Playing with Fire (Book 1 of the FIRE Trilogy)

by Devika Fernando

Felicia’s hand went to her pocket to take out her phone for the third time in the past half hour. And for the third time, she stopped herself short. She really wanted to call Joshua and let him know about her discovery—if you could call it that—but something held her back.

  With new determination, she resolved to tell him in person tonight, but she knew he’d be waiting for her and worrying about the delay. She crossed her legs and folded her hands in her lap, trying not to let on how much curiosity was burning away inside her.

  She tried to calm down by watching her surroundings. Kyle had taken her to a restaurant and bar that was warming to life. Nobody was sitting at the tables out front yet, and the waiter was still busy laying the tables and whistling a tune. The bar at the back where they were sitting in a secluded corner surrounded by potted plants was far from crowded too. One lone early drinker sat at the bar counter, staring into his half-filled glass as if it held the answers to all riddles in life.

  Kyle was standing not far from him, waiting for the bartender to deliver their order. His presence seemed to fill the whole place. She realized with curiosity that both the bartender and the man perched on the stool looked uncomfortable in his presence. There was a certain abruptness to the bartender’s movements as if he wanted to get the order done with as soon as possible. The drinker inched a little away from the muscled, coated man and hunched lower on his stool.

  Were they…scared of Kyle? But why? He hadn’t struck her as a frightening presence, although with his build and heat he sure left a lasting, somewhat intimidating, impression.

  Holding a tall beer glass and a Gin & Tonic in his hands, Kyle walked to their snug corner boot and gave her one of his flashy grins.

  “There you go.”

  He sat down and raised his glass in a mock toast. “Here’s to two fire freaks and their future!”

  She clinked glasses with him, her face stretching in a matching grin.

  “Fire freaks? Did you really just say that?”

  He shrugged and nodded. “Yeah. Why, do you prefer the term witch and wizard? I can’t associate with that, always makes me think of Hogwarts and broomsticks and hooded cloaks and smelly cauldrons.”

  Felicia burst out laughing and had to set her glass down.

  “I agree. I love calling myself a freak too.”

  Kyle beamed at her. “Great minds think alike.”

  He downed most of his beer before leaning forward with his elbows on the small table. As he had shrugged out of his coat, his biceps bulged invitingly beneath the faded orange sweatshirt he was wearing. Felicia’s dragon appreciated the sight…a little too much, actually, for she could feel herself being drawn to it too.

  Mentally shaking her head at her volatile emotions and reactions, she took another sip of her G & T, enjoying the spicy, herbal burn running down her throat. Joshua had introduced her to the drink that had at first struck her as a better choice for an ice king than a fire queen. But she had fallen in love with it as she had fallen for the man who was in so many ways her opposite.

  Still, getting to know someone who should be a lot like her was as thrilling as hardly anything had been during the past few months. In fact, she couldn’t recall whether Iceland’s spectacular landscapes had had such an impact on her.

  “So…” both of them said in unison, grinning yet again.

  “Ladies first.” Kyle gestured invitingly at her before he started playing with the coaster featuring a vividly colored painting of an erupting volcano.

  Felicia sifted through her thoughts to find a question she really wanted answered.

  “I know it’s terribly forward and personal, but I really want to know more about how you discovered your gift and how you developed it.”

  “I like women who are forward and personal. Nothing terrible about that,” he joked.

  For a moment the irritation and insecurity she had initially felt around him returned. He was a little too direct for her liking, although she wasn’t half as polite and cautious as Joshua was.

  Kyle traced the volcano’s outline with his large finger, and she saw for the first time that his nails looked chapped and broken and were finely rimmed with dirt under them. She had never bothered much with men’s hands—but that had changed when she had met Joshua. He had the most beautiful hands imaginable, with long and slender, straight fingers that were always cold and whose nails were sometimes as translucent as ice. They looked manicured, though they weren’t. This man’s hands were the exact opposite, reminding her faintly of a car mechanic or maybe a farmer’s hands. She wondered what kind of job he had found, but was too intent on learning more about him to dwell on the thought.

  “C’mon, ask me whatever you want to know, I won’t bite.”

  She smiled at Kyle gratefully. “When did you realize…you know, that you have a fire gift slumbering inside you?”

  He chuckled. “When my homework went up in flames and nearly burned the whole damn desk down.”

  Felicia stared at him. “What?”

  Shaking his head with a rueful grin, he explained, “I must have been about ten or so. All I remember is that I was brooding over especially difficult sums and hating it and cursing the teacher. The next thing I knew the exercise book caught fire. I was so fascinated by it that I didn’t do anything to stop the fire, and the flames ate up most of what was on my desk before I came to my senses and threw my jacket over them.”

  Now she was grinning too. “What did you tell the teacher, that the dog ate your homework?”

  “Nah, though that would’ve been a good idea. I said I fell into the river carrying my bag. It explained why I was missing most of my school stuff that had been on the desk.”

  “What did you tell your parents, surely the fire left behind some traces?”

  He sobered up. “My parents were long dead by then.”

  Felicia swallowed and cringed. “I’m so sorry, I had no idea.”

  Waving her chagrin aside, he said, “No prob, of course you didn’t know. I lost my parents when I was about two years old. A boating accident on their wedding anniversary.”

  She could feel the heat intensify around them, and saw his hands ball into fists, the air around them shimmering a little with his fire energy.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said again, the words getting stuck in her tight throat.

  How horrible to lose your parents in such a tragic way! Then again, she’d lived through the—totally different but just as painful—horrors of having parents who didn’t love her and of feeling completely out of place in an otherwise picture-perfect family.

  “I guess I would’ve missed them more if I had been older at the time. As it is, I have no real memories of them…”

  He stared off into the distance, and the heat level climbed some more before she could sense a slight shift in the atmosphere.

  “Anyway, I had my grandmother. Gran brought me up. She was a fabulous woman, and she never made me lack anything in life.”

  Felicia smiled tentatively. She had never been in touch with her grandparents, although she remembered them fawning and doting over her elder sister, who was as normal as could be.

  “Was?” she asked, and Kyle tensed up again. This time, the heat radiating from his lightly trembling, tense body would have made any other person break out in a sweat. It felt hot to her too, but in a way that stoked her own fire and unsettled her dragon.

  “Gran’s dead too. I lost her seven years ago.”

  He didn’t elaborate how she had died, and somehow Felicia sensed that he was far more hurt by her loss than by that of parents he hadn’t really known.

  She felt like reaching out and squeezing one of the subtly glowing fists that looked as if they would burst forth flames at any moment. Instead, she said gently, “Tell me more about your gift and what you did with it.”

  Kyle collected himself, slipping easily back into his cheerful, confident self.

  “What I did with it? A lot of mischief, that’s what. I ended up setting fire to qu
ite a few things and landing myself in detention or having Gran send me to my room without dinner after boxing my ears.”

  He didn’t sound upset about it, and for a moment she could picture him vividly in her mind, a wild boy with an already strong body, running rampant and scaring himself and others with his untrained fire magic. Was that envy she was feeling boiling away inside her? Was she envious because her first discovery had led her to fear and denial while his had led him to living his magic without any regrets?

  His voice drew her out of her dark thoughts. “I loved being different. It made me strong and gave me courage. I didn’t mind being the poor, parentless brat anymore. I didn’t make a fool out of myself to become someone’s friend anymore. I didn’t mind sucking at studies anymore. I was good at something damn special, and I was fast becoming more and more of a freak.”

  A far-away look crept into his eyes, shining golden in the dim bar light, and looking liquid like the beer in his glass.

  How different their past had been! And yet, here they were, both of them comfortable with their weirdness and eager to connect under the common mantle of fire magic.

  She sipped on her drink, and the movement snapped him out of his memories. Kyle downed the rest of his beer and started playing with the coaster again. He flipped it around and twirled it absentmindedly while continuing with his story, and there was something oddly irritating about it. The picture of the erupting volcano, never standing still in his hands, nearly freaked her out for some unexplainable reason. Felicia focused on his face again, realizing that women must find him utterly irresistible. While she listened to some more escapades from his reckless youth and he kept his gaze on the coaster, she studied his features.

  With his broad forehead, his Greek nose and his wide, strong chin with the tiniest of clefts in between, he was a sight for sore eyes. His almost bronze skin and the faint shadow of a brown beard, his bushy eyebrows and the lock of hair falling into his forehead made him look very masculine and like an adventurer. Not only his face, his whole body was brimming with raw sex appeal that probably worked wonders with women. It drew her in too, and that disconcerted her. What screwed up taste in men did she have if she could feel so attracted by Joshua and Kyle when the two couldn’t have looked more different?

  Thinking of Joshua sent a jab of guilt through her, which made her feel angry with herself. There was nothing to feel guilty about. She was only sitting in the plain open with someone, sharing a drink the way for example co-workers would do it. It’s not like she was throwing herself at this infuriating yet interesting stranger—and anyway, surely Joshua would never mind that she was connecting with someone who shared her magic.

  “Am I boring you out of your nice little suit?”

  His voice discarded her thoughts, and it took her a moment to stop frowning.

  “No, not at all. Quite the contrary, you sound like your life was one big adventure. I guess I’m feeling miffed that mine was so boring compared to it.”

  He looked deep into her eyes, for once no humor showing in his face or voice.

  “I’d never call you boring. I might not know anything about your life yet, but I can definitely sense that you are as special as it can get. There’s so much passion hidden inside you, and such confidence lurking around you. I can’t wait to get over with my story and hear yours.”

  Felicia felt a blush creep across her skin, and she hated it. Damn flatterer, he was probably a womanizer to boot.

  As if on cue, a waitress stepped over to them, young and pretty in an ordinary way. In halting English she asked whether they wanted to order a meal with their drink, as if they were part of the restaurant that was slowly filling with diners. The waitress stood much too close to Kyle and looked only at him, batting her lashes. Felicia found it so obvious and ridiculous she wanted to snort into her almost empty glass, but she held back. Kyle looked at her.

  “Fancy something to eat?”

  She decided on the spot. “To be honest, what I fancy now is to walk some more. I don’t think this bar is the perfect place to discuss our lives.”

  She could practically feel enthusiasm oozing out of his pores when he smiled at her and nodded. He waved the waitress away, not before bedazzling her with his irresistible roguish smile and touching her arm lightly, nearly making her swoon.

  They paid for their drinks and walked amicably side by side through the mostly quiet streets toward the outskirts of town.

  “What did you do after you dropped out of school?” she asked, somehow knowing he could never have chosen a bland job the way she had done it.

  He rubbed his neck in a rare moment of sheepishness or insecurity.

  “Don’t laugh at me. I wanted a job that would allow my fire side to come to the fore…so I enrolled in a circus.”

  “You what?” She stopped and stared at him.

  With a self-deprecating grin, he nodded. “Yeah. I became quite a famous circus player, in fact.”

  She shook her head, laughing incredulously when he told her about how he had become an acrobat juggling fire balls and winning over the crowd with many more dangerous acts. It made a lot of sense, of course, but she still found it a little crazy—and admirable.

  “And then?” she asked.

  “Then I grew bored. Happens way too easily. There wasn’t enough risk and thrill to it, having to hide stuff and pretend it’s all just tricks. And there was no…no greater good to it or no real benefit.”

  He stuffed his hands in his pockets and stared up at the sky for a moment, lost in thoughts.

  “That’s when I decided to travel, and to stop sticking around others who’d pull me down.”

  At least they had one thing in common. They were both essentially loners. As was Joshua…

  “I trekked all around the globe, searching for challenges, and growing my gift. Got myself into trouble every time.”

  He grinned that wolfish grin of his again, and she realized that normal people were able to catch the dangerous side to him without knowing why. Did she emanate a silent, undefinable threat too? She didn’t think so, for her colleagues at the hotel were friendly enough. She was the one blocking their advances.

  “Where did you travel?”

  “Everywhere, really. I started with Mexico, Argentina and Chile, and afterwards I went to Australia. But Down Under was too damn hot for me, in the wrong way. New Zealand was awesome, but I thought it was too much like Canada. Japan was next, followed by the Philippines. Made my way to Africa after that, to Tanzania and Kenya. I hopped across the continent to Europe, traveling to Greece and Italy. I loved both, but I felt this inexplicable pull to go north. Iceland had always been on my bucket list, and here I am.”

  Wow, so many countries. Felicia caught herself wanting to know all the details, and wishing she had accompanied him. Her steps faltered for a second when the thought registered. Hell, where had that come from? To distract herself, she asked, “Why those countries?”

  He shot her a sideway glance. “Can’t think of anything linking them together? Something found in all of them, and not in many other countries apart from some of their lesser known neighbors?”

  She scrunched up her forehead, thinking hard, but came up blank and shook her head.

  “Volcanoes,” he said smugly.

  Her eyes widened. But of course! She with her fire magic and with volcanoes being one of the reasons for choosing Iceland as their refuge should have known.

  “They’re the most fascinating thing in the world, don’t you think?” Kyle said. “There’s something so terrifying and mystifying about them. They make you realize how powerless normal humans are, and how easily the whole world could be changed or destroyed by their common force.”

  Felicia nodded, remembering a conversation—correction, a quarrel—she had had with Joshua not long ago. She had voiced her wish to visit at least some of the volcanoes in Iceland.

  There was a startling total of over 120 of them in the country that wasn’t much bigger than on
e American state, although not all of them active or big. Only about 20 had erupted since the time humans had settled on Iceland. But those that had were still a threat to be reckoned with.

  What about the Eyjafjallajökull and the Katla so temptingly close to where they lived in Arborg? Both had erupted a couple of years ago and were unsettlingly—or thrillingly—active. Or what about the Bárðarbunga that had erupted recently in 2015 and boasted a very high elevation of over 6,500 feet?

  She’d settle for only one of them, maybe the Krafla in the north, the Askja in the heart of the island or the intriguing Loki-Fögrufjöll whose name reminded her of her favourite villain from the Marvel universe, Loki of Asgard. If she could visit even one of the volcanoes, she’d be a happier person. But no, Joshua would have none of it. Leave it to him to spoil the fun. He was too scared what might happen when she with her still rampant fire magic got so close to the source. Never mind that she had brought them here because of the volcanoes, never mind that she trusted herself not to lose control, never mind that she would happily let him near any glacier he might wish to see…

  Before frustration could take her over, she said, “So you’ve visited all of them? Tell me about it!”

  Kyle was giving off palpable waves of satisfaction, and her fire dragon was all attention and held-back desire.

  “I haven’t seen half of the volcanoes on earth yet, but I sure as hell will visit them all before I die. It’s…incomparable, being near them, getting as close as I can.”

  He gazed at her deeply, his voice enraptured and almost reverent. “You can’t believe how magical they are. They’re not just freakishly deep craters from eons ago that are filled to bursting with destructive and regenerative energy. They’re…alive.”

  He breathed the last word in an admiring whisper, and she stopped to stare at him.

  “Alive?”

  Nodding resolutely, he explained in that same fervent and hushed tone, “I can feel them, like a being, like a living essence. They have a will of their own, a memory dating back centuries and centuries, and such strength that it wrings respect even from me.”

  They stared at each other, connected by the spell of the volcanoes. He added, “They speak to me.”

  Felicia realized her mouth was hanging wide open, so she closed it with a snap and swallowed. Was he pulling her leg? But the rapt expression on his face, and the glow that suffused his eyes and crawled through his veins underneath his tanned skin told her he must be speaking the truth.

  “You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Kyle quipped, and it lightened the mood.

  She smiled weakly and shook her head. “I don’t think a ghost would have shocked me that much.”

  “But it’s the truth,” he said vehemently, growing serious again from one second to the other. “The first time it happened I nearly fell over and into the boiling lava hundreds of feet below.”

  He rubbed the back of his head at the memory, cringing a little, and Felicia suppressed a gasp.

  “To be honest, I thought I had gone nuts, once and for all. But it happened again. And the voice couldn’t have been in my imagination. Not with how it sounded and what it said…”

  Felicia remembered to breathe, excitement making the flames inside her rise and rise. Her dragon propelled itself out of her body as if to listen better or to beg for more information, hovering over her shoulder and staring hypnotized at Kyle.

  Gazing deep into her eyes again, he said, “The volcanoes…their living essence…they recognized me for what I was. They knew I carried fire inside me, and they were infinitely thrilled by it.”

  Now her brows rose so high she thought they might fall out of her face.

  “You’ve got to be kidding me. The mighty volcanoes or fire gods or whatever they are were thrilled by you, and not the other way round?”

  He made a face. “Yeah, I know, sounds impossible, but I swear I’m telling you the truth. It freaked me out, but they seemed…happy that I had sought them out, as if I were fulfilling one of their expectations or something.”

  Averting his face, he stared into the distance blankly, and she could feel he was back in those magical moments. The air around him was vibrating, almost humming, with his energy, and the glow inside him automatically made her magic come to the fore too. They must be looking like two frigging light bulbs on legs.

  “And you know what?” he said, immediately having all her attention again. “The voices have never been stronger than here in Iceland.”

  He let that sit for a moment, and it did make her think.

  “I visited only one of the volcanoes so far, the Snæfellsjökull. And it was as if the volcano had been waiting for me. As if he had known that I’d come, and who I am. As if he…” He lowered his voice, leaning so close that she felt singed by the primal, intense heat he emanated. “As if he had a mission for me, and as if all of my journeys had been meant to prepare me and lead me here.”

  Wide red-brown eyes stared into shiny golden ones. Time stood still. The moment dragged on, and Felicia’s mind was racing. Could it be true? And if so, where did she fit in? Why was she so excited by this, as if sharing the same kind of magic automatically meant she’d be needed for whatever secret mission and bigger picture too?

  Kyle pulled her out of her trance by grabbing her chin in one big, rough thumb and index finger and nudging it up to close her gaping mouth. The heat of his touch was pleasure and pain rolled into one, and it made her jerk back. He grinned and stepped back, but the grin didn’t quite reach his eyes. Had he felt it too? What was he thinking? Why was he sharing all this?

  “Sorry, didn’t mean to spook you. And that on our first date…”

  Before she could tell him in no uncertain terms that this hadn’t been a date, he barreled ahead. “I tend to freak people out like that if I ever get a little closer to them…which is hardly ever, I’ll admit it. Anyway, sorry for all the heavy stuff. Let me lighten the mood. Oops, pardon the pun.”

  Effortlessly slipping back into his playful and persuasive ways, he made a mock dramatic gesture with his left hand. Then he snapped his fingers and one bright flame shot out of his fingertips as if his hand were a torch.

  He pointed his right hand at a nearby lamp post, tall and old-fashioned with ornate fittings and a round bulb. She could see some form of energy shoot out of his hand. Not fire, more something like a thread of heat, like a laser beam but less visible and sharp. The energy ray hit the light bulb and burst it, tiny glass splinters raining down onto the deserted pavement.

  Kyle lifted his left arm and waved his hand and the flame shot from his fingers to fly toward the dark street lamp. She couldn’t understand his whispered command, but the fire knew what he wanted. It settled itself inside the lampshade, replacing the artificial light of the now broken bulb with natural illumination that flickered enticingly in the breeze.

  Felicia looked on in utter fascination while her dragon pumped itself to a slightly bigger size like a bird fluffing up its feathers, and sailed over to inspect the altered street lamp.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” a voice thundered through the breathless silence, startling Felicia into a surprised squeak.

  You have reached the end of the free sample of Book 2 of the FIRE Trilogy, “Dancing with Fire”. To buy the book, click here.

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