Licked by the Flame

by Serena Gilley

  Her only hope was to trust Nic. She gripped his hand tighter and let him practically drag her along an especially narrow downward-sloping passage. The walls were smooth like all the rest of the passages she’d been on, and she was glad for it. More than once her shoulder or elbow slammed against it as she hurried to stay beside Nic, clinging to his hand as her lifeline.

  They turned another corner, then another, until finally they came to a halt. She felt the wall beside her and could tell that it curved just in front of them. They were not following the passage around this curve, though.

  “Where do we go?” she asked.

  “Up,” he replied. “Sorry, there are no steps and no footholds for you. I’ll have to hoist you up.”

  “Um, up where?”

  “There’s a crack in the rock ceiling just above us. I’ll push you through, then you’ll find yourself on a narrow ledge. Hang on, and move to the right. I’ll follow you and guide you from there.”

  That did not sound like someplace she wanted to go, especially if she had to go first.

  “But how will you get up there?” she asked. “You can’t fly in here, it’s too narrow. I can feel both sides of the passage when I put my arms out.”

  “Don’t worry, I’ll manage. Just trust me. You’ll be safe up there.”

  “Um, okay…”

  It sounded like a really bad idea. She couldn’t see a blessed thing and he was going to shove her up through a crack in the ceiling and she was supposed to find her way along on some ledge? Well, if they were looking to hide someplace where no one would come looking for them, this was probably it. She felt Nic’s hands at her waist so she took a deep breath and made a little hop as he hefted her up.

  She was moving toward the ceiling as if she weighed nothing at all. Wow, Nic’s awesome biceps must not be just for show. He held her high and steady so she could reach her arms up and feel around.

  Sure enough, she felt a gap in the ceiling. It was not smooth as the rest of the walls, but this was rough and jagged. The rest of the caves felt as if they’d been formed by great heat, molded and polished as part of some great design. This was just as Nic said, a crack. She felt her hands over it as Nic pushed her through, grabbing at outcroppings and pulling herself upward.

  When he’d lifted her as high as he could, he stooped to allow her feet to find purchase on his shoulders. It was just enough to give her the support she needed to find the base of the ledge he had mentioned. As he stood to full height below her, she was raised up just enough to get leverage to pull herself up. She twisted, sitting precariously on the ledge, just as blind as a bat and shaking with fear.

  “I’m supposed to go to the right? Does that mean my right, or your right?” she called down to him.

  “To your right,” he answered.

  She nodded, not that he could see it, and began scooting. On her second scoot she reached her hand to steady herself on the ledge and suddenly the ledge just was not there. She wobbled, flailing for something to grab onto. In the frantic movement, she knocked herself off balance and started to slip off the ledge. As she fell forward, her leg swung back and became wedged between two broken rocks. She cried out in pain, the full weight of her body suddenly supported by her leg, jammed at an odd angle.

  Suddenly Nic was there. He was pressing against her with his shoulder, pushing her back up onto the ledge. Her leg came free and she was able to find something to hang on to again. He was slightly huffing, so he must have propelled himself up through the crack by sheer upper body strength. She sucked in a breath as his leg brushed against hers. Ouch! Whatever she’d done to herself, it hurt. Badly.

  “You were sitting on the ledge, weren’t you?” he asked softly. “I assumed you’d be standing, facing the wall.”

  “So I guess I should have moved left instead of right, huh?”

  “Yeah. Sorry. Are you hurt?”

  “A little bit.” She gasped again as he ran a hand over her leg. “Okay, maybe more than that.”

  “Shit. You’re bleeding.”

  He was right. She could feel the blood starting to trickle. In the darkness she had no idea how bad it might be, but obviously any sort of injury here, in this situation, was bad enough. He hoisted himself up to stand over her. She had no idea how much room there was, or how she was going to get off this ledge.

  “It sure would be nice to have that fairy back again,” she said. “He was a jerk, but he glowed and I could see at least a couple feet in front of me.”

  “Forgive me. I forget how dark everything must be for you.”

  “You mean you can see? You went back to your human body but you kept your dragon eyes?”

  “I don’t need my eyes. I have other senses to keep me aware of my surroundings. Right now I’m aware that we need to take care of this leg. Come on.”

  “But how can—”

  She didn’t get to finish her question. Somehow he had both of her hands in his and was helping her to stand, then supporting her as she limped off the ledge and onto what felt like solid cave floor again. They had come through that crack and were now…somewhere else. It was an open area of some sort, but still pitch dark. Nic seemed to have no difficulty standing beside her, helping her along, so clearly there was ample ceiling space and width.

  When she brushed against the wall behind her, she found it was not smooth and polished as the other surfaces had felt in the passageways. Since Nic had her hands, she couldn’t feel around to know how wide or how long this particular area was, but a slight draft of air brushed her face, so she had the impression it was more than just another narrow passage. What she could tell for certain was that they were heading upward.

  “Will this take us back to the entrance of the mountain?” she asked, trying to ignore her pain.

  “No, it is someplace safe.”

  He kept saying that. Safe. She had to admit she liked the sound of it, but obviously it was a little hard to believe. How would they be safe anywhere? There was a whole shipment of magical machines coming their way, orchestrated by homicidal fairies and humans with evil intent. Already she’d gone and injured herself, and in the ultimate darkness of this labyrinth of caves, she had no hope of ever finding her way out on her own. Still, Nic seemed to think there was someplace safe for them, so she followed him blindly, dragging her injured leg along as they went.

  “In here,” he said, turning her sharply to the left. “Careful, it gets a little tight through here.”

  She quickly found out that he wasn’t kidding. She had to lean very close into him—which wasn’t really a hardship, considering how much her leg hurt and the fact that, well, he was still half-naked. The walls of this passageway were jagged and rough, as in the last. It was getting chilly, too. She wished she’d pulled her coat back on, especially when she slammed her elbow into a rock jabbing out from the wall.

  “Ouch. Damn it.”

  “Almost there,” Nic said, pulling her around another tight corner into an even narrower passageway.

  This time something was different. “I think I can see light!”

  “Yes, you can,” he said. “Around the next bend there will be enough light to get a good look at that wound.”

  That meant she’d be able to get a good look at him again, too. The thought of his hard body with those tempting tattoos definitely helped take her mind off the pain in her leg. She hobbled just a little bit faster.

  Exactly as he said, when they came around the next turn, orange light spilled in from a slit running lengthwise on the wall. It appeared to be another crack, similar but much smaller than the one they had crawled through. She blinked in the light, loving it, but turning away from it after so long in the dark.

  “Is it morning? Is that crack open to the outside?” she asked.

  “No. Come up here and squeeze through the opening.”

  As she watched, he scrambled up onto a rock and pressed himself into that orange crack and disappeared. She followed and was instantly amazed. Out of the dark passag
eway, she had suddenly stepped into a warm, tidy apartment.

  Light was filtering in through a horizontal slit in the wall, but heavy drapes were hung nearby to cover over the crevice they’d both just come through. If they had been closed, she never would have seen the orange light spilling into that rough, dark passage. Indeed, Nic’s little hideaway here could be perfectly hidden. She stared in disbelief at the cozy dwelling.

  The room itself appeared to have been carved, or rather molded, by fire. The walls were smoothly glazed, and whatever furnishings that might be needed had been hewn out of the rock. A slab was left jutting out from one wall and appeared to be a functional table. A squared-off rock next to it made an adequate chair.

  Lining the wall opposite that, shelves had been carved. A few items of clothing were folded there, as well as a healthy assortment of books that that seemed especially out of place here. Who would go to all the trouble of hauling this many books up here?

  “I like to read,” he noted, unapologetically.

  “Is this your place?” she asked.

  “It is. The main chambers are fine when I’m in my natural form, but I found that I needed…well, my duties have kept me so very often presenting myself as human that I chose to create a space where I could be comfortable in this form as well.”

  “I don’t believe it,” she said, shaking her head. “You like being a human!”

  “I don’t.”

  “Yes, you do. Look, you’ve even got a fancy tapestry decorating the place. Hell, what is that, Nic, your sense of humor? Is that Saint George battling the dragon?”

  “The actual historical event went somewhat differently than the legend.”

  “Yeah, I’ll bet. Seriously, I’m seeing a whole new side of you. I mean, even more than the whole new side of you I just saw a little while ago.”

  “All right, all right. Now sit down so I can tend to your leg.”

  The man had crafted a bed. It would have been impossible to wrangle a mattress up here, of course, but the pallet he’d made for himself with blankets and a big, soft comforter didn’t look entirely uncomfortable. She sat down on it and found it more than a little inviting.

  He filled the space with a possessive air, not the least bit self-conscious as she gawked shamelessly at his naked torso. Bookshelves and rock chairs were not the only interesting items in the room. The man himself was a work of art.

  “I might have some gauze or something in the other room,” he said, disappearing around a corner.

  “What’s in there?” she asked.

  “I tapped into the heated groundwater and found a way to run some up here,” he replied.

  “You’ve got a bathroom with hot running water?” she questioned. “Inside a volcano?”

  He came back around the corner, carrying a damp cloth and a roll of white gauze. “If a man’s got to look like a human, a man’s got to live like a human. That glow coming in through that gap in the wall there? That is my window.”

  She twisted to see what he referred to. It was like a window, but it did not open to the outside world. The view he had from here would have been infinitely more important to him than an Icelandic landscape.

  “You can watch over the clutch from up here, can’t you?” she asked. “That gap looks down into the main chamber.”

  “Yes. Welcome to my home, Ms. McGowan. I’m sure you won’t be surprised to know you’re the very first guest I’ve ever had.”

  “I don’t doubt that. I don’t suppose you have a beer in the fridge, or…ouch!”

  She had tried to scoot to a more comfortable position and managed to bang her leg against the rock that served as the man’s box spring.

  “You should hold still so I can take a look at your leg,” he advised.

  Obviously he was right. She propped her leg up so he could see it as he came to sit beside her.

  “Let’s get you out of these boots so I can take a look,” he said and gently ran his hand over her leg.

  His touch was incredibly tender, but she still winced as he pulled the boot off. That spot on her leg was pretty damn tender, too.

  “Now take your pants off,” he said.

  She raised an eyebrow. “Seriously?”

  “Unless you’d rather I rip them halfway up your leg.”

  “No, I’ll take them off.”

  Now he raised his dark eyes to meet hers. She’d seen only concern in them until now, when a fire kindled behind his expression and he gave her a sly, half-quirking grin.

  “And it’s about time.”

  Chapter Eighteen

  Nic was pleased that she let him tend to her injury. Not that he’d given her any choice. The woman was too damned independent for her own good. He’d tried to manipulate and control her for his own purposes, yet her will had proven too strong for him. He owed her his life because of it, too. Indeed, she was so much more than he had expected her to be.

  How had he not seen right from the start that she was so very special? Even now, after all that he’d put her through, she met his eyes steadily and did not turn away from him. She trusted him to dab at her wound, a jagged cut that bled profusely but—thankfully—hadn’t gone deep enough to cause immediate concern. When he was content that no bones were broken and that he’d cleaned the area adequately, he laid his hand over the wound and caught her gaze again.

  “This might hurt a bit, but it will stop the bleeding.”

  She wrinkled her brow in confusion, but that was quickly replaced by a wince of sharp pain. Searing heat coursed through him, and he let a localized wave pass to her body. The wound was instantly cauterized. He pulled his hand away quickly, hoping to spare her from any more pain than was necessary.

  “Crap, that hurt!” she exclaimed.

  “It should protect you from infection,” he explained, immediately wrapping it in clean gauze.

  No matter what happened from here, this wound would not pose any further threat to her well-being. He wished he could say the same about himself. Being alone with her here, momentarily safe from the dangers they’d faced and feeling strong once again, that familiar craving was boiling up inside him.

  His energy had been replenished when the stored magic was released from that console. He knew he was fully strong enough to defend this mountain and the precious clutch in it. He didn’t need passion or heat. He didn’t need to seduce Lianne for any purpose. He wanted her, though. He wanted steamy, hot sex right here and right now, with her.

  Even more than that, though, he wanted to take care of Lianne. Sex was probably the last thing she wanted right now, especially now that she knew the truth about who he was. For her sake, he’d put his own desires aside.

  Her long legs were naked before him, her pants crumpled on the floor where she’d left them as he tended her injury. His hands ached to touch her, so he let his fingers barely trail over her skin. So soft, so tender…so human.

  “Are you sure no one else has arrived here?” she asked, tension still keeping her body tight, nervous.

  “I will know when we are not alone.”

  He hoped it was true. With his safeguards dismantled and Darkness working against them, he could not quite be certain of anything. Well, anything aside from the fact that his body hummed with desire for Lianne. That was the one thing he knew absolutely. Not that he understood it, however. Desire was a tool he’d often made use of; it had never been connected to the sort of emotions he was feeling for Lianne just now. He wanted to protect her, pleasure her, and reach into her mind merely to know more of her. There was no purpose to these feelings, yet he felt as if he needed them to live.

  “Why are you looking at me that way?” she asked after a few moments of silence.

  He realized he must be making her nervous, so he took his hand off her leg and looked away. To his surprise, she reached for him and turned his face back toward hers. By the Fires, her eyes were so bright, so full of life and fervor and energy. There was no fear at all as she smiled at him.

  “I’
m not afraid of you, by the way,” she said softly.

  He hadn’t been inside her mind. So much had happened to her in such a short time. He’d purposely been giving her space, allowing her time to come to grips with it all. There was no need to read her thoughts, though, to know she was telling the truth.

  “I do not want you to fear me,” he said. They were petty words to convey the vast depth of emotion he had for her right now.

  “But you do want me, don’t you?” she asked, offering him another one of her irresistible smiles.

  “So very much, Lianne.”

  “Good.”

  She brought his face close to hers and gave his lips a light, feathery brush with her own. Energy and flame danced inside him at her touch. He wrapped her in his arms and their kiss grew in intensity. She responded eagerly, fueling his desire. He laid her back into the soft bedding as an encouraging murmur of enjoyment escaped her.

  The air in this chamber was comfortable and warm, heated by the fires from the nearby incubating pit. The very walls around them radiated heat. He slid the fabric of her blouse aside to let his hands contact her skin, glide over her delectable body.

  “I’m not distracting you from more important things right now, am I?” she asked, but shifted her body just slightly to let him have better access to the tiny buttons on her blouse.

  He pressed his lips to her neck, just below her ear. “There is nothing in the world more important to me than you right now, Lianne.”

  “Oooh, good answer, but…Oh, wow. Your hands are like fire.”

  He’d gotten inside her blouse and moved her bra out of the way. Perhaps he’d been moving too quickly for her. He pulled back just a bit.

  “Am I too hot for you?”

  She smiled. “You’re hotter than hell, all right. But I can take it.”