Blaze (Midnight Fire Series)

by Davis, Kaitlyn

  But right now, looking into her birth mother’s face, Kira felt nothing but anger. Unlike her aunt, her mother had chosen this life. Had chosen to abandon Kira—and for what? For an evil man? To become an evil thing?

  Despite her mother’s words, there was no remorse in those eyes. No pain or anguish. She was happy with her decision. And to Kira, that was unforgivable. Actually, it was downright suspicious.

  “What’s your name?” Kira asked. She righted her chair, sat back down and crossed her hands on the table. Across the room, her mother rolled her eyes and did the same. Kira tried to ignore the attitude resemblance.

  “Lana,” the woman said quietly.

  “Lana what?”

  With a heavy breath, she replied, “Lana Peters.”

  “And what was my father’s name?”

  “Andrew Dawson.”

  Kira nodded, signaling she was correct and reached for her necklace for comfort. “Where did you grow up?”

  “With all of the other Protectors in Sonnyville. Before you ask, it’s a very small, secluded town in Florida that is completely off the grid.”

  “Nice sidestep,” Kira said and leaned forward to gear up the intensity. “What Florida city is it next to?”

  “Orlando,” her mother said, still sitting up straight in her chair.

  “What were my grandparent’s names?”

  “My father’s name is Henry and my mother’s name is my own.” Lana lifted her lips at that, smiling to herself. Kira ignored the show.

  “Tell me about my father. How did you meet?”

  “Oh, Kira,” her mother sighed and finally leaned back in her chair. “You really are as stubborn as Aldrich said. Something you get from me I suppose…”

  “Just answer the question,” Kira said. She gripped her fingers tightly together, keeping her palms clamped inward. Her anger was rising and with it her heat, but she needed to stay strong.

  “Fine,” Lana said and leaned forward in her chair, boring her eyes into Kira. Still blank, Kira thought quietly to herself. “Your father and I were both twenty years old when we met. We fought like children, bickered all the time and debated politics until we had talked ourselves in so many circles that there was nothing left to do but shut up. We called each other once a week that first year, wrote soppy love letters to each other and made ridiculous promises our parents would never allow us to keep.

  “Gradually, young love matured and we couldn’t stand to be apart. So we got married. Our honeymoon was in a log cabin deep in the forest where no conduit would ever go. It snowed for days, until the piles were so high we couldn’t even climb out through the windows, so we fought the cold in other ways…” A small smile played on her lips again. Kira tried to read her face, but the woman before her was a mystery.

  “We never thought of the future, and when I found out I was pregnant, we ran. We loved you, I loved you, more than anything in the world—”

  “Then why did you leave me?” Kira asked, her voice cracking. It was getting harder and harder to doubt that this woman was her mother. Maybe the coldness of her eyes was just a side effect of the change? Kira continued the thought—Tristan had had more than century to figure out how to bring warmth back into his icy blue irises, but her mother hadn’t even had two decades.

  “I didn’t want to,” Lana said, reaching her hands across the table to lay them over Kira’s burning fingers. Her white palms stopped one inch short of actually touching her daughter.

  “The only memory I have of you,” Kira said softly while staring down at her lap, “is from the night that I lost you. We were playing one second and then the next you were gone, pulled away by vampires and killed.”

  “Hurt, but not killed. Aldrich saved me. Moments after you were pulled away by the conduits, Aldrich came and stopped the other vampires. I don’t even remember it. I remember waking up in a cell, weak, in pain, and unable to think past my loss. At first, Aldrich kept me there, locked in a dungeon. He used me for my blood, but like with your father, I soon changed his mind.”

  “How can you love him?” Kira whispered. She didn’t want to believe this story or listen to the earnest tone of her mother’s voice.

  “You don’t choose who you love,” her mother said while fiddling with the engagement ring on her finger. A bright diamond sparkled in Kira’s eye and she knew that one was from Aldrich, not her father. “If you could, my life would be much different.” Lana stopped moving and dropped her hands back into her lap, retreating from Kira and from whatever memory was playing behind her calm features.

  “But why didn’t you come looking for me? Why did you turn into… into this?” Kira said, gesturing around the room and dropping off. She still couldn’t finish the thought and say the words. Once they were out of her mind and in the air, Kira feared they would suffocate her: why did you choose Aldrich over me, choose being a vampire over finding me?

  “Oh Kira, this was for you,” her mother said and stood up to cross the room. She walked slowly around the table, never once taking her eyes from Kira’s face. Kira sat still, not moving to even breathe. Her mother knelt next to her, wrinkling the fine silk of her dress to place her knees on the ground and rested her palms on Kira’s thigh.

  “I was dying. You see, I never truly recovered from the attack and with each passing day I grew weaker and weaker. My love for Aldrich helped sustain me, but I was content to die. And then,” she squeezed Kira’s leg affectionately, “then we heard reports of a mixed breed conduit girl, a mere defenseless baby, and I knew it was you. And I knew I had to live so I could find you. But I was dying and the only way for me to live was through Aldrich, through his blood.”

  Kira fell back into her chair, completely drained of energy, and reached up to grasp her father’s ring again. She smoothed the pads of her fingers around the edges, feeling the slight scratches in the worn metal, and tried to understand this woman kneeling in front of her.

  Logically, everything she said made sense. The story was pieced together very well. The emotions in her voice rang true. But still, deep down past Kira’s lingering anger was a small ball of doubt curling around itself and settling in for the long haul.

  “Your father’s ring?” Lana asked, reaching through Kira’s fingers to grab at it. “I haven’t seen this in a long time.” She poked her finger through the opening. It was far too big for her slim hands. “Mine was taken from me a long time ago, but I still remember the words. Love will prevail—and it always does,” she said and dropped the ring to hold Kira’s fingers instead. Kira tightened her muscles, clenching her fingers around her mother’s hand. Like Tristan’s they were cold, but that was not how she remembered them.

  In her dreams, Kira remembered her parents. She remembered resting her tiny head on a warm bosom, tugging at strands of loose blonde hair and poking at the freckles on her mother’s face. Her mother’s skin always felt hot and alive, always burned like Kira’s did now. Her hands were always tan and sun-kissed, not pale and cold like the moon.

  “What does it feel like?” Kira asked. “Being a vampire, I mean.”

  “Like perfection,” her mother said. “I’m never tired. I’m never hurt. I never feel the ache of old age. There is no distance I can’t run or length I can’t swim. I can see past the horizon and hear the flutter of an insect caught in the wind. There is nothing I am afraid of. Nothing that can hurt me. Nothing that I fear.”

  “But how does it feel?” Kira asked, emphasizing the last word. She had asked Tristan this question once, and he had said that until Kira had come into his life and livened his senses, he had just felt empty and without purpose. He’d had all of the time in the world, but no one to share it with. He’d had all of the power in the world, but no good to do with it. He was surrounded by life, but felt dead all of the time.

  “It feels,” her mother began and took a deep breath. She closed her eyes and slowly released the air. As it left her lips they began to widen, pulling at the ends until her teeth were revealed. Two sharp
incisors poked out, lengthening with the breath until they dented her lower lip. “It feels like bliss.”

  Kira looked away and brought her hand to her chest. One, two, three—she counted her heartbeat and felt the blood pump through her veins. It was warm and circulated heat to the rest of her body before crashing back into her heart to repeat the process.

  Kira thought of that spot, deep in her heart, where the swirling blood cells came alive and turned to flame, of the boil she felt crawl along her skin with her power. The sun once stung her, once caused her pain, but now she welcomed it. Whenever she was afraid, whenever she was lost in the darkness of doubt or despair, she came crawling back to that spot in her heart where the sun filled her with life. In that connection, she knew there was nothing to fear and nothing that could hurt her.

  Then Kira began to think of something else, of something ripping that warmth from her and replacing it with an icy chill that rippled through her limbs, a dead darkness that needed the lives of others to survive. Kira imagined pulling for the sun, attempting to gather her strength, and finding it gone—vanished.

  Bliss, Kira thought with a shiver. Losing the sun was her worst nightmare.

  Kira could understand fighting to survive. She could almost understand falling for Aldrich under the circumstances of her mother’s life. Losing a husband and a child all in one day might make a woman seek out comfort in the most unlikely of places. Even turning into a vampire wasn’t beyond Kira’s comprehension.

  But parting with her fire, losing the flames, rejecting the sun—and feeling bliss? That Kira would never understand and that Kira doubted any conduit would ever be able to truly feel. The absence should be a gaping hole in her chest, a pain that haunts her mother’s immortality.

  Kira broke her thoughts to stare at the woman kneeling by her feet, the woman still smiling with the happiness of her existence. Her ivory skin had no hint of the sun, not a single drawn out freckle. Her tightly pulled back hair was devoid of any wildness. Her smile held secrets, but none that Kira felt any connection to. And her eyes, Kira thought, were as dark and monotone as the night sky at the end of the sunset, when all of the glorious colors had disappeared but the stars still didn’t want to come out and play.

  The woman flicked her pupils at Kira as if finally remembering her daughter was there. Kira watched the candles flicker in the black of her eyes and watched as even the reflection of heat rejected her. Deep in the ebony pools of those unfeeling eyes, Kira finally found an emotion. Coiling at the base of that bottomless pit, Kira saw hatred and it snapped her back into her seat.

  The woman blinked and it was gone, but it was enough. Despite her flawless appearance, carefully crafted story and emotionally charged words, Kira knew with every fiber of her being that this woman was not her mother.

  Now all she needed was proof.

  Chapter Six

  Slowly, Kira rose from the sturdy wooden chair and excused herself. Calmly, she walked to the door and looked back at the woman still crouching on the ground. She put as much love as she could into that look, hoping it was enough for that woman to believe Kira had been fooled by the show.

  It took all of her strength to continue stepping at a normal pace up the stairs and down the hallway. Her muscles were tight, contracted. Her senses were alert and she had to control her legs to stop them from stretching out in front of her and sprinting the rest of the way to her room.

  Aldrich and that woman, who Kira couldn’t even think of as her mother, had to believe Kira was happy—maybe tired and drained of energy, but happy deep down. In reality, all Kira felt was despair. All of this, every second she spent daydreaming of a future with her mother and planning a rescue mission, all of it was wasted. Her mother was gone. Kira knew it. And she suddenly realized just how stupid she had been to believe in the fantasy, how naïve she had been to actually risk all of their lives searching for a phantom dream.

  But there was a nagging question in the back of Kira’s mind—how? How had this woman faked her mother’s appearance? How did she know so much about her mother’s life? Was Kira just being stubborn again? Was she just screaming inside because she got exactly what she had wished for, but realized too late that it was a corrupted desire?

  You can’t bring the dead back to life, Kira thought but then corrected herself, you can’t bring the dead back to life and expect nothing to change. After all, vampires were in so many ways the living dead, but none of them, not even Tristan, were the same as their living selves had been.

  “Kira?”

  Kira blinked. Tristan was standing in the doorway of their room, looking down at her with concern.

  “Are you okay? You’ve been standing outside of the door for a few minutes, not moving, not really anything…” He trailed off. Kira blinked again, then remembered the act.

  “I’m great,” she smiled, knowing Tristan would see it was insincere. But he didn’t. He took both of her hands and led her inside. All the while, his eyes danced with an electric charge, a surging burst of energy that Kira just couldn’t copy.

  “Don’t you see what this means?” Tristan asked.

  That my mother is dead, Kira thought, that I’ve been the biggest fool in the world? But she didn’t say the words out loud. Somehow, Kira didn’t think it was the answer he was looking for.

  Tristan didn’t wait for her answer. Instead, he led her to the foot of the bed. Kira let him sit her down and he knelt at her feet, still holding her hands.

  “Kira, we can be together. Forever.” He kissed her fingers and held her hands against his heart, smiling from ear to ear. It was a full smile, showing all of his teeth. Something Kira was normally happy to see, but not now. Not when she wanted to die inside. Not when she wanted to confess that that woman downstairs was not her mother—that her real mother was probably dead. Not when she wanted to cry and release all of the pain piercing her insides.

  Tristan shifted his gaze from one of her eyes to the other, shuffling back and forth, and tried to read her expression. He thought she was confused.

  “Don’t you see it? Your mother turned. You can turn.”

  Kira almost couldn’t bare the excitement coloring his words. But she almost never saw him this open, so happy and relaxed… so full of hope. And that was the only thing that made Kira swallow her resounding no. Because even though Kira wanted to let it all out, she couldn’t bear to fight with Tristan, not when she was already so close to breaking and not when he was the happiest she had ever seen.

  But she couldn’t open her mouth to speak. Instead, she let her body weight pull her down into his arms. Tristan caught her mid-fall and they were hugging. And he was lifting her into his arms, holding her like she weighed nothing at all and spinning her around in circles.

  Kira held him close and let silent tears fall down her cheek. She buried her head in his shoulder to contain her shuddering breaths.

  But Tristan didn’t notice. His vampire senses were too hyped up on adrenaline for him to process how opposite their feelings were. Laughter bubbled out of his mouth, loud and uncontainable, joyful and disbelieving.

  Kira drank it in and let it fill her up, pushing her sadness to the side. Suddenly visions were popping into Kira’s mind, idle dreams she never really let herself believe because of how impossible they were. Or how impossible they used to be.

  Traveling, that was what Kira had imagined the most. Seeing the African grasslands with nothing to fear and Tristan at her side. Staring down a lion while he watched on with laughter in his eyes. Or kissing under the Eiffel tower, visiting every ten years as an anniversary of sorts. Fifty years down the road they would come back to England, ride the London Eye again and Tristan could bore her by describing every single way the city’s skyline had changed.

  But maybe they would come sooner and, back in that rose garden, Tristan might propose. He would slip a ring on her finger—something simple, a single shimmering diamond. They would laugh and kiss and he would twirl her around like he was doing now. They
would be perfectly happy, there in that rose garden forever, breathing in the sweet smell of vanilla petals and eternity.

  And they could get married. Kira saw it clearly, a small ceremony with her family present. Her father would walk her down the aisle, making sure not to step on her flowing chiffon gown—something relaxed, perfect for the beach. Maybe she would skip the shoes and instead let her toes dig into the sand as she gracefully stepped closer to Tristan. His eyes would be as clear and bright as the glistening water, and they would sparkle just the same. She would take his hand and promise him forever.

  And forever was what they could have. When he ran, she would be at his side just as fast. They would be equals, on the exact same side for once with nothing else to worry about. Nothing would be forbidden, nothing would be judged. They would fight, of course. Kira was too stubborn to let him get away with anything. But then they would make up and that, Kira knew, would be magical. It would just be the two of them. The rest of the world would hardly exist except to make them happier for all of eternity.

  So Tristan continued to spin her around and around, because time stopped mattering. They had too much time to worry about wasting it. And with his laughter ringing in her ear, Kira forgot everything about this night except for the sounds of his joy and the dreams playing like a movie in her head, the preview of a life suddenly possible.

  By the time he collapsed on the bed with Kira draped over him, she was giggling with him, drunk on the endless possibilities before them.

  Kira looked down at Tristan and cupped his cheek in her hand. His smooth skin felt like silk against her fingers and she let them drift into his dark hair, pushing it from his face so she could see him clearly. With her other hand she traced the line of his square jaw, ran her thumb over the contour of his cheekbone. His eyes, framed with thick black lashes, were turning lighter by the second, fueled by a growing hunger Kira couldn’t dispute. Finally she glanced at the two thin, pink lines of his lips and leaned down to cover them with her own.