King of Flames

by Ana Calin

  “Now here’s exactly what’s going to happen,” I continue, keeping my voice down, making sure she stays calm. “You’re going to take me to your hideout, and do the work from there. Make sure the guards don’t sniff us out, so no one gets hurt—because I assure you if anyone does, it’s not going to be me. I’m gonna rip their guts out, and their blood is gonna be on your hands. Do you understand?”

  She nods, but then doesn’t move, as if moored in the ground, her eyes hanging on me.

  “Well, lead the way.”

  She slinks along the wall, feeling her way with the back of her palms, but facing me the entire time as if she’s afraid I’m going to hurt her if she turns. She flips over a filthy rug on the floor with her foot, revealing a trapdoor in the ground. She bends down to open it, but she struggles with it.

  I crouch down, slip a finger through the steel ring that serves as a latch, and pull. The girl stifles a gasp in her throat—all I’ve got left of my Fire King power is my physical strength, but it’s the strength specific to the Dragonbloods, which means I can literally move tons.

  “After you.” I jerk my chin to the hole in the ground. She climbs down a wooden ladder, holding tightly to the sides, careful with every step. She really is the least athletic person I’ve ever seen, but that’s probably because I’ve been only hanging out with the military for centuries now.

  When she’s finally on the ground I bend over the hole, my eyes piercing the darkness, my pointy ears moving imperceptibly to pick up sounds. No living, breathing creature for a considerable range.

  “Make way,” I hiss. She moves away from the hole, making space for me to land soundlessly on my feet, dust rising from under my boots.

  I rise to my full height, checking out my surroundings. A long corridor of catacombs extends to both sides. This is clearly an ancient part of Flipside Edinburgh, but it’s clean, and filled with different body odors, which can only mean people are using it. The way I remember the catacombs, they smell of piss, dead rats and the sulfurous remains of dark magic, which serves as food for evil spirits that dwell in the shadows.

  The girl keeps staring at me, anchored in the ground like she still can’t believe what’s happening.

  “Keep going,” I prompt.

  I keep close behind her, listening to the beat of her heart, the blood pumping in her veins. My presence unsettles her, in fact I think she’s close to panicking. My nostrils flare as I bend slightly forward and breathe in her scent of wild lilies and something else that I don’t recognize at first. Hot chocolate, maybe? And fear. There’s no mistaking the scent of fear. And blood, probably from where she’s been biting her lip as she leads me deeper down the tunnel, wringing her hands, her nerves frayed. The closer we get to her hideout, more sweat breaks out on her skin. It’s a pleasant scent, female hormones imbued with light magic.

  My blood runs faster. Fuck it. I need to fall back, put some distance between us, but that would mean a slower reaction time to any threats that might appear, and I can’t take that chance in my weakened state. We enter a corridor so narrow that my shoulders almost touch the sidewalls. It turns out to be a dead end, with a heavy iron door guarding what must be the old dungeons under the city. My muscles cord up as I prepare for what’s behind it.

  I can’t pick out sounds or scents or movement beyond the door because of the iron. I’m much less susceptible to it than other fae, but still. It weakens me, too, especially now that I don’t barely command forty percent of my power.

  The girl holds up her palms, lowers her head and whispers a spell. The iron bolts move in their locks, slowly, making very low screeching sounds, but before we enter the girl turns to me, daring to look up into my eyes. I cast them down, avoiding eye contact. I can’t allow the smallest risk that she somehow becomes a part of me, even though I’m dead sure I can control my feelings. I haven’t ever felt anything for any woman except base desire, and a soft girl with a braided ponytail and rosy cheeks sure isn’t gonna change that. But fate is a hard thing to beat, and it works in mysterious ways.

  “Before we go in there, you have to know,” she manages, her voice small and insecure. “Guards lurk all over the place, except in my private chamber. I will take you there through the basement, but then I’ll have to go and get some of my stuff from the study in order to do what you need me to do. I need you to stay put while I do that, otherwise you’ll be discovered.”

  I nod, but just curtly, because once we’re in her room, I have no intention of letting her walk out again. She’s been doing this long enough to be able to help me without extra props, but this isn’t the time to argue with her about it.

  She steps over the threshold into a pitch-black, chilly basement. I curl my lip up over my teeth that start to sharpen into fangs—I smell winter magic, a lot of it. I sense protection runes against fire, their power heavy on my shoulders. A good thing most of my magic was drained from me, or I would be suffering more.

  This place is exactly what you’d expect from an old, moldy Victorian house. I can already see the layout in my mind. As expected, the girl doesn’t take the door at the top of the stairs, but what looks like a secret passage under them, that leads to a ladder. She climbs up it as awkwardly as she descended the first one, which makes it clear she’s never left her hideout before. Using ladders is far from routine to her.

  I can’t help but let my eyes take in the sight of her ass cheeks as she makes her way up the rickety piece of wood. Heart-shaped, generous and juicy. I lick my lips. It’s been over a year since I’ve been with a woman. Before my core got shattered, when I had the world at my feet, I had many women. I’d made it a rule at a certain point that I’d never fuck a woman more than once. But this past year I haven’t thought of sex even once—until now.

  I should probably not read too much into it. With a woman’s ass dangling in my face, it’s hard not to think about sticking my cock in her.

  She pushes open a trapdoor, and crawls into what must be her room. I slide in, and she hurries to close it.

  “Just promise me you won’t hurt anyone, no matter what, and I’ll help you, no questions asked.” I can hear tears and fear in her voice.

  “You’ll help me whether I promise or not.”

  I must say, hers isn’t the typical girl room. The walls are grey and moldy, the window bricked up, and the only source of light is an old lamp on a wooden table that she’s now struggling to light up. She’s having trouble because of how hard her hands are shaking. I walk over and snap my fingers, sparking a flame. She frowns at me in the glow of the lamp.

  “I thought you came looking for me because you didn’t have any magic left?”

  “I have the basics.”

  The wooden table is laden with books, an ancient skull, a crystal globe, and a few dolls made of socks, their braided blonde hair made of hay. I pick one up, and cock an eyebrow.

  “You do voodoo?”

  She snatches it from my hand, scowling, forgetting how afraid she was of me only a moment ago.

  “Don’t touch that.”

  My lips quirk up in a half-smile—another thing I haven’t done in a while. “Not exactly what I expected a mage of light, like you, would do.”

  “Come on. Lay down here.”

  She shows me to a divan by the walled-up window. As I head toward it a piece of darkness jumps from the divan into her arms, and nestles on her shoulder, under her hair. It’s a black cat. It hisses at me, baring perfectly white fangs.

  “This is Nazarean, my familiar,” the girl says, stroking the cat under its chin. “He’s old, grumpy and hates people, so don’t take it personally.”

  I come ostentatiously close to her before I sit on the divan. The cat hisses again, arching his back, while hiding deeper under her hair. “Not exactly ready to protect you, though, this familiar of yours,” I mock as I rest against the musty back of the divan.

  “Oh, you have no idea. Now I’m gonna need you to lie on your back.”

  “I won’t.”
r />   “What do you mean, you won’t? You will if you want me to help you.”

  “I won’t be lying on my back here, in a house where enemy guards roam.”

  Her lips part and her eyebrows rise, as if she suddenly remembers who she’s talking to. Fear returns, and she tenses up.

  “Like I said, I’m gonna need to get some things,” she says, already retreating towards the door.

  “What things?”

  “I told you, my stuff from the library and—”

  “Tell me exactly what you need. I might be able to help without you having to run the extra errands.”

  She pauses, understanding what I’m doing.

  “I won’t tell the guards anything. You made it perfectly clear you’d kill them all, and I won’t let anyone die for me.”

  “No, but you could tell them I’m here, and run away with them. Abandon the hideout. Your guards don’t stand a chance against me in a fight, but they could whisk you away from here.”

  “You have serious trust issues.”

  “And how is that a bad thing? You’re under my enemies’ protection, you’re one of them.”

  She slaps her hands against her thighs, seeing has no way around this. She walks over to the table, sorting through her books like she doesn’t know exactly what she’s looking for.

  “You are a creature of fire, so I need to call on a source of fire. But fire is the hardest element to work with because, unlike water or wind or earth, it can get out of hand very quickly, and disastrously.”

  I get up to my feet, the divan creaking as I lift my weight off of it. I join her by the table, picking a random book of spells and leafing through it.

  “You have a powerful and rather harmless source of fire magic just outside your doorstep, actually,” I say. “Arthur’s Seat, the rocky peak that presides over Flipside Edinburgh is a dormant volcano.” I close my eyes, feeling my way down into the crusts of the Earth. I don’t have the magic necessary to move it, but I can still sense my way to it like it’s a part of my body. “It hasn’t been active in over a million years, and there are layers upon layers of hardened magma over the fire that boils in its depths, but the magma chamber is still there. You could use that energy. You’d only need to stir the source just a little bit, it should be enough for the first round.”

  “First round?” she repeats, frowning. “You will have me do this more than once?”

  “I had some serious amounts of power before your friends, Lysander and Arielle, blew my core to pieces. I don’t think one fill will do, so. But don’t worry, I’ll only need your help until I get to the Firestone that was stolen from my crown centuries ago. That will make me whole again.”

  “The Firestone?” She narrows her eyes, as if sifting through volumes of knowledge stored inside her pretty head. My cock stirs in my leather pants. Intelligence shines in her rosy-cheeked face, and I’ve always had a soft spot for intelligent women. “I’ve heard stories about the Firestone of the Crown Jewels of the Fire Court. It is said Apophis sent Wraiths to steal it from the Fire Realm and destroy it, but they never got to. The King of Flames—You got to them before they could destroy it. They only managed to hide it, here, in Flipside Scotland.”

  She has no idea that she just validated the only information that I got from the Wraiths before they died.

  The cat moves smoothly from the girl’s shoulder to her folded arms, her thick, shiny blue-black ponytail caressing it in the process until it slips off the animal. As I watch the male cat arch and stretch, nestling in her arms, I feel a pang of an alien feeling in my heart. A feeling I’ve never had before. Like I want to be in the cat’s place, in some weird kind of way.

  “So what you need is for me to help refill your tanks until you find the thing that will restore your power completely, is that right?”

  “That’s right,” I say, my voice deep, and slightly menacing. “Tell me what you need, and let’s begin.”

  She returns her attention to the books, sifting among them.

  “You say we can use the dormant volcano. I suppose it’s safe to do if the lava is buried deep under hardened layers of magma and the chamber isn’t very heated. I guess I could draw on its power, and channel it within your body. But I would need the spells, and I don’t have them in here.”

  “Well, then, I guess it’s our lucky day, because I know all the fire spells you could ever require.”

  Her head snaps to me. Of course, this wasn’t part of her plan. I grin at her, but I know it looks more like an animal baring its fangs than anything else.

  “I am the King of Flames, after all. You need spells to reach into the power of fire? I’m the right source.”

  Her cheek twitches as she tries to smile. “Fine then.” She rips out the last page of a worn-looking book, and grabs one of the scattered pens. “Tell me some.”

  I do, and then follow her back to the divan.

  She accepts that I’m not going to lie down, which makes her work a little awkward. She prompts me to take off my leather vest, blushing hard as I do, and then she straddles me. But what she does next slams another new feeling into my chest, and this time it’s one I understand perfectly.

  CHAPTER II

  Cerys

  Xerxes tenses under my touch. I don’t put my skin on his, but my open palms emit energy that he feels as if I were caressing him. The rivulets of fire that he has instead of veins move under his bronze skin, following the path my hands draw on him.

  I have been doing this for years, I started learning when I was only a toddler, but with Xerxes, it feels like I’m doing it for the first time. Hardly surprising. He’s the most dangerous man in the world, and I’m alone with him in my room. He’s shirtless, and I’m straddling him, only the natural golden glow of his body and the oil lamp illuminating the gothic decorum. A scenario comes to my mind, sort of like role-play. The most powerful man in the world, coming to visit a forbidden lover in the shadiest corner of the city.

  I squeeze my eyes shut, forcing the image from my mind, and struggling to focus on the task at hand. But the reality of this keeps pounding in my temples, making me too aware of his presence here, on my divan, between my legs. He’s got the most muscular, beautiful body I’ve ever seen in my life. There’s something brutally masculine, and raw in the way he looks. It’s impossible not to imagine sex with him, the fantasies are impossible to resist.

  With my eyes closed, I murmur the first spell he taught me. I stumble over the words, his deep, rumbling voice bringing me back on track as he starts incanting the spell with me. Is it wrong that I like his voice, that this whole outrageous situation stimulates me deep in my lower belly? Even thinking about the guards outside, completely oblivious to the fact that the man they’re here to protect me from has breached their defenses, so easily, ignites my lust.

  His manhood stiffens in his leather pants, pushing against my inner thigh. When I meet his deadly red eyes, he grins.

  “Just keep going. It’s what happens when I feel fire magic close, so rest assured. I’m not going to rape you, if that’s what you’re afraid of.”

  I’m not afraid, and that’s the problem. As a virgin, am I even supposed to feel this way, so lusty for a man? It’s never happened before, but now cream trickles into my panties, and I’m afraid he can smell it. Damn it, I have to conceal my arousal, no matter what.

  I concentrate on the spell, pressing my eyes shut until it hurts, and extending my senses to the chamber of lava deep under Arthur’s Seat. It’s not easy to reach it, since the volcano has been dormant for over a million years, here in the Flipside as well as in the human realm, but that’s not even the biggest problem.

  “I’m gonna need you to steady me,” I murmur as my senses finally latch onto the volcano’s deepest source. It’s a faint connection at first, since the source is so far under the earth’s crust, with layers upon layers of hardened magma over it, that it’s a miracle I reached it so fast. Must be the adrenaline.

  But the connection could
break at any second, so I keep my eyes shut, staying completely focused on it. “If I go too far, I might disturb the balance, and wake the volcano. The power will be pulled to you like a magnet, but it won’t be easy to reach that point without causing some disturbance. I’m sure your body can withstand it, but mine might not.”

  He places his large hands on my hips. His touch is light, protective even, but I’m all too aware those hands are weapons, large and deadly.

  “I’ve got you,” he says in that deep, god-like voice of his. Sweet Divinity, help me through this.

  I go on to the next spell, and lean my head back, enjoying the surprisingly pleasant sensation. I can feel the power of deep earth lava unlock as if a bolt has just been lifted. This is much easier than I expected. The fire can sense the King of Flames, and it starts towards him like starving children towards a long lost parent. All he needed me for was to channel it, and given, for that he required a good magic energy worker, one with experience. And there aren’t many of us around, because mages prefer to focus on other areas, much more glamorous than this.

  Xerxes lets out a delighted, “Ah,” feeling the power racing towards him. But it passes through me at first, hitting me in hot, vigorous waves that my body might not withstand.

  Xerxes’ grip on my waist turns rigid, making it impossible for me to move, and un-straddle him. But I need to move, I won’t be able to contain the power surging into me from the lava chamber, it will kill me. It doesn’t seem to even move the Fire King, who takes it in with a delighted expression on his face, his eyes closed, his manhood stiff like a thick iron rod against my inner thigh.

  I lose my grip on the stream of energy, and it blasts into the room, creating a whirl and a deafening hum. I struggle, yelling Xerxes’ name, desperate to get him out of his trance. His eyes snap open, so red I have to shield mine, squinting. For a second I can’t speak or breathe. His magic is fascinating to behold. For a moment his face is the only stable image, everything in the room flying around in the tornado that the magic energy created when I lost my grip on it.