by Cherry Adair
He’d waited for this moment his entire life. He was ready.
Bring it on. He closed his eyes to the darkness, concentrating on the smallest sounds. He could just pick up the almost silent shush of waves gently sliding across fine sand. No crashing surf. No gulls. No footsteps. No foliage rustling in the still air.
He inhaled. No salt-laden ocean air. No source of heat. Yet spatially he sensed he was outside.
Sweat rolled down his temples. It must be upward of ninety degrees, and five seconds ago he’d been suitably dressed for a minus five Siberian night. He ignored the discomfort as he opened his eyes again.
A familiar fragrance teased his senses. “Serena,” he said barely above a whisper as he sensed her materializing beside him. She shouldn’t be here, he thought, tamping down the combination of annoyance that she was even in the competition, concern for her well-being, and a serious dose of the hots.
“This is creepy,” she whispered back. He felt the brush of her coat against his arm as she shifted closer. “Where are we?”
She was looking up at him. He smelled orange juice on her breath. It didn’t surprise Duncan that she wasn’t clutching his sleeve, or demanding an answer to her question. Serena was pretty damn well fearless. Which she’d have to be. There was a reason a Head of Wizard Council was only chosen every seven years, and the failure rate was astronomical. Henry had been in the position for almost four terms because, in the last twenty-seven years, no one had managed to pass the Tests and usurp his position. If Serena’s foster father, and Duncan’s mentor, hadn’t had the stroke, he’d still be in office another year before the Test was opened to the general wizard membership for nominations.
“No clue,” he told Serena almost inaudibly. “No. Don’t move until I figure it out.”
“You’re not supposed to help me,” she reminded him.
“Exactly. I’m not coming after you if you fall down a hole.” He hoped like hell she didn’t test that threat. She was another problem he was going to have to deal with soon.
“It’s fucking hotter than hell in here.” Trey whispered uneasily, fortunately cutting off Duncan’s thoughts of Serena and the Curse for another day.
“In here? We’re inside?”
“Jesus, Serena. I have no idea where we are. That was a figure of speech.”
Duncan tuned them out, although he could have said to an inch where each of the others stood in the sweltering, inky darkness. This was not the darkness of a moonless night. This was the darkness of hidden secrets. Of things that went bump in the night. This was the first Test. And he was already totally involved and focused. Well, except for that momentary Serena blip, he was good to go.
He felt a mental probe and jolted at the intrusion. Who the fuck…? He managed to block whatever the hell the person was searching his brain for.
Serena? No. This intruder felt male. Strong. Dark.
Trey? Possible, but unlikely. Trey wasn’t that strong. A member of the Council? Duncan didn’t give a shit. Nobody, but nobody occupied his brain but himself.
He slammed a mental door, then locked it. And stay out, dickhead. Whoever the hell you are.
A barely perceptible beat started in his palm, followed by the phosphorescent light of the Council envelope that suddenly materialized in his hand. Serena and Trey had theirs in hand as well.
Instructions.
“Open your envelopes,” Lark’s disembodied voice instructed.
Let’s get ready to rumble. Lifting the glowing square, Duncan used the faint light to quickly scan the area as a postcard-sized piece of paper rose slowly from inside what had been a sealed envelope, and hovered at exactly the correct distance for him to read it. He had a quick view of Serena’s profile, limned against the darkness, before he refocused his eyes to read his own instructions.
An ancient scroll is the goal of this quest
Four pieces are torn and that is the test
One fragment protected by fire within
Retrieve the prize and you might win.
“What do you suppose this mea—Holy crap!” Serena let out a yelp of surprise, jumping backward, as flames, some of them thirty feet high, leaped and danced, shooting red and orange branches of fire against the black sky.
Duncan automatically put out a hand to grab her arm, ready to pull her out of harm’s way. Then forced himself not to touch her. He dropped his hand.
She was right. He wasn’t allowed to help her.
Stripping off his coat, he tossed it aside. Fire was his power to call. Piece of cake. He hoped Serena, and Trey, used extreme caution, and didn’t try any histrionics.
The wall of dancing flames was a hundred feet wide and at least thirty feet high. He had no idea how deep it went.
Now, all he had to do was figure out where the scroll was hidden.
The conflagration danced and swayed, arcs of shifting shapes soared into the night sky beckoning them closer.
“I’m going round back,” Trey announced, a split second before he disappeared.
Beside him, Serena shrugged off her heavy coat, her white shirt taking on an orange cast in the shooting flames. She looked like a pagan goddess with her wild mane of hair flowing down her back and her hands raised. “I’m going to win this one. Fight fire with water.”
Duncan chuckled. “Fight fire with fire.”
They aimed their powers at the same time. Serena dumped hundreds of gallons of water directly over the inferno.
Hisssssssssss
Nothing but a plume of steam.
Duncan amped up his power, shooting a powerful shaft of white-hot flames directly into the blue center of the blaze.
Fire met firestorm in an explosion of twenty-foot-high sparks and lightning-like shards of crimson fire.
Serena glared at him. “You did something.”
“Yeah. And it didn’t work.” He focused on the left-hand side and sent a barrage of fire directly at the base. Damn it! He wanted to tell her to get lost. He really did. She was going to get badly hurt. There was no way she could win this one. He kept up the assault, still without any apparent results. No way.
Fire was his.
But by the same token he didn’t want her out of his sight in this strange and magical situation where he wasn’t quite sure if what they were seeing and experiencing was real.
The heat of the flames certainly felt real. But this was a Test. Who knew? Until he was told differently, he’d consider everything in the Test environment the real deal.
The question was: Why wasn’t his power extinguishing the flames as it normally would have done? He’d fought forest fires, and hellacious oil field fires, and in every case he’d successfully put them out in short order.
Not so this one.
What was the source of this fire?
He smelled no accelerant, saw no gas jets.
“Why the hell couldn’t you have taken up…knitting or something?”
A deluge, centered directly over the flames, drowned out the last part of the sentence, but she heard him anyway, and shot him a startled glance. “Why? You want a sweater? Buy yourself one.”
“You shouldn’t be he—”
She redirected part of the torrential downpour—just a three-foot square of it—directly over his head.
“That feels great,” he said, swiping water out of his eyes. “But save your water for the fire.”
She turned it off. “Look! I think it worked.”
“No,” he said through his teeth as he automatically dried himself as he’d done with her water nonsense for years. “It didn’t work. The fire is just reformatting itself.”
Her long hair was glued to the sweat glistening on her face and neck, and the thin silk of her shirt clung to her skin as the heat billowed toward them in a scorching wind caused by the fire eating up the oxygen. “Into what?”
“I don’t—A cave. It’s forming into a cave.” Automatically he reached for his Sig. “Stay here. I’m going in.”
“Stay here? There are three peopl
e competing, bud, not just you.” She glanced at his drawn weapon. “Are you out of your mind? Yeah, clearly you are. Planning to shoot the big bad fire?”
“If the scroll is inside the fire cave I’m going in—alone.”
“You and which army? Think again.”
“You’ll be burned.”
“I left my entire bonsai collection to you in my will. Take good care of it if I end up crispy.”
“Not funny, Serena. I’m not willing to risk your life.”
“You’re not willing? Excuse me? What suddenly made you the boss of me?”
“This,” he said grimly, pulling her into his arms.
He moved so fast she barely had time to suck in a gasp of air before his arms tightened around her, drawing her hard against his body. He was fully aroused. The hot hungry look in his eyes immobilized her seconds before he crushed his mouth down on hers. No gentle exploration. No warm-up. His mouth fit hers perfectly, and he went from zero to sixty without a mother may I? and straight into an intense, juicy French kiss that had Serena’s bones turning molten.
Nothing existed but the slick glide of his warm tongue devouring her mouth. He uttered a harsh, raw sound as her tongue came to meet his, tightening his arms around her, and burying one hand in her hair.
She should put a stop to this, she thought vaguely. Now. She stood on her toes to get closer. God. He tasted delicious, and he smelled so good. Coffee, soap, hot skin, and a scent uniquely his own. His jaw was prickly, rough against her face, his chest broad and hard with muscle as he crushed her to him. His fingers gripped her hair as he explored her mouth with teeth and tongue. More. More. More.
It was as if Serena had been holding her breath, waiting twenty years for exactly this kiss.
A lifetime.
Like a fast-acting drug, the kiss spread seductive heat through her bloodstream.
Seductive bastard was melting the flesh right off her bones, reducing her good intentions to ashes, and making her totally forget where they were. And why. She vaguely realized that he held her upper arms to steady her as he stepped away. Dazed, she stared up at him, rendered speechless.
“We’ll finish this later,” he murmured thickly, flickering firelight reflected in his eyes. Touching her chin, he turned and walked away.
Walked away!
Frustration burnt her cheeks. “There’s nothing to finish!” she shouted after him.
Damn him. She shut her eyes and counted to ten, acutely aware of her nipples rubbing inside her bra, and her wet silk blouse brushing her skin as she struggled to draw in a normal breath without losing any more of her control.
Lungs locked, heartbeat in the stratosphere, Serena pressed her fingers against her damp lips as she watched him retreat. Skin hot, mouth swollen, she was getting damned tired of Duncan kissing her and then just walking away whenever he felt like it. Their entire relationship—not that they actually had a relationship—always seemed as though they were an inch away from something…big.
Dangerous big. Forbidden big. Lifemate big.
When they’d been sixteen, he’d told her about the Curse. Serena had wanted to tell him she already knew, and that she’d always believed that she was his Lifemate. He’d never picked up on that vibe, and since she knew the entire Curse, and the way to break it, she’d been forced to stay away, keeping him at arm’s length with water tricks and sarcasm.
She opened her eyes, watching Duncan’s arrogant stride with a mix of longing and frustration. She had to put the brakes on this dangerous infatuation she had for him before it got out of hand. It couldn’t go anywhere, and the more time she spent with him, the deeper she seemed to be falling. Stupid. Unlike Duncan’s usual flirts, she knew ahead of time that getting emotionally entangled with him was not only a dead-end proposition, it would also be one-sided.
She figured Duncan’s fear of messing with the Curse had kept him away from real relationships all his life. Which, to her dismay, had made her feel marginally better when she’d been a teen, but wasn’t working quite as well now that she was an adult.
Back then she’d rationalized that it was just a little pride thing. If she couldn’t have him, no one else would either.
He had Nairne’s powerful Curse hanging over his head. He had no intention of ever getting romantically serious with anyone. She knew that for a cold hard fact. He’d told her flat out the night he’d told her about the Curse.
He’d also admitted that he wasn’t interested in breaking the five-hundred-year-old Curse. “I gift you my powers in memory of me,” was what Nairne had told Magnus five hundred years ago. Duncan had always been afraid of the potential consequences in the vague passage of the Curse.
Over time, she’d seen that he hadn’t changed that much, and his powers still defined him. He probably still thought that breaking the Curse meant losing the powers he held so dear.
Which pretty much meant that Serena had always known better than to waste time wanting something she could never have.
Calmer now, she sighed. Her knowledge of the Curse, and the ancient family secret of how it could be broken, only strengthened her belief that she and Duncan didn’t have a snowball’s chance in hell of ever having anything close to a relationship. Like him, she was in no hurry to relinquish her powers.
She’d have to strongly discourage him from kissing her again, Serena decided, admiring his tight ass as he strode away from her toward the blaze. The man looked damn good in jeans.
Getting kissed by Duncan was like giving a diabetic a Twinkie. One taste made her head spin and her heart pound, and made her crave more.
That was the last freaking time he grabbed her for a drive-by kiss. Next time he put his mouth on her, she was going to make damn sure he didn’t go anywhere.
This wasn’t the time for him to kiss her anyway, blast him. The Council was probably somewhere watching their every move.
Test. Right.
Where had Trey disappeared to? She glanced at her watch to see how long he’d been gone. No help there. The damn thing had stopped. She narrowed her eyes against the heat. Had he already found the article? Since only one of them could win, probably not. She presumed when one of them had the scroll, they would be teleported back to where they’d come from.
In her case—Duncan’s bedroom.
Damn.
Test. Right.
Duncan was now a black silhouette striding toward the fire. Not an ounce of hesitation as he approached the wall of jumping, living flame, headed directly for what looked like the mouth of a cave or the gaping opening into a blast furnace.
Serena’s heart pumped hard with every step he took. Like Duncan, she believed the fragment of the scroll was inside that flame cave. But unlike Duncan she had no control over fire. Her power to call was water, and dumping God only knew how many gallons of it directly over the fire minutes ago hadn’t made a jot of difference.
Still, she didn’t think the Council would skew a Test in one person’s favor. Would they?
She could feel the heat of the fire from where she stood some hundred feet away. Walking forward slowly, she wrapped her hair in a knot at her nape to keep it out of the way as she looked around for anything she might use. A weapon? A fire extinguisher? A canary? she thought drolly. The ground was hard packed, no vegetation, no animal, no mineral that she could see. The heat made her blink rapidly to keep her eyes lubricated.
How on earth could Duncan be so close and not burn to a crisp?
Cupping her hands, she summoned cold, sweet water, then lifted them to her mouth to drink, keeping her eyes fixed on Duncan’s dark form. The chilled water quenched her thirst for the moment, and she splashed the rest on her warm cheeks. She almost called water for Duncan too, but knew she wasn’t allowed to help him. Not even by relieving what she was sure would by now be a powerful thirst.
Since the Test was clearly in Duncan’s favor, she needed a plan to get into that flame cave. A good plan. She hadn’t tried hail, or sleet, but if a powerful deluge of water
hadn’t worked, she doubted if the hard stuff would either.
Maybe Trey had had the right idea and found another, safer, way inside.
“Guess not,” she said out loud as Trey suddenly materialized beside Duncan. There was no other way into the cave but from here. If there had been, Trey would have been long gone. Clearly he was willing to throw his lot in with Duncan—at least until they were both inside.
Suddenly a flame-covered form jumped out of the fire and engulfed Trey; they tumbled to the ground, rolling and twisting, sparks shooting white and gold into the air. Duncan half turned, but another figure jettisoned out of the inferno and surrounded him with flames.
He—it—Lord, whatever it was—grabbed Duncan, lifting him off his feet, holding him ten feet above the ground, twirling him in arms of pure fire.
Serena sucked in a scream, paralyzed with fear as flaming hands danced and jumped across Duncan’s rotating body.
She could almost make out the outline of a man—head, broad shoulders, impossibly long arms and legs, a flame-thin torso. But it was no man who held him. Duncan was high in the air and there was nothing but fire in a human form manipulating his body.
Screw the Test!
Summoning a tropical downpour directly over Duncan, Serena ran toward him. But almost before it hit, the water instantly turned to steam as it encountered the flames supporting Duncan’s twisting form. God. Oh God. An exploding cloud of white vapor obliterated Duncan from view.
Once again trying to put out the fire with her water hadn’t made a damn bit of difference. Narrowing her eyes, she caused a hailstorm with one-inch balls of ice bombarding the Fire Ghoul. They melted and turned instantly to a thick fog.
“Duncan!” Frantic, she magically dispersed the haze just in time to see his body slammed down to the hard packed earth like a broken rag doll. Serena’s body jerked with the impact of the drop. God, he must have broken every bone in his body.
Duncan. She couldn’t push his name through her dry lips. Oh, God. Duncan…
He leapt to his feet. Thank God. He was okay—What the—Damn idiot was trying to fight the fire man with his fists! Like that was going to do any freaking good!
