With nothing else to look at, Kira stared back at the burnt vampire curled in on itself against the floor.
A fist closed around her heart, squeezing her chest tightly, painfully.
She couldn’t breath.
He couldn’t mean…
She would never…
And then, slowly, one charred eyelid slid open, revealing a midnight blue twinkling eye that Kira would recognize anywhere.
She screamed.
Chapter Sixteen
“Tristan!” Kira shrieked again. She pulled on her hair, begging for the pain to wake her up from this horrible nightmare. This couldn’t be happening. Kira wouldn’t accept it.
She had killed Tristan. He was dying, burning, because of her fire.
“Kira,” Luke gripped her shoulder, trying to comfort her. Kira shirked his hold.
“What have I done?” She asked herself, Luke, no one. “What have I done?” Kira whimpered.
“Kira, you have to end it,” Luke said softly. Kira looked away from the mass of flesh Tristan had turned into. She couldn’t bear to look at his blackened, scarred, burnt skin any longer.
“What?” Kira asked Luke, scanning his face for some other meaning in his words.
“Tristan—he’s in pain. You have to end it,” Luke said. His eyes were concerned, warm, trying to give her strength but also lost.
“I have to save him,” Kira said, shaking her head at Luke’s words. “I have to help him.”
“You can’t,” Luke urged.
“I have to,” Kira whispered and turned away from Luke. She crawled over the floor until her skin was close enough to feel the heat emanating from Tristan’s body.
In some places his skin looked like melted rubber, bright red and stretched, bubbling with blisters. In other places, it was dark and charred, flaking into ash, already disintegrating. His knees curled into his torso like a child’s, his arms were glued to his side, melted against the abs Kira had loved to touch. His fingers, his beautiful artistic fingers that Kira had previously seen blacked with charcoal, were now blackened by her fire. They had blown up to twice their size, swelling with blood that was just about to break free of his skin.
Biting her lip to keep from screaming, Kira finally looked up at his face. Wet tears fell down her cheeks, landing on his skin and instantly fizzling dry.
Aside from the one eye still looking at her, pleading with her, his face was unrecognizable. Gone was the black hair she always ran her fingers through, the long strands that fell over his forehead when he was really concentrating. His scalp was bald, an ugly harsh red mixed with black, like a cooling lava field. His ears were melted flat. His soft lips that Kira could kiss for hours were gone.
Kira looked into his open eye again.
Luke was right.
Tristan was in pain. He was begging for release, and Kira couldn’t do anything to save him. She could only end it, end the hurt.
Kira took a deep, unsteady breath and brought a small flame to her palm. She put her hand over the center of his chest, knowing it would be the fastest way to end it.
Slowly, while his body jerked in pain, Kira sunk the flame into his heart, expecting it to already be black and broken.
But, unlike his skin, his heart was whole and healthy. It was red, pumping, full-of-life. It looked almost human, except for a shell of hard, black metal around it, sealing it off, protecting it.
Kira burned the shield, melting the black away.
And suddenly an idea came to her. What if she could push the darkness from his flesh? What if she could save him? Kira had protected herself, had managed to push the vampire out of her.
Kira changed her flames, letting her Protector fire flow freely around Tristan’s heart. She could almost feel his soul hiding within its walls, something white and pure, silvery and straining to be free. It hadn’t been burned. Only his body, and Kira knew she could fix that.
She encased his heart in her fire, protecting it from the dark shell it had been trapped in for more than one hundred and fifty years. And then she continued to burn Tristan, focusing on the darkness woven through his body. Slowly, methodologically, Kira pushed her powers on, revealing pink flesh as the sticky, evil tar inside of him was melted away.
The further she moved, the more Kira expanded her protection, healing his wounds, healing the burns she had raised on his skin.
She kept her eyes sealed shut, too afraid that all of this was only in her mind, too afraid that in reality she would wake to a pile of ash and not a human, not Tristan. Could she be imagining her powers? Could she have gone crazy enough to live a dream?
Her flames slid up to his face, into his brain, restoring old nerves that had grown weak. Until finally, it was only the flesh of his face that needed to be healed, and she did so patiently, envisioning the curve of his nose, his striking hooded eyes, his soft almost pouted lips, the dimple that buried above his mouth when he smiled.
Kira brought her hands to his cheeks. Was the soft flesh she felt real? Could Tristan possibly be alive?
After a second, Kira felt warmth under her hands, felt blood pump through the cheeks below her fingers. A gasp filled her ears, the sound of a drowning man finally brought back to life.
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 who 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 already 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.
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Don't miss SCORCH - the final book in the Midnight Fire Series.
Coming 2013.
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About the Author
Kaitlyn Davis graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Johns Hopkins University with a B.A. in Writing Seminars. She's been writing ever since she picked up her first crayon and is overjoyed to finally share her work with the world. She currently lives in New York City and dreams of having a cockapoo puppy of her own.
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Blaze (Midnight Fire Series) Page 20
