HELLFIRE FELT SO INCREDIBLY LOVED, so safe and warm in Sami’s arms that the dreaded tears welled up once more.
“Hellfire?” Sami asked, no doubt feeling her emotions now that they were truly bonded.
“I never expected to ever feel this loved, or happy,” she whispered.
She thought about the magic and the bonding. She’d bonded to a sweet, incredibly sexy, loving male who totally curled her toes. How had that happened? It completely blew her mind.
She wiggled around so that she could look up at Sami. He was so beautiful in a sexy, masculine way, that she still couldn’t believe he was hers.
For now and forever.
Her hand traced the dragon-eye ruin on her neck. She couldn’t see it, but was very aware of its presence. It was a symbol of their commitment to each other. A smile lit her face as she leaned up and touched the bright red firebird mark on Sami’s neck. “It’s rare for a Phoenix to bond like this.”
Sami stared at her, obviously sensing the sadness inside. “Your parents?”
Hellfire nodded. “Yeah, they were bonded.” She sighed and then snuggled back into his arms. She began to draw circles on his chest, and then her fingers drifted down his arm where she felt a faint scar on the inside of his wrist. With a frown, she pulled his hand up so she could see it better. It was barely noticeable, but she’d seen it. Tierney’s words rang in her ears. “So, you did this, after I—?” She couldn’t finish, guilt rampaging over her.
Sami nodded and tried to ease his hand away, but she wouldn’t let him. Instead, she pulled his wrist closer and kissed the scar. Then she took his other hand and did the same.
“I am so sorry,” she said then changed the subject. “Tell me about a Dracones Awakening, what it is and how it works.”
“Is it dangerous?” she asked with a frown after he explained it all.
Sami nodded. “Yeah.”
“You went through yours at the same time that Goldy did, correct?” she asked.
SAMI, UNCOMFORTABLE with the whole conversation just nodded.
“Ah, yeah, I did,” he said, hoping that would be the end of it.
Now that things were so good between them, he was terrified to say anything to screw it up, but Hellfire didn’t let up. He understood her need to know, but was leery on how to answer.
“If you and Goldy hadn’t had sex, you could have both died?” she asked.
He nodded as Hellfire lay in his arms, staring up at him.
“Well, since you claim to love me, and I can actually feel your love, and since we’ve bonded, I guess I can get over it. But, you told me you couldn’t get anyone pregnant,” she said, her eyes never leaving his and a furrow forming between her brows.
Sami sighed. “Yeah well, that’s what we thought.”
Hellfire frowned. “What do you mean?”
Sami told her about the curse. “I shouldn’t have been able to get Goldy pregnant. At first, I thought it was because she wasn’t born, but made.”
Hellfire sat up in surprise. “What do you mean she’s ‘made’?”
Sami explained about the Genesis Dracones babies.
“That little pixie looking girl at your place, Genna, she’s one of these Gen babies?” she asked.
Sami nodded.
“Huh, yeah, she’s a strange critter,” she said and Sami almost choked.
“Yes, she sure is, and a deadly little thing too,” he said with a laugh.
Hellfire snorted. “So, what do you mean? At first you thought it was because Goldy was a GD, now you don’t think so?”
“I learned in Tartaria that the curse has been broken,” he said.
Hellfire stared at him for a long while.
Sami tried to make sense of all the emotions running through her but they were all so mixed up, that he couldn’t.
Hellfire finally took a deep breath and then let it out slowly. “Sami, I have to tell you—” Suddenly, her stomach let out a deep rumbling growl.
They both chuckled, and he sat up. “You must be starving. You hardly ate anything on the plane. I’ll go out and get you some food.”
Looking uncomfortable, Hellfire grabbed his arm and pulled him back down. “Sami, I need to talk to you.” Her stomach rumbled again.
“Okay, but first, let me go get you something to eat, and then we can talk,” he said, but she held onto him. She looked so serious, he began to worry.
Hellfire pushed him back down on the bed. “No, you stay here, just like that. Don’t move.” Her dreamy gaze traveled up and down his body. “I’ll go get us something downstairs. You can be my dessert,” she teased and licked her lips.
Sami grinned. “I like that idea.” Then he frowned. “You actually have food here?”
Hellfire nodded. “Yeah, Brim did some shopping since we were staying here again.” She quickly pulled her clothes on and then with a last searing kiss, left him aching for more as she slipped out of the room.
Chapter Thirty-Five
Attack
SAMI FELL ASLEEP WHILE waiting on Hellfire, when suddenly sharp fear jerked him wide-awake. He glanced around. Hellfire hadn’t returned. Then he remembered that she went for food.
And you fell asleep? What a dumbass! He surged up out of bed and realized the fear was Hellfire’s emotions.
Shit. No! Quickly he pulled on this clothing.
“What’s happening? Hellfire?” he called telepathically, hoping his link to his mate was still open. Was it possible the Phoenixes had come back to avenge their dead leader?
Shit, how could he let his guard down like this? He hadn’t even brought any weapons! He’d been in such a hurry to find Hellfire, he hadn’t been thinking clearly and while he normally had weapons on him, he hadn’t been able to take them on the plane, so they were still all up in his room back home.
Sami hurried to the top of the stairs. “Hellfire?”
“Don’t come down here, Sami,” Hellfire said.
He felt a moment’s relief that he could still communicate with her. “What’s wrong? Is it the Phoenixes?”
“No. The Walkers came back. But I got this, just don’t come down, they can’t see me, I’ve gone invisible so they don’t know I’m here. Stay put,” she said.
Sami strained to hear what was happening. There were faint sounds of someone walking around down below. One was heading for the door, and another stopped at the stairs. Then all hell broke loose.
“What’s happening?” No long willing to stay put, he started down the stairs.
“A little busy right now,” Hellfire said.
Sami heard one of the Walkers cussing. “What did you do?”
“Why do you think I did anything?” Hellfire replied.
“Hellfire!” Sami silently swore.
Hellfire chuckled. “Okay, you’re right, I did do something, but I had to stop him from coming up and finding you.”
Sami ground his teeth and took a deep breath. “No, actually you didn’t, I could’ve handled him. Now you’ve given yourself away.” He entered the room and ducked to avoid getting hit by a flying table lamp, as Hellfire battled two Walkers while invisible.
“Sami,” Hellfire shouted, but it was too late. A cold steel blade press against the side of his throat.
“Don’t move,” a voice hissed by his ear.
Not wanting to distract Hellfire, Sami held still.
But as she spotted the Walker holding a knife to Sami’s throat, Hellfire screamed in fury and her cloak keeping her hidden disappeared, making her visible.
“No, what are you doing?” Sami groaned.
“Sami.” Hellfire started for him when one of the Walkers grabbed her and shoved a gun against her head. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”
Hellfire lowered her wings and stilled.
Fresh rage pumping through Sami’s veins. He was getting really tired of seeing his mate in danger. “Get. Away. From. Her.”
The guy behind him laughed and the blade pressing on his throat drew blood. Sami di
dn’t care, he could take this guy out before he knew what hit him, but likely not before one of the other guys hurt or killed his woman.
“You got her?” the Walker behind Sami asked the other guy.
The Walker with a gun at Hellfire’s head nodded, leaned in close and sniffed at her. “Yeah, I got her.”
“What do you want?” Sami asked, trying to buy some time, even though he itched to tear all of these fuckers apart.
The Walker that Hellfire had been fighting snorted. “Our King is eager to meet the one who fucked up his plans.”
Just fucking great, Val Jean …
The Walker jerked Hellfire around so his friend could slip a zip tie around her wrists, pulling it tight.
“Sami?” Hellfire said.
He could hear her worry. “When I say duck, pretend to stumble, fall down. Just please, get out of the way, okay?”
“What are you going to do?” she asked.
“Don’t worry about it. Just get out of the way. Please Helly, do as I say,” He was terrified she wouldn’t to listen to him.
“But, he’ll cut your throat.”
“He won’t hurt me, I promise. On the count of three,” he said. “One.” Sami began to draw on his power, not completely sure if what he had in mind would even work. Either way, he was going to get his mate—his love, out of the clutches of the two who had her.
But anger and fear made it hard to control his power, and instead of a gradual shift, his magic exploded within, and all around him. One minute he was human, the next he was in his half-form. Power swirled angrily around the room, providing a much-needed distraction and giving him the opportunity he needed.
The Walker behind him stumbled back. “What the hell?”
The one who zip tied Hellfire stared, stunned, while the third man attempted to pull Hellfire towards the door.
“Two!” Sami turned, snatched the knife from the startled Walker and stabbed him in the heart with it.
The guy started to turn to ash inside his clothing and Sami swung around to see the other two dart for the door, one pulling Hellfire. The other spotted the fury in Sami’s eyes and stopped, slowly moving out of the way.
“Let us go or I’ll kill her.” The one holding Hellfire reached for the door.
“I’m getting really tired of this. This is your last warning. Let. My. Mate. Go,” Sami rumbled in the deep chilly voice of his dragon.
“M-mate?” the other Walker stuttered, fear-filled eyes darting around the room for an escape.
The other guy shook his head. “Not a chance.”
“Three,” Sami said aloud.
Hellfire pretended to stumble and dropped to the ground, slipping out of the Walker’s clutches. She began to roll away, wings tucked into her sides.
Sami roared and red-hot dragon fire burst from his mouth.
The Walker erupted into flames but instead of instantly turning to ash, he stumbled back against the wall, slowly burning. Sami watched horrified as, like a pin ball game, he shoved away and smashed into the wall near the window. With a whoosh, the drapes caught fire.
The other Walker leaped forward, grabbed Hellfire, yanked her to her feet, and proceeded to press a wickedly sharp blade to her throat. “Stay back,” the asshole shouted above the roar of the fire as he inched toward the back door.
Sami didn’t move. While his mate could survive fire, she may not survive her throat being sliced open. He glanced around for something, anything, to use as a weapon. There was nothing.
The Walker who originally had Hellfire finally collapsed in a pile of ash but not before the whole front of the house, door included, was engulfed in flames.
Shit, Hellfire’s home … He never meant for that to happen, just hadn’t seen any other way out.
He advanced on Hellfire’s captor as the guy pulled her with him while he backtracked. Sami knew he intended to escape out the back door. “Stay back,” the guy repeated and as a thin line of blood began to trickle down Hellfire’s neck, Sami growled.
“Be ready,” Hellfire warned Sami.
“No,” he started to object, scared she’d get herself hurt or killed, but she didn’t listen. He watched, heart in his throat as Hellfire twisted her head away and jabbed the guy in the gut with her elbow. Then she ducked and fell to the ground, kicking out and sending the guy flying into the wall. “Now,” she yelled at Sami.
Sami let loose with a loud roar and shot another stream of red-hot flames from his mouth.
HELLFIRE ROLLED OUT of the way as the Walker tried to rise. Instead he fell, finally managed to get his feet under him, and then staggered around, setting the walls and couch on fire as he slowly burned up.
She wondered why some of them burned quicker than others, then realized it didn’t matter as more of her home caught flame.
Then a fourth Walker suddenly appeared from the back of the house. This one was short and wiry. He pulled up at the sight in front of him and eyes wide in horror, spun around and started back the way he’d come. Sami gave chase.
Hellfire bit at the zip tie around her wrists and tried not to worry about Sami. It was obvious he was more than capable of taking care of himself. Still, she climbed awkwardly to her feet and glanced around for something to cut the tie off, then wanted to slap herself upside the head. Curling a wing around, she sliced the tie apart with one of her sharp obsidian feather blades.
She rubbed her wrists and she took in her home. The fire was quickly spreading and she could only watch, helpless to stop it. So quickly after the loss of Nix, the thought of losing her family home brought fresh tears to her eyes. They’d shared so many memories here and though the last ones had been horrible, she wanted to cling to all the others.
Hellfire backed up and seeing she was boxed in, prepared to go through another fiery death. Being reborn was always refreshing, cleansing and she needed that right now after all that had happened.
Hellfire opened her arms and was about to walk into the flames and embrace them, when suddenly Genna’s words floated through her mind. Dying will kill them.
Shit! She began to panic, suddenly realizing what the strange girl had meant. ‘Sami,’ she yelled and moved as far away from the flames as she could get.
SAMI SPRINTED AFTER the last Walker who must have been waiting for his buddies outside, but the guy was fast. He jumped into an SUV and putting it into drive, gunned the engine. Sami was about to fully shift into his dragon and stop him, when Hellfire’s panicked call halted him mid shift.
Intense fear flooded his system as he felt how scared Hellfire was through their connection. He shot a last glance at the SUV’s taillights and then raced back inside. He dove through smoke, flames, and heat. Fuck! He groaned internally at the knowledge that he’d burned her bloody home down.
Rushing into the living room, he found Hellfire surrounded by hungry flames. Tear tracks lined her soot smeared face as she stood with her back pressed into the rocks of the fireplace, wings around her like a cocoon.
Sami frowned. As much as he hated the thought of seeing her die, he knew as a Phoenix she could live through the fire and be reborn again. Yet the horror on Hellfire’s face and her terror ricocheting through their connection let him know something was very wrong.
“Hellfire?” he shouted, but the roar of the inferno was too loud for her to hear him. Sami switched to telepathy. “Hellfire? What is it, what’s wrong, can’t you survive the fire?” he asked, fearing that maybe she’d already died too many times.
Was there a limit to how many times a Phoenix could be re-born? And if so, how many times had she already died by fire? Sweat dripped down his brow and back, as he tried to get to her and stopped. In human form he wasn’t impervious to fire …
“Sami! I can’t die here. If I do, they won’t live,” she said.
Sami shook his head, not sure what she meant. “I don’t understand.”
Hellfire stared at him across the flames, her face a mask of terror. “I’m sorry. I should have told you, but—” H
ellfire gazed around frantically as the flames steadily grew closer.
“Hellfire?”
Panicked eyes met his across the flames. “Sami, you have to do something. I’ll survive but our babies won’t.”
Chapter Thirty-Six
Flames of understanding
SAMI SUCKED IN A DEEP BREATH and felt like someone dipped him in a frigid lake headfirst, and held him under. He could hardly breathe as he stared at his mate. All of a sudden, everything made so much more sense. Hellfire’s anger with him, her constant rushing to the bathroom and being sick, the way the Okami healer, Sasha had looked at him.
He stared at Hellfire and realized that he’d felt it the moment it had happened, just like with Goldy. Only at the time he had no clue, no idea the curse preventing him from procreating, had been broken. Nor did he understand what the most wonderful, powerful feeling of having made life had meant. At the time he’d just thought it was the magic between them and the fact she was his soul mate. Later, he believed it was due to Hellfire’s infection from the Were-cat wound. Gods, he should have seen it sooner. I am such an idiot.
Not willing to waste another moment, as the fire bore down on the love of his life, Sami yanked on his power and shifted. Then, with no regard for his own safety, he rushed through the flames, barely noticing as they slid over his scales like a warm hand caressing his body.
Sami scooped Hellfire up in his talons and held her gently against him, shielding her with his wings. Seeing the faces of her family staring at him from a photo on the mantle, he inwardly cursed again. Swiping up one of the framed pictures, he pressed it into Hellfire’s hands.
Sami spun around and swept through the fire, but as he started toward the back of the house, he heard a loud, ear piercing groan. It was the house protesting what was happening as if it were alive.
Sami barely made it out of the way before a large portion of the ceiling caved in, right where he’d been standing.
Dracones Boxset Books 1-5 Page 87
