Kings of the Fire Box Set

by Lily Cahill

  If she would let him, he would take an entire lifetime to do it.

  “Have you the rings?”

  Vincent snapped back into reality. Blayze handed the officiant the rings. When Vincent tried to catch Joy’s eye again, she was watching the ceremony so intently he thought she might burn a hole through Felicity and Damien’s joined hands.

  He had to find her as soon as the ceremony was over. During the reception—which was just some light drinking and dancing, a little bit of time to relax before retiring to bed—he would seek her out. He would clarify so she understood what she hadn’t this morning: he loved her, and he would love her forever.

  Chapter Nine

  Joy

  THE BED AND BREAKFAST HAD cleared their dining room for the tiny reception. Felicity had insisted that the owners join them, as well as the officiant, and while it was a small party, it was certainly a happy one. There was more than enough to drink, and Felicity had spelled her phone so the sound was amplified around the room. She’d also enchanted it to play whatever anyone requested, and now the entire party was working together to keep Blayze away from it. No one wanted to do the Cha Cha Slide a third time.

  The room was too close, with everyone packed inside of it. Joy had always loved parties, before. Big ones, small ones—it didn’t matter so long as there was music playing and there were boys to dance with. It was a bit different with everyone watching her out of the corner of their eyes to make sure she didn’t take a drink.

  She wasn’t going to, even if the temptation was there.

  At the very least, a little bit of alcohol might give her some relief from her thoughts of Vincent.

  He had stared at her throughout the ceremony, and it had been so unfair. How could he do that to her when he knew—he had to know—how much he had hurt her with his rejection? He had not seemed like the type of guy to be deliberately cruel. Had she misjudged him completely?

  She didn’t think she had. There’d been something about the quality of his gaze, like he was trying to promise her impossible things with only his eyes. But it didn’t make sense. He’d told her that she wasn’t the one for him, so why had he looked at her so hopefully, so—did she dare even think it?—so lovingly?

  It was either a cruel joke, or ….

  Well, she didn’t want to think about the “or.” There was no use in getting her hopes up, only to hurt herself.

  She wasn’t good enough for him. Vincent was levelheaded and surprising. She thought of him making eye-contact with the guy in the public restroom and had to stifle a laugh. He could be distant and aloof, but once he let down his guard, he was so beautiful.

  And Joy? Well, she was a work in progress. She was finally going the right direction, and she knew it—there was a lot to be said about leaving behind her party girl lifestyle and becoming a more serious, mature person. Felicity said it spoke to Joy’s character.

  But it was all too little, too late. Vincent was a fully realized human being, and she was still learning about this new self she’d suppressed under drugs for so long. She couldn’t catch up with him in time to deserve him. She was sure of that.

  “Don’t Stop Believing” came through the speakers, and someone whooped in excitement. The innkeeper and his wife were out in the center of the room, dancing closer together and laughing. Soon, other couples began to join them.

  Couples. Well, that was her cue to leave, wasn’t it?

  Joy took a deep breath and slipped out of the room through the back. There was a patio in the backyard, the remnants of the day’s festivities still scattered across the lawn. She wandered out to one of the forgotten folding chairs and settled down, eyes on the stars.

  “I think we need to talk,” came the voice she both most and least wanted to hear. She turned in her seat to see Vincent crossing the patio, his hands shoved in the pockets of his tux.

  “Where’d you get the monkey suit?”

  She wasn’t ready to talk about whatever it was he wanted to discuss, and it was easier to ask a flippant question.

  “Felicity spelled it out of something Arryn brought,” he said. No to be deterred, he continued, “When we were in the wedding—“

  “Please, Vincent, don’t.” Her voice sounded weak to her own ears, but she didn’t know what else to say, what else to do. He would either swear to love her despite the fact that he was supposed to belong to another—a compromise she wouldn’t allow him to accept—or he wanted to continue to let her down easy. Both of these scenarios sounded torturous.

  He growled deep in his chest, and it was the least human he had seemed to her. A thrill went up her spine despite herself.

  “I am going to tell you what I think, and you are going to listen,” he spat.

  Joy sighed. “Fine.”

  “I’m in love with you.”

  She’d known it would happen. Letting her eyes drift close to hide her tears, Joy nodded. “I feel the same way, but don’t you see that it’s a bad idea? You have some perfect dream girl out there just waiting for you, and in the long run, it will hurt me much more to have to stand by and watch you fall in love with someone else. It isn’t fair.”

  Instead of protesting and arguing or any of the things Joy expected, Vincent went abruptly silent.

  Maybe it was a good thing that he wasn’t putting up a fight. The jealous part of her wanted him to, but she knew that it wasn’t right. She’d just have to let go now, and then—

  Vincent was suddenly on his knees in front of her, his hands on either side of her face. They were burning hot, and she wanted to lean into his warmth.

  “Joy, you think you’re not that girl?”

  Joy frowned. “You told me I wasn’t that girl.”

  “No,” he insisted. “I said that girl existed, and then you started talking about us being friends without me getting a chance to finish. Of course it’s you. It will always be you.”

  Joy froze, going tense beneath Vincent’s gentle touch. The hard case of ice that had formed over her heart throughout the course of the day abruptly melted. She felt tender and unsure, but also—so overwhelmingly hopeful.

  “Are you—I mean …?” She’d never stumbled over her words like this before. “Is this real?”

  Instead of answer, Vincent closed the distance between them and kissed her.

  His mouth was every bit as delicious as she remembered from the night before as it moved against her own. His tongue demanded entrance and she yielded, grabbing him by the tie to yank him closer. There were inches between them—whole inches—and that was unacceptable.

  He had had a similar idea, apparently. HIs hands circled under her thighs and lifted her up. She brought her legs behind his back and locked her ankles there. She felt a moment of gratefulness that Felicity had spelled her a short dress rather than something floor length before his hard cock grazed her hot center and all thoughts promptly flew out of her head.

  He turned so that he was sitting and she was straddling him, their mouths frantic as hands tore at clothes. She managed to undo his tie and fling it over his shoulders, and he worked at the zipper in the back of her dress, tugging at it so hard she was afraid the fabric would rip.

  There were too many layers between them. As his lips traveled away from her mouth and trailed the length of her jaw, she arched her back, pressing her breasts against his chest. There were so many clothes in the way. She wanted her skin on his, to really feel him.

  Teasingly, she circled her hips over his cock. He let out a small moan against her neck, and she grinned, feeling momentarily triumphant.

  It was a short-lived moment, as his hand disappeared beneath her skirt and moved immediately to her clit, massaging it over her panties, making her pant and groan. This time when she wriggled against him, it was entirely unplanned.

  She couldn’t take it anymore. It had been less than a day since he’d been inside of her, but even that felt too long. She needed him now.

  “Vincent, please!” She ground out from between clenched teeth a
s she bucked against his hand. Joy was going out of her mind without him inside of her.

  “We’re outside,” he chided, but from the way he moved against her, that argument didn’t mean much to him.

  “Don’t care,” she said. That too-sweet pressure was building inside of her, driving her closer and closer to the edge. “Don’t care who sees.”

  “Are you so sure about that?”

  She stilled and so did Vincent beneath her. Neither of them had said that.

  Aware of her less than ladylike position, Joy turned to look over her shoulder.

  The woman there was tall and as thin as a rail, with a large, beaky nose and mounds of coarse, black hair. She was wearing some kind of dark red dress, her arms crossed in front of her. But it wasn’t her form that disturbed Joy so much as her tone.

  She sounded … angry.

  “Perhaps you ought to rethink that,” she recommended.

  “You’re …,” It was difficult to get the words out. “You’re the witch that Glinda warned us about, aren’t you?”

  “I am Natasha,” she spat. “And you call her Glinda? I’m sure she gets a kick out of that.”

  Vincent hand moved his hands to Joy’s hips, squeezing tightly. She kept her attention on the woman watching them, but turned her ear so she could hear him better.

  “On the count of three,” he said, voice serious. “You run. Okay? One, two ….”

  “I’m not leaving without you,” Joy hissed back.

  Natasha smiled a mouth of a sharp teeth. “For once, Joy, you’re right.”

  She flung her arms wide, and Joy felt like she was being held in place by pieces of rope tied around her body. She hadn’t moved at all, still sitting astride Vincent’s lap, and now she couldn’t move.

  “Vincent!” she said, trying and failing to keep the panic out of her voice.

  “I’m trapped, too.” He closed his eyes, features drawn tight in concentration, but a moment later he looked up at her and shook his head. “I can’t shift.”

  He didn’t sound terrified like she did. Instead, he sounded … angry.

  The witch was suddenly beside them, smiling with her shark teeth, her eyes hard and cold. She didn’t make a sound as she moved.

  “I’ve gone through a lot of trouble to kill you both,” she said, reaching out to finger one of Joy’s stands of hair. She tugged it viciously, but Joy couldn’t not managed to turn her head away. “I just want you two to know how much I’m going to enjoy this.”

  Chapter Ten

  Vincent

  VINCENT’S BODY REBELLED AGAINST THE magic holding him in place. His blood ran hot in his veins, and every inch of him wanted to change, to breathe fire, to rip this woman to shreds with his sharp talons.

  He hadn’t been barred from shifting since that last horrible night in the palace.

  Joy was terrified, her faced bleached white and her eyes shining with fearful tears. He needed to protect her—she was his, and he would keep her safe no matter what.

  Natasha’s words played in his head again. Something about her phrasing—an awful lot of trouble to kill you both—stuck out.

  “You sabotaged my car?” he asked, watching as Natasha nodded gleefully. It was more than that, though. He could feel her cold eyes on her, watching him try to figure it out. “But you tried to hurt Joy, too?”

  “Those stupid idiots at the general store,” hissed the witch, her expression suddenly turning stormy. “I gave them everything they needed to succeed, and they still failed.”

  Vincent railed against the magic holding him. He had to get out of this seat, he had to get Joy to safety, and then he had to tear this woman apart.

  He could feel Joy trembling above him, but the spell didn’t allow for any other real movement. “But … why us?” she asked, still sounding teary.

  Vincent didn’t care why. All he knew was this woman was trying to hurt the most precious thing in the world to him, and he would do whatever he could to protect Joy.

  “Luck. Yours being bad, mine good. You,” Natasha pointed at Joy. “With your partying and your idiocy. It was too easy to prey on the Maxwells’ fears. I just put a little paranoia spell on one old book, left that book somewhere for someone impressionable to find it … and look what I accomplished!” She turned her horrible smile to Vincent. “And you, because you’re always so alone, aren’t you? I didn’t even know she was in the car with you yesterday.”

  Summoning every ounce of his strength, Vincent fought the bonds holding him down, invisible and yet so effective. He flexed and pushed and pulled, trying to find any bit of give, any way to start breaking down these chains so that he could—

  His right wrist moved.

  He chanced a glance at Joy, but she was wrapped up in her terror, her eyes wide and watching Natasha.

  He wiggled his wrist and felt the bond start to break down. It was gone all the way to his elbow, disappearing up to his shoulder. He held still, unwilling to show his advantage until he had possession of all of his limbs.

  But how had he broken the spell?

  “We haven’t done anything to you,” Vincent said, holding the witch’s gaze even as he felt her magic slacken and let his left arm go.

  She spat at them, and it fell short, disappearing into the grass.

  “Your families have ruined this world, have thrown it into chaos and terror. There will be an uprising. I will not stand by and let you ruin all of magic within this country.”

  Vincent swallowed. So this was political. He hadn’t expected that, for some reason. He knew his parents’ rule had been flawed, and that the Valdez had not held up any of the promises they had made since their coup, but things were changing. Felicity and Damien were trying to foster a new era of cooperation.

  He felt the tingle in his right ankle that told him he was regaining control.

  Over Natasha’s shoulder, he spotted something moving—it wasn’t any of his brothers, and it wasn’t Felicity or Ramona, but it was too big to be an animal. No, it was definitely human, of some sort. Someone small and round, with what looked like gray hair—

  Everything snapped into focus. The good witch. Glinda, or whatever her real name was. She was helping him. She was freeing him.

  “You won’t get away with this,” he said, stalling for time. His left leg was slowly coming under his power. He just needed a few more seconds. “Once I get free, I’m going to kill you for what you’ve done to Joy.”

  The witch tutted, shaking her head. “Don’t you understand, child? You’ll never be free.”

  He saw Glinda disappear from the background with a sudden pop, and he knew that his body was his own again. He moved quickly—as quickly as he could—and lifted Joy off his lap. She went to the ground, but didn’t seem to have harmed herself.

  He ran two steps to the right, shifting as he went so that his legs thickened and lengthened, his skin turned to scales, and his wings sprouted from his back. Deep in his chest, his firestarter was already clicking, and in a matter of seconds, he was his dragon self, staring down the witch.

  There was a flash of panic on Natasha’s face as he sucked in a deep breath, and then he opened his mouth and let out a focused wave of fire, his anger making it pour directly into the spot where she was.

  He breathed it out, rage making him run hotter than ever before, and when the fire died in his lungs, he looked at the now barren spot where she had been.

  There was nothing there, just an empty circle of earth.

  She had escaped.

  The thought was enough that he felt his firestarter click again, the heat and smoke and ash building inside of him quickly, begging for release.

  It all died the moment he felt a small, soft hand on his front leg.

  Joy stood before him, staring up at him with wonder. No mortal had ever seen him like this; he had never shared this part of himself with anyone other than family, before. But Joy was part of his family, now.

  He stood at his full height and stretched out his wing
s so that she could see their full span. His dark green scales gleamed in the light of the rising moon. Joy circled him, her tiny hands reaching out to touch, to feel. She ran her palms over his chest, his talons, his back, his tail. She touched every part of him within her reach as she circled him, her hands exploring.

  When she came back to his front, she smiled. “Vincent,” she said, slightly awed. “You’re beautiful.”

  For the first time in his life, Vincent wished he was a man. He needed to kiss her immediately.

  There was the bang of the back door, followed by a bellowed, “What the hell is going on here?”

  Vincent looked at the innkeeper and his wife, fuming mad, and at the rest of the wedding party as they trickled out.

  Clearly, he had some explaining to do.

  Chapter Eleven

  Joy

  “AND SHE HELPED YOU, THE good witch?” Felicity asked, worrying her lower lip.

  “Glinda,” Joy cut in.

  Felicity shook her head. “Be serious, Joy.”

  They’d gone over this what felt like a million times. Joy doubted that Damien and Felicity had expected to spend their wedding night looking over the disturbed protection wards, magically regrowing a scorched bit of earth, or rehashing the events of the past few hours again and again.

  “I didn’t exactly have a moment to ask her, but I believe Glinda used her magic to free me from the evil witch’s curse.”

  “And you’re sure her motives were political?” Damien asked. That was the third time in the past half-hour.

  Joy glanced at Vincent. HIs patience was wearing thin; that was only natural, after the kind of day they had both had. Yesterday she’d been in a hospital, today she’d been magically bound and nearly killed. She’d also watched her sister get married. It had been a long weekend, in general.

  They needed a break.

  “That’s enough questions,” Joy said, cutting off whatever reply Vincent had been planning. She glanced at Felicity. “Are we safe here tonight?”