just as all Pyr and Slayers feel the spark of a firestorm, they sense the birth of a new Pyr, no matter where it happens in the world. We say we hear the child’s first cry, but really, it’s the beat of his heart. We feel it, like he’s our son in a way.”
“And the Slayer felt your birth,” Jac whispered.
Marco nodded. “But Pwyll hid me. He tricked the Slayer and raised me in secret.”
“You must have loved him.”
“I did because I owed him that debt, but I didn’t know him very well.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Pwyll was the Cantor of our kind. He sang the songs of the earth as well as the hymn of darkfire. He saw that I could only survive if he could really hide me.”
“Because dragon shifters have such keen senses.”
“And so he enchanted me to sleep until it was safe for me to awaken.” He swallowed. “I was cursed to sleep until the darkfire burned.”
“Hasn’t the darkfire always burned?”
“Pwyll trapped it in three crystals. It wasn’t until the first crystal was broken and the darkfire released that the spell was broken.”
“When was that?”
“December 2010.”
“How long were you asleep?”
“Fourteen or fifteen hundred years.”
Jac’s mouth opened, then it closed. “Is there any way to find out whether Rafferty is going to be all right?”
“Want to come with me and see?”
Jac looked around the room then shook her head. “Wouldn’t it be dangerous for us to stay together? Doesn’t the heat of the unsatisfied firestorm draw Pyr and Slayers like moths to the flame?”
“It does, and that’s one good argument for satisfying it.”
“That didn’t make a lot of difference to your mom.”
“No, it didn’t.” Marco straightened. “That’s why I want to retrieve the darkfire crystal from Sloane’s house and give it to you.”
“Who’s Sloane?”
“The Apothecary of the Pyr. I took Rafferty to him and left the crystal there.” Marco squeezed her hand. “You can fire it, so you’ll be able to defend yourself.”
He could see by the way her eyes lit that the prospect pleased her but she protested anyway. “That has to be against someone’s rules.”
“It’s not against my rules, and when we’re talking darkfire, my rules trump all the others.”
Jac’s smile lit the room. “You’re just trying to have your way with me.”
“I’m just trying to take care of you the way you’ve taken care of people in your life. Rafferty believes that the firestorm is an opportunity for us to become stronger, that the Great Wyvern chooses a mate for each Pyr who can both compound his strengths and compensate for his weaknesses.”
“You can’t expect me to seriously believe that dragon shifters have weaknesses.”
“I’ve slept my entire life away. Rafferty awakened me from the spell, but I could have been sleepwalking after that. It’s all been like a dream, and I never thought that anything could touch me.” Marco pointed a finger at her. “Until you shot him, and then everything changed.”
“You said you’d never been so angry.”
“I’d never been so alive or engaged. I think that he disturbed my slumber, but that you really woke me up.”
“With a kiss?” she asked, a sparkle in her eye again.
Marco smiled, liking that she liked the idea. “Maybe. Anytime you want to confirm your effect on me, you know whe
re I am.”
Jac raised her hand and the firestorm flared from her fingertips. A brilliant orange spark leapt from the tip of her hand and soared through the air, landing with a sizzle upon Marco’s chest. He caught his breath as the heat of desire raged through his body and felt himself shimmer on the cusp of change. His heart was pounding and he felt Jac’s pulse race as well. He closed his eyes as his heart matched its rhythm to hers, the sensation leaving him dizzy. He had never felt so vital or aware of his own body.
And it was because of his mate.
“The way I see it,” Marco continued softly. “You’ll always take care of everyone else in your life. I’m going to prove myself to you by being the one to take care of you.”
“I don’t need anyone to take care of me.”
“Everyone needs someone to take care of them.” Marco nodded. “To watch their back and give them a hand when they need it. I’ve learned that from the Pyr.”
Jac considered that, her gaze sliding from his to the window, then to the green stone in the glass of mouthwash. He waited, knowing that the decision of what happened next was hers. She went to the window and dug in her pocket, pulling out her phone as if she’d just remembered it was there. He waited while she checked her messages, guessing that she was stalling while she made her choice, and deliberately didn’t eavesdrop.
Marco was surprised when she turned to face him, tears on her cheeks. “What’s wrong?” he asked, standing up quickly.
Jac smiled through her tears. “Not wrong but right. Does your darkfire work on humans? Making the improbable happen?”
“I don’t understand.”
She waved her phone. “My perfect sister is becoming human.” She pointed to the stone. “We have to take her that. The darkfire is right.”
Marco was glad she agreed about that, but was still waiting for her decision about the firestorm.
She crossed the room abruptly, untucking her shirt and kicking off her boots. “I want a shower,” she said with resolve, and Marco thought she was going to ask him to leave. To his surprise, she looked him right in the eye. “If the firestorm draws Pyr and Slayers, you need to stay to defend me.” Jac smiled a little. “I understand what you want, but I’m not convinced I should have a son.”
Firestorm Forever: A Dragonfire Novel Page 46
