by Debra Dunbar
Irix handed me my drink, looking puzzled at the piece of meat against my face. “Good job. I’m glad you’re getting out there.” He said this as if he were proud of me for taking my vitamins or eating my spinach. “Next time, find a better quality partner and tie them to you. Then I’ll have some confidence in your ability to take care of yourself.”
And there was the nagging Irix I’d grown to love. I stuck out my tongue, wincing as the motion worked the bruised muscles in my jaw. Cleopatra had fists of steel.
Irix sat across from me, looking at the steak. “Is that some new complexion treatment? Will you have radiant skin by nightfall?”
“Hardly.” I moved the steak to give him a good look at my swollen eye. I’m sure the shadows around it had deepened to a lovely shade of purple.
The incubus clucked in sympathy, leaning over to take my chin in his hand and examine my face further.
“Careful. My jaw has got a nasty bruise on it too.”
“Hmmm.” Irix sat back in his chair and took a sip of his drink. “You might want to keep away from humans with sadism fantasies until your ability to fix cuts and bruises manifests.”
I opened my mouth to correct him then snapped it shut. If I told him about Cleo, that another succubus had gotten into a fistfight with me over territory, he’d go nuts. It would be satisfying to watch him smear bits of Cleo across the beach, but I didn’t want Irix to fight my battles for me. It was bad enough that he constantly lectured me about my choice of partners, frequency of sex, and reluctance to lock in my energy sources by tying humans to me. I wasn’t a child, but if I let Irix handle this situation for me, I might as well be one. If I couldn’t hold my own against Cleo, then I might as well cash it in.
“Good idea.” I dropped the steak onto the table, doubting it was doing much to help speed the healing of my bruises. “Could you do me a favor and heal this for me? I’m going to have a hard time picking up men if I have a black eye.”
Irix laughed. “Not unless I was sure you could undo the damage I caused in fixing you. I wouldn’t want to risk the chance of giving you ocular cancer unless I was positive you could correct it before you died. So, no, you’ll just have to let it heal on its own.”
Damn. “So I let you bottle-feed me energy until I’m pretty again?” So much for not being a child.
A devilish grin curled Irix’s lips. “You’re more than pretty, sweetheart, even with a black eye. Don’t worry; plenty of men will come crawling.”
I snorted. Yeah. Right. Maybe I’d just put a patch over it and pretend to be a pirate. Or only hunt late at night in places with very poor lighting.
“I’ll prove it to you.” Irix’s voice grew dark and suggestive. “How about I come crawling?”
Oh, yes please. It didn’t pay to look too eager, so I pouted, looking up at my demon with sad eyes. He prowled toward me, tilting my chair backwards, and nibbling on my earlobe.
“So, are we staying in this afternoon?” Worked for me. That late lunch could just as easily become an early dinner.
“No.” Irix’s breath tickled the edge of my jaw, and I tilted my head, inviting him to continue his nibbling activities a little lower. “We’re going out.” His teeth scraped against my neck, giving me the impression that our going out was in the distant future.
My chair slammed down, all four legs again on the ground. I blinked, the seductive spell broken.
“Drink up. It’s a bit of a drive, and we need to get going.”
“Going where?” Yes, I sounded peeved. I was horny, damn it.
“To have lunch beside, and make sweet love under, a waterfall.”
I slugged down my drink and stood. “Well then, let’s get a move on.”
A big hat was out of the question with the Jeep Irix had stolen, but sunglasses and some well-placed concealer worked wonders on my bruises. I propped my feet on the dash and tilted my head back, glorying in the warm sun on my skin and wind ruffling the loose strands of hair as Irix drove. Catfight aside, it wasn’t shaping up to be a bad day. I’d gotten my succubus needs out of the way and was looking forward to the afternoon and evening with my demon. And even given my miserable watersports abilities, this morning had been fun. More than fun. I remembered Kai’s grace on the water, her easy laugh, her request concerning my attire for tomorrow’s lesson. The sun suddenly felt blazingly hot on my face, and I shifted, unable to sit still.
“Can I ask your opinion on something? As a sex demon?”
Irix nodded. “We might be lovers, but I still am responsible for your education. Of course. Ask me anything.”
I bit my lip, wondering how to word this. “I want Kai,” I blurted out, feeling very hot once more. “I mean, she’s my friend, but I’m attracted to her, and I’m not usually attracted to women.”
I wasn’t sure what else to say. Irix knew my issues with tying people, and we’d discussed how Kai didn’t want a one-night stand. I didn’t see any way anything beyond friendship could possibly work out for us, but he was the expert. And I trusted him to be honest with me.
“Tell me about her.”
I glanced over in surprise. “There was this spark the first time we met. She’s beautiful and so easy to be with. She’s funny, warm, and generous. She’s been hurt — I don’t know if her ex boyfriend was abusive or just an ass, but she’s afraid to love. Not just love, she’s afraid to risk any part of herself. She doesn’t give out any receptive signals, ignores advances, locks herself down into work and solitude with only a tiny circle of friends she feels safe with.”
I watched the scenery roll by, stuck my hand over the roll bar to feel the wind in my palm. “But she flirts with me. I think... I think if I kissed her, she wouldn’t say ‘no’.”
I expected Irix to tell me to go for it. I expected him to offer to join in. He surprised me.
“Wait for her to kiss you.”
“Huh?” I stared.
“She’s been hurt, and from what you’ve said, you’re the first person she feels safe enough to even think about being close to right now. Be receptive, and let her come to you.”
“I don’t want to hurt her.” I said the words so softly that it was a wonder he even heard them.
“Then don’t. Remember I told you what we do can be a gift? You have the ability to tie a human to you as tightly or as loosely as you want. You can make it conditional, or not tie at all. You can just give physical pleasure, or you can give so much more.”
I frowned. How could I give so much more? I loved Irix. It was hard enough wrapping my head around the thought we had sex with others; was he seriously saying we could love others too?
“In my two-thousand years, I’ve learned there are many ways to care about another being. Love doesn’t have to be forever and ever; it can be a flower that blooms at nightfall, filling the dark with sweet fragrance only to fade away at dawn. If Kai opens her heart to you, fill it. She’ll know what you give will fade at dawn and that life can become richer after an experience of fleeting beauty.”
I sat back to ponder Irix’s words. And think about my white bikini with the orange hibiscus flowers.
Chapter 11
I stuck a finger in one ear to muffle the noise from the waterfall, shooting an apologetic grimace at Irix. Damn he looked hot, standing hip-deep in the water, tanned, naked chest against a backdrop of African tulips, red ginger, and blue gum Eucalyptus.
“Can you hear me now?” Kristin screamed in my ear.
Irix and I had been heating up the water in our own special way when my phone had put rainforest sex on temporary hold. With the time difference, I needed to talk to Kristin now, or get up at two o’clock in the morning to reach her before work.
“We’ve got a problem with a fire spirit, and I need to pick your brain.”
I told her about the fire on the beach and what we’d seen that morning.
“From what you’ve told me, I think the fire on the beach was just a freak coincidence,” Kristin shouted. “Elementals need to be summo
ned. Like demons, they do whatever task is demanded of them, and then return to their realm. Unlike demons, if the magic-user screws up, they won’t go wandering around destroying stuff. They’ll just return on their own.”
“What about a wild gate?” I walked a few steps further from the waterfall, trying to block the noise without losing the weak signal. “Irix said there are rifts, and a fire spirit — an elemental — might fall though into this world.”
Kristin hummed. Or coughed. It was hard to tell. “Maybe, but it would just go back. They don’t want to be here. It’s painful for them. They want to do the job they’ve been summoned to do and return home.”
“Okay, so what’s your take on this? Is it gone for good?”
“I’d say yes. Magic-users summon a fire elemental to burn stuff. There needs to be an already occurring fire nearby for the elemental to link to. They do their job then are automatically returned home as part of the deal — no banishing ritual necessary.”
“So someone really hates Mr. Lee?”
Kristin snorted, at least I think she did. “Or Mr. Lee has an insurance policy he’s eager to cash in on.”
“How about if someone wanted to get the sugarcane company in trouble? Like developers that want the land or something? Maybe they’d summon an elemental and make it look like the field burning got out of control.”
“Nah. They would have made the elemental burn a whole lot more than one house. If you want to make a company look bad, you need to make the public safety threat truly frightening. Large-scale stuff. Go big or go home.”
Kristin was beginning to frighten me. For a big girl with perpetual sunburn and hair to match, she was surprisingly intimidating.
So, open-and-shut case. Beach bonfire gone bad. Insurance fraud or someone with a grudge against Mr. Lee, but elemental gone. I should be able to relax and enjoy the rest of my vacation, to disconnect from Kristin and go back to my waterfall lovemaking, but I was a creature of paranoia. Beyond my usual age-appropriate angst was the fear that the elves would track me down, that they’d hire a demon to take me out, that the vampires would eat me, that the angels would... I don’t know, invite me to tea or something. I’d lived the last year of my life looking over my shoulder, and I wasn’t about to stop now.
“So, just in case this is a magic-user holding a grudge for more than poor Mr. Lee, what do I do?”
“Well, you would need to wrestle control of the elemental away from the magic-user then send it home.”
I immediately had an image of me and some dude with a lightning bolt scar, locked in a half nelson. “Wrestle?”
“Energy, Amber. Use your power and will to break the ties holding the elemental. You don’t even really have to control it; once the tie is broken; it will willingly go back home.”
“Through a wild gate?” How the heck was the elemental supposed to get back if the magic-user hadn’t banished it? Wander around until it found the appropriate rift? Follow a trail of breadcrumbs?
“They can create a temporary gate of their own. That’s why if they fall through a wild gate, they’ll just rebound home. They don’t want to be here. They’ll do anything to slip their leash, and then they’ll send themselves back.”
“Okay, I get it.” I smiled and waved at Irix to let him know I was almost done. “But I’m still fuzzy on this wrestling thing. How do I use my power and will to break the leash thingie?”
Damn it all, this ceremonial magic stuff was so not my thing. Sex was my thing. And plants. If only I could zap Kristin here to hang around and guard against vengeful magic-users, just in case.
Kristin sighed or made an impatient noise or maybe just breathed. “You feel the energy around you; feel what you hold inside. Consolidate that, concentrate it to the edge of a knife, then find the thread that ties them together — the leash — and cut it.”
Clearly this was something best learned through doing, because I couldn’t envision the energy-as-a-knife stuff. I’d just have to hope the elemental was gone for good, and whoever had summoned it had had his, or her, fill of revenge.
I thanked Kristin and turned to Irix. With a quick toss, my phone was in my bag, and I was sliding into the water and into my lover’s arms. The waterfall roared behind us, misting his olive skin with fine beads of water. With a flick of my tongue, I tasted the cool wetness against the warmth of his chest. “Now. Where were we?”
***
There’s nothing quite like bouncing along an unpaved road in a Jeep, sun beating down on your shoulders as you loll in a sex-food-wine coma. To one side, a steep slope of jagged, black lava rock dotted with brush led to a turbulent shore. The beach was black sand and rounded black rocks, their wet surface glittering like dark stars. The rainforest ended rather abruptly as we reached the west side of the mountain, lush green giving way to barren rock and twisted trees. Horses grazed in the yellow grass, an occasional sign for a ranch propped next to a barely there dirt drive.
Irix’s hands on the steering wheel were just as entrancing as the scenery. I could look forever at the muscles in his arms, the shade of his skin in the sun, the way his hands moved — strong, gentle, firm. I watched him slide his fingers along the steering wheel, remembered those fingers on my body just a short time ago.
“Cow.”
The Jeep slowed and stopped. We stared at the bovine that had appeared from nowhere as we’d rounded a corner. It stared at us, eyes wide, ears back. Snorting, it edged past us, picking up speed to a fast trot once clear of the vehicle. I turned, wondering where the rest of her herd was.
“Shit!”
The sound of hooves on dirt and a chorus of bellowing cries nearly drowned out Irix’s curse. I snapped open the buckle on my seatbelt and stood, holding the roll bar and bracing for impact. The herd hit the Jeep with the force of a battering ram, rocking the car side to side as they squeezed between it and the cliff edge. Irix stood beside me, and I felt him gathering energy.
“Don’t hurt them,” I shouted, nearly falling as one of the cows slammed into the corner of the Jeep.
I’d grown up around these animals, playing in the farmers’ fields that surrounded our dinky rental house. These animals weren’t attacking us; they were fleeing something, frantic to get past us and away from... whatever. Domestic cattle didn’t spook easy. To get a herd panicked and running like this took a serious threat.
The last cow ran past, mooing after her herd as she desperately tried to catch up. As the hoofbeats faded away, I heard what had spooked them, and I, too, wanted to turn and run.
Fire. We were on a narrow, winding road with a cliff to the beach on one side and a wall of rock on the other. Whatever was around the next sharp corner, I really didn’t want to go driving smack into it.
“I can’t turn this around,” Irix said softly, as if the fire would hear us. “And I’m not sure how fast it will go in reverse.”
Or how well he could steer in reverse. As much as I didn’t want to go forward, the unknown danger was a bit less frightening than the thought of backing off a cliff.
Irix obviously felt the same. He slammed the Jeep in gear and gave me a grim look. “Seatbelt and hold on. If there’s anything blocking our path, I’m going to blast it.”
We tore around the corners, lifting onto two wheels as Irix picked up speed. The crackling sound grew. Waves of heat striped the cooler air. I gritted my teeth as we rounded the last bend and the open fields came into view.
Scorched grass spread out to our left, stretching toward the distant mountains. Ahead, mini fires framed a tall column of flame that seemed to be walking toward the road. I blinked, unable to believe my eyes. “Is that... that can’t be!”
So much for Mr. Lee being the only target. But why would a magic-user be pissed at a bunch of cows and their owner? What could the connection between an elderly Korean bus driver and a cattle rancher be?
Irix gunned the Jeep. Everything became a blur of bouncing. I held onto the door and dash handles with every bit of strength, thankful f
or the seatbelt keeping me from flying out of the car. As we passed the fire-being, I looked at Irix and saw a house behind him. It was one of those little one-story ramblers with a stone driveway and a few decorative trees. Two figures in the yard frantically hosed everything down.
“Stop!” I shouted. We slid sideways in a spray of gravel.
Irix grunted. “Let me guess; you want me to blow it up.”
It had worked with the beach fire; it might work with this thing — at least until whoever was summoning it brought it back.
“Only what you can safely do without bringing an angel.”
Irix exited the Jeep, leaving it running. Good idea — if none of this worked, we might have to make a quick getaway with additional passengers in the backseat.
While the demon eyed up his foe, I ran to help the homeowners — a man in his early forties and a teenager. “What can I do?”
The man didn’t break stride, throwing a sopping wet towel at me. “If sparks start to catch, put it out with this. The fire department won’t get here for at least another fifteen minutes. We’ve got to keep it from the house until then.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that based on what I’d seen this morning, the fire department wouldn’t be able to help. If the elemental was set on destroying the house, Irix was our only hope.
An explosion rocked the ground, sending bits of pulverized lava rock through the air like a sandstorm. I covered my head, listening carefully once my ears stopped ringing. There was still a pop and crackle, but it sounded more like what I’d hear in my fireplace than an inferno. Looking up, I saw Irix dusting off his hands as he stood in the field across the road. Little bits of brush and wood had been flung everywhere, but the only thing remaining of the fire was a cloud of smoke.
I whooped, jumping and clapping like a cheerleader. Then I ran across the road and threw myself into Irix’s arms. “Thank you,” I murmured as I squeezed him tight.
