Master of Fire

by Angela Knight

  He rather hoped someone would. He was looking forward to sinking his fangs into the bastard who was tormenting Giada and Logan.

  “Smoke!”

  He jerked fully awake at the low hiss. “Giada?”

  Skimming out from under the bush, he found her looking miserable as she stood on the house’s brick front steps. She wore jeans and a wrinkled inside-out T-shirt that looked as if she’d donned it in the dark, and her face gleamed with silver tear tracks in the moonlight. Alarmed, he demanded, “What’s the matter?”

  “Let’s move away from the house.” She sniffed and headed for the woods at the edge of the backyard. “Logan’s asleep, and I don’t want to wake him.”

  Worried, Smoke trotted after her. When he judged they’d put enough distance between themselves and the house he asked the obvious question. “What’s the boy done now?”

  “It’s not him.” Her lips trembled. “It’s me. I had sex with him! I tried not to, but I just couldn’t stop.”

  The story emerged in a whispered rush, nasal with tears. Smoke looked up at her, his tail tip twitching in suspicion. There was something wrong with this story. Smelled like a spell to him.

  “I’m coming up.” He gathered himself and jumped. She caught him automatically and drew him into a cuddle. He suspected the hug was more for her comfort than his.

  As she continued her tearful self-flagellation over her lack of control, Smoke gave her a thorough but unobtrusive sniff.

  The child definitely smelled of magic other than her own. The alien scent led right to the emerald pendant around her slender throat. One more good sniff, and he recognized the dark blend of musk, cinnamon, and magic. Morgana’s been a busy girl—again. “Where did you get that necklace?”

  Giada glanced down at the stone and sniffed again. “Morgana gave it to me. It’s supposed to enhance my powers during the day. Works, too.”

  That’s not all it’s doing. He flicked the end of his tail, thinking. It would make Giada feel better if he told her she was the victim of a spell, but then she’d promptly dump the necklace. He wasn’t sure that was such a good idea. Morgana was arrogant and often too ruthless by half, but on this particular occasion, she was also right.

  It was past time Logan became a Magus.

  Even the boy knew it. The only unknown was why he was stalling. His fears obviously had something to do with whatever had happened when he was fourteen. The cat huffed, irritated with Logan’s uncharacteristic secrecy.

  “What am I going to do, Smoke?” Giada moaned. “I can’t let this happen again. But how can I prevent it, when I don’t even understand why I lost control this time? The need—I’ve never felt anything like it.”

  The cat winced at the prick of unaccustomed guilt. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, child. Logan wants you, and he can be very seductive.”

  “Yeah, well, he wouldn’t want anything to do with me if he knew I was Magekind.” She frowned, head down, studying the leafy ground in front of her sneaker-clad feet. “I wonder if I should tell him.”

  “God, no. Arthur ordered you not to, remember?”

  “He also told me to stay out of Logan’s bed. Maybe I should tell him what happened and ask him what to do.”

  “He’d hit the ceiling.” And Gwen would take one look at the necklace and spot Morgana’s fine hand at work.

  “And then he’d rip a strip off my hide.” Giada sighed. “But I deserve it. Might as well open a gate and get it over with . . .”

  Alarmed, Smoke realized he had to nip this in the bud—fast. “I think not. Now that you’ve experienced the effect, I’m sure you can fight it.” Not likely. “Go back to your own bed and try to get some sleep. It takes at least three exposures to trigger the Gift, remember? Logan will be fine.”

  “Are you sure?” She frowned, concern drawing a line between her blond brows. “I really think I should report in.”

  You certainly should. But since that didn’t suit Smoke’s plans at all, he lied without twitching an ear. “There’s no point in getting Gwen and Arthur stirred up over this. You won’t let it happen again.”

  “But Smoke, you don’t know what it’s like!”

  He had a pretty good idea. Giada didn’t stand a chance. “I have faith in you, child.”

  Actually, he did. Of all the females he’d met in Avalon, Giada was the most perfect for Logan. And since the boy was no fool, it wouldn’t take him long to realize it.

  Of course, after Logan became a vampire, there would be a royal row—literally—when the truth came out. Smoke would have to take his share of the blame, but it wouldn’t be the first time he’d had to disappear until tempers cooled. They’d eventually see he was right and get over it.

  It took some coaxing, but he finally got Giada to go back inside. He slipped back under his bush with a sigh of relief.

  It was close to dawn when he heard his name whispered again. “Smoke!”

  Logan. He was surprised it had taken the boy so long. Poking his head out from under his bush, he glowered up at his friend. “What?”

  Logan crouched and studied him with a frown. “Is Giada a Maja?”

  Oh, gods and devils, Smoke had been afraid that question was coming. “No.” It was distasteful lying to the boy, but it wasn’t as if he had a choice.

  “Damn.”

  Smoke flicked an interested ear at the mutter. “I thought you didn’t want to become a Magus.”

  “I don’t.” Logan sank onto his butt in the grass and folded his long legs tailor-fashion. “But I’d rather Giada wasn’t mortal.”

  Suddenly Smoke felt much better about taking so many liberties with the truth. “Like the girl, do you?”

  “She’s perfect.” He grimaced. “Except for the whole getting old and dying thing. And I can’t stay mortal for much longer. Dad needs me.”

  “He’s needed you for years, boy.”

  “But not if it means taking my fucking head.”

  Smoke flicked his ears forward and stared. “What skull worm do you have now?”

  Logan lifted one shoulder in a half shrug. “Same one I’ve had for years.”

  “And isn’t it time you tell me about it?”

  He didn’t answer for so long, Smoke began to wonder if he ever would. Finally the words emerged in a frustrated growl. “What if Morgana’s wrong about me being able to handle the Gift? She’s been wrong before.”

  Smoke studied him, eyes narrow. “Who was she wrong about when you were fourteen?”

  “Jimmy Cordino.” Logan looked off across the yard, staring blindly toward the dawn. “He was one of Kay’s descendants. You know how Dad was about Kay.” Kay, Arthur’s foster brother, had been a courageous, capable warrior, one of the original Knights of the Round Table. He had been killed in an air strike during World War II. Arthur had been heartbroken.

  “Everybody said Jimmy even looked like Kay, who was his great-grandfather. That summer, Dad took Jim under his wing—teaching him sword-craft, how to ride, shoot—everything he thought a Magus should know.” Logan’s smile was very faint. “I hated Jimmy’s fuckin’ guts, and it was mutual. I was jealous of how much attention he was getting from Arthur, and he was jealous of me being my father’s son. Then he got the Gift, and it all went to hell.”

  The Pendragon Home, Avalon, October 15, 1991

  Logan jerked awake to blink at the ceiling in dazed confusion, wondering what had pulled him out of sleep.

  Ah. There it was.

  The creak of the stairs under someone’s weight. Probably Mom or Dad, home at last. They both kept vampire hours, something he had yet to adjust to this early in the summer.

  Yawning, Logan rolled out of bed and padded, barefoot, into the hall. “Hey, how did it . . .”

  Jimmy Cordino stood there, pale blue eyes wild, pupils shrunk to black pinpoints in the hall light. Blood smeared his face and splattered his white shirt and faded jeans. Even his blond hair was matted in red, sticky clumps.

  “What the hell happened to you?”
Logan demanded. “You look like shit.”

  “I killed her.” Jimmy didn’t even sound like himself. His voice was too high, more like a kid’s than the twenty-one-year-old he was.

  Which was when Logan’s sleep-stunned mind began to catch up to the situation. A chill spread over him. “Killed who?” He took a step back—and froze as a sudden horrifying thought shot through his alarm. “My mom? Is my mom okay?”

  “Not her!” Jimmy sneered, his lifted lip revealing inch-long fangs. “The Maja. The Maja Arthur set me up with. The one they told me to fuck.” He laughed, his voice spiraling into a chilling giggle. “Well, I definitely fucked her.”

  Sweet Jesu, he’s gone blood-mad. Logan licked his lips. “You’d better get out of here. Dad’s on his way home.” I hope. Despite years of combat training from the time he could walk, Logan knew damned well he was no match for a blood-mad vampire.

  There was that chilling laugh again. “You better pray he is, you spoiled little fuck.”

  Okay, that was defi nitely his cue. Logan whirled for his room, planning to lock the door behind him. If he could only delay Jimmy even a few minutes, Dad would . . .

  The vampire was on him before he even took half a step, clamping a forearm across his throat. Logan gagged at the vicious pressure.

  “Logan!” Arthur roared from downstairs, his voice shaking with a combination of rage and fear Logan had never heard in it before.

  “Up here, ‘Dad.’ ” Jimmy’s breath reeked with the smell of blood as it gusted against Logan’s face. “Come talk to your itty bitty boy. And me.”

  “You even nick that boy with a fang, and you’re dead.” Arthur’s voice sounded so flat and cold, even Logan felt the chill. Booted feet rang on the marble floor in long running strides.

  “I’m dead anyway.” Jimmy’s bitter laugh had a sobbing edge.

  The vampires appeared at the foot of the stairs. Logan’s knees went weak with relief. Arthur and his best knights—Lancelot, Galahad, Tristan, and Gawain, moving like silent wolves at his back. They all wore identical expressions, faces frozen, eyes narrow and icy with a terrible rage.

  “Let the boy go, Jimmy,” Arthur said, starting up the stairs in a slow stalk. He carried Excalibur naked in his hand, the sword glowing with boiling energy as it reacted to his fury.

  Jimmy shrank back as the arm around Logan’s neck began to shake. “Don’t kill me!” The naked plea was shocking after all those cocky threats.

  “You killed her.” Arthur’s black eyes burned. “Left her with her throat ripped out in the bed where you’d made love.”

  “I didn’t mean to! I lost control. I was just so”—his voice cracked—“hungry.”

  “I know.” A faint hint of compassion warmed Arthur’s eyes. “Don’t compound your mistake, Jimmy. Let the boy go.”

  Jimmy’s arm only tightened, hauling Logan off his feet, to choke helplessly as the young vampire retreated down the hall. “You’ll kill me.”

  “We can’t let you murder again, Jimmy.” Arthur’s voice softened. “And I don’t think you want to. Do you?”

  “But I didn’t mean to!” It was a wail, a boy’s pitiful cry of anguish and fear. He braced a shoulder against Logan’s bedroom door as if his knees had gone weak. “I won’t do it again! I swear it! Just give me a chance!”

  “You can’t control it, Jimmy. I’m sorry we did this to you.” I’m sorry we made you a monster. He didn’t say the words, but still, they rang in the silence.

  “Fuck you, old man!” Jimmy screamed, a howl of defiance. His free hand fisted in Logan’s short hair, jerked his head to one side. Out of the corner of his eye, Logan saw the flash of descending fangs . . .

  A feminine hand thrust through the surface of the closed bedroom door as if it were water. A spell blasted from slender fingers, right into Jimmy’s blood-maddened face. Blinded, the vampire staggered.

  As blind as his captor, Logan felt the woman grab the collar of his pajamas. She jerked, dragging him out of Jimmy’s hold and right through the door her magic had rendered insubstantial.

  Logan’s stunned gaze fell on his mother’s white face. Guinevere’s arms closed around him in a ferociously tight hug as he heard the liquid thunk of Excalibur biting through bone and flesh.

  EIGHT

  “My father blamed himself for Jimmy’s blood-madness.” Logan stroked a hand over Smoke’s back as if hypnotized by the sensation of glossy black fur. “He always said they shouldn’t have tried to turn him so soon. Maybe if they’d given him more time to mature, he could have controlled the hunger.”

  Smoke lashed his tail in agitation. “Logan, you’re thirty-one, not twenty-one. And you’ve got a will harder than a Sidhe sword. You won’t go rogue.”

  “That’s what Dad says.” He shook his head. “But you didn’t see the look in his eyes the night he had to behead Jimmy. And I keep thinking—what if it was me? He’s still not over killing Mordred during the rebellion, and that was fifteen hundred years ago.”

  Smoke twisted around and reared on his hind legs, the better to look directly into Logan’s eyes. “He won’t have to kill you, Logan. You’re stronger than Mordred, and you’re sure as hell stronger than Jimmy Cordino.”

  “I hope you’re right.” A muscle flexed in his chiseled jaw. “Because I don’t think Arthur could survive killing another son.”

  Giada thrust her face under the shower spray and let the cool water pound the last of the sleep out of her sluggish brain. She dreaded the day.

  She was going to have to explain to Logan why it was impossible that they continue their—what? Romance? Affair? It felt like more than that, and yet it couldn’t be more than that. And once she told him the truth, as she eventually must—he had a right to know he’d had his first exposure to Magekind sex—he’d want nothing to do with her again.

  The thought sliced a dagger of pain into her heart.

  Suck it up, Giada. Concentrate on the job.

  She headed downstairs twenty minutes later in a severe black suit, her hair bound into a French braid so tight, her face ached under her minimal makeup. Her sensible flats clicked on the hardwood floor as she walked into the kitchen, following the scent of frying bacon.

  As she walked in, Logan looked around and gave her a polite smile. “Good morning. Sleep well?”

  Giada examined his expression for a possible double meaning. Instead, there was only the mannered stretch of lips over teeth, as if he were addressing a stranger. She frowned. “Fine.”

  “Good. Breakfast’ll be right up. There’s a jug of orange juice on the table.”

  “Is there anything I can do?”

  “Nope, got it all under control.”

  “Oh.” Feeling awkward, Giada sank into her usual seat and watched him work. She had the distinct feeling she was being ignored. Okay, what the hell is this?

  She’d expected to have to explain why last night’s unforgettable experience couldn’t be repeated. But evidently Logan hadn’t found it all that unforgettable. In fact, he was making her feel like a drunken one-night stand he was too polite to show the door.

  Had she been that bad?

  Giada sliced off a fragment of the thumbnail-sized object the narcs thought was a crack rock. She dropped it in one of the wells of the ceramic tray, conscious of Logan’s cool, professional gaze as he watched over her shoulder.

  You’d never know he’d made passionate love to her the night before.

  How did guys do that—act as though nothing got above the waist? It was as if they had an emotional force field at the navel. “Captain, she canna take much more!”

  Okay, when she started channeling Star Trek reruns, it was time to get a grip.

  “Logan!” a boyish voice piped from the hallway.

  “Incoming,” Logan murmured, looking toward the lab’s double doors. “Sheriff’s grandkids are loose again.”

  He walked over to let them in. Giada refused to let her eyes drift to his butt as he walked away. Keep your mind on the drugs, Gi
ada.

  For the next few minutes, she managed to do just that as Logan and Andy retreated to his office to examine the dummy grenade the construction crew had dug up at Camp Cleveland that morning.

  “You guys been fighting?”

  Giada glanced up and found Heather Jones watching her. She opened her mouth to deny it, then noticed the sympathy in the girl’s eyes. “Is it that obvious?”

  “Well, umm . . .” Heather’s gaze shifted as she struggled to decide whether a polite lie was called for.

  Giada smiled slightly. “Under the circumstances, I figured you’d cheer.”

  It was Heather’s turn to wince. “It’s that obvious?”

  “Only a little.”

  The girl sighed. “Guess it doesn’t really matter. I’m sixteen, and he’s so . . . not.” She contemplated the age difference before shaking her head. “Even if he was interested, it would be kinda overwhelming, you know?”

  “Not to mention a little creepy.” She dropped the pink test solution on top of the sample and watched it turn blue. “Yep, that’s crack.”

  “Love sucks.”

  Giada blinked and looked up at the girl, whose expression was a wry blend of pain and humor.

  Heather shrugged. “Just sayin’.”

  “It does have its moments. You speaking from recent experience?”

  “Guy at school. He’s a jerk.”

  Giada nodded wisely. “You’ll have that.”

  From Logan’s office, there came a chimpanzee shriek, followed by a thump. Logan and Andy laughed.

  Giada looked over her shoulder toward the office. “What the heck was that?”

  “Logan’s got this toy. It’s a little stuffed monkey with rubber bands for arms, and you shoot it like a slingshot. When it hits the wall, it . . .”

  Thump! “Cheeeecheecheee!”

  Logan and Andy hooted.

  Giada and Heather exchanged a look. “Boys,” the girl said with elaborate disgust.

  “Yeah, that about sums it up.”

  Logan watched Giada prepare a run on the mass spectrometer, loading tiny tubes of solution into the circular tray. Slotting the loaded tray into the computerized device, she hit a button to send the injection arm swinging around. It stabbed a needle into a tube’s rubber cap, sucked up the solution, and started heating it into a vapor for analysis.