Court the Fire (Son of Rain #3)

by Michelle Irwin

  “Hey, you!” Evie’s shout cut through the blurry world and brought it into sharp relief.

  For a moment, I thought she was calling to me, but her voice was filled with a threat. When my eyes finally focused, I saw her standing over me but looking at someone else—something else. My blood chilled as the memory of the wendigo twisting itself through a fissure in the rock struck me anew.

  Evie took a step away from me. “Care for something a bit sweeter?” Her voice held an almost taunting edge, and with a great effort, I turned to follow her gaze.

  The thin, gray beast reared further back and sniffed at the air. Thankfully though, it ignored her call. Instead, it concentrated on Eth, held firmly within the grasp of its thin gray fingers. Sharp, terrible fingernails pressed against his skin as it toyed with him.

  “I don’t think it recognizes you as its food,” I said to Evie. Each word was torture and felt impossible to force past loosened teeth and a tongue too big for my mouth, yet my relief over the statement compelled me to issue them.

  Evie blessed me with a smile that was brighter than the sun. I expected her to fall at my side, to help me to my feet, something—anything—so that I could be useful.

  Instead, she said, “Well, maybe it will recognize me as a threat.”

  Almost as soon as the words were free, she started to move away.

  “Don’t!” I sat up, ignoring the throb in my head and the spots that crossed my eyes as I did, and grabbed for her. She was already preparing for battle and was so hot it was hard to touch her. I couldn’t make the mistake I had the night before though; I couldn’t let her take the risks. I had to hold on tight regardless of what damage doing so caused. “I already lost you once in the last twenty-four hours. I don’t think I could handle it again.”

  She turned with a gentle smile, brushed the hair back off my forehead, and trailed her fingers over the corners of my lips before promising me that she wasn’t going anywhere. I wanted so badly to believe her, but the vision of the wendigo consuming her—the image from the dreams I’d had so many years ago—haunted me, and I was unwilling to let the issue go without an argument.

  Eth called for help, and the spell between us was broken as she moved to help him.

  The crackle of fire filled the air as she readied herself to move away. I wanted to push myself off the ground to at least try to be useful, but my swimming head left it difficult to even stay seated. I had to watch on helplessly as she threw herself at the beast.

  Unused to such direct confrontation from an unarmed assailant, the wendigo appeared confused by her actions, and then its instincts seemed to make it react, forcing it to relinquish the hold on Eth.

  “Run! Help Clay!” Evie shouted to Eth as she pushed off on her good leg. She stumbled as her injured ankle gave way beneath her.

  “Evie, no!” Eth barreled into me, knocking the wind from my chest and silencing the words before they were formed. He pushed me away from the creature, half dragging me to a spot a safe distance away. Breaking loose of his hold, I rolled onto my stomach and tried to fight through the vertigo the movement had caused. I couldn’t get to my feet fast enough to do anything to help Evie, but when I glanced up to ensure she was still alive, I saw that she didn’t need any assistance anyway.

  Despite the sounds of struggle and screaming, which had made everything so urgent just moments earlier, Evie was in complete control of the situation. She’d focused the heat of her fire into her fingers and was forcing flames against the tinder-like skin of the wendigo.

  The shrieks belonged to the beast, who was trying to shake her hold, and not to Evie. A smile crossed my lips and the sight of her absolute power and control made me more than a little aroused, at least until I heard Eth beside me.

  “Badass!” Eth’s voice was a low whisper beside me, but it gave me a hope I’d barely dared to consider before. As desperately as I longed for the day my family would accept that Evie wasn’t a threat, I’d never honestly believed it would happen. Hearing the awe in my brother’s voice, without any trace of fear to lessen it, was astonishing. If nothing else, it was the first real step in the right direction.

  Evie pushed herself off the beast, leaving it to die in the flames she’d set. We were safe. And soon, we’d be free—only Eth stood between us and freedom.

  When Evie stood, I noticed her skin was paler than I’d ever seen it—almost like all of her blood had drained away. She took a step away from the creature, moving to return to me, but her ankle twisted beneath her. An indrawn breath was the last sound she made before her eyes rolled back in her head and she fell forward over the fire-ravaged body of the wendigo.

  “Evie!” I screamed, throwing off the vertigo and pain, and launched myself across to her. Eth was at my side in a heartbeat, helping to draw Evie away from the fire that would destroy her just as surely as it had the wendigo. The instant she was clear of the flames, I assessed her condition as best as I could. She was barely breathing, and her heartbeat was slow and weak.

  “She needs a hospital,” I said.

  “I have to let Dad know that we found the cause of the deaths,” Eth murmured. “That the case is closed.”

  “No. You have to help me first. We have to help Evie,” I said. Tears sprung to my eyes at the thought of how close she might be to death. I needed to get her to a doctor. “Please, just help me get her back to the car.”

  He glanced between Evie and me.

  “Please?” I begged.

  His mouth pressed into a hard line, but then he nodded. With his assistance, I bundled Evie’s unconscious form into my arms and carried her as swiftly as I could back through the forest. The journey to the car felt at least three times as long as it had taken to get to where Evie had fallen.

  When we got to the car, he opened the door for me and helped me to secure her across the backseat. I moved straight to the driver side and grabbed the keys from behind the visor as I settled into the seat.

  “Clay, wait,” he said. I thought he was going to argue that I needed to return to the motel—to Dad—but he didn’t. Instead, he reached into the car and popped the hood.

  Anxious to get moving and worried about what he might do to the car, I climbed back out and followed him. “What are you doing?”

  He was already bent over inside the engine bay. As I neared him, he reached into his pocket and pulled out his small utility knife.

  By the time I reached him, he had the knife in the engine bay and was cutting something. I yanked on his shoulder, certain he was trying to disable the car.

  “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” I repeated.

  When I’d twisted his body away from the engine, the thing he’d been cutting broke away. It was still in his hand when he looked at me. I recognized the small box as the GPS tracker for the vehicle and guilt over my doubt filled me.

  “I . . . I didn’t want Dad to catch up with you while she’s like that.” He nodded toward Evie, who was still passed out in the backseat. He tossed the unit into the long grass that lined the road.

  I nodded in thanks, overwhelmed at the fact that he was willing to help me but conscious that every second I delayed getting her to a doctor could prove deadly for her. “Sorry, I just . . . I need to get her to a hospital.”

  “Look, monster or not, she just saved my life. Will you let me help return the favor? We can work out the details later.”

  “I can’t lose her . . .,” I murmured.

  “I know.” He placed his hand on my shoulder before indicating that I should get into the passenger seat. “I know somewhere we can take her, and I’ll get us there quicker. You just do what you can for her in the meantime, okay?”

  He made a phone call as he drove, holding the phone between his shoulder and head rather than putting it on speaker. It put me on edge, but nothing he said indicated that he was selling us out to the Rain. Instead, it sounded like he was setting up a little reunion of his own.

  “Where are we going?” I asked when he thr
ew his cell onto the dash.

  “There’s a nurse I dated once, down in Knoxville. She’ll help us get Evie the care she needs without drawing unwanted attention. It’s a bit of a drive, but if we can avoid the cops, we should get there in about half an hour.” Despite the speed he was forcing from the car, he drove with so much confidence that he only had one hand on the wheel. His left hand rested in his lap. As much as I wanted to tell him to be careful, to use two hands, I didn’t want to push my luck while he was being helpful. Besides, I’d seen him drive more powerful cars faster with less concern.

  I reached over into the backseat and brushed my fingertips across Evie’s forehead, checking her temperature before pressing against her wrist to feel for her pulse. It was still weak but was much stronger than it had seemed when I’d checked it the first time. She stirred a little, her eyelids fluttered open and then closed as my name fell from her lips.

  “Relax, Evie, we’ll get you help before you know it.”

  Eth watched my tender ministrations with a strange look on his face. “She’s really never tried to hurt you?” he asked.

  I snorted in disbelief that he could even ask that after the display he’d just witnessed—she’d saved both our lives. “You saw what she did to that thing, Eth. Do you honestly think that I would’ve stood a chance against her if she’d really wanted to hurt me? Do you think that even you would’ve had a hope in hell of surviving against her if she’d turned on you instead of fleeing in Charlotte years ago?”

  He looked like he might argue, but I figured that was more to do with not wanting to admit his weakness rather than any true denial of her strength.

  “You’ve seen the files of what her mother did when she was cornered. You saw what happened to the apartment in Detroit when Lou forced her hand.” I pushed the issue because I hoped he might finally see what I’d been trying to make him understand for years. Evie was as far from evil as anyone could be.

  However, the crazed and continued hunt by my family had landed Evie back in the hospital. Again.

  There was no question where my loyalty lay. At that moment, and forever more.

  If I could get even one member of my family on our side though, it might help keep her safe.

  “But that’s my point,” he murmured. There was no malice in his tone, between that and the fact that he was currently in control of a vehicle traveling over a hundred miles an hour, I didn’t push but instead waited for him to continue. “She’s dangerous. Can you really guarantee that there isn’t any threat?”

  I turned the question back on him, the same way Toni once had to me. “How many creatures have you hunted?”

  He seemed surprised by my apparent rapid shift in conversation, but I had a point that I had yet to make.

  “Lost count?” I asked when he didn’t answer. “I know I have.”

  He shrugged. “So? They all deserved it.”

  I was willing to argue that point—especially the púca child that I’d left orphaned and he’d left dead—but I was wise enough to pick my battles. “If you were to shoot a creature in a city street, what would happen? Could you possibly kill innocent people? How about if you lost control of this car right now? Could someone die?”

  Finally grasping the real point of my question, he rolled his eyes. “That’s different.”

  “How? You’ve killed more often in your life than she has.”

  “Not humans though.”

  “How many humans has she killed?”

  He started to roll off a list of the names attached to her file.

  I held up my hand to stop him. “Wait a minute. Her own father’s death is linked to her, and you know she didn’t kill him. Why would you assume any of those other deaths are different? I know Evie, and I know she’s never hurt anyone. She never would. Like you said, she saved you. Even though she knew you would kill her sooner than look at her, she saved your life.” I glanced into the backseat at her pale form. “Possibly at the expense of her own.”

  He let a frustrated sigh escape his lips. “Don’t be so melodramatic. She’s not going to die.”

  I hoped to God he was right; I was certainly willing to draw on his optimism. “She couldn’t have known that when she attacked the Wendigo. You saw the look on her face as well as I did: sheer determination. She did what she had to in order to save us all.”

  “I can’t just turn a blind eye to the damage she could cause. We’ve done that once already and look where that got us.”

  “What? Louise cornering Evie in our own house is hardly turning a blind eye.” I grunted in frustration—just as I thought he might have been coming around, he fell straight back into the same thought patterns. “And by that logic, you might as well kill me too, and yourself. In fact, everyone in the Rain needs to die. We all have the same capacity to kill as she does. We’re probably worse because we don’t only do it when our lives are in danger.”

  “Look, I—”

  Not interested in hearing more bullshit and lies, I held up my hand to silence him. “Don’t! I don’t want to hear it.”

  I reached into the backseat and checked Evie’s vital signs again. Her pulse was strengthening; I only hoped it meant that she would be okay.

  “It’s just a lot to accept,” Eth said, breaking the awkward silence between us.

  “There are others like me who understand this.”

  “That Toni chick from London?”

  I was surprised he remembered her so readily, but was willing to use her as an ally in this argument. “Among others.”

  “You’re not going to change your mind about this, are you?”

  It was better to show him the evidence I found rather than try to convince him with more words. It was time for him to see things for himself, to understand what I’d found overseas. It would have to wait until he wasn’t driving. “No. And once Evie’s safe, I’ll show you why.”

  “Okay, Mr. Secretive, I’ll wait, but you owe me an explanation.”

  “And I’ll give it to you in exchange for your silence.”

  His lips mashed together as he nodded. “We’re almost there. Katie will meet us out front.”

  True to his word, we pulled up in front of a small private hospital. Standing in front of the building, with a gurney beside her, was a blonde nurse. Her scrubs pulled tight across her chest, stretched taut over a pair of fairly realistic, but slightly too round to be real, boobs. Her hair was pulled into a bun and her makeup was light. She was pretty enough that I would have believed that she’d just walked off the set of some medical drama rather than out of an actual hospital.

  “So you two dated?” I asked as Eth maneuvered the car into place.

  He gave a shit-eating grin. “Well, we had some pretty hot nights. That’s the same thing, right?”

  I chuckled, knowing I’d never be able to explain to him how wrong he was. Yes, hot sex was great—and I’d literally never had it hotter than with Evie—but there was more to dating than that. Being able to open up to someone else, to share parts of yourself that no one else could see, that was what was special about dating. If I breathed even one word of that to Eth though, he’d wonder whether my junk had retreated inwards to form a pussy. I couldn’t help it. Being with Evie made me sappy.

  As soon as we stopped, I jumped out and rushed to pull Evie from the car. She shifted in my arms, leaning into my chest, and moaned in a manner that made me wish it was a hotel and not a hospital I was taking her to. Despite the increase in the strength of her heartbeat and the fact that her skin was returning to her normal temperature, I still wanted her to be checked over by a professional.

  The nurse, Katie, led Evie away from us. Eth put his hand on my shoulder to stop me from racing after them. “Just wait here. They’ll let you in to see her soon.”

  It took every last bit of faith I’d ever had in him not to ignore his request.

  “Thank you for helping us,” I said. “It . . . it means a lot.” I turned to him. “Holy shit, what happened to your arm?”<
br />
  His left wrist had ballooned to at least three times its normal thickness.

  “It’s nothing.”

  The sight made the one-handed driving make so much more sense.

  Damn idiot. If he’d given me directions, I could have driven us.

  “It looks broken,” I said.

  “I’ll get Katie to look at it once she’s finished with Evie.”

  The name of my love uttered without an ounce of malice sounded strange from him. For so long, he’d thought of her as the enemy and treated her that way; now it was almost as if he referred to a friend. If he was willing to wait to have his injuries attended to, I was willing to share the information I’d been keeping hidden in plain sight.

  “Do you have your cell?”

  He gave me a look that questioned my mental capacity before tossing his handset to me. I called up the Rain databases using his login details and then opened the encrypted backend data I’d added to the lore on phoenixes.

  After I punched in the passcode I’d set to be able to access it, pages of research notes, mentions of their duty as a protector of their people, and a range of other information all opened for Eth to explore. I unlocked it all before throwing the cell phone back at him.

  He didn’t question my actions, just scrolled through the data I’d brought up. For a few minutes, he was silent as he read. “Is this for real?”

  “I got it all direct from the source myself,” I said, it was half a lie, but Eth didn’t need to know about Zarita’s involvement.

  “This is what Oxford was all about?”

  I swallowed heavily and nodded. “Some of that information came off items in Charles’ collection, which he’d had for over a decade. At least.”

  “Wow, so he was sitting on these items never knowing what was written on them?”

  I scoffed. “Oh, he knew.”

  “No shit.” Eth assessed me carefully, as if seeing me in a new light. I wondered whether it meant he saw that maybe I wasn’t as crazy as my family had always assumed.