Kings of the Fire Box Set

by Lily Cahill

  “Yeah, well. Sometimes these things skip people. Felicity got all the power and the smarts, and I got the penchant for trouble.” She smiled, but it felt weak to her. “The potions basically keep me healthy while we try to figure out if these are long-term effects or not.”

  Vincent was frowning, now, and she didn’t understand why. She wanted to reach out and smooth the furrow between his brows. No one that handsome should make a face like that. It was like ruining a piece of art.

  “And if these effects are long-term?”

  She shrugged. “Then I’ll probably take these potions for the rest of my life. Which…well, kind of sucks. I’m hoping my body figures itself out soon. The world is watching, you know? The second word gets out that I’m back in in NYC, there’s going to be paparazzi swarming all over me, and I just…”

  “I understand, I think. You don’t want to be forced to recover in the public eye, right?”

  It was too embarrassing. She couldn’t complain about the price of her relative health. She already had so much more than other people. What right did she have to demand more?

  “Not really. Can we drop this, now?”

  He went silent like he had to think about it, but he nodded. “Sure. It’s my turn, then, right?”

  “Right. Truth or dare?”

  “Truth.”

  “Do you want to kiss me?”

  The words popped out of her mouth without her permission. Joy wanted to snake out a hand and grab them, pull them back, swallow them so that they were never heard at all.

  Vincent’s mouth dropped open, and he glanced at her for just half a second before turning his eyes back to the road. She only had a moment to take in what she saw as he looked at her. Surprise, definitely. Confusion, too. But also—was she crazy, or had there been some heat there, as well?

  Maybe her question wasn’t as entirely off base as she’d assumed.

  He had yet to reply, though, and as the tension stretched long between them, Joy blurted, “I mean, I was just joking. I didn’t mean it, you don’t have to—“

  “Yes,” he said, saying it simply, calmly. All traces of surprise were gone from his face, and there was nothing bad there to take its place. A little bit of a smile at the corner of his mouth, and that was it.

  It took her a second to register what he’d said. “What?”

  “Yes,” he repeated. “I want to kiss you.”

  Joy leaned back into her seat, giving him a smile of her own. “Oh. That’s … good to know.”

  “It’s your turn. Truth or dare?”

  A thrill went up Joy’s spine. “Dare.”

  She could see his countenance change. He’d been on edge in some degree or another since they’d started this trip. Now, he looked totally in control, totally at ease. She liked to see him like this. And more than anything, she wanted to know what he was going to dare her to do.

  But as Vincent opened his mouth, the steering wheel jerked in his hands. There was the screech of tires skidding across pavement, and the flash of fear on Vincent’s face as he said her name, and then there was nothing.

  Chapter Four

  Vincent

  THE WORLD FELT FUZZY AND strange as Vincent blinked his way back into consciousness.

  His head throbbed at the temples, and he reached his hand up to touch at his temple. He barely brushed over the cut there before he hissed and flinched away. His fingers came away coated in blood.

  What had happened? He’d been driving, but it had been a clear day—not a lot of traffic, bright sky overhead, no problems on the road. He’d been talking—no, playing a game. With Joy.

  Joy.

  Her name entered his head and all other thoughts exited. He hastily unbuckled his seat beat and practically climbed over the center console to get to her.

  She’s looked so fragile in her seat, the belt fitting snuggly over her chest. She was pale, and there was a gash running down the side of her face. It was bleeding freely and covered in sticky, drying blood. Some distant part of Vincent reminded himself that head wounds often looked worse than they were.

  There was a bruise on her temple, as well, but he didn’t want to move her head to get a better look without being sure she didn’t have some sort of spinal injury. And then—what about the medicinal potions she was taking? Hadn’t she mentioned there was something wrong with her blood?

  Inwardly, Vincent’s dragon growled at the thought of Joy hurt, Joy upset. He’d always retreated to his dragon form, had always felt so at one with the beast inside that he’d never really registered it as a separate part of himself. It was something that was omnipresent in his life, not something that registered as different from his normal self.

  It was his normal self.

  Now, though, its anger glowed inside him, lighting him up from the inside out. Joy was hurt. Joy could die.

  Not on his watch.

  The urge to change was overwhelming. He could pick her up, carry her to the nearest town with a hospital. For once, though, he knew it was a good thing that the man inside of him was in charge. As quickly as he knew he could move her, he didn’t know the extent of her injuries.

  He could not risk hurting her worse. Neither man nor dragon would permit that.

  He couldn’t fly away to find help and leave her alone, either. This was definitely something that would have to be handled as a man, rather than as a dragon.

  His eyes looked outside the car at their surroundings.

  The car had spun out of the road, taking out the traffic barrier with the force of their accident. They’d been on a relatively flat section of land, thankfully, rolling downhill a few feet, just out of sight from the highway. There was no other car pulled over, no one stopping to look down at them. Probably, no one had seen them spin out.

  There was nothing but forest beyond this part of the highway. He’d always enjoyed the relative seclusion of the areas surrounding Augustus. There was almost nothing between Augustus and the New York state border. Now, however, the relative peace of it seemed ominous.

  Vincent shifted in his seat and found his phone. There was no bars.

  He didn’t want to leave Joy alone in case she woke up, but he didn’t think he had much of a choice. From this view, the nose of the car was bent in, the windshield a series of fissures barely held together. His door, however, worked well. He pushed it open and got outside.

  Still no bars.

  He trekked the few feet uphill between his car and the highway. There was nothing. No cars driving either direction, no bars on his cell phone. Meanwhile, Joy was still unconscious, possibly sicker than he ever knew.

  The fury and desperation in his heart made him feel like growing bigger, stronger. He wanted to let his bones grow and curl into new positions, he wanted to let the scales overtake his skin and let the wings pop from his back.

  But suddenly, his phone had full bars. And it was fully charged.

  That didn’t make any sense. How could it—

  It began to ring. Tentatively, he picked it up. “Hello?”

  “I’m going to connect you to emergency services,” said a vaguely familiar voice on the other end.

  “What? But—wait, who are you? What’s going on?”

  But there was no answer. Just another ring, and then an operator saying, “911, what is your emergency?”

  For being in such a remote location, the ambulance arrived quickly. There was some benefits, it seemed to dropping both the Dragomir and Valdez names at the right time. As soon as Vincent was able to give a rough estimate of their location and a description of what was wrong, all of his cell service disappeared again. There wasn’t even enough to send Felicity or Damien a text and let them know what was going on.

  He’d stumbled back down the hill to wait, opening the driver’s side door and sliding back into his seat. Joy was still knocked out cold. He wanted to scoop her into his arms, to the let the force of his concern and longing heal her, but that was just his dragon’s instincts manipulating his acti
ons.

  He did stroke her arm, ever so lightly. Her skin was so soft and cool under his hands. It was too warm for coats, but he did find a sweatshirt in the back seat, which he draped over her. Hopefully that would help to stave off shock and anything else that could happen.

  The ambulance was there, then, pulling up to the break in the barrier. Vincent wanted to curl around Joy, to protect her, but he knew that these people were better trained and equipped to do so.

  His instincts had never been so—animalistic before. He’d never felt so possessive, so out of control about a woman. Maybe because he’d never known a woman like Joy, who could suffer so much and still laugh and tease and who was so beautiful and—

  Walking around to the other side of the car, it was easy to see, then, that it had received far more damage than his own. There was a giant dent from where it had hit the barrier and knocked it loose. No wonder he had woken up and recovered more quickly.

  The EMTs worked quickly to check over Joy and make sure it was safe to move her, and then they put her onto a stretcher. Vincent zeroed in next to them, keeping pace as they walked back up the hill.

  There was a flutter of her eyelashes. Vincent felt his heart jump inside of him.

  “Joy?” he asked.

  “Sir, please,” one of the EMTs cut in. They reached the ambulance and started to load Joy into the back.

  He heard a garbled sound, and then, “Vincent?”

  His knees felt like water, but Vincent refused to fall. He started to climb in after her, ignoring the sound of an approaching siren.

  Oh. Police.

  “Sir, you need to stay here.” The technician laid a firm hand on his shoulder, trying to hold Vincent in place. “We’re taking your friend here to the hospital. You can come see her when things are wrapped up here.”

  “No, you don’t understand—“

  Vincent couldn’t let that happen. He couldn’t let Joy out of his sight. He had to protect her and make sure she was safe. He’d failed at earlier attempts, but he wouldn’t fail again. He wouldn’t fail ever again.

  “Vincent …,” That was Joy, again. Her voice sounded stronger. There were straps holding her body to the stretcher, and she pulled at them, trying to sit up.

  She looked muzzy and confused, and like the most beautiful thing that Vincent had ever seen.

  She was frowning as she touched her cheek. The blood on her palm made her go a greenish hue.

  “What happened?”

  “Ma’am, please, lie back down.” The paramedic put a hand on Joy’s shoulder, guiding her gently back to a prone position. “We’re going to take a quick trip to the hospital to check you out, make sure you’re okay.”

  Joy’s face froze in panic. “Please, no hospitals. Vincent, come on. Vincent!”

  He started to climb back into the ambulance, everyone else be damned, but a firm hand clasped him around the arm and kept him grounded. Vincent couldn’t help the growl that came out of his mouth. He turned around, teeth bared.

  Only to find a police officer staring back at him.

  Now is not the time to get thrown in jail, he told himself, and took a deep breath to calm himself. The dragon inside of him was in revolt, demanding that he turn around and knock the technicians out of the way so that he could care for Joy.

  The police office kept him rooted, however, and the ambulance doors closed. A moment later, the siren went on the ambulance was back on the road, flying over the pavement.

  “So,” said the officer. “Want to tell me what happened here?”

  His badge proclaimed him to be Office Wells, and he was some kind of shifter, although Vincent wasn’t sure which. Wolf or bear, if he had to hazard a guess.

  “And you still have no idea how you lost control of the car?” Officer Wells asked. He wasn’t outwardly rude, but there was something in his implication that riled Vincent. He felt his hackles rise as the man bent over a pad of paper to write down Vincent’s response. “Nothing that has come back to you?”

  “I told you. One moment everything was fine, and the next the steering wheel was jerked out of my hands.”

  Officer Wells nodded, but his expression behind his aviator glasses was skeptical. “Do you think it could have been magic?”

  “I’m not sure. There was no one else around but my companion, and she isn’t a witch.”

  Vincent had been circling around the same conversation for the past two minutes. There were only so many ways to say that he didn’t know what happened. He wasn’t sure why Sergeant Dumbass didn’t seem to understand that.

  “Can we go to the hospital now?” Vincent asked. He could imagine Joy there, all by herself. She was afraid and alone, and he needed to be there with her, to watch over her and make sure that nothing bad ever happened to her again.

  With a sigh, the Officer tapped his pen against his lip. “I’m going to call in the warlock we have a the precinct, see if he can go over the crime scene and find any trace of a magical signature left behind. Something like this, it’d have to leave behind an impression.”

  “So you think it’s magic, then?”

  Vincent’s head was still spinning at a million miles an hour. He couldn’t seem to calm down, no matter how much he knew he needed to. There was too much happening, and all of it was too serious.

  “That was Joy Valdez, wasn’t it?” Officer Wells stared at him shrewdly. “And you’re one of those dragon shifters who just appeared, if I’m not mistaken. I have a sixteen year old who has spent the past three weeks pasting your brother’s face onto every surface of her room.”

  Dammit, Blayze.

  If only he would stop giving interviews. It was like asking the sun not shine, though.

  “Well, she wasn’t driving, and she seemed pretty aware once she woke up—I think we can rule out drugs, for now. And your story runs pretty consistent with the tire tracks on the street and the state of your car. I don’t smell alcohol on your breath, I don’t notice any weird behavior that would suggest any kind of substance abuse.”

  “Of course there hasn’t been,” Vincent spat.

  “Well, you didn’t hit anything, and there’s nothing in the marks left on the pavement that suggests why you lost control. Normally, I wouldn’t jump straight to a curse or any sort of dark magic, but considering who was involved, well. Sorry to say this, sir, but your girlfriend isn’t exactly popular among most people, even with all the damage control that sister of hers is doing.”

  He heard the word “girlfriend,” but didn’t correct the officer’s assumption. It might make it easier to care for Joy if people thought they were an item. “Am I in trouble?”

  The policeman blinked in surprise. “Well—no. No, of course not. If the warlock finds nothing, I may have to get a citation for careless driving, but I have a feeling we’ll see something there.”

  “Great. Then can we go to the hospital now?”

  There wasn’t any point standing on the side of the road, talking about what might or might not happen. If there was someone who there who possessed the ability to manipulate dark magic, then he had to get to Joy. He had to protect her against whatever was coming her way. She’d had enough hardship lately to last a lifetime. She didn’t need anymore, and she didn’t need to go through anything by herself.

  Maybe Officer Wells sensed that Vincent’s patience was quickly dwindling because he gave a decisive nod.

  “Let me call into the precinct. As soon as someone else arrives, we can go.”

  The hospital was a half-hour drive away, in one of the larger towns along the border. Officer Wells stuck by Vincent’s side—something Vincent would have resented if it didn’t help him get past all of the red tape and gave him much quicker access to Joy. They were there all of twenty minutes when they were given the green light to head back and see her, even though neither of them was technically family.

  A nurse led them back, and Vincent followed so close on her heels that he practically overtook her. He had to see Joy, assure himself
that she was all right. If the police were right and there was some sort of mystical component to their crash, then anything could have happened to her while she was out of his sight.

  It was unbearable to consider.

  They turned the corner, and then there she was, sitting up in bed with a remote control in her hand, a bored expression on her face as she jumped from channel to channel. She must have heard them coming because she turned to look out her door as Vincent came barreling up to her.

  She slumped back into the pillows behind her in relief when she saw him, and it made him feel ten pounds lighter.

  “Finally!” she said. She pushed repeatedly at the button on her bed. “I cannot wait to get the hell out of here.”

  “Now wait a second…” said Officer Wells, but Vincent ignored him.

  “We have to make sure you’re okay to leave,” he said. He moved forward, only just managing to suppress the urge to gather her up in his arms and hold her close. He wanted to feel her heartbeat against his skin, to feel her weight in his arms—he wanted to know that this was all real, not some vivid hallucination. He settled for reaching out and placing a handle on her shoulder, letting it settle there.

  She was so warm.

  “Your doctor needs to clear you.”

  “Um, no. I clear me. I am cleared.” Joy rolled her eyes. “Vincent, I am so fucking sick of hospitals, I could scream. In the past two months, I’ve spent more time in a hospital than out of one, and that’s unacceptable. I’m getting out of here, and we’re going to that wedding.”

  God. The wedding.

  Joy frowned at him. “Did you call Damien or Felicity and let them know what happened?”

  “No.” He ignored her outraged look and instead fished through his pocket, trying to find his phone.

  He had service. Good. The battery was a little low, but not impossibly so. He’d have plenty to just make one quick call.

  Suddenly, the little battery symbol in the corner drained of life, and his phone shut off. When he tried to turn it back on, it couldn’t.