INTO THE FIRE (Forbidden Love)

by James, Danielle

  “Are you not afraid that scientists will want you to submit to testing and experimentation now that they know you exist?” Katie asked.

  “That is possible,” Merrick agreed with a slight nod of his head. “However, I am willing to exchange testing for help.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I will allow testing on me in exchange for help in retrieving my mate. Anyone who is willing to help me will be allowed to research with my assistance, as well as gaining my protection.”

  Angel snapped the TV off. He shook his head in disbelief.

  “Fuck me,” Leigh whispered.

  “Not just now,” Rebel replied to her, still staring at the blank TV.

  “Fuck you, Cowboy.”

  “Yeah, we covered that already.”

  “What are we going to do?” Sebastian asked.

  “Kick that slime sucking, fire-breathing, lying, fucking bastard’s face into the dirt,” the one with the spikes answered. It was the most Leigh had heard him say thus far. The harsh words sounded odd coming out of his mouth in his lovely French accent.

  “I like the way you think,” Leigh told him. “By the way, you got a name? Or would you rather I called you Spike?”

  The vampire chuckled. “Jacque is my name, Mademoiselle. And I think I like the way you think, too.”

  Rebel growled.

  “Oh, get over it, Cowboy,” Leigh snapped. “He can talk to me if he wants.”

  “Jacque is known for his dabbling with the female race. I wouldn’t trust him to stop at talking.”

  “Like it would be any of your business,” Leigh snarled. “You got to get over this Me-Tarzan, You-Jane attitude. I don’t belong to you.”

  “I would never attempt to seduce a brother’s mate,” Jacque growled. “He knows it.”

  “Do I? Just because you let your mate get away doesn’t give you permission to flirt with mine.”

  “How about I smash that fucking snarl off your face, Brother?” Jacque sneered, giving Rebel a death glare.

  “Enough,” Angel boomed. “Rebel, because she is your mate, I will give you one last warning. Knock it off. You know better. I will have no more cheap shots or growling when your brothers are only trying to help. Jacque, curb your attitude. Now, if the pissing contest is over, we have a serious problem.”

  “Yeah, starting with I am not his fucking mate,” Leigh interjected.

  “Leigh, we will talk about that later. Right now, we have to decide what to do about Merrick.”

  “He will follow me. I’ll just teleport away from you guys and he’ll come for me. Merrick will know the second I use my power. Something as powerful as teleportation will be like a big red fire truck to him.”

  “We should issue a press statement,” Gage offered as if Leigh hadn’t said anything at all. “We need to counter his accusations as quickly as possible.”

  “I agree,” Antonio offered. “We need to let the public know that he is lying. Angel has quite a following. If he counters Merrick’s accusations, they will side with us.”

  “Make the call,” Angel told Sebastian. Then he turned to Rebel. “We need to get home. Quickly. Get your mate ready and we will leave in fifteen.”

  Leigh felt the tops of her ears getting hot. Her face and neck soon followed. What was she? Minced dragon? She had a voice and an opinion. These idiot vampires would do well to remember that. They were discussing her as if she weren’t standing right there. As if her opinion didn’t matter. Stupid, presumptuous, bloodsucking, morons. The more she thought about it, the madder she got. The smell of sulfur hung heavily in the air and her body was heating up, trembling with the need to vent her anger.

  “Uh, hey, sweetness,” Gage said, looking at her warily. “You, um, well, you got smoke coming out of your nose. Something wrong?”

  Leigh realized that she was losing it. She tried to calm herself, forced a deep breath into her lungs, but then she heard someone say, “Dude, you should control your mate.”

  “I AM NOT HIS FUCKING MATE!!” Leigh bellowed. Fire rolled out of her mouth as she shouted it and five vampires dove for cover. The blast was so hot, so intense that the drapes burst into flames.

  “Fuck!” someone shouted.

  “And don’t talk about me like I’m not here! And stop treating me like a helpless child!” She threw her hands into the air, waving them frantically. Fire continued to spring from her mouth as she ranted. The couch caught and the vamps behind it scrambled out and ran for other protection.

  “Leigh!” This time she knew it was Angel. “Please, stop. You’re going to hurt someone.”

  “You should have left me alone!”

  “Leigh, please!”

  Leigh was nowhere near done with her rampage. She’d had enough. She was tired of these men telling her what to do. They should have let her be. They should have stayed away. They should have listened to her. She opened her mouth to tell them as much when she was suddenly doused with very fucking cold foam.

  She spun around and saw Rebel holding a fire extinguisher. “Are you ready to cool off, or do I have to spray you again?”

  Leigh sputtered. No one had ever dared try to put her fire out. It was then that she realized that the room was heavy with black smoke, flames licking up the walls and across the ceiling. The other vampires had grabbed fire extinguishers as well and were desperately trying to put out the flames.

  An alarm sounded and the sprinkler system went off. Suddenly, everything was drenched. Including Leigh. She shivered in her wet clothes. Holy hell, she could have hurt someone. And look what she did to the hotel room!

  “Oh no,” she whispered. “Oh, no, no no. What have I done?”

  She slumped to the floor with her head in her hands. “I’m so sorry,” she said.

  “Hey, it’s ok,” Rebel said, kneeling down beside her. “Really. No harm done.”

  Leigh shot him a look that said, “Are you stupid?”

  “Things can be replaced,” he continued. “No one was hurt. That’s the important thing.”

  “This time,” she countered.

  “Or next time or the time after that.”

  “Whatever.”

  “Really. Come on,” he said, helping her to her feet.

  “I’ll pay for the damages,” Leigh said, looking at Angel.

  “No need,” Angel replied. “Money is not a problem for us. I don’t think, however, that we will be welcome to stay here anymore.”

  “Remind me not to piss you off,” Gage said with sheepish grin.

  “What the hell are we supposed to do now?” Leigh asked.

  “We go back to the estate and prepare for our press statement.” Angel was talking while dialing his cell phone.

  “Isn’t your family there?” Leigh asked.

  “Yeah,” he replied.

  “No.”

  “Leigh,” Angel said on a sigh, “We need you to come with us. We need you to tell the press that you are not being held against your will.”

  “Aren’t I?”

  “No, if I could not convince you that this is the best way, I would let you leave. You know that. The only reason you are still with us is because whether you like it or not, you know it’s what must be done.”

  “Well, I’ll be damned if I go to your house where your young daughter and two humans are. I will just put them in danger. If not from Merrick, than from me. I won’t do it.”

  Angel muttered something into his cell phone and snapped it shut. “There is no need to worry on that count,” he told her. “Brea is taking Jade and Jessica to a friend’s house where they will be safe.”

  “Oh,” Leigh conceded, a little depressed that he had taken away all her arguments. “I guess we should go then.”

  ELEVEN

  The trip to the estate was not an uneventful one. Once outside the hotel, they had to wade through the crowd of people who had been evacuated once the fire alarm had gone off. And then there were the people who gathered to watch. Fire trucks and ambulances surr
ounded the hotel. Angel had taken a moment to find and apologize to the hotel manager, telling him to charge all the damages to his credit card.

  And then there was the fiasco getting to the truck. Hordes of people had surrounded it, waiting for the now infamous kidnapper, Angel Knight. Leigh knew that he had used his mental abilities to clear a path, but Leigh still heard the whispers and doubts. They really thought Angel was a bad guy. When she had opened her mouth to correct them, Rebel had grabbed her and urged her into the truck, telling her it would only make things worse at that point.

  Leigh had begrudgingly gotten into the truck, spending the entire trip, (Which was a lot shorter than when she had driven it,) sending death glares to the several cars that followed. Getting into the estate through the front gates had proved impossible. So many people had gathered there that the entire block was impassable.

  But she soon discovered that she needn’t have worried. Sebastian pulled the SUV around to a side street where a very nondescript house stood. He pressed a button on the review mirror to open the garage, and when it opened, he drove in. Once inside the small, dark garage, Sebastian pressed another button. The soft whining sound of a machine filled the little space.

  Then, the truck began to descend.

  “What the fuck?” Leigh gasped.

  “It’s our alternate entrance,” Rebel told her as the truck sank deeper into the earth. “We used to have a secret entrance within the walls surrounding the estate, but it has been breached before. So we built this little contraption. We will stop at the bottom and there’s a tunnel that leads to the house. We’ll go back up and be in the garage at home.”

  “Wow, this is really something,” she said.

  “Yeah, I’m pretty proud of it,” Rebel replied.

  “You help design it?”

  “I didn’t help, I did it.”

  “Rebel is an incredibly talented engineer,” Sebastian added from the front seat. “And a real computer geek. Anything electronic and he knows everything there is to know about it.”

  “I see,” Leigh said. Ok, so he wasn’t stupid. He must be brilliant, actually. That bit of knowledge didn’t dispel her notion that he didn’t have a lick of common sense, though. Most geniuses didn’t.

  “And Jacque is a chemist. He’s the closest thing to a doctor we got, also our resident scientist.”

  “That’s cool.”

  “Antonio likes to blow things up,” Sebastian continued, “While Gage is a communications expert. Angel is, as you know, the HMFIC. I don’t think there’s anything he can’t do.”

  “What about you, Blue eyes?”

  Sebastian smiled. “I’m head of security, and the SMFIC.”

  “That means he’s the Second Mother Fucker In Charge,” Rebel clarified.

  “Don’t you guys all play together in a band, too?” Leigh asked.

  “Yeah,” Rebel answered. “I play guitar, Angel sings, Gage plays bass, Antonio plays rhythm guitar, and Jacque pounds on the drums. But we can all play any of the instruments. Antonio plays a mean piano, too.”

  “What about Blue eyes?”

  “Sebastian produces all our music. He mixes it, lays the tracks down, and burns it for our label.”

  “Cool,” she said, looking out the window at the dark walls of the tunnel. She tried to keep her attention off of the man who was sitting too close to her. His scent was overwhelming this close. His thighs brushed against hers and she pressed her legs together. It was as much a defensive move as it was an effort to ease the ache that set up shop there every time Rebel was nearby.

  The trip through the tunnel was short and when they reached the end, the SUV was lifted up and into the garage at the Knight estate. Leigh jumped out before Sebastian had killed the ignition. “Finally,” she said.

  “Come,” Rebel told her, leading her through a door by the arm.

  “Watch the paws,” Leigh muttered, yanking her arm away from him.

  “We must prepare. The press is already outside.”

  Leigh followed. The house was quiet, save for the soft words exchanged between the vamps every now and then. Leigh was shown to a guest room where she could freshen up and prepare for the press release. Angel had told her that it would be most effective if she were to tell the public that she was there on her own free will.

  “But then Merrick will know exactly where I am,” she had protested.

  “So?” Angel countered, “He fucked up when he went to the press. If they all know you aren’t being held prisoner, then he can’t really do anything about it. How would that look if he attacked us here?”

  “I’m not sure he won’t do it anyway. Merrick isn’t one for playing by the rules.”

  “We can handle him,” Angel shook his head, “We will protect you, Leigh.”

  “Who’s going to protect you?”

  “Let me explain something,” he said. “Rebel believes you are his mate.” When Leigh opened her mouth to protest, he silenced her with a wave of his hand. “Let me speak. I know you are not fond of that idea. I know that Rebel did some really stupid things. It would seem, well, we all do. Especially where our mate is concerned.

  “But do not mistake, Rebel would give his life to protect you, as would we. We protect what is ours. He would move the moon if he thought it would make you happy.”

  “Well that’s just dumb,” she muttered. “Why would a powerful vampire want to go all moon-eyed over some female? Relationships are weaknesses.”

  “You would think so, but that’s not the way of it. Not with us. Being mated gives us strength. Both mental and physical. It heals us inside and out.”

  “I just don’t know.”

  “Tell me, do you find him so repulsive?” Angel asked.

  “Repulsive, no. Annoying, irritating, and too hot for his own good, yes.”

  Angel smiled. “Perhaps you could get to know him. You know, you don’t have to agree to be his mate. So long as you do not complete the bonding, you are free from him. But as his friend, I ask that you at least give him a chance to show you the heart he has. Let him show you the kind of man he really is.”

  “I’ll think about it.” Leigh wanted to say flat out no. But Angel had been so earnest in his request, so serious. He really thought a lot of Rebel. It wouldn’t hurt to not be so mean to him, she guessed.

  When everyone was ready, Leigh, Angel, and Rebel went outside. A group of ten reporters had been let in the gates to hear the statement they were about to make.

  “Thank you for coming,” Angel said to them. “As you already know, Leigh Harmond is staying with us. What you don’t know is that you have been misled. Leigh is here on her own accord. In fact, she sought us out for protection yesterday. And we have agreed.” He looked at Leigh, silently telling her to continue.

  “He’s right,” Leigh said. “I am not engaged to Merrick, never will be. He has lied to you all. He is unstable and wants me for himself, but I won’t go to him.”

  “Are you a dragon too?” one of the reporters asked.

  “Yes,” Leigh answered.

  “Is it true that you and Merrick are the last of your kind?” another asked.

  “Yes,” Leigh answered again.

  “Why is it, then, that you refuse to be with him? How will your species survive if you’re not together?”

  Leigh felt Rebel stiffen at her side. She thought he was going to say something, but Angel was the one who answered. “We have someone working on that very issue now,” he said. “We are looking for possibilities for procreation that does not involve putting Leigh with a man she fears.”

  “But—,” one of the reporters started.

  “No buts,” Rebel snarled. His hands were fisted at his sides and he was trembling all over with the need to pummel something. “She’s mine. Leigh is my mate and I will not turn her over to that bastard. Not now, not ever.”

  Leigh looked up at him and opened her mouth to ream him, but Angel was shuffling them both back toward the house. “That’s all we hav
e to say for now. Thank you for coming.” As he pushed them back to the house, several vampire guards started ushering the reporters off the grounds.

  TWELVE

  “Are you out of your fucking mind?” Leigh snarled at Rebel once they were back inside. He had led her to a bedroom and she slammed the door closed. “You just announced to the free world that I belong to you!”

  “You do,” he said.

  “Reality check, Cowboy. I don’t belong to you. Or anyone else!”

  Rebel got right in her face. His scent wafted across her nose and she was helpless not to breathe it in. “Let’s get one thing straight,” he said in a low voice for her ears only. “I only put up with your bad attitude because you are mine. I will protect you. I will do whatever it takes to keep you away from him. But make no mistake; You. Are. Mine.” He was so close that their noses almost touched. His breath drifted across her face. Leigh shivered, and not because she was cold.

  Not one to be intimidated, Leigh put both of her hands on his chest and pushed. He didn’t budge. So she lifted her chin and pushed closer. Their noses were touching. She could see the flecks of dark brown and the almost yellow ring around his eyes. “I. Belong. To. No One.”

  Leigh was so close that her smoky scent was all Rebel could smell. It filled his nose and muddied his brain. So close. She was angry with him. Her golden eyes were narrow, the pupils were tiny slits. He could feel her body heat radiating off her in waves. His body cried out for him to take her. To make her his. To show her why she belonged to him and no one else.

  Rebel wanted Leigh to come to terms with him on her own time. In her own way. He wanted to be gentle with her; he knew Merrick had hurt her and damaged her opinion of men forever. He wanted to be a gentleman. Until a particularly powerful wave scent hit his nose. Under the smoky scent, beyond the scent of her shampoo, he smelled lust. Arousal. She was turned on by the close proximity of their bodies.

  Rebel’s control snapped.

  With a growl, he tilted his head and slanted his lips over hers. It was no gentle, get to know you kiss, but a savage claiming. He nipped her bottom lip and when she gasped, he thrust his tongue inside. His hands went to her hair tangled there. He anchored her head and moved it for a better fit.