by E E Everly
I jump back as fire bursts from his core. It billows out like my whirlwind and engulfs Thandoran in flames.
“Thandoran!” I hold my arm above my head to shield my face from the heat.
What just happened? The heat in the room grows. Storm sprites can’t summon fire. A firestorm?
“Thandoran!” Blistering basilisks! Embers whip into my face and sting my forearm. Is he on fire? Is he burning?
He doesn’t make a sound, so he must not be in physical pain. He’s in control. Somehow protected from his own firestorm.
My mind is blown.
The encroaching vampires scatter. Ciprian’s about as far away from Thandoran as I am, shielding his face as well. He seems in awe of this spectacle that burns through the wood and plaster in the ceiling above us.
Thandoran will toast us all, without the might of the sun that vampires fear so much.
Fire or sunlight. One way or the other, these vampires will burn.
Natalia and Dumitru!
I can’t tell if they’re still in the room.
Maybe this is Thandoran’s purpose. Take out as many vampires as he can. He could just walk the corridors and bring the whole place down around him.
“Get out!” I yell at no one in particular. Humans reside within these walls too. Freshies, as the vamps call them. Human blood bags. I can’t let this place burn. Innocent people will die.
With an eruption of power, I rip the windows open and call the rainstorm to me. Low clouds, like a thick soup of fog, roll inside. I wrap myself in their protective barrier and instantly feel a cooling.
But Thandoran is strong. As his heat hits my rain clouds, steam fills the room. Our storms press into each other, but neither makes headway.
I can barely see, except for the pops of orange where the room is a melting inferno. I cough as smoke burns my lungs and cover my head as plaster becomes deadly molten clumps raining down.
Thandoran’s still on the ground, throbbing or vibrating or something. His rage roars from his throat as he releases a scream.
No! What’s happening to him? Is he dying?
Vampires flee, but not before flares snake out and toast several of them. They evaporate in a wisp of smoke as if being hit by a nuclear blast.
His fire is like the blaze of the sun! I’m in awe, but I can’t stand here and gawk.
Ciprian cowers near a wall, inching his way toward an exit. “He’ll burn my mansion to the ground. Put him out!”
Oh, he’s begging me, is he?
Thandoran calls out. His cry is gut wrenching. An emotional pain. This I understand. My soul made that same sound when Killian died. My heart breaks for Thandoran. He can’t find his sister. She’s being held captive. But at least she’s alive.
This firestorm has to stop, or he’ll kill himself when the building collapses.
So I do the craziest thing I can think of.
I run at Thandoran and engulf him with my rainstorm.
FIFTEEN
I run through the ring of Thandoran’s fire as if it’s nothing. I’m within his storm, as if there’s a calm eye in the center. My moisture-soaked rain clouds around me keep me from being singed. But the heat’s intense. The steam choking. I collide with Thandoran and throw my arms around him.
We teleport to the first safe place that pops into my head—an abandoned parking lot, someplace where there are no trees or buildings to ignite.
He’s still deep in his firestorm when we appear on the asphalt. I heave my storm outward and drench his flames as if I’ve thrown a bucket of water on a campfire.
Steam rises around us, making us cough. We pitch forward and hack until our lungs ache.
“How—?” But I can’t finish my sentence. How did you do that?
Thandoran crawls to a loose chunk of asphalt and throws it across the lot. He pounds his fists on the ground until his hands crack and bleed. Though soot and tears streak his face, it’s unburned. So he is untouched by his own power. I can’t begin to understand.
My skin itches along my shoulders and in patches on my back. There are holes in my clothes, and angry pink skin underneath.
I did get burned. I didn’t feel it through the adrenaline. But I’m healing. Thank you, Killian, for your powers. I pat my head. All my hair seems to be there. My eyebrows too. Whew.
I let Thandoran rage and scream for about twenty seconds until he pulls on his hair and grabs his shirt, ready to rip it open.
I seize his hands and steady them. My strength forces him to stop, and he looks into my face. His sorrow-filled eyes destroy me, and I pull him into my arms, where we stay kneeled together. I just hold him. Every once in a while he shudders. But it’s not from the cold.
I stroke the back of his neck. He’s warm under my fingertips. The heat unquestionably comes from inside him. I should have realized this. He’s always warm.
Just one of Thandoran’s many secrets. He lied about who he is and why he’s on Earth. He could have told me about his sister. Should have told me about being on Earth before.
I should leave him to his careless ways. If he’s stupid enough to march into a mansion full of vampires, then he deserves to be killed.
But I can’t be angry. I can’t hate him. He’s me—a storm sprite on Earth. A storm sprite that every vampire wants to drink.
Even though I know nothing about him, I squeeze him and whisper near his ear. “We will find your sister. I swear it.”
SIXTEEN
I most likely will regret my resolve to help Thandoran.
I teleport us to my flat while we’re still in our huddle and I’m certain he won’t reignite.
An awareness of his new surroundings pulls Thandoran from his turmoil; he stiffens and pushes away from me. “Uh”—he clears his throat—“I’ll grab a shower, if that’s all right.”
I nod and sniff my hair. I smell like a charbroiled burger. A sick sensation turns my stomach, and I make a beeline for my ambrosia while Thandoran retreats down the hall. He can have the shower first. Never mind the fact that I have a ton of holes in my clothes. Nothing revealing though. I turn toward the mirror near the front door as I shove a spoonful of rocky road into my mouth. My hair is a gnarled mess.
Thandoran chucks his dirty laundry into the hallway. “Can I use one of those razors under your sink?”
“Whatever. What’s mine is yours.” I eat way too much ambrosia while the shower runs in the washroom. My bliss-out doesn’t keep my brain from overanalyzing everything.
My thoughts land on Thandoran’s blood. I noticed the spot on the carpet while Thandoran was shopping. I should clean it up before Natalia returns and vamps out again. What is different about his blood?
Before I know it, I’m on my hands and knees, sniffing the spot with my vamp sense. Smells like storm sprite blood, but not quite. I need a fresh sample.
The shower stops, and the tap tap of a razor on the washroom sink makes me jump up. I blur down the hallway but hesitate, with my hand on the washroom doorknob. I must be nuts to contemplate what made me jump up. Plus, Thandoran could be naked.
I don’t care. It’s more important to find out what he is, to find out how he can summon fire from within himself. I know of very few fae species that can do that. There are sun petal pixies—pixies who can infuse the life of the sun into flowers for sustained vitality—and the fire blossom brownies—brownies who have a skill with wielding fire, usually to forge tools for humans.
But Thandoran doesn’t look at all as if he’s inherited traits from a pixie or brownie, both of which are tiny species that I can’t imagine how they’d mate with a storm sprite. I mean, anything’s possible with magic, but these don’t fit Thandoran, who seems more human than fae.
Like me. He’s definitely crossed with a species that’s more human.
I’m going to do it. I inhale deeply and crack the door open.
Steam warms my face. What luck, Thandoran has a towel wrapped around his waist. I breathe a relieved sigh. His leather cuff is on the count
er. It hasn’t sustained harm from his firestorm.
Thandoran doesn’t turn from the mirror, doesn’t acknowledge my presence or how the steam rolls out the door. The razor catches the last bits of hair along his jawline. The whole scene is way too human, too normal, as if he should be shaving in my washroom. I gape, forgetting my purpose for barging in on him.
“Did I miss any?” he asks without turning toward me. He smirks in the mirror, his eyes bright.
That’s enough to snap me into motion. I step up to him without a word and take the razor from him, slowly, purposefully. Through the mirror, Thandoran eyes me with curiosity, but I ignore him. That doesn’t keep my heart from racing. I smell his masculine deodorant despite the girly shampoo and bodywash he used.
Leaning so that I barely touch his hip with mine, I rinse the razor in the running tap. I turn to him, so close I can see his pores and the glint of the vanity’s lights off his nose ring. I touch his chin, and he lifts it. He inhales a deep breath right as I drag the blade up his neck, along his carotid. I rinse the blade and repeat, a little closer, toward his ear.
I’m breathing on his clavicle. He’s breathing on my forehead. The muscles in his chest are taut, and I resist placing my palm on his firm pec, but I want to. I want very much to. I swallow and heighten my vamp senses. This close, I have a feel for what Natalia means. Thandoran’s blood does smell different.
I add the slightest pressure and nick his neck under the jaw. Thandoran draws a sharp breath but doesn’t yank the razor from me. I drop it into the sink as he touches the cut. His fingers come away bloody, and he looks at me with rounded eyes.
I catch a bead of blood as it rolls down his throat. This tiniest bit of blood is potent to my vamp senses. Even so, I bring it to my nose and sniff. Like me, a storm sprite, but with notes that are lighter. A clean scent under all the metallic. I still can’t place it. Nothing that I remember from Belyven.
Maybe he’s not mixed with a being from Belyven? Could it be a species from Earth?
Without thinking, I run my finger over my tongue, and let it linger there, tasting. I’d once tasted my blood—the blood of a storm sprite’s—and Killian’s vampire blood mixed together. Killian was covered in our blood after he died, and I kissed him. I still remember the separate tastes and the way they tasted together.
Thandoran’s has none of that.
So he isn’t part vampire.
I slide my finger from my mouth once it’s clean of his blood. “What are you?”
Thandoran’s nostrils flare, and his eyes darken with the fire that comes from within him. He leans over me, and I take an involuntary step back, into the wall. I bump my hamper and sit down hard on the wooden lid. My face is right at Thandoran’s nipple line, and I can’t take my eyes away from the hair that rims the tiny circles.
“Does your bloodsucker power give you a thirst for blood?” He’s appalled. Loathing fills his voice.
“N-no.”
Thandoran swipes at the bleeding wound on his neck and sticks his finger into his mouth. He makes a face and spits into the sink. “Disgusting. How could you do that, taste my blood of all things?”
I needed to use another sense other than smell, but I won’t tell him that. A part of me did wonder what his blood tasted like—why the vampires are so keen on it. I don’t see the appeal. It’s not an elixir for other sprites, that’s for sure. It has no effect on me. “Just tell me what you are.”
“Nothing from this world. That’s all you need to know.” He turns his back on me and rinses his face.
“Nothing from this world” is not a helpful explanation. So not Earth and not Belyven…
Maybe from another planet? He mentioned Emira. Mother opened two portals when they brought me home. They crossed to Emira before crossing to here.
Storm sprites have lived on Emira—the immortal planet—with other beings who are sexually compatible with storm sprites. His mother or father could have mated with a species from there. But I haven’t had classes about Emira, just Earth. I can’t recall what species they have.
I stare at Thandoran’s back, trying to figure out why he can’t be honest with me. His moodiness I understand but don’t care for. “I told you I’d help you find your sister. You don’t have to be such a jerk.”
He dries his face on a hand towel. “I appreciate that, princess. But this is something I can do on my own.”
“No, it’s not. Today proved that you’re in way over your head. Your hot head. You can’t rush around like that and scorch everything and everyone who pisses you off.”
He grabs my wrist. As his fingers squeeze, a smarting heat blossoms everywhere he touches.
“Ow!” I shove him away. “Watch it!”
“Like I said. Between this, and the demon power you bestowed on me, I have it covered.”
He shoves past me, into the hallway.
Before I slam the door, I yell, “If I don’t know everything about you, you’ll endanger us!”
What the hellfire is he? I strip my clothes off for my turn in the shower. I hope he’s still here when I’m done and not trying to anger more vampires.
Why did I give him teleportation?
SEVENTEEN
The debacle at Deorc Mansion leaves me with a few hours of shut eye before the sun rises. It’s not as if I have any major plans two days before Christmas, not without Kili here, so I can sleep the day away if I want.
My plan was to hunt down the seed demon who cast my curse. I would have made progress, with Kili safe and Natalia and Dumitru by my side, but a certain storm sprite threw things off.
What’s a few more days with my curse? Maybe I can return home to Belyven by the end of winter, once we find Thandoran’s sister and lift my curse.
I have time to be optimistic.
Thandoran’s passed out on the couch when I get out of the shower. Good. At least he’s here. His moods are giving me whiplash though. I can’t believe he cried in my arms one second and was trying to burn me the next.
I rub my arm as I head to my bedroom to dress. He didn’t burn me, but it hurt nonetheless. I curl under my covers and pray for oblivion.
No sooner do my eyes close with heaviness than I’m wide awake and standing next to my bed, with a bright light shimmering in front of me.
What? I blink. A dark-haired man, with a bit of stubble along his jawline and piercing silvery blue eyes, hovers in the air.
“Killian!” My heart dances. I look behind myself, and sure enough, there’s my body, sound asleep on the bed. I’m an astral projection, floating with my ghost. My heart swells with happiness. It’s been too long since we’ve visited in this form.
I wave forward, but my movements are nothing but a slow shift. When I lift my arms to touch Killian, my fingers slide right into him. I can’t feel him, not even a sense of warmth or cold. I can’t feel anything without my body.
Killian smiles. “You try every time.”
“I’m still hoping that one day I’ll be able to touch you.” I pout my lips. Gosh, he looks so good. The projection of his spirit shows him in hip-hugging jeans, a black tee, and his traditional woolen trench coat, the same one hanging next to my front door. He can make himself appear however he wants, but I like him just as I remember.
Dark and slightly brooding.
“Our son is doing well,” he says. “He’s happy.”
Relief lets my shoulders relax. “Is it hard to travel between worlds?”
“Like blinking. I think of Kili, and I’m there.”
I nod. With my demon power, I could do the same thing, if I didn’t become sick. “So Mother is letting you visit me?”
“Who else? She wanted to set your mind at ease about Kili and thought you’d rather have a visit from me than her.”
My mother is the sole reason our clandestine meeting as astral projections is possible. As the mother storm sprite, her powers extend beyond any storm sprite’s I know.
“She’s right.” I grin at Killian, not willing to
take my eyes off him, not willing to blink for fear he might disappear.
“You’ll be back with Kili before you know it.”
“That’s the plan. You don’t happen to know where the demon I’m looking for is, do you? Have you heard anything on your side?” The side of the spirit realm, that is.
Killian’s brows wrinkle. “Not about the demon.”
I sigh. “It’s time to visit demon central.”
“I thought you might say that.”
“I have to go. They won’t hurt me.”
“Even with your powers, you are no match for them if they attack you,” Killian says.
“I’ll teleport out of there if anything happens. It couldn’t hurt to make inquiries.”
“They don’t like how you’ve been hunting demons and taking their powers.”
“I’ll be fine,” I say.
“Take Natalia and Dumitru with you.”
“About that. I’m sure you’ve noticed my new roommate.”
“I’ve been trying to ignore that he’s in my flat, touching my things and my girl,” Killian says.
He still thinks of me as his. This sends an ache through my core. “Well, Natalia and Dumitru can’t be around him. They’ll kill him. His blood is more potent than mine.”
A low rumble surfaces from Killian’s chest. He’s jealous, and suspicious.
“Look, you don’t need to worry about Thandoran. I have him under control. I’ll help him find his sister, and then he’s on his own. He’ll be gone soon.”
“Your mother sent him to be your guard. I don’t think he will leave,” Killian says.
“That bothers you?”
Killian squeezes his eyes shut and works his jaw side to side. “It shouldn’t. I’m dead. I’m not supposed to be in your life anymore.”
“What is there for you beyond the mortal sphere?” I’ve always been curious. Killian’s ghostly visits are usually so short that we never have meaningful conversation past our expressions of longing for one another. It takes a lot of energy for my mother to astral project us.
