The Complete Midnight Fire Series

by Kaitlyn Davis

  Kira opened her eyes.

  Tristan. Her Tristan.

  He was alive. His pink lips were open and breath surged in and out of them. Kira pulled her powers back under her skin and roamed with her eyes instead.

  His skin was tanned, not the pale white she was used to. His hair had returned, thick and falling over his forehead. His lashes were full, but closed, covering the eyes Kira was longing to look into. Mostly, his body was warm, brimming with life in a way Kira had never witnessed before. He felt human.

  Tristan stirred. His limbs shifted, his arms stretched over his head as though he was waking from a long slumber. Finally, he blinked. His lids flickered open, quickly at first and then slower to reveal warm, milk chocolate brown irises.

  He blinked again and Kira could see that his vision was fuzzy, blurred and unclear. One more time and there was more focus, but no recognition. His eyes locked on hers, confused.

  “Who are you?” his hoarse voice scratched out. The deep rumble sent a shiver down Kira’s body. It really was Tristan. But then, his words registered.

  “Kira,” she said, as though the answer was so obvious she couldn’t believe he was asking it.

  “Where am I?” he asked with aggression leaking into his tone. Kira didn’t know what to say.

  Tristan sat up, looking down at his body that was naked except for Kira’s dress, which had fallen over him during the healing. He looked at the ground, at the destruction all around him.

  “What’s going on?” His panic was clear. His eyes were widening in shock. “Where are my men? The commander?” He looked around the room again. “The last thing I remember is being in the woods, the men were moaning all around me. A stranger walked through the dead, sending blessings.” He pushed Kira’s dress aside, groping for his leg. “My wound—it’s gone. I had been shot. I was dying.”

  His brown eyes met hers again. “Witch!” he yelled at her, anger clouding his words. “What have you done to me?” He reached for her throat and Kira was stuck, unsure of what to do. His hands gripped tightly, cutting off her air. “Witch!”

  Kira tried to speak, tried to calm him, but it was no use against his strength. He pushed down on top of her, pressing her into the ground as her vision started to spot. Kira sucked for air but there was nothing.

  And then, whack!

  Tristan rolled off of her, knocked out, and Luke dropped the iron pole in his hand. “Man, I thought he was annoying before, but that was ridiculous.”

  “Luke.” Kira sighed, massaging her sore neck. Things were happening too fast for her brain to process. “Is Tristan…?”

  “Human?” Luke supplied. Kira nodded.

  “Looks like it,” Luke told her flatly. Kira scanned his face, which was carefully molded into a smile, hiding his real feelings. Kira was too spent to look past the façade and read his thoughts. Her powers were too drained. But she didn’t need to. Kira knew Luke better than she knew herself. She could hear the pull to his words, the slight catch in his throat. His eyes were uncertain—gone was the confident gaze he had focused on her after their kiss yesterday.

  Tristan was human and Luke’s eyes were questioning her, silently asking her if that had changed everything.

  Kira looked back at her feet to the spot where Tristan had collapsed. He looked vulnerable, like he needed her. Kira brushed the hair from his forehead.

  “I don’t think he remembers,” she said softly, “any of it.”

  “Yeah, when he called you a witch and tried to kill you, I sort of got that impression.” Luke shrugged and smirked at her. But this wasn’t a joke. Luke knew that, he just couldn’t think of any other way to deal with it.

  Kira turned away from him, looking at the other conduits standing behind her. She had almost forgotten they were there, silently observing everything.

  “The prisoners?” Kira asked, focusing on something tangible, something with a definite answer.

  A man stepped forward, answering her. “They’re safe. The female vampire, Pavia, ran too fast for us to catch her, but we did what you asked and didn’t follow.”

  “Aldrich?” Kira asked, looking back at Luke who shook his head.

  “Gone—vanished,” he said sadly. “When we got inside, it was just you and Tristan. Somehow, he got away.”

  Kira remembered how. She ran a tongue over her canines, relieved to find them nearly as dull as they had ever been. It was all her fault. Kira had hesitated. Part of her had wanted him to suffer, had called for his blood. She had slipped, had started to fall into the blackness gnawing at her heart. Instead of fighting Aldrich, she had needed to fight herself, giving him just enough time to run.

  But Tristan had stayed. Why didn’t he just leave, like they had planned? Why didn’t he save himself?

  Kira knew that answer too. He loved her. And when it came down to it, Tristan wasn’t strong enough to let her go.

  “Can we go home now?” Kira sighed, letting Luke pull her to her feet. The dress was destroyed, hanging around her body like a rag, filled with holes and shredded apart.

  Tristan. Luke. Aldrich. Her own body. It was too much for her to handle right now, too much for her to figure out.

  “Will you take him to the truck?” Luke asked someone over Kira’s shoulder and two conduits walked forward, lifting Tristan between them. “Put him with the other victims. Make sure he gets a full medical check.”

  They nodded and Kira silently watched them maneuver through the wreckage, bringing Tristan’s body out the door and into the night. The other conduits followed, leaving Kira alone with Luke.

  He looked down at her, waiting for instructions.

  “You didn’t by any chance bring some clothes, did you?” Kira asked.

  Luke raised his eyebrows, challenging her doubt in him. “Please—I’ve got jeans, a T-shirt, and my fuzzy worn sweatshirt waiting in the car.”

  “Thank god for you, Luke Bowrey,” Kira said, taking his warm hand in hers, letting his strength funnel into her arm, surging up and around her heart.

  With Luke by her side, Kira knew she would be able to face what was coming. His presence was like a drug, giving her strength she never even knew she had.

  She didn’t know what would happen in the future. She didn’t know if Tristan would ever remember her. If he would wake with recognition in his unfamiliar brown eyes or if, like a child, he would be new to this world, struggling to make his way in a new century. Kira would be there, helping him, but she had been prepared for goodbye, ready for it even. And now even that certainty was gone. A door of possibilities had opened, hanging in the air like a question mark.

  Kira didn’t know what would happen with Aldrich. Where he had run or if he would come back. He didn’t know how close he had come to succeeding, how close Kira had come to the turn. Or maybe he did and maybe he would follow her to finish the job.

  And Kira didn’t even know what she was. Her flames coiled in her heart, ready to break free at any moment, but there was something else there too, a little cloud of darkness that felt foreign in her body, something normally filled solely with light. It was teasing her, testing her, daring her to take that extra step away from the sun—demanding she fall, tumble down into the black hole it created. And Kira was standing on the precipice, looking down through the abyss, nervous that something or someone would push her over the edge, sending her flying so fast that she would change without even knowing it.

  But Kira did know one thing, something so certain and binding that it took her fear away. Luke would be there to catch her, to save her from herself. He always was.

  So Kira pushed her doubts to the back of her mind, forgetting everything except for the warmth emanating from Luke’s hand. For once, she didn’t want to think about the consequences or about whom she would hurt. She needed Luke and no matter what happened, she wouldn’t let him go—not again.

  Emboldened by the sudden thought, Kira looked up into his green eyes, at the flames dancing around the edges of his irises. He was alrea
dy watching her, wondering what was going on inside of her head.

  And before she could stop to think, could stop to worry about Tristan, Kira did exactly what she wanted in that instant. She leaned up and kissed him, quickly planting her lips against his.

  In a heartbeat, it was over, and Kira was walking past him, out the door in search of a change of clothes, a way home, and a meal to calm the hunger knotting in her stomach.

  Luke was stuck. His feet were planted against the ground in shock. His lips tugged into a wide smile and his eyes started sparkling.

  Kira didn’t need to turn around. She knew exactly what Luke looked like, because her face held the same expression—pure hope and happiness.

  And like the last time they had kissed, her blood turned into golden honey, spreading warmth and tenderness around her body like a soft caress.

  So for a moment, Kira forgot everything and let herself feel happy, truly and perfectly happy.

  ###

  Scorch

  Midnight Fire Book Four

  By

  Kaitlyn Davis

  Description

  "All it did was remind Kira that time was running out. That she needed to choose. Or a lot more than a forest would burn. The whole world would crumble."

  Aldrich escaped…again. Tristan forgot…everything. And Luke, well, Luke was getting more than a little impatient. But those were the least of Kira’s concerns, because something else happened in England—something she was trying desperately to forget. A wedge of evil had lodged itself in her heart, a little black hole had nestled into her flames, and it wasn’t going away—not anytime soon…and maybe not ever.

  ###

  Chapter One

  From a chair in the corner of his hospital room, Kira looked at the steady rise and fall of Tristan's chest. His movements were in tune to the constant beep of the machines wired to his body. They were the only things telling her that he was alive, because every other part of him was still. His mouth was relaxed, slightly open to let each exhale escape. His eyelids were closed, his brows were flat, and the stress-induced wrinkles normally bunching his forehead were gone. He looked oddly at peace, floating between the realm of the living and the dead.

  But it was time for him to wake up.

  Two days had passed since the fight in Aldrich's castle—one long day of travel from England to Sonnyville and one long day explaining everything to the Protector Council.

  Kira couldn't erase the pain in her grandfather's eyes as she told him that his only daughter, her mother, was truly gone—that a vampire had stolen her memories, replicated her face, and pretended to be her just to fool Kira.

  She couldn't forget the wounded look on Luke's face as she explained Tristan's miraculous transformation to the other conduits. His kiss still burned in her mind, playing on repeat, making her feel alive. Her love for Luke had been simmering in the back of her thoughts all this time, and it had finally broken to the surface, blossoming to a strong flame before she really even realized it was there. But looking at a human Tristan, now so fragile and new to the world, Kira wasn't sure she could let him go and make him face it alone.

  But most of all, Kira couldn't loosen the knot in her chest, knowing she had let Aldrich free—knowing that somewhere out there he was alive and knew her secret. That was the worst part of it all, the darkness hiding inside of her that she couldn't share with anyone, not even Luke. A wedge of evil had lodged itself in her heart, a little black hole had nestled within her flames, and it wasn't going away.

  She knew it.

  Aldrich knew it.

  And Kira didn't see Aldrich forgetting about that any time soon.

  Which was why she had holed up in Tristan's hospital room, waiting with only her thoughts for company. After learning that she had been dating a vampire, the other conduits in Sonnyville started avoiding her. Her grandparents wanted to reconnect with her, but Kira couldn't stand the waves of disappointment churning in their eyes—after giving them new hope, she had failed to bring her birth mother home. Her adoptive parents had been furious when they heard about her trip to England, and Kira had hung up the phone to escape a lecture. And Luke, Kira's best friend in the entire world, was getting impatient. He wanted her decision and she wasn't ready to give it.

  So, take away all of those people and who was left? Her comatose, once vampire now human ex-boyfriend who thought he was living in the eighteen hundreds. Oh, and who almost choked her to death when he woke up because he thought she was a demon witch.

  Perfect.

  Kira sighed, rolled her eyes, and knocked her head back against the wall. She really was in a corner—physically and mentally stuck. And she needed Tristan to wake up right now, before she actually went insane. She needed a distraction, and telling someone about the one hundred and fifty years of human life they had missed, well, that ought to take some time.

  Antsy, Kira stood and walked to the foot of Tristan's bed just in time to catch his foot twitch. The conduit doctors had been keeping him heavily medicated for the past day in order to study his cell composition, but the twenty-four hours Kira had granted them was over, and Tristan wasn't going to be a lab rat any longer.

  Farther up in the bed, his fingers bent into a fist and then flexed straight in a stretch.

  Kira moved closer, stepping next to his face so she could put a hand to his warm cheek. His skin had a healthy flush and a slight tan, which, though natural for a human, seemed unnatural on him. The tips of her fingers brushed his silky black hair, and Kira studied the slightly curled strands for a moment before focusing on his eyes.

  They blinked once and closed again, but Kira's heart stopped.

  Brown.

  She wasn't used to those chocolaty irises yet. And when he blinked again, Kira forced her breath to steady.

  "Shh," she cooed while stroking his cheek. The glaze over his eyes began to recede, replaced by confusion and fear, both somewhat muted from his medication.

  "Where…?" he began in a scratchy voice, but stopped mid-sentence when his gaze caught the fluorescent light blinking overhead. "What…?" His head tilted and an odd expression gathered on his face as he surveyed the room.

  Oh right, Kira thought, electricity. It was easy to forget how long ago 1864 really was.

  "Please try not to panic," Kira said. After thinking about this moment for the entire plane ride home from England, she had decided to leave their relationship out—to pretend they were never more than friends. It would be easier that way…for her at least. "I'm Kira," she said, "do you remember your name?"

  "Tristan, Tristan Kent," he said with a deep swallow and locked his gaze on her, sending a little swarm of butterflies into her stomach.

  "Nice to meet you, Tristan." Kira leaned back, letting go of his cheek to shake his hand.

  "And you, Miss…" he trailed off, waiting for her last name.

  "You can just call me Kira," she said. He had to be introduced to the twenty-first century at some point—might as well start now.

  "Miss Kira," he breathed, letting the words roll off of his tongue while he reached for her outstretched hand. Unexpectedly, he brought her fingers to his mouth for a quick kiss.

  Kira untangled their fingers, forcing more intimate memories out of her head. "What's the last thing you remember?"

  "I was in a forest. Men were screaming all around me. I was wounded, the pain in my leg was worse than any other I've felt. I was a foot soldier in the Confederate Army and the Union had just delivered us a harsh blow."

  "Good," Kira said and patted his hand. He didn't remember England at all—Kira silently thanked her good luck for that. "The thing is, Tristan, I have a sort of crazy story to tell you and I need you to just sit there, listen, and try to take it all in. Can you do that?"

  "Of course, Miss," he responded before lifting his hand closer to his face. He tugged at the wire stuck to his wrist, the one monitoring his pulse.

  "Leave that there," Kira said, covering the spot with her hand.

>   "But, if I may ask, what—"

  "Just listen, I promise I'll try to explain."

  Tristan nodded and set his hand back down on the bed. His movements were slow and seemed slightly disconnected from his brain, letting Kira know this calm mood would probably only last until his meds wore off.

  "You don't remember, but we've been friends for a little while—good friends. I know a lot about you and I know how you came to be here, in the hospital. But Tristan, I have to tell you something that will seem a little scary." Kira squeezed his hand, trying to provide an ounce of comfort. "We're in the future. The Civil War happened one hundred and fifty years ago, and—"

  Tristan jerked into a seated position, and the beeping of the machines grew to a frantic pace. He squeezed her shoulders, digging his fingers deep into her skin.

  "What do you mean?" he said in a harsh whisper.

  "Tristan, please calm down."

  "What year is it?" he said a little louder.

  "Tristan," Kira said, trying to escape his hold.

  "How is this possible?" He shook her, hard enough to hurt, and an animalistic fear seeped into his stare. "Where are my men? What did you do?"

  Kira slapped him across the face. The sound echoed against the sterile hospital walls and she stared at her red palm in shock. She looked up at Tristan, who looked back at her with an equal expression of surprise.

  "I'm sorry," she said slowly.

  "No, it is I who must be forgiven. Please excuse my abhorrent behavior, I am just… well, I can't quite explain it…confused, scared, lost…to treat a woman so—"

  "It's all right," she soothed while taking his hand. "I understand."

  "I do not. How did I come to be here?"

  "Let me show you something first."