by Cate Rowan
Haemus coughed again. “That’s quite a piece of horseflesh ya got there.”
“Do not refer to my fine equine friend as ‘horse flesh’, unless you prefer to deal with him directly.” Humans were such bothersome creatures.
Dragon tossed his head and snorted.
Eyeing the horse, the merchant swallowed hard. “Does the beast understand what yer…never mind. My apologies. Dint mean any disrespect.”
“Fine.” Ertemis held his hand out. “My coin.”
“About that…” Haemus rubbed his scarred hands together. “I have another proposition for ya.”
Jessalyne awoke with a start, the remnants of the same familiar nightscare fading as she remembered her patient. Corah and her very pregnant mother sat at Orit’s bedside. Elegant in a robe of pale green linen, Lady Dauphine held Orit’s small hoof and whispered soothing words to her sleeping son. She gazed at her child with a tenderness that made Jessalyne’s heart ache.
“I’m sorry, I meant to stay awake with him.” She’d fallen asleep perched on the stool, head against the wall, the shawl still draped around her shoulders. She rubbed her neck.
Corah nodded. “I’m sure you needed the sleep. Papa left already to attend the morning council.”
“Orit should have a mug of willow broth.” Jessalyne arched her back, trying to wake up.
“I’ll make it.” Corah headed to the kitchen.
“He will be fine.” Jessalyne tried to comfort Dauphine. “He just needs rest.” The words rang false even to her own ears.
Dauphine kept her gaze on her son, her hand trembling slightly as she caressed his head. “He is very warm.”
Jessalyne rubbed at the stiffness in her neck again. “It might be best if you gave me a moment to check his wound.”
With a soft grunt and a hand under her belly, Dauphine pushed to her feet and joined Corah in the kitchen.
Once alone, Jessalyne pressed the back of her fingers against the little fawn’s nose. Fever burned through him. She pulled the coverlet back and flinched. The gash on Orit’s flank puffed around the stitches and oozed yellow fluid. A sick-sweet odor filled her nose and knotted her stomach.
No poultice or balm alone could fix this. Thoughts of the cervidae who’d been bitten last season by a water serpent filled Jessalyne’s head. Tyber had forbid her to use magic. The elder buck had died. She recovered Orit and went into the kitchen.
“He isn’t healing like he should. I need to…to try something else. Something Lord Tyber may not like.” Something I may not be able to control.
Dauphine blanched in comprehension, more tears spilling. “I’ll speak with him.”
“I’ll wait for his decision then.”
“Nay,” Dauphine’s voice wavered. “Don’t wait. I’ll make Tyber understand.”
She closed her eyes briefly. “Can you heal him, with your…gifts?”
“I can only try.” Jessalyne wished she could promise more.
“Please do your best. He is our only son.” She cupped her very pregnant belly. “So far.”
Another tear slanted down Dauphine’s cheek and Jessalyne started forward to hug her. Dauphine shifted back out of reach.
Jessalyne dropped her hands to her side. “I didn’t mean…”
Sadness softened Dauphine’s tone. “I know.” Hesitantly, she put her arms around Jessalyne.
The rare contact nearly brought Jessalyne to tears. She inhaled. The scent of new earth and sun perfumed the expectant mother. She felt the faint kick of Dauphine’s unborn babe. If the woman was willing to touch her, Jessalyne knew how desperate she must be.
Jessalyne pulled out of the embrace, knowing what the contact cost Dauphine.
“I will heal him.” Jessalyne prayed her words weren’t a lie.
Once Dauphine and Corah were gone, she checked on the sleeping fawn again. “I’ll be back soon,” she promised.
She headed through the garden and into the woods behind the house. There a grove of tall, fragrant rowan trees encircled a moss-carpeted patch of ground. A solitary stone marked her mother’s resting place.
“I wish you were here, Mama. I need you. There’s so much I don’t know, and now a life rests in my charge. I wish you’d left me books to teach me about this magic. I know it comes from you.”
Her sigh disappeared on the wind. “I don’t know if I will heal Orit or hurt him, but I have to try.” The lingering sensation of Dauphine’s arms around her sharpened the pang of missing her mother.
She wrapped her arms around herself but it was a cold comfort. “I hate this useless, misplaced feeling. I hate it!”
Clenching her fists, she struggled to calm herself. “It can’t be this power is just for lighting candles and warming bath water.
“If I heal him, maybe the cervidae won’t be so afraid of me. Maybe they’ll be willing to touch me.”
Her voice quieted. “Not that it matters.”
She dropped to her knees in the grass. “Dauphine hugged me today, Mama. That’s the first time anyone’s held me since you died. I can’t live like this. I can’t. I have to leave, Mama. I need to. I need to go somewhere people aren’t afraid of me.”
Jessalyne knelt with her arms outstretched. She willed the leaf-filtered sun to melt her doubts and strengthen her spirit for the work ahead.
Orit showed no change when she returned.
There was no reason to delay. She waved her hand and lit the beeswax candles in the wall sconces. After easing the coverlet back, she stood at the footboard and blocked out all but the wounded child. Occasional moans punctuated his ragged breaths.
The room blurred as she focused on Orit’s innocent face, on his small body racked with fever and infection, and the angry seeping gash. Heavy magic prickled her skin as power flowed through her.
She closed her eyes and visualized Orit’s flank perfect and blemish free. In her mind, she saw him healthy and well in both his human and deer forms.
Holding her hands over him, she wished she could bear his injury herself. She imagined his wound as her own. Heat coursed over her in rippling waves, lifting the hair off her face. Sweat trickled down her spine. A shard of pain stabbed her side. Orit’s hurt was hers for one long, hard moment and then dissolved, extinguishing the fire within her as it faded.
The heat drained out of her and she wobbled, her balance gone. She opened her eyes but couldn’t focus. She clutching for the footboard, as her knees give way. She dropped to the floor with a sharp crack. She gasped and her eyes watered at the jolt.
On all fours, she tried to catch her breath. She blinked, unable to clear her vision. Then she heard a child’s voice.
“Lady Jessalyne?”
She tipped her head up, the action spinning another wave of dizziness through her.
“Lady Jessalyne, are you sick?” A blurry Orit stood before her, in his human form.
Small hands wrapped around her waist trying to help her up. She laughed weakly.
“Orit, Orit…” Her voice trailed off as she pulled the boy against her and hugged him, kissing his little cheeks. He squirmed out of her embrace.
She studied him, searching for a mark. Nothing remained of the wound.
“What’s wrong, Lady Jessalyne?”
“Nothing…absolutely nothing.” Cool relief filled her as she collapsed to the floor.
***
To purchase Heart of Fire
or learn more about it,
just visit your favorite online retailer…
or see Kristen Painter’s website:
http://KristenPainter.com/
***
Turn the page for an excerpt
from the paranormal romance
Incredible Dreams by Sandra Edwards.
INCREDIBLE DREAMS
Sandra Edwards
* * *
CHAPTER ONE
There wasn’t a single ghost in the entire joint. But spirits—now that was another matter. Izzy Miller was well-acquainted with both. In her experience,
the latter was harder to handle.
She paused in the doorway of the abandoned hangar and surveyed the vast, near-vacant interior. Dull, dingy windows smeared with grease and grime from years of neglect lined the top of the back wall and blocked out most of the sunbeams.
Slow, guarded steps led her just inside the entryway. Adjusting to the darkened interior took a few seconds. She fine-tuned her surroundings and blurry images of ancient aircraft flickered inside the hangar. The ghost planes disappeared before she could identify the aircraft, but she took them for World War II era, military.
Excitement surged through her veins and settled in her lungs. If there was something in here, it had been around a long time. Longer than the sprites and fairies that had begun to dive-bomb her head.
Shoo. Izzy swatted at the pesky little creatures. They were worse than gnats. She hated sprites. Hated that they were present on ninety-five percent of her cases. Hated their meddling, interfering, disruptive ways.
Her cell phone vibrated inside the bag hanging off her shoulder. She let it go to voice mail. Whoever it was could wait. Nothing was more important than her current project. The United States Air Force had offered a big fat bonus if she cleared the hangar by the end of the month. Not that money was her driving force. The challenge fueled her motivation. Always had. Always would.
Izzy wandered through the deserted hangar, soaking up every inkling, letting everything, seen and unseen alike, penetrate her senses.
Dust and cobwebs covering the remains of old furniture tickled her nose. The musty scent of neglect threatened to bring on a sneezing attack.
Her escort, Lt. Harry Stark, had been quietly transferring several boxes from his car to the hangar’s interior. Now, back by her side, he let out a noise that sounded like a cross between a cough and a gurgle.
“So, you’re a ghost-buster?” The lieutenant’s laughter rippled through the air and chafed her ego. Why would the Air Force send her a skeptic?
“If you mean like in the movie…no,” Izzy said between intermittent nasal spasms and turned her back on her companion. The sneeze swelled inside her head and exploded. She covered her face. A loud, hearty kerchoo echoed around the hangar like a racquet ball.
The lieutenant whipped out a handkerchief. Taking it, she wondered if he was always this efficient.
A wave of light shimmered and swirled behind him. Damn sprites. The lieutenant’s face paled, and Izzy suspected the nymph had tapped him on the shoulder. He stiffened and jerked around, inspecting the space behind him. The sprite twisted with him, staying at his back. He pivoted around, tugged at his uniform and let out a stretched sigh.
She wiped her nose, shot an over-practiced glare at the nymph, and beckoned the lieutenant to follow. “What I do isn’t quite so dramatic, nor do I have the aid of technological equipment that borders on science fiction.” Izzy kept her tone calm, constant and methodical. Strolling through the hangar, she gravitated toward a partition along the back wall. “I’m a spiritual therapist. I remove ghosts or apparitions, and convince spirits to cross over.”
“So you’re like that girl on TV? The one who talks to the dead and gets them to go to the light…all in an hour.” His eyes narrowed and his tone hinted at mockery.
Izzy let it go and focused on his paranormal education instead. “Sort of. But they don’t come to me. I go to them.” The sprite circled his head and she ignored it. “I’m surprised you’ve never heard of me. All branches of the United States military have been using my services for nearly five years.”
“Oh, I’ve heard of you.” Doubt shuddered off his tone. The sprite shot through his head. Lieutenant Stark let out a sharp gasp and spun around like a speeding top. Of course, there was nothing for him to see. She almost felt sorry for him as he wound down and stopped in front of her, looking like a helpless child in a playground full of bullies.
Izzy knew he hadn’t seen anything. The sprites weren’t going to reveal themselves to him, and that warranted a smile. “You okay, Lieutenant?” False concern masked her amusement.
“Y-yes.” His voice cracked, his stance straightened and his chest inflated in a manner that suggested—no, insisted—he was not spooked.
Izzy turned away from the lieutenant to keep from laughing in his face. Her gaze drifted to the far wall displaying a group of old black and white photographs, images of pilots long since forgotten. She moved from picture to picture, a step at a time, and stared into the face of each flyer.
She paused a little longer on the boldly handsome man who stood out amongst the others. His mouth curled into an attractive smile, forever on the edge of laughter.
Sadness slammed Izzy. Sorrow stole her breath away. She tried to recover, struggled for every hard-earned mouthful of air, each eclipsed by the fear that it was her last.
The flyer’s eyes, dark and intriguing, gave the impression of lighting up. An invisible gleam trailed out, enveloping Izzy in a blanket of comfort.
“Who is he?” She pointed to the flyer’s picture.
Lieutenant Stark lingered at her side and shifted into an at ease stance with his legs apart and his hands crossed behind his back. “Captain Jack Baker,” he said with clout. “A flyer during the Second World War. He was quite the hero.”
The sprite danced around the lieutenant’s head, teasing Izzy with threats of piercing the man’s body again.
She disregarded the creature and remained fixated on the man in the photograph. “What happened to him?” Loneliness swept through Izzy and stalled inside her heart where it intensified with an emptiness she’d never experienced but felt she knew just the same.
“I believe he was killed during a training exercise.”
“Details?” She tried to pull her gaze from the flyer’s picture. She wanted to look at the lieutenant now instead of catching glimpses of him in her peripheral vision. She managed to direct her attention to the man before her, but her thoughts remained on the one in the photograph.
The lieutenant wavered as he rocked on his heels. “Well, I’m not privy to all the particulars, but the United States military is known for its record-keeping.”
The thought of not wanting to leave the hangar washed over her like a warm summer rain. While scintillating at first, once she got used to it she welcomed it, embraced it, reveled in it. “I’d like to read the records here, please.”
“That much was anticipated.” He gestured toward an office on the other side of the wall of photographs. “They’re on the desk.”
“Thank you.” She stepped toward the office door and stopped to look back at the lieutenant. “May I?” she asked, nodding at the flyer’s photograph.
The lieutenant folded his arms over his chest; his indifference emerged in a quick, tilting shrug. “Be my guest.”
Izzy reached for the picture and a nameless energy rippled through her. Her legs congealed as if she were stuck in quicksand.
She had her phantom. His will was strong, stronger than anything she’d ever encountered. Raw, primitive grit pushed her trembling hands to remove the photograph from the wall.
“Are you all right, Miss?” The lieutenant’s brow crinkled with lines of concern, fatigue and fear.
Izzy didn’t have time to worry about his state of mind. Thanks to the government’s deadline she had no time to give, no energy to waste. When it came to spiritual therapy, no energy—neither mental nor physical—could afford to be divided. Even a smidgeon focused elsewhere could prove disastrous.
“I’m fine.” She clutched the picture frame to her chest, fighting the urge to look into the eyes of the ill-fated flyer. The lieutenant was a meager alternative, if not disheartening. But she concentrated on him anyway, needing a distraction from the spirit’s powerful influence. “There’s definitely something here…someone.” Not to mention all those damned sprites and fairies.
“You mean, like a ghost?” As if he wasn’t already frazzled enough, the mention of the word ghost sprouted perspiration on his forehead. He retrieved another ha
ndkerchief from his pocket and began swabbing his brow.
“No, not a ghost.” Izzy shook her head. “It’s a spirit.”
“There’s a difference?” He followed her into the office.
“Yes.” Sitting in a chair by the door, she let her senses relax and get a feel for the spirit, his motives, his desires. His whole life—at least the part that led to his death—must have been encapsulated in the three boxes sitting on the desk, all dust free. The flyer’s records? Wow, he must’ve been some kind of hotshot. Obviously, the Air Force knew the identity of the spirit, getting rid of him was another matter. She drew a breath, long and deep, in hopes of tempering the awestruck feeling her target had generated. “Ghosts or apparitions are what I like to call reruns.”
“Reruns?” The lieutenant raised his bushy eyebrows.
“The deceased’s presence isn’t really here. It’s more like a memory.”
“A memory?” he echoed, but not nearly as confident.
A second sprite joined the first and they swarmed around the lieutenant’s head. Damn nuisances. Irritation crept up Izzy’s gut. She cleared her throat as if she could cast it and the sprites aside. The willful creatures bounced off each other and zipped around the lieutenant. Izzy damned them with silent curses. Curses that could send them to the deepest, darkest neighborhood of nonexistence.
Go ahead, have your fun. I’ll deal with you later.
The sprites vanished.
They left, but she doubted for good. They never gave up easily. They’d be back.
For now, she settled on the lieutenant. “Sometimes, we become so attached to the place we lived that a piece of our existence remains there. But it’s not live, it’s like a recording. It’s as if someone snapped a picture and placed it on an airwave that not everyone can see.”
