Scorch (Midnight Fire Series)

by Davis, Kaitlyn

  "So where to?" Luke asked when he was finally able to swallow.

  Kira tried to respond, but ended up spewing bits of her sandwich in the process.

  "You are bringing it right now," Luke joked, wiping a breadcrumb from her cheek. He kept his palm there for a moment, cupping her face long enough to run his thumb along her skin. Disbelief channeled through Kira's mind, a satisfied disbelief. And Kira could read what it meant in his emerald green eyes, now alive with swirling flames.

  Mine, Luke was thinking, finally she's all mine.

  And Kira didn't look away.

  The heat in his palm warmed more than just her cheek.

  "I need to meet up with my gang," Pavia said from the back, blowing her bangs from her face in the process, "and I need to find a meal."

  "Good, we'll drop you off downtown," Luke said, turning his attention back to the car and revving it to life.

  "And then we'll meet up tonight," Kira demanded, there was no give in her voice, "you, me, Luke and the vampires. If we're bringing Aldrich down, there's no time to waste."

  "Agreed," Luke said.

  "Done," Pavia confirmed.

  Kira turned on the radio and leaned back, putting her feet up on the dashboard before taking another satisfying bite of her sandwich.

  Aldrich was going down and there was no way she would let him escape again—no way.

  And, Kira thought, taking a look at Tristan in her peripheral vision, maybe he wouldn't have to be alone. If some of these vampires wanted to turn, wanted to reawaken to a new world and experience it with him, Kira would find a way.

  No shadow in her heart, black as it was, would stop her.

  Chapter Seven

  "Spill," Kira said, eyeing Luke from the passenger seat of the car. Ever since they had left his house, Luke had been silent—never a good sign.

  "Nothing," he shrugged. Kira rolled her eyes.

  Tristan was safe back in Luke's home and Pavia was waiting for them at the meeting place, so Kira wasn't about to let Luke hide from her—not when it was just the two of them, alone for what seemed like the first time in ages.

  "Luke?"

  "Yes…"

  "Luke," she pressed further.

  He hesitated for a second before letting a huge exhale slump his shoulders. "Fine, fine."

  Kira waited while he thought… then poked him when she got impatient.

  "It's just, we've done some crazy things—facing Diana, hiding out at the Red Rose Ball, taking Aldrich on at his home turf—but this seems a little insane. We're walking into a meeting with vampires, one where they'll definitely outnumber us and have the advantage."

  "Is that it?" Kira asked.

  "Well, yeah, mortal peril seems like a good reason to be a little wary."

  "Mortal peril, really? I didn't know you were so chicken," Kira grinned, chiding him.

  "Chicken?" He raised his eyebrows. "I'm best friends with you, that alone makes me braver than the little toaster, and he had the word brave in his name."

  "Braver than a kitchen appliance… definitely something to be proud of…"

  "Did you ever see that movie?" He turned to her in disbelief. Kira shook her head. He tsked, "I'm disappointed."

  "Oo," Kira held a hand over her heart pretending to be wounded. "But really, back to topic, why are you nervous?"

  "I guess," he sighed, "well, the only person who told us it would be safe is Pavia and I just don't trust her. If you set this thing up, no questions asked, but something about her… I don't know, I don't like it."

  "I trust her, isn't that enough?"

  "But why? Why are you so sure?"

  "You weren't there, but," Kira thought back, back to the dungeon, to the hungry look for freedom in Pavia's eyes and the earnestness in her expression when she promised to show Kira more of her birth mother's memories. "It's hard to explain, I just trust her. She didn't have to come back, she could have run away from me and from Aldrich, leaving everything behind, but she didn't. She kept her promise. That's worth something, isn't it?"

  Luke shrugged, "I just don't trust vampires."

  "But you trust me."

  "Always."

  "Enemy of your enemy is your friend—these vampires want to get rid of Aldrich, we want to get rid of Aldrich. Everything will be fine."

  "I hope you're right."

  "Am I ever wrong?"

  "Do you really want me to answer that?" Luke grinned, looking away from the road to meet her gaze for a quick instant. Kira shoved him gently.

  "Just drive," she chided, but a giddy excitement stirred in her stomach.

  "Where are we going anyway? This place is in the heart of Charleston."

  Kira shrugged, "Pavia just gave me an address. She didn't say what it was."

  "That's reassuring," Luke said wryly.

  112 North Market Street, Kira read quietly to herself. It was right in the historic district—what could it be? Someone's house?

  Whatever it was, they would be there soon. Luke exited the main highway as they crossed over a large bridge into Charleston City. A few minutes later, he pulled to a stop next to a meter and stepped out of the car.

  "Follow me," Luke said, turning toward the left and walking quickly down street.

  People were everywhere, relaxing outside of the ice cream shop and walking through the market place even though the street vendors had closed their stores. Couples held hands while they approached restaurants and little kids ran around, ignoring the calls of their parents.

  Where were they going? Kira wondered. This seemed like the least vampire-y place in the entire city.

  Luke stopped.

  "The Peninsula Grill?"

  "What?" Kira asked, not understanding. Luke pointed to the sign hanging from a wrought iron fence. "Oh, it's the name of the restaurant. I get the hint, we can eat here sometime, but let's get to the meeting place."

  "Kira, this is the meeting place. 112 North Market, right?"

  She nodded and looked closer.

  The entrance to the restaurant was a wrought iron fence that opened to a brick courtyard. The bushes lining the walkway were lit up with white Christmas lights, even though it was summer time.

  "Here?" Kira asked.

  Luke shrugged and stepped forward warily. They walked down the well-lit path for about fifteen feet before reaching the door to the restaurant. Luke stepped in first and Kira followed, but they were immediately stopped by a hostess.

  "Good evening," she said, taking in their relaxed attire, "do you have a reservation?"

  "Um," Kira said, looking around for Pavia.

  "Yes, Pavia? There should be a party waiting," Luke chimed in.

  "Ah yes, in the private room. Follow me, please."

  She stepped out from behind the podium and Kira fought to keep up with her speedy steps. The entire restaurant was low-lit with candlelight, and crisp white linens topped the tables. Paintings hung from the cream walls and almost every diner sparkled with diamonds.

  Kira thought of her jeans. Yeah, she and Luke weren't exactly the right clientele.

  "Right in here," the hostess said and slipped a hidden door open, leading to a long table completely full aside from two empty seats on the opposite side of the room.

  "Kira, Luke," Pavia said, standing and shooing the hostess away, "so glad you made it."

  Kira was too distracted by the pale faces around her to answer. Maybe Luke had been right…they were completely outnumbered.

  "Sit, sit," Pavia continued, pointing toward the two open seats. Kira noticed that two plates of food were waiting for them…the only two plates of food on the entire table. In fact, the only other things on the table were ten glasses of red wine, or what Kira was pretending was red wine. But when she sat down and smelled what had to be filet mignon on top of a bed of rosemary mashed potatoes, she tried to calm down.

  Luke, however, eagerly grabbed his fork completely ready to dig in. So much for his concern, Kira thought.

  "So, thank you all f
or coming." Pavia was still standing at the head of the table, looking around at all of her guests. Her formality was making Kira slightly uncomfortable—what was she nervous about? "You all know why we're here, because of her," Pavia pointed at Kira, and every head turned, "because Kira has restored a vampire's humanity and she says she can do it again."

  "For the price of one war," the hawk-nose male vampire three seats away from Kira said.

  "Alessandro, really," Pavia brushed him off, her blasé attitude returning, "it'll be one battle that we'll win without breaking a sweat. I've heard Aldrich's looking a little crispy lately, if you know what I mean."

  The vampires snickered. Kira and Luke looked at each other and shrugged. Crispy?

  "His power was of the mind, not the body," Hawk-Nose pressed again.

  "Before we get to that part, I want to see some proof," a female vampire spoke from opposite Hawk-Nose.

  "I would as well," another vampire farther away from Kira seconded, "was she not supposed to bring Tristan?"

  "Change of plans," Pavia said, moving back to her seat on the other side of Kira. "Will everyone join hands so I can share the memory with all of you at the same time? And before you ask, no, I can't see into multiple minds at once so you'll all block each other out."

  Kira grabbed Luke's outstretched hand, watching as he winced and took the strong grip of the female vampire sitting next to him. She braced herself. This wasn't the first time Kira had seen a memory from Pavia and getting sucked into someone's mind wasn't exactly a pleasant experience.

  Turning to her left, Kira looked Pavia in the eye. There was something fragile in her stare, something vulnerable that she probably didn't want Kira to see.

  "This is a memory of my own," Pavia said, stopping her hand an inch above Kira's, "from the night that Tristan turned."

  Opening her eyes in surprise, Kira tried to speak, but it was too late. Pavia's fingers touched Kira, and she was falling. Her chair tipped backwards, sending her into a spinning vortex, an endless hole. Her feet seemed to flip over her head, colors swirled in her mind, noises wracked her ears, but none of it was decipherable. Until the pull of gravity nudged her and she slammed back to earth in body not her own…

  She was running, faster than she had run in fifty years, farther than the tiny space that horrible glass shell had allowed. She felt free, freer than she maybe ever had before. Captivity was soul crushing and the weight had been lifted from her shoulders. She felt as though she could fly, as though her feet, already pumping at an inhuman speed, would eventually lift free of the ground and propel her forward based on will alone.

  The house was disappearing behind her, glowing from flames dancing through the windows, hopefully engulfing Aldrich whole.

  That evil man.

  He would pay, he was paying, even if it wasn't her revenge, the idea was still sweet on her lips. A sugary flavor making her hunger grow.

  She needed to find a human. Now.

  Refusing to stop running, she peered through the dark air, hoping for a lick of light to guide her way toward a house, but the landscape was quiet except for the flames still cackling in her ears.

  But she wouldn't go back there. Not ever. Not for anyone.

  The conduits had set her free and had let her go, a double escape, one she couldn't tempt. Not even for—

  A scream pierced the night.

  She stopped.

  She recognized that scream.

  Kira.

  Kira screaming as though her life was being ripped from her body, which meant one thing—Aldrich was escaping.

  Hesitating for a second, she spun on her heels. Aldrich had to pay.

  The house was almost dark, smelling of burnt flesh and sunlight and a sweet delicious blood that teased her. She let her senses pull her onwards, since the fire from before had died out. The fire she had been sure Aldrich would burn in.

  As the house enlarged, she slowed down. She could smell them, the conduits all still in the house, waiting for instruction. But still, they were all still, so Kira couldn't be dying. But she was whimpering, her cries sounded softly through the night.

  There was a window up ahead.

  She moved quietly closer, hiding in the darkness she had missed, peering through the house toward the commotion.

  There was Kira. She was kneeling on the ground, her hand stopped above a body of charred flesh, tears streaking down her face as her eyes grew wider and wider.

  Aldrich. It had to be.

  But what was Kira doing? Was she prolonging the kill? Do it. Faster. Just make sure he's gone.

  And then flames appeared from Kira's palm, sinking slowly into the flaking burnt skin of the vampire at her knees.

  Go, go, she thought, urging Kira on with her silent prayers. It would be a slow death, a painful one just like he deserved. His skin was darkening, melting off, sinking to the ground, but wait. What?

  His hand.

  She stared at his hand. Could it be?

  The skin was flaking off, burnt petals fell to the ground, landing into dust. But in their place was pink flesh, new, unscarred, unbroken, and thrumming with life.

  Kill him, she wanted to scream. But the bright fresh skin spread farther, up his arm, from his toes to his thigh, revealing naked, baby-silk skin. Until finally his face appeared—chiseled cheek bones that led to inviting lips almost smirked in a smile. He was beautiful.

  He was most definitely not Aldrich.

  Hair grew from his scalp, black as night, framing eyes that remained closed.

  Closed.

  Until he sat up, opening new eyes, new brown eyes, or old maybe.

  And then she fell back, back, back…

  Kira jerked in her chair, almost expecting to land against the cold dirt of the English countryside. Pavia had come back that night? She wanted Aldrich dead so much that she returned to finish the job herself? And maybe, just maybe, part of her had come back to make sure Kira was still alive, that Aldrich hadn't won.

  But she had called Tristan beautiful, and what was that feeling that came with her thoughts, something almost warm despite the cold nature of her body.

  A fist twisted in Kira's stomach. What—

  "So now you've seen it," Pavia said weakly as she slipped her hand from Kira's and coughed under her breath. "I saw him change with my own two eyes, and now you've all seen it too."

  "That was," Hawk-Nose licked his lips, turning toward Kira with a calculating grin, "can you do it again?"

  Nine other pale faces turned toward her, and even Luke couldn't seem to avert his gaze.

  This is it, Kira thought, the moment of truth. Well, not truth, the moment of amazing fib. The truth was, she had no idea. For all Kira knew, she was turning into a vampire, falling into a pit of darkness so deep that no amount of sunlight could save her. For all she knew, her flames could barely burn a vampire, let alone bring one back from the dead. For all she knew…

  "Yes, I can definitely do it again," Kira said, oozing confidence, "but for a price."

  Aldrich had to die.

  End of story.

  "Your war?" Hawk-Nose spoke up again. Kira nodded. Her war.

  "And what exactly is it that you want?" A new vampire asked, one who exuded age and wisdom despite his young, brawny appearance.

  "Aldrich has threatened not only me, but my friends and family, and he needs to be stopped. We have to kill him."

  "And why do you need our help?"

  "Because I don't think he's acting alone this time. He tried it before and almost got destroyed. This time he coming with reinforcements—"

  "Reinforcements who, I might add, we'll need to kill anyway," Pavia interjected. "It's not like the vampire community is really on board with us trying to go backwards. We need to show that no one can stop us from becoming human again."

  "So we need to find out his plan?" The woman next to Luke asked. He leaned closer to Kira with a slightly green tone to his face.

  "Yes, one of you will need to act as a spy to f
ind out what he's up to," Kira affirmed, looking around at the iron faces. "Once we know his plan, we can make our own."

  "Any volunteers?" Luke asked, trying to smother his grin when no one jumped for the honor. Kira rolled her eyes and squeezed his knee under the table. That was not helping…

  "I will do it," Hawk-Nose said. "But assuming I can infiltrate his group and learn his plan, what assurance do we have that you will follow-through? Can you kill him?"

  "Yes," Kira said, her voice like ice.

  "You've let him go twice before."

  "Third time's a charm, right?" No one looked convinced. So Kira swallowed her pride.

  He was right, no matter how you looked at it, her track record was bad. The first time, Aldrich had slipped right out of a window at the Red Rose Ball, teasing her with the idea of her mother. But the second time, that was entirely Kira's fault. She let him go to save herself—not to save Tristan, who she hadn't even realized was burning, but to save herself from giving into the evil lurking inside of her.

  Was will power enough to keep her sane long enough to kill him this time?

  "I'll admit it, alright, Aldrich didn't mysteriously escape in England, I let him go," there was a sharp inhale around the room, "I let him go because I felt Tristan dying," Kira refused to look at Luke, at the confused judgment in his fiery irises, "I felt him burning within my flames, and decided it wasn't worth sacrificing his life to end Aldrich's. And even so, I nearly lost him. But with you fighting with me, that won't happen. I can end him—easily."

  "Then I will fight with you," Hawk-Nose said.

  From the corner of her vision, Kira saw Pavia's lips twitch. Her eyes began to glow a soft royal blue, a satisfied hue.

  "I'm in too," Pavia said while reaching for her glass, "obviously I want a little payback."

  The woman beside Luke was next, and then the man next to her joined them. The soft-spoken man across the table from Kira agreed, and within minutes, every vampire in the room had pledged their allegiance—verbally and truthfully. The funny thing about vampires was you could always call a lie, their eyes said it all. And right then, ten pairs of very bright, very icy blue eyes glowed with life all around the table.