The car’s warmth dissipated, a soft breeze cutting through my sweater and slithering across my naked neck. Tucking my hands into my pockets, I waited until Jamie barked before I turned around and opened the back door. An enormous Great Dane sprang free, gave himself a full-body shake, and shoved his nose to the mud to track unfamiliar scents.
“Hang on, Jamie. Let’s get your vest.”
I’d packed it with the rest of our cold-weather gear and retrieved it after shrugging into my coat. Jamie circled me, rubbing his tall shoulder against my hip, mouth open in delight. I swallowed a laugh when he started to sit, only to spring up when the cold ground met his bare tush.
“Remember, no feeding the frost moths or anything else we encounter,” I said, sliding the vest over his neck. He puffed air, blowing out his cheeks and flapping his lips. “I’ll take that to be your full consent.” Squeezing my arms around him, I smoothed the Velcro closed around his torso. “Too tight?”
He shook his head, hot salami-scented breath fanning my face. I gave his side a pat and prayed he’d behave.
Niko stood by the open trunk, snapping into waterproof pants, his dark eyes missing nothing of our exchange. I donned my scarf, beanie, and gloves, repositioning my soul breaker on top of my coat, in easy reach. Then I ran inventory. Knife at the small of my back: check. Pet wood in an easy-access pocket: check. Val against my hip: check. Palmquell in my left hand, lighter in my right: check and check.
Niko pulled a small ice chest from the trunk and slung a backpack over his shoulders. He’d finished his ensemble with a black lightweight jacket zipped to his chin and black beanie pulled down low over his forehead and ears. Like me, he had selected clothing to blend in at night. Or maybe he’d picked his outfit because it accentuated his badass vibe. Decked out in a similar amount of black, I achieved, at best, a stark, washed-out look that might make people hesitate.
“It’s this way.” Niko led us up a gravel driveway. “Stick close when we pass the house, Jamie. People around here tend to shoot loose dogs.”
“What?” I grabbed Niko’s sleeve to pull him to a halt. “Why didn’t you—”
Niko’s subtle head shake dried up my protest. Oh.
“Jamie, come here,” I said to capitalize on Niko’s ploy to prevent Jamie from roaming too far.
Tail tucked, Jamie trotted to my side. I rested a hand on his shoulders and we walked close enough to trip each other. The pooka kept lux lucis spread along his shoulder and back, and his head swung to and fro, likely looking for snipers in the trees.
We climbed the long driveway cut into the side of a hill, rounded the corner—and the enchanted white forest vanished. Bland gray rolled across the hillside, punctured by ragged gray trunks against the black backdrop of the sky. I blinked to normal sight, and the hill splashed black with soot, the charred trunks all that remained of a once-thriving forest.
Niko selected a bulldozed path off the driveway, avoiding the cottage set atop the hill. Five glorious oaks stood like sentries around it, guarding the home from complete desolation. The warm glow of the windows attested to occupants who’d come within feet of losing their most prized possessions.
“Isabel did this?” I asked, my breath frosting in the air. My boots sank an inch into the mud with each step, and Jamie’s toes made soft suction sounds beside me.
“She claimed these fires were accidents, started by salamanders that escaped during transport. It’s a little too convenient how they wiped out the homes of the most prominent prajurit clans in the area, though.”
“Please tell me Isabel spends her days somewhere damp and cold, forced to listen to nonstop Red Hot Chili Peppers on full blast while being repeatedly inflicted with paper cuts.”
“That’s very specific,” Niko said.
“It’s the worst I can think of at the moment.”
All thoughts of revenge vanished at the next bend in the path. The hillside dropped into a steep descent a mile or more into the canyon, opening the view all the way down to the American River and miles in every direction. Greenery poked through the decimated hillside to the north, where the remains of the fire met a wall of living forest. Snow dusted the next closest ridge, and the peaks beyond were coated white. To the south, endless blackened hills rolled toward the horizon, fog forming and dissipating in hypnotic twists above the wasteland. The river roared through the canyon, the sound muted by distance and the foaming torrents a mere sparkle among the shadows. Across the gap, a lush forest climbed the opposite hillside.
Unimpeded, a blast of arctic wind buffeted the hillside, stinging my eyes. I tucked my chin into my scarf and blinked to Primordium.
My heels dug into the mud and I clutched Jamie’s vest. Flurries of ice-blue moths swirled across the ruined landscape and ghosted in blizzards of frosted wings on the drafts swirling through the canyon. Like mutant spores or a grotesque fungus, they clustered on burnt trees, adding bright splotches to the lifeless gray husks or coating the entire column, their wings so dense as to appear a single, fluttering entity.
“There must be a hundred of them. Thousands,” I breathed. If a handful in Roseville could keep the temperatures near freezing, this many could incite a blizzard on a cloudless day. I glanced skyward, but in Primordium, I couldn’t see the clouds thickening above us. I crossed my fingers that they’d hold tight and save their snow for the mountains.
“Come on,” Niko said.
We forged our own trail along the edge of the burned forest, angling away from the cottage toward the next ridge and the lux lucis–filled trees at the peak. Jamie swung his head back and forth, then bolted down the hill.
“Jamie!” The canyon swallowed my cry.
The pooka glanced over his shoulder, his tongue flapping from his mouth as he ran. Then he stuck his nose to the ground and wound through the blackened stumps. I should have been more specific when I’d made him promise to stay within sight. I hadn’t planned on having acres of open space. If he ranged too far, I wouldn’t be able to reach him in time if he got in trouble.
“Is there really any danger of homeowners shooting him?”
Niko tracked Jamie with narrowed eyes, his expression closed. “It’s unlikely. Most of what’s burned is federal land. He should be fine.” Selecting a moderately clean, flat boulder, he deposited the ice chest and his backpack.
“Stay near the tree line where you can refuel,” he instructed. “I’ll go this way; you go that way. Stay in sight, but let’s put some distance between us.”
His smile, there and gone almost too fast to see, ignited a stinging blush in my cheeks. He wanted space between us so I wouldn’t tackle him if the frost moths fed on me.
“Don’t flatter yourself.”
Niko widened his eyes in an attempt at innocence that fell flat on his masculine face.
I spun on a heel and marched away. Slick mud tried to toss me on my butt, and I stumbled through several sliding steps before catching my footing again. Tugging my coat straight, I lifted my chin and pretended I couldn’t hear Niko’s chuckles.
The moths lifted from their dead perches, fluttering to feast on our souls. I caught the first four before they landed on me, snatching them from the air in a net and melting them before they took more than a mouthful of lux lucis. The next three slurped from my soul as they died, pulsing warmth through my limbs. Then they came too fast to count.
Their sheer numbers robbed me of any chance of finesse. I abandoned my target-practice plans; the moths didn’t permit a spare second between attacks to allow me to aim. As it was, I couldn’t prevent being fed upon by those I netted; I could only limit my exposure to the moths’ mood-modifying bites, and I alternated between melting trapped moths and chasing the rest from my body. To avoid being mobbed, I zigzagged across the slippery hillside, staggering into the gritty masts of dead pines and churning ash and charred bark into the mud. The frost moths pursued me with methodical relentlessness, never permitting me a breather.
I existed in a state of irritatio
n. Since my evasive maneuvers inevitably carried me downhill and all the living trees stood at the hill’s crest, every refueling required an arduous hike. By the end of the first hour, my boots pinched, my head hurt, my thighs burned, and my fingers had cramped around the lighter.
When my body’s pains weren’t consuming my thoughts, I ranted about Jamie’s behavior. I concocted a laundry list of punishments for his increasing disregard of my authority. I drafted manifestos of rules and regulations. I relished in shouting matches with him, all in the confines of my head. Keeping my mouth shut, holding my anger in, took all my strength, especially when Jamie galloped past, tirelessly exploring the burned acres as if he had damned wings on his feet while mine were weighted by rings of leaden mud.
But the worst was when I’d catch sight of Niko. One glimpse of his blazing soul and muscular grace, and all the frustration or fury burning my insides sparked against my attraction to him, igniting a hormonal bonfire that seared through reason. I lost track of the number of times I caught myself undressing Niko with my eyes, mentally choreographing graphic sexual fantasies, eyes glazed over, only to start back to reality with him watching me, his grin infuriatingly knowing. After a while, I started making faces at him—and widened the distance between us so he couldn’t see my blushes.
Niko earned his fair share of curses for dragging me into this torturous cleanup project, as did my parents for passing along a genetic cocktail that obligated me to fight atrum. For good measure, I lumped in the CIA for ever forming to put people like me into the line of fire. Let the norms deal with this mess. Can’t see the creatures attacking you? Tough. I couldn’t see germs, but I’d learned to wash my hands. The resilient would survive. Meanwhile, I could go back to a peaceful life somewhere safe and warm.
Why wouldn’t this moth in my net melt?
I pushed the flame closer. No corresponding warmth heated my glove.
Blinking to normal vision, I examined the minuscule flame flickering from the head of the lighter. According to the clear fuel gauge on the side, only droplets remained. Crap.
Collapsing the net, I chased the frost moth away with the pathetic flame. At least twenty more circled above me, snowy vultures that wouldn’t wait until I died to feed. Jamie trotted along the curve of the ridge at least a half mile away, too distant to assist me—if he would even bother to come when called. I had balked at testing his obedience because, despite my ridiculous moth-fueled fantasies, I hadn’t determined a punishment he couldn’t simply disregard. Balling my fists in annoyance, I searched the hillside, using my peripheral vision to locate Niko without allowing myself to really look at him. If anyone came prepared with extra lighters, it would be Mr. Controlled and Competent himself.
I broke into a weary jog, eyes on the moths. When one swooped close, I flicked the lighter on and scared it back, but otherwise I conserved my meager reserves. I’d never live down what I might do if I were overwhelmed by frost moths and Niko had to come to my rescue.
My stumbling pace gave my head time to clear before I reached him, and I studiously ignored memories of the lascivious ogling and wanton body language I’d exhibited in the last hour. Just a professional enforcer here. Nothing else to see.
A deaf man would have heard my graceless approach, but Niko took his time dispatching a handful of moths before turning to me.
I raised my lighter and gave it a shake. “I’m almost empty. Do you have a spare?”
Niko’s eyes landed on my breasts, then traveled up my chest to my lips. Heat smoldered in his gaze, pinging through me, rooting me in place. I swallowed hard. Lust, pure and unadulterated by moths, unfurled deep inside me, pulsing with an electric current that polarized my nerve endings when Niko’s lips parted and his tongue grazed his bottom lip. Guilt followed, wearing Alex’s face.
When it came to dating, I wasn’t a sophisticated twenty-first-century woman. I didn’t have the emotional bandwidth to juggle men. Entertaining lustful thoughts about Niko while under the influence of frost moths fell under the heading Work-Related Stress and could be dismissed as the passing fancy it was. My body’s instant response to Niko’s blatant appraisal flirted with a line I wasn’t comfortable crossing. Alex was the real deal—kind, handsome, available, and, most important, genuinely into me. Niko suffered from too much frost moth heat.
I jerked away from the kiss I’d been leaning forward in preparation for—when had that happened?—and backpedaled up the hill. Niko prowled after me.
Oh God.
My heart bumped into my throat and my feet stopped moving. I licked dry lips, and Niko’s gaze zeroed in on my mouth again. One kiss wouldn’t be so bad, would it?
Niko closed the distance between us, stopping when mere inches separated us. The warmth of his breath fanned across my parted lips and he leaned in—
He pulled himself up short, spinning to present his back to me, his hands bunching into fists. I let out a shaky breath. Right. Don’t take advantage of a man under the influence. Bad Madison.
I sidestepped my disappointment, bundled it up with misplaced guilt, and buried it with the countless embarrassing moments I’d added to the tally for today.
“Sorry about that,” Niko said without turning.
“For what?” I cleared my throat when my voice cracked. “My ego needed a pick-me-up.”
That earned me a tight smile aimed in my general vicinity.
“I’ve got lighter fluid in my pack,” he said.
“What about a large paper bag?”
Niko frowned. “For what?”
“To wear over your head. It would save me a lot of future embarrassment.”
Niko’s shoulders relaxed. “I’ll see what I can do.”
We trudged up the hill together, using our lighters to fend off moths rather than kill them. We’d roamed farther from our supplies than I realized, and by the time we got back to the ice chest, my stomach grumbled like distant thunder.
“Let’s break for lunch,” Niko suggested as he refilled my lighter.
I rubbed my stomach. “It’s that or I start gnawing on my own limbs.”
Jamie flew across the hillside, leaping fallen oaks and bounding up the steep slope to flop at my feet.
“I take it you’re ready for lunch, too?”
He nodded enthusiastically, arcing a string of drool through the air.
We sat on the flat boulder. Cold seeped through my jeans to chill my backside, but I didn’t care; being off my feet was worth it. After checking the sky to confirm the nominal warmth on my face was indeed sunshine breaking through the clouds, I freed Val and used my palmquell and a clean rock to anchor him open next to me. Niko glanced at the book and raised his eyebrows in a silent question.
“I thought Val might be tired of being cooped up.”
This view is amazing, Val said. Too bad the sun isn’t stronger. My pages could use a little natural bleaching.
“Remind me the next time the sun is out.”
I unwrapped Jamie’s sandwiches, laid the paper flat on the ground, and set the sandwiches on top. Jamie engulfed the first sandwich in a single bite.
“Try chewing,” I suggested. “I don’t know how to do the Heimlich on a dog.”
He gave the second sandwich a perfunctory chew before tossing it to the back of his throat and swallowing.
Unwrapping my sandwich, I focused on eating every last crumb, using my lighter to scare off persistent frost moths between bites.
Wind sighed through the trees behind us, the peaceful sound punctuated by the crinkle of paper and the piercing cry of a red-tailed hawk hunting over the canyon. I soaked in the absence of city sounds, soothed by the wild, bright lines of the forest across the canyon and on the distant hills. The vastness of the view settled into my body, the raw presence of nature knitting mental stress fractures. A calm I hadn’t experienced since before Pamela arrived—since before I’d accepted the enforcer position—grounded me, and I stopped stuffing my face to breathe it in.
“Better?” Ni
ko asked.
“Yes.” I tilted my head back and closed my eyes. Good company, food, and the lassitude in my limbs melted away the last of my tension.
After a while, I opened my eyes and took another bite of my sandwich, openly studying Niko. He slouched on the rock, one elbow resting on a raised knee. The intimidating elite-enforcer vibe that usually encased him had fallen away. Maybe it’d all been a figment of my insecurities, and the rare slip in his control that proved he wasn’t perfect had changed my perception, or maybe he’d let his guard down. Either way, sitting next to him in the sun, Val and Jamie beside us, stirred a fond sense of companionship inside me. Niko was still too sexy for his own good, but it didn’t mess with my head like normal.
“Why did you bring me today?” I asked.
Niko wiped mustard from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand, finishing his bite before responding. “You don’t know differently, but the amount of conflict in your region has been highly irregular. Isabel was to blame, and everything would have slowed down after her arrest, but you bonded a pooka.”
Jamie licked up sandwich crumbs, then nosed the ice chest. I opened the single-serving potato chip bag and angled to pour them onto the paper, but Jamie stuffed his muzzle under the bag, so I dumped the chips into his mouth. The second bag’s contents went on the paper to force him to eat slower.
“We expected frost moths after the salamanders, but not like this,” Niko continued after pausing to watch the potato-chip-gargling spectacle. “Not enough to draw tyver down to Roseville.”
“Yeah, it’s been intense,” I said, prompting him to get to the point.
“You’re on a fast track to burnout.”
Surprised, I turned from Jamie to face Niko. “I think I’ve done a good job handling everything.”
“You have. In a few weeks, you’ve gone from knowing nothing and being squeamish about killing imps to ferreting out a rogue warden. You enforce Northern California’s most dangerous region, and you’re doing it with a powerful pooka tugging on loyalties so fresh the paint hasn’t dried on them.”
A Fistful of Frost Page 15
