Court the Fire (Son of Rain #3)

by Michelle Irwin

  “Apparently he thought it would be bad PR if this sort of truth to get out.”

  Eth issued a low whistle. Then, before saying another word, he used his cell phone to make a call.

  I frowned in confusion. “What—”

  He gave a small shake of his head to silence me before swallowing heavily when the call connected. “The fucker escaped me again, Dad.”

  He winked at me, and I shook my head. He could have at least warned me he was calling Dad.

  “She’s gone. The whole area is covered with fire.” He paused, no doubt listening to something Dad had to say. “No. There’s no way she could have survived. I think he sees that too. There’s something else. It was a wendigo that took those people.” He paused. “Nope we got it, but when I was cleaning up, Clay just took off. He was crying like a little girl, screaming about how he couldn’t stay if that creature wasn’t around. It was pretty pathetic really.”

  I gave him the finger, and he stifled a laugh.

  “I’ll try, but I don’t think we’ll see him again for a while.” He finished off the call after a few more similar remarks degrading my manhood.

  “You’re such an asshole,” I said after he’d hung up.

  He shrugged. “I had to make it convincing. If I said you skipped off singing a merry tune, I doubt he’d have believed me.”

  I was going to reluctantly thank him for getting Dad off my back, but our conversation was cut off by Katie’s reappearance.

  She gave Eth a scorching look that promised a reunion of sorts sooner rather than later, before turning back to me. “Your girl is in recovery. Besides the obvious cuts and bruises, she’s severely dehydrated and has a sprained ankle. If her fever breaks, the doc thinks she’ll be fine.”

  I couldn’t help smiling. If the fever was the doctor’s only concern, Evie would be just fine. “Can I go see her?”

  After nodding, Katie gave me the room number. She and Eth launched straight into a conversation about their past, and Eth mentioned his arm, but I was too focused on getting to Evie to care about what either of them said.

  CHAPTER SIX

  I PUSHED OPEN the door, desperate to confirm for myself that Evie was okay.

  The machine beside her bed beeped a quiet rhythm, which was almost soothing because it proved that Evie’s heart was beating regularly. She didn’t have the feeding tubes and ventilator that had been present the last time she’d ended up in the hospital, which I took as a positive sign.

  Despite that, it still killed me to see her looking so fragile. It was a reminder that for all of her strength, for her ability to start fires and kill wendigos without any external weapon, she was still vulnerable. She could still die, and not necessarily at the hands of the Rain.

  That knowledge scared the living shit out of me. I could have easily lost her forever. For the next hour, I watched as she appeared to hover close to the surface of consciousness. She tossed and turned a few times, issuing a small moan or cry as she did.

  “Relax,” I murmured each time. Unable to resist touching her in some way, I would brush her hair back whenever her restlessness caused it to fall across her face. When she woke, it was with a start and a painful shout on her lips. I wanted to pull her into my arms, but with the injuries all over her body, I didn’t want to risk hurting her. Instead, I repeated the one word that seemed to have become a mantra while I sat a vigil at her bedside. “Relax.”

  At first, she seemed disoriented, but soon panic overtook her, and she tried to convince me that we needed to leave. There was no way in hell I was going to let her run now though. After her collapsing on me, I was determined to make her stay for as long as the hospital would continue to give her a room and I deemed it safe. She obviously needed the rest and the fluids.

  To help alleviate her panic, I worked to convince her that no one was coming to find her any time soon—hoping like hell that I was right even as I said the words. It was clear she questioned my sanity and judgment, but I tried to make her understand.

  “Let’s just say you have more than one ally now, Evie,” I reassured her. “Things have changed, in ways I never could have imagined, but that give me so much hope. If the momentum continues, it could mean a whole new life.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  I struggled to find the right words to explain the fact that Eth had finally seemed to be coming around, trying to convince myself just as desperately. I explained that when you saved a man’s life, he couldn’t help but be indebted.

  She frowned and lifted her hand to touch my cheek. “There was never a choice but to save your life. I still don’t see how that changes anything though.”

  I chuckled. Throwing herself at the wendigo to save Eth and me was just so ingrained in her that she didn’t understand how monumental it was. She didn’t think anything of it.

  Just as I was trying to find the words to explain what I actually meant, Eth’s voice came from behind me. “He meant me.”

  The monitor beeping the precious rhythm of her heart went a little wild, proving that she was still afraid of Eth. For a moment, I debated throwing him out of the room. I didn’t want anything to stress her out so soon after her blackout. Before I could, Eth started explaining his turnaround, and did a better job than I ever could.

  Seeing Eth and Evie talking, really communicating, for the first time ever, made me feel more optimistic than I had in a very long time. Evie had once told me that I had an interesting way of looking at the world, a positive attitude she’d never before encountered. At some point over the intervening years, that optimism had been well and truly beaten out of me. I could almost feel it being reborn in the face of the potential truce between the two of them.

  There were a few tense moments as they talked, edging closer to issues Eth still had and worries Evie wore openly. Eth revealed the truth about her father’s death, something I’d always been too afraid to confirm for myself. It shouldn’t have surprised me that Lou had been the one to pull the trigger, but somehow it saddened me more than I could have expected. Even though we obviously weren’t identical twins, we’d shared so much for so long it hurt to think of her deliberately hurting someone so important to Evie.

  Eth pushed Evie for information about some of the other deaths linked to her file. I wanted to tell him to back off, but bit my tongue. So long as Evie continued to handle his inquisition as well as she was, it was probably better to get everything out in the open. For him to hear the truth from her mouth. Maybe then, Eth could satisfy himself that she really didn’t—couldn’t—hurt anyone.

  “You really didn’t do it?” Eth asked. His voice was still skeptical, but warming.

  “I assumed it was the Rain.”

  “It wasn’t us,” Eth said. I could practically hear the eye-roll in his tone. Oddly, his slightly snippy tone was enough to put me at ease. It wasn’t anger or even irritation. It was the same sarcasm he’d used on me many times, and confirmed for me that he’d already adopted a friendlier attitude toward her than I could have hoped for. “That isn’t how we do things. We’re not murderers.”

  Evie’s doubt about his statement was clear on her face, but she chose to keep it quiet. “It wasn’t me. Even though someone seems to be trying their hardest to make it appear that I’m a killer, that thing today, was the first . . . the first time I’ve . . . I’ve ever . . .” Evie’s breathing sped, and her skin started to warm.

  I offered what comfort I could as the full understanding of what she’d done must have been settling over her. She’d consciously chosen to kill another being and was now struggling with that choice—even though it had been intent on killing us.

  “Oh God!” She gagged, but her empty stomach offered nothing in response. If her obvious stress didn’t show Eth how far from a cold-blooded killer she was, nothing ever would. Her body continued to heat as she started to hyperventilate.

  “Hey,” I murmured, trying to calm her. “You had no choice. It was kill or be killed.”

  The
last thing we needed was for her to react in fear and set the hospital bed aflame. Eth might not have been as forgiving about that.

  “Maybe,” she whispered back, not sounding even remotely convinced.

  “What about Lou?” Eth asked.

  I clenched my fists in response. He fucking knew that Evie never killed Lou. It was all just bullshit, and yet here he was throwing it at her as justification for his previous anger and fear. Before I could tell him to back off, Evie was already talking.

  “I never . . .” She stopped as tears glistened in her eyes. “I hated myself when I thought I’d killed her. That fire was an accident. If . . . if she hadn’t poured gasoline everywhere, it might have been different. It’s why I ran from Clay—I didn’t see how he could possibly forgive me for destroying his family. I never intended to hurt her. I-I tried to warn her. I told her to get out, but she wouldn’t. She didn’t.” Evie’s speech had dissolved into sobs by the end.

  It took everything I had in me to wait patiently for Eth to see for himself what I understood—what I’d known for so long. It was easy to see the guilt that Evie had taken onto herself even though it was Lou who had set up the circumstances for such total destruction.

  “There—” Evie cut off and took a stuttering breath. When she started again, she spoke with more confidence, revealing more than I’d ever expected but exactly what Eth needed to hear. “There is a part of me that I can’t control when I’m threatened with death, but I could never hurt another person on purpose.”

  He believed her; it was clear in his relaxed stance and soft smile. I wanted to cry hallelujah to the heavens that he finally believed that she wasn’t the monster he had assumed she was for so long.

  It became apparent that even having Eth on Evie’s side wasn’t going to change much. Lou would never have the turnaround that he’d had. And Dad was more than a lost cause—he hated all others even more than the rest of us. In fact, talk soon turned to Lou, about her crazy vendetta and whether it was possible that she might have been the one who’d killed the people whose deaths had been blamed on Evie.

  “I just wish I knew how to make her see reason,” I said. Although that nurse was killed without anyone else in the room. How could even Lou make that happen?

  “It’s hard to trust a monster,” Eth murmured.

  Evie flinched, and I wanted to reassure her that Eth’s words weren’t said with malice. He was telling her how brilliant she was. Even though it was hard, he trusted her—at least, as much as we could hope he would for now.

  “I’ve been wrong about you, and when I’m wrong I admit it,” he said as he moved further into the room and offered Evie his uninjured hand. “I wish I could promise things will change, but I don’t think it will be that easy. I just don’t think it can.”

  When Evie took his hand and shook it, I could have choked with joy. It was something I’d wished for so many times over the years but something I’d never truly thought I’d see.

  “I’m sorry for any pain my family has caused you,” Eth added.

  Dragging her fingers from Eth’s grip, Evie reached over and entwined them with mine.

  “Your family hasn’t only brought me pain,” she whispered with such love and reverence that I couldn’t do anything but offer her a loopy smile. Things were going to get better. They had to.

  When Eth left a few minutes later, he’d promised to give Evie a stretch of time alone with me. I had no idea what he meant or how he planned to do it, but when he asked that we give him two days to arrange it, I was willing to give it to him.

  Once upon a time, I might have thought it was a ploy to gain my confidence just to find a new way to attack Evie, but he’d used the same tone he had whenever he was bailing me out. The same one he’d used when we’d come to our understanding years earlier, where we agreed he’d take the lead whenever we hunted the creatures I couldn’t destroy.

  I actually wondered whether his new insight about Evie would cause him to rethink hunting all others. Regardless, I was happy that he would leave Evie alone. It might have been selfish, but ultimately it was her safety that was my biggest concern.

  Once Eth was gone, the atmosphere in the room lightened considerably. Neither Evie nor I had any reason to be on tenterhooks with each other, not now that the hurts, heartaches, and misunderstandings of the past were behind us. At least, we didn’t until she told me where her plan to leap from the cliff had originated. With a sheepish admission, she told me something Eth had said had given her the inspiration. “Ethan said I couldn’t have survived the jump unless I sprouted wings and flew away.”

  To say I was stunned would be the understatement of the century. Actually, I was pissed. I couldn’t believe she’d be so stupid to risk her life on such a throwaway statement. She had no way of knowing she’d be safe, outside of her belief that she “knew the limits of her body.”

  I could have lost her so easily.

  My bewilderment and irritation were probably both printed clearly on my face. “You do realize that you aren’t actually a bird, don’t you?”

  She gave a quiet chuckle as she rolled her eyes. “Yes, I am in fact aware of that. But the sunbird is . . . or was . . . before we became what we are, if you know what I mean. I don’t really understand it all, but she heated the air to save me.” She laughed. The sound was so carefree and wonderful that it broke through my anger and concern and made me feel a little lightheaded.

  I couldn’t help but chuckle in response.

  “I have absolutely no idea,” I admitted. “And if you’d told me that plan before you did it, I wouldn’t have let you do it.”

  “I’m glad I didn’t tell you then, because it worked. At least, in a roundabout way it did. I’m sorry I didn’t come to you when you first called out to me.”

  “And run straight back to the person who held a gun to your head? I can understand that. I’m actually glad you didn’t, because it means you have at least some sense of self-preservation despite throwing yourself from a cliff.”

  After a while, having effectively destroyed the conversation with concerns over my sister and justifying my faith in my brother, I convinced her to try to rest. She patted the bed beside her, inviting me to join her. Even though the hospital bed was tiny, smaller even than her single bed back in Charlotte, it was an invitation far too good to resist. I wrapped my hand around hers and waited until she’d fallen asleep.

  Even though I didn’t need any sleep myself, I was content to just lie beside her and listen to the music provided by the regular rhythm of the heart monitor.

  A SIGNIFICANT “anonymous” donation to the hospital ensured that Evie could stay for as long as required without having to complete insurance forms.

  Because of the heat in her body, high-grade antibiotics were pumped into her regularly, and she was still hooked up to the heart monitor. It was impossible to explain to the doctors that there was nothing wrong with her, which I could see eventually causing an issue.

  So far, I’d been able to buy off the nurses, but if Evie’s “fever” didn’t break soon, the doctor would demand more extensive testing and who knew what that would show. For all I knew, her unique nature might be evident in any bloodwork she had done.

  Over the next two days, whenever Evie slept, I contacted Eth as regularly as I dared after the story he’d given Dad. When I asked him what he was arranging, he just told me to wait and see. He finally returned with an envelope bearing the Rain seal and containing everything we needed to escape back to Europe.

  It almost seemed too much for him to have arranged by himself, and I would have been worried that he’d had to call in some help from sources who might still view Evie as a threat, except I was aware of his significant reach outside of the Rain.

  Somehow, maybe because he was always brutally honest about what he wanted and unashamed about his man-whoring ways, he remained friends with a significant portion of the women he fell into bed with. That network of ex-lovers served him with contacts in so many in
terests. Add in all the people he’d befriended because of his boisterous personality, and he could organize practically anything without ever involving another Rain operative.

  Dad frowned, but he let it slide because Eth was one of his good children. If I’d attempted to build a similar ring of contacts, it would have been smashed to bits long ago.

  Trusting in Eth’s turnaround, I was ready to follow his instructions to the letter. There was little doubt in my mind that he finally understood I would fight to the death to save Evie. He didn’t want me to be hurt, and he’d seen firsthand how utterly Evie’s demise would destroy me.

  After he’d passed on the information he wanted, he left, but not before giving me a meaningful look that indicated he wanted to talk more to me when I had some time alone.

  When Evie had fallen back to sleep after Eth’s visit, I took a moment to call Zarita on her private line in Cyprus.

  “Young Master Clay, to what do I owe the pleasure of an actual conversation?”

  My lips broke into a ready smile as I said the words I’d longed to tell her since I’d reunited with Evie. “I found my heart.”

  “Did your information impress her?” Her question brought to mind our conversations at her small house in Cyprus. The whole time I’d been in Europe, I’d had to walk a tightrope between revealing enough information to convince Zarita to help me, without giving away the fact that the legends she researched were actually true. Considering we’d never had any major moments where she questioned my sanity, I could only assume I did okay.

  I chuckled. “You could say that. We’re together again.”

  “What about your family?” She knew the rest of my family was in the Rain, and that they’d made Evie’s life difficult and split us apart.

  Talking to Zarita was a reminder once more of how much had improved in just the last few days.

  “Things might be changing there, but I still want to get her out of the country for a while, which is why I’m calling. I need to ask for another favor.” I’d already asked so many of her, it was unfair to ask for more, but I was willing to be selfish to keep Evie safe.