by Claire Davon
Easing her back, he put her on her feet and then rose. Even at her height he was an impressive half-foot taller than her, and her eyes widened. She touched his chest, and his skin rippled.
Concern beat through his mental signature. Rachel understood that he didn’t know, once the primal part of him took over, if he’d have any gentleness in him. “Show me what you want,” he demanded. “Come here.” He kissed her hard. “Rachel, once you give yourself to me, there’s no going back.”
She kissed his neck and wound her hand into his hair. “No stopping, Aleric. I want you so much.”
“Maybe as much as I want you. Maybe. I doubt it.”
He strode with her to the California king bed that dominated the bedroom, taking up almost the entire room. The soft cotton sheets were smooth against her skin. His knees made indentations on the mattress when he carefully laid her down.
Phoenix lit some candles by waving his hand toward the tapers set in old crystal holders.
Rachel leaned into his hand and there was no more talking. Uttering a low growl, Phoenix took her lips, molding his to hers before sliding his tongue into her already open mouth.
He was pulling off her shirt as he did so, only releasing her lips to motion to her to rid herself of her shirt and bra, tugging his own shirt off as he did so.
Rachel did as he asked, quickly, wanting to feel his naked skin against hers. Once she was bare to the waist, she ran her hands over his broad, muscular chest, loving the feel of his warm skin.
Then she forgot about anything except the wet feel of Phoenix’s lips and tongue on her nipples. His lips were hard and fierce, drawing her into his mouth and suckling deep on her. She felt it all the way to her core, soaking her panties and making her moan.
“Rachel, next time I promise I’ll make it last, but I want to be inside you right now,” he said after he tore his head away from her breasts. “I’ve waited for so long.”
“Yes.” She fumbled for his zipper, and he stopped her hands.
“Better let me,” he said on a groan. “I’m very…ready. Get naked.”
She slid her hand over his jeans, marveling at his length and obvious erect status. “Yes, you are,” she said. “So am I. I’m wet and ready for you.” She undid the zipper of her jeans and slid them and her panties off simultaneously. Phoenix followed suit, shoving his jeans off his body with shaking fingers, and stepping out of them.
Phoenix’s breathing grew shallow, a harsh sound in the otherwise quiet room. Flickers of candlelight danced across his face, throwing his eyes first into shadow and then into light, their blazing intensity apparent.
“Oh, God,” he ground out. “Come here.”
He was impressive, even in candlelight, that large, well-toned body flexing as he moved over her. She gasped at his fully erect cock and swallowed. “Wow,” she said, a little in dismay.
“Trust me.” He touched her, using her moisture to caress her, opening her to him.
“Now, Aleric, now,” she begged, throwing her head back.
He growled again and moved so that the head of his cock was just penetrating her. Giving her a minute to adjust, he slowly pushed inside her a little at a time, letting her body get used to his bulk.
The pleasure was piercing, overwhelming, and Rachel clawed at him. Phoenix reared back and began biting her, hard nips of her skin that enflamed her. Rachel returned the nips, biting and sucking at his skin. Phoenix’s eyes began to faintly glow. With a hoarse cry, he grabbed her hands and threw them above her head, stretching her out against him.
“Aleric!” she cried, feeling the surge in her body and realizing she was about to climax. “Oh God, Aleric.”
“Yes!” he shouted. “Now!”
He plunged into her, all the way, and Rachel screamed. The climax that rode her was fierce and intense, filling her rippling body and mind with such concentrated pleasure she was a little scared. Then Phoenix was roaring, his hands tight on hers and his body shaking. With one final, wild shout, Phoenix came, and the intense pleasure caused Rachel to climax again.
“I bet all of San Francisco heard that,” she said when she could speak.
A half-amused grunt came from his lips. Moving slightly, he released her hands and leaned on his elbows to meet her eyes. “Probably. I was shielding but I may have…lost control there at the end.” He was still breathing heavily, perspiration dotting his forehead and chest.
“Good.” She put her arms around his waist and held him.
With a sigh, Phoenix lowered himself beside her, his head next to hers. His brown curls spilled over the pillow, and Rachel reached up and idly twined one over her index finger. “A thousand years,” he murmured.
She moved, propping her head up with her hand. “A thousand years for what? No sex?”
He chuckled, the sound muffled by the expensive cotton sheets. “Hell no. I’m not designed that way. I have an understanding with the Dhampirs, and they supply what I need when I need it.”
She added Dhampir to the checklist of paranormals to google when the morning came.
He traced circles on her back absentmindedly. The sweat had cooled, leaving her slightly chilled.
Except where Phoenix touched her. Fire danced under her skin at the caress of his fingers, and she grew moist again. No lover had ever affected her this way.
Then again, no lover she’d ever had before was a thousand-year-old incarnation of one of the oldest supposed myths of the human race. It was probably fair to assume Phoenix had had a great deal of time to hone his skills. And being the Elemental related to fire—of course he would set her body ablaze.
His hand stilled and then he was pressing a kiss at the base of her neck. Rachel shivered, feeling the kiss all the way down to her toes. “You didn’t mind my skills a little while ago.”
Damn it. She had to learn to shield fully. “I didn’t, Aleric. I’m still adjusting.”
“Good.” The bed yielded to his body as he stretched out fully. Placing another kiss on her neck, he looked deeply into her eyes, stroking her hair.
Rachel immediately warmed up, her body heating.
“Shielding is white noise, Rachel. The easiest way is to make up a nonsense song or string of words that you can use to mask your thoughts.”
“Like my nursery rhyme.”
“That works. Practice it until you can maintain it while you are doing other things. You should have a few, just in case.” Tracing her cheek with his thumb, he put his fingers under her jaw and lifted her head to his. “What you need to do is make it so it’s automatically part of your mind. You need to keep it running at all times, even if it’s subconscious. That way if you need it, you can instantly shield.”
She put her hand over his and laced her fingers with his. “I’ll try,” she promised. “I can’t say I’ll be perfect tomorrow.”
“You’re mine now, Rachel,” he said suddenly, meeting her eyes. “Mine.” He said it again, fiercely.
She saw a fire in his eyes she had no idea how she had inspired.
“Don’t you know?” An image of the intense physical release he had felt shot through her, and she first trembled and then laughed.
“Mine,” he said again and pulled her close, tilting her face to his.
* * * * *
Finally. Finally. Finally Ron was going to get to do something. He had been itching to do something, and finally the being had given him another task.
It wasn’t much. It wasn’t nearly as much as he wanted to do, or what he understood his ultimate task to be, but it was something. Something to tide him over until the actual day came when he would get to use his guns. Hopefully guns plural, anyway. This would be a small something, but it would cause grief and destruction.
It was a pity he had to make it look like an accident. That was what the being had said. It had to look like an accident to humans.
It would be simple to do. Newspaper was easy to get, and once it caught, it would take the rags he’d bought at the thrift store with it. All he had to do was scatter it strategically around the apartment, make sure some candles were burning so it would look like they had caused it, light the newspaper and rags until they were blazing and get out.
He studied the address. It was just an apartment, with no apparent riches to recommend it. He wasn’t even allowed to loot it first. Just a lower middle-class apartment on the second floor of a block of apartments, near BART and shops but otherwise boring. He had no idea why the being would want to burn this place down, but she was. The reasons why didn’t matter.
Time to get started. Ron rubbed his hands together in glee. He loved fires.
Chapter Eight
Phoenix’s frown deepened as he flipped between channels on his huge wall-mounted plasma TV.
Rachel had thought he would be in the bed next to her, and was perversely disappointed that his side was already cold when she woke. Seeing another person there was a rarity, and she had wanted to enjoy the sight of his beautiful body sprawled out, naked.
Instead he was in a pair of drawstring shorts, his chest bare. His wavy hair was messy and had clearly not seen a comb yet that day.
She could tell the minute he became aware of her. His mind cleared, but his shields were still down, and both his mind and his body greeted her.
“Whatcha doing?” she asked, sitting down beside him.
“Clues,” he said simply. “We need clues.”
He put a hand on her knee, kissed her absently and turned his attention back to the TV. Bloomberg, then MSNBC, then Headline News flew past on the screen before he went to the smaller channels, a ritual he was repeating over and over again. The talking heads spoke of civil unrest in the Turkic republics, famine in Africa, the instability of the euro, the usual fare. Nothing that seemed to command his attention.
She had no idea how he was managing to sort through anything with the speed he was pressing the remote.
He repeated the process with the remote, going through the national and then the local channels.
The newscaster was talking about the visit of the Chicago mayor. Rachel pointed to the channel, her hand on his arm to stop his progress. “What about that?”
He frowned. “I don’t think she would have any impact one way or the other. We’re looking for something big, either human or natural, that has something to do with fire and my test.”
Phoenix began his rapid flipping again. The story shifted, the flash of a picture of a fire catching their attention.
“In local news, a fire that burned an apartment building in the early-morning hours does not appear to have been arson.”
She recognized that building. The char and black of the fire had mostly been confined to the second-floor apartment, which, from the brief news footage they were showing, appeared to be a total loss.
The newscaster was talking, but Rachel wasn’t hearing it. They had gotten her basic stuff out of the apartment, but she’d left plenty behind with the intent of going back later and either getting it or taking up residence there again and resuming her normal life.
No chance of that now. No chance of either.
She was aware that Phoenix was staring at her, but her gaze was fixed on the TV screen. Gone, all gone. From the footage it didn’t seem as if anything was left. Nothing left to get. Nothing left of her life.
Finally, he cleared his throat. “I’m sorry.”
She was frozen. The news had moved on, talking about the 49ers and other local sports while she sat there, her mind a whirl.
“Rachel.”
It was as if she were underwater. What if she had been there? What if JT had been there? What if she had been trapped in her bed, unable to escape the flames? What if, what if, what if?
“Rachel!”
His voice was loud and harsh, He gripped her shoulders and shook her.
“Rachel!”
His eyes were shadowed with worry and fear. Deeper, in the place he let few see, was a searing panic that he was trying to keep from her.
“You weren’t there, Rachel. You’re here. You and JT are safe.”
“What if?” She verbalized what her mind was screaming. With a shudder, she collapsed against him.
“Life is like that, Rachel. It’s an infinite series of ‘what ifs’. But it didn’t happen. The fire is a warning, that is clear, but you weren’t there. I’m sorry about your belongings, but they were just things.”
Tears came, tears of anger and fear. “It was my stuff,” she said through the clog in her throat, and hiccupped.
* * * * *
It wouldn’t be the last time she lost things, Phoenix thought grimly, feeling her body warm against his.
He continued to hold her, saying nothing, letting her cry. The tears weren’t just about her lost items. They were about everything she had lost and was continuing to lose. Tests were like that.
Tests like being Phoenix and going to the fire. It stripped you down to nothing and rebuilt you. If you survived the flames.
Her cell phone rang, startling both of them. It was a strange beep, unfamiliar to them both. Rachel dug in her purse and pulled out the blatting device.
“It’s an urgent call,” she said unnecessarily. “Probably the police. My phone was on vibrate, but they must have used an emergency beacon.”
Fire. It couldn’t be a coincidence that she was an Ifrit, linked by legend and modern-day truth to fire. There was no way that arson fire in her apartment was anything other than a warning from Haures.
The wolves had wanted her out of the picture too, trying to warn her off before she got involved. Why?
There had never been partners involved in Challenge before. It had always been the four Elementals against the Demonos. The paranormals, gods and other nonhumans mostly stayed on the sidelines. In the opinion of nonhumans, this war, the test, was between the two sets of powerful immortals and didn’t affect them. They would endure. The Demonos and Elementals employed humans, but in low-level tasks or, in the case of the Elementals, at their company.
Rachel was sniffling, but her voice was steady as she relayed information to the police. Phoenix smiled, remembering her heated passion under him. It had been a long time since he’d had a sexual encounter so satisfying. What would it be like when she had control over her fire? His mind danced with the possibilities the same way fire could dance over their bodies, alight but not consumed, heating but not burning. Alive.
He had learned not to get attached to things or to people. They were all transitory. Elementals had to be prepared to move at a moment’s notice. He had left more things behind than he could remember. Pets were gone in a blink of an eye, and an unnecessary complication. Humans lived longer, but not long enough. They were there, and then they were gone. Only the nonhumans stayed around long enough to form attachments, but most of them preferred to keep their distance from the Elementals. Links were rare. It had been centuries since he’d cared about anyone other than his fellow Elementals. The last time he had allowed a woman in, it had almost killed him.
Ifrits were few and kept to themselves. It would be vital to find out more. Perhaps as vital as facing Challenge.
“They’ll be over to take a statement la
ter. He said there was no sign of an accelerant, nothing that immediately shouted arson. He asked me if I could have fallen asleep with a cigarette, a lit candle…or gotten drunk and passed out with those things. Well, he didn’t say the last part, but I could read it in his thoughts.”
Phoenix paused the DVR. He rose and went to her.
“I…can we get out of here for a while? Go somewhere quiet?”
“Good idea. The police can wait. They will suspect your involvement but will have no way and no true desire to pursue it. They will never solve the fire and will write it off as an accident. Haures has a way of ensuring that.”
“You think it was Haures?”
“I know it was. Come. Let’s go.”
* * * * *
After a brief stop at a shopping mall to pick up supplies, Phoenix concentrated and was pleased when his wings appeared. They didn’t often cooperate. He handed Rachel the backpack, and she slung it over her shoulders. He soared with Rachel high into the clouds, catching a fast-moving current. Soon they were over Washington State and into the Olympic Mountains. After circling, he picked Mount Storm King, a low peak that was not that interesting to tourists. There was a faint dusting of snow at this elevation.
He found a spot that was very difficult for people to climb to, and landed about halfway up.
Pulling out a bottle of wine, Phoenix uncorked the wine and poured each of them a healthy measure into two small plastic cups Rachel had removed from the pack.
She cocked an eyebrow at Phoenix. “Are you sure you should be drinking this? Don’t drink and fly, isn’t that what they say?”
He leaned over and kissed her. “Remember, I metabolize alcohol in seconds,” he said. “I do like the taste of wine, though. Saxons didn’t worry about the quality. After a battle we wanted to get drunk, and fast.” He was quiet a minute. “My Challenge is always fire related. It could be war, bombs, explosions, not necessarily traditional fire. There aren’t any wars that concern me, although that could change in an instant. There haven’t been any more than the usual terrorist threats. No significant world leaders have been assassinated. Nonetheless, we have all felt it. Challenge is here.”
