Stroke of Fire

by Kira Nyte

  Briella’s gaze lowered to her bandaged arm as the magnitude of her predicament hit her. Blood had begun to soak through the fabric. “I think I might need stitches.”

  “Syn, why don’t you bring her back to our home? She’ll heal much faster there.”

  “What?” She caught a silent exchange between Taryn and Syn. Syn nodded, and her curiosity was piqued.

  “Agreed, but we’ll have to wait until nightfall. There aren’t many places here to launch from without drawing attention.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “The Hollow. But that’s something Syn can fill you in on when we get you back to my house. For now, we need to leave.”

  Briella cringed as pain shot up her back and pulsed along her head as she tried to stand. Syn helped her to her feet, his arm solid and reassuring around her waist.

  “Will you be able to walk back to the house?” Syn asked. Concern edged his voice. “We’ll need to be as inconspicuous as possible. Don’t need any more attention, especially when we step out of here and leave it in such a state. We can’t risk your injuries being noticed.”

  Briella nodded, pressing her lips together. She’d manage. She’d suffer when she was in the privacy of her room, in the shower. Her mother could stitch her up. No need to go to a clinic or hospital.

  “I’ll be fine, Syn.”

  Those lips curled into a smile. His grip around her waist loosened. He shook free of his jacket and draped it around her shoulders.

  “Keep your arm in the jacket.”

  “Wait.” Briella pressed a hand to his chest, stopping him as he and Taryn started to lead her from the store. She pointed to the mirrors. “I think that woman trapped some people in there.”

  Taryn stepped around a few objects on the floor as he made his way to the mirrors. He tilted his head as he watched the frantic woman try desperately to say something. Taryn held up a hand.

  “Damn it,” Syn groused. “Taryn, I hope you know someone who can undo this, since we can’t.”

  “I have a few people in mind, but we’ll have to take the mirrors with us. I’m not going to leave them here, in case that woman returns.” He flashed Briella and Syn a mischievous smile. “This is going to add a dash of interesting to our walk home.”

  Taryn covered the mirrors and placed them glass-to-glass to hide the terrified images trapped in them from pedestrians. With the mirrors tucked under Taryn’s arm, and Briella tucked under Syn’s, they left the store, and another nightmare, behind. Briella kept her arm hidden under the jacket and close to her chest, acutely aware of the blood that seeped through her shirt. She tried her best to stanch the bleeding with pressure from her other hand without knocking the jacket off her shoulders.

  To her relief, Taryn led them through a series of narrow alleys and slow side roads, avoiding the dense crowds of the more popular streets.

  Briella waited until they were almost to Esplanade before she pulled back the jacket enough to inspect the blood-soaked fabric.

  “Brie!”

  Briella yanked the jacket back in place and twisted to look back at the street behind them. Syn edged a half-step in front of her, his arm still around her waist. So slight a change in his stance, but the impression he presented was undeniable.

  Not a single word needed to be said. She felt the meaning to the marrow, to the light of her soul.

  Syn claimed her.

  “Hey. I thought that was you.” Mark jogged the last dozen or so feet to join them, Emma right behind him.

  “Ah, your friend from the bar who has a keen eye for you.”

  Despite his attempt to keep his observation light, Briella detected his disgruntlement. She ignored it and, clenching the jacket close to hide her wounds, stepped around Syn.

  “Calm it, dragon. He’s only a friend.”

  “Mm-hmm. I bet that’s what he thinks.”

  Briella stifled a groan and greeted her friends with a one-armed hug. Emma’s attention was on Syn as she practically drooled. Her eyes reminded Briella of a cartoon character who finally found something to pine after, all bright and sparkly.

  “…who is that yummy morsel of a man? Holy bejeezus. And that other one, too…”

  Briella sighed inwardly at her friend’s gawking thoughts while she honed in on Mark’s resentment.

  “…from the bar. What the hell is he doing here? With Brie? I’m not about to compete with a stranger. I knew her first…”

  The elemental thought brought her shoulders straight. There was no denying the poignant jealousy in Mark’s eyes, or in the taut smile that stretched his lips. He tried to keep his expression friendly, and failed.

  “I thought we were supposed to meet for po’boys in a half hour,” Mark said, his gaze moving between Syn and Briella.

  “Who’re your friends?” Emma asked, that knowing brow-arch in full effect. Her sly smile backed up her unspoken assumptions as she crossed her arms over her chest.

  Taryn joined them, held out a hand in greeting. His smile dazzled and charmed in the same instant. Unfortunately, it didn’t work on Mark, whose face darkened with suspicion.

  “Name’s Taryn. And here, my friend Syn.” He lifted Emma’s hand to his mouth and kissed her knuckles in his slick manner, quickly earning a blush from a woman Briella thought almost impossible to impress.

  Mark stared at the offered hand when Taryn was through painting on the enchanting prince performance for Emma. Briella cleared her throat when Mark appeared to have forgotten basic manners.

  He stiffly shook Taryn’s hand.

  “It’s amazing what friends hide from each other,” Emma said, accepting Syn’s handshake. Briella caught the subtle flare of her nostrils as she took a surreptitious sniff. “Hmm, what cologne are you wearing? It’s”—Emma’s sharp gaze cut to her—“familiar.”

  Briella scowled in warning.

  “Some concoction I get from a friend.” Syn turned his attention to Mark. “And I recall you’re Mark, correct? From The Black Duck.”

  Briella shut out the slew of cusses that tumbled through Mark’s thoughts as he begrudgingly accepted Syn’s hand. She was appalled by the degree of his disgust and hatred and jealousy. It was enough to make her reconsider the basis of their friendship, and whether it was built on Mark’s false hope of it becoming something more.

  “That’s correct.” Mark wagged a finger at Syn, a feigned thoughtful crease deepening in his forehead. “You were helping Brie.”

  Syn chuckled and directed a thought her way. “He thinks he’s smooth, doesn’t he.”

  “Don’t stoop to his descending level.”

  Syn sidled close to her side, hard body brushing against her. His arm slinked back around her waist.

  She should’ve been pissed, but instead found herself welcoming his gesture.

  “She tripped. I was lending—”

  “What is that on your neck?” Emma interrupted Syn, stepping up to Briella and poking her neck. “Are you bleeding?”

  “Scratched myself.”

  “Huh.” Emma sounded disbelieving.

  Briella tightened her hold on the jacket covering her injured arm.

  “So, I know my friends are heading out on the town in a few minutes, if you want to give them the rest of those brochures to hand out, Briella. Their connections will ensure a fantastic debut,” Taryn said in a smooth move to change the subject. “Can’t keep them waiting.”

  At this point, all Briella wanted was to get back to Taryn’s and forget what had happened in the voodoo shop. She’d lost her drive to pass out her brochures and meet her friends for a late lunch before getting ready for work.

  Not that she wanted to go anywhere alone anymore.

  “I’ll give you a call in a little while,” Briella said.

  “Why don’t you bring your friends with you for po’boys?” Emma smiled at Syn and Taryn. “We’re a friendly bunch. Promise.”

  “Sounds like a date.”

  Briella kept her grin as she shot Taryn a warning
glance. He winked and turned toward Esplanade.

  “Did he really just—”

  “Yes.” Syn gave her hip a light squeeze. “Guess we’re having a lunch date.”

  Shouldn’t be so bad.

  She caught the glowering gaze Mark pinned on Syn and retracted that thought. Maybe the danger posed by the woman at the voodoo shop wasn’t as bad as what could manifest from a jealous man.

  Chapter Fourteen

  Syn swore to himself he’d never leave Briella alone again if he couldn’t reach her in a split second. After the incident at the shop, his frustration and fear of what might have happened had he not decided to track her down red-lined until his dragon wanted to singe anything in sight that threatened his woman. The entire screwed-up situation had been way too close a call for him to relax his guard.

  As it stood, his blood seared his veins and his senses were highly attuned to the slightest noise, shift of air over his skin, and possible black misty clouds pouring into the frame of a woman.

  It took several minutes and constant reassurance to calm Saralyn and keep both parents from suffocating his lifemate with their attention. He allowed his Keeper his due words to Briella, but put a firm foot down when Giovani and Briella started arguing about freedom and independence.

  “I learned my lesson today, Dad, but I am not going to live in fear of walking out the door every day,” Briella snapped.

  Giovani, whose face was the same shade of flushed red as Briella’s, gritted his teeth. “I knew it was a bad idea keeping this from you. Now I have to contend with a strong-willed, stubborn as sin, independent woman. You are not like everyone else, Briella, and the sooner you accept that, the safer you’ll be.”

  “I think emotions are at a dangerous peak right now. Giovani, give her space. And Briella, please take into consideration his concern,” Syn said. He half expected both his Keeper and his lifemate to turn on him, and braced himself.

  To his surprise, father and daughter nodded, their heads lowering and the fight draining out of them before it turned explosive. Syn noticed Saralyn’s closed-mouth smile of approval before she wrapped an arm around Briella and led her to the kitchen table. She had spread a towel over the tabletop and set out several types of antiseptic, gauze rolls, bandages, and a suture kit.

  Syn motioned to the table and said to Giovani, “Please don’t tell me she does this often.”

  “Saralyn never lost the skills she learned before the attack. She knows how to handle just about any injury,” Giovani said with pride. Pride and love and adoration. Syn noted that in all the years, nothing dimmed that light of love Giovani and Saralyn shared.

  To share that with Briella…

  His hopeful thoughts were doused a minute later.

  Saralyn pulled back the makeshift fabric dressing and the dragon clawed in fury. He hadn’t realized he’d lost himself in the powerful anger until both women stared at him, eyes wide. Giovani rested a hand against his arm. A small plume of smoke curled up from Syn’s nostrils as his dragon took over his sight to watch the ladies through thermal, orb-like lenses capable of picking out the finest detail of any object.

  That object being Briella’s sliced-up hand and wrist, and how deep many of her wounds were.

  The growl that drew their attention subsided. He raked a hand through his hair, shaking the dragon down. His vision returned to normal, but his body hummed with tension.

  Saralyn cleaned Briella’s wounds and stitched up three of the lacerations. After a dressing was placed and a gauze bandage wrapped around her hand halfway up her forearm, Briella left the room to change into a clean shirt. Saralyn gave his shoulder a reassuring squeeze before she cleaned up her supplies and returned to the library with Gio.

  Briella returned to the living room a short time later, purse on her shoulder.

  “Ready? We’re already late,” Briella said. Syn nodded, but his enthusiasm to meet up with her friends for lunch was about as genuine as her urgency to leave the house. She didn’t want to go and neither did he. “Where’s Taryn?”

  “He’ll meet us there.” He cupped Briella’s face in gentle hands, tilting her chin up. He stared into her swirling gray eyes, sucked into the ribbons of blue and the swell of emotions that were always alive and vibrant in her irises. He traced her lower lip with his thumb. “Something else is bothering you. You don’t want to go.”

  “My back and my head, in addition to my arm, hurt from the abuse that lady put me through.” She nuzzled her cheek against his palm. Her eyelids slid to half-mast. “I have no way of hiding this bandage, which is going to lead to questions.”

  “We don’t have to go, Briella.”

  “No, we do.” She sighed. “I do. I put my friends through hell last night with my disappearing act and lied to Emma. It’s the least I can do after the time they took to help me out this afternoon. If I stand them up, Emma will know something’s up between you and me.”

  The pleasure he felt at Briella’s comment was as genuine as the slow grin that curled his lips. He moved a little closer, until his leg brushed hers and the heat between their bodies was almost tangible. His sweet lifemate rested her hands against his hips, fingers splayed.

  “You made it quite clear there was nothing going on between us,” Syn murmured. His voice dipped an octave. His lips burned with the rush of desire that crashed through him. He drew one hand along the curve of her neck and shoulder, down her arm. Satisfaction followed the subtle hitch of her breath and the darkening of her eyes.

  “That’s correct.” Sweet Goddess, her voice was soft and husky, pure sexual mayhem. “Nothing.”

  His gut twisted and his groin throbbed when she licked her bottom lip.

  “Nothing,” he repeated, dipping his head until their noses brushed and their lips lingered a breath away. He slipped his hand to her lower back and slowly urged her closer until her body settled flush against his. “Then there’s nothing to worry about.”

  Briella’s eyes closed, her shallow breaths caressing his lips and intensifying the hunger he suffered. She tipped her head, her forehead touching his. Her delicate hands slipped upward, drawing him taut beneath her touch.

  “Syn,” she whispered, fingers sliding up his neck and into his hair. He battled the urge to take and claim, to set aside the playful banter and make a resounding point. They belonged together, and the sizzling in the air between them, the merciless burn that consumed them emphasized that. She felt it, and it resonated within him, causing his own stormy desire that much more difficult to ignore.

  When her fingers fisted against his scalp, his growl was so primitive Briella gasped. “We’ve everything to worry about.”

  Her mouth crushed against his, shameless in her need, and he gladly indulged the desperate sweep of her tongue and the urgency behind each kiss.

  Blind to logic and reality, Syn unraveled as quickly as Briella. Every inch of her pressed tight to him, from her legs to the swells of her breasts. He drew his breath from her lungs and fed her breath from his, as one without being complete.

  Though they could quickly rectify that.

  He dropped his hand from her cheek and hooked it under her knee as she lifted it along his thigh.

  “Syn.”

  He barely recognized the shift in her body before she hopped up, locking her legs around his waist. Any sense remaining fled, leaving him engulfed in fire and wanting Briella. All of Briella.

  Now.

  Her nails scraped his scalp and he groaned, plundering her with a kiss so hot it reversed control into his hands. He turned away from the door, toward the stairs, bumping into the wall. He reached for her hair, wrapped the silky thick ponytail around his hand, and tugged her head back.

  The heady expression of pleasure and desire that consumed her face, from the rose of her cheeks to the swollen red lips parted in want, was more than he could handle and remain a decent man. She pushed the very boundaries that had kept him cordial and proper.

  But to see how pleasure painted her, ho
w want and need dressed her in sensuality…it was intoxicating to everything decent within him. She screamed to his carnal self, the basic, primal beast he kept locked behind a cage of scales. The very creature who would consume her until she could handle no more, and consume her again until all she knew was sensation.

  Syn lowered his mouth to her neck and traced one throbbing vein there with his tongue. A tremor shook her. A delicate crease deepened along her forehead, and a moan filled his ears.

  “Dear Goddess, the way you look at me…”

  He kissed her, every inch of her neck, relishing the taste of her skin and the soft sounds she made. The determined woman wedged an arm between them and, with one hand, plucked open the buttons on his shirt until it lay open to his stomach. She slipped her hand beneath the fabric, running her warm palm over his pecs, down his stomach, and stopped only when her fingers hit his belt.

  “Upstairs?”

  Even through telepathy, her breathless question drove him mad. The ache in his jeans became a lifeline, reminding him he could not lose control.

  “What about lunch?”

  Maybe reason hadn’t completely abandoned him, but he sure didn’t care for it right now.

  He kissed her below her ear, delighting in the way her fingers curled into his side and her nails bit into his skin. He twisted to round the corner to the stairs, prop a foot on the first stair, and press her back into the wall.

  “Ow,” she gasped, arching off the wall and dropping her feet from his waist.

  A bolt of ice-cold worry speared his desire, dousing the heat a degree or so. Enough for him to think more clearly. Syn pulled her away from the wall, gripped her chin in a gentle hold, and caught her eyes. They shimmered with tears that she quickly blinked away.

  “What is it?” he asked, more gruffly than he intended.

  “My…” She winced. “My back.”

  Syn eased her around and lifted her shirt. She didn’t fight him, a small blessing. As soon as he saw the cuts and bruises on her pale skin he wished she had. Upon closer inspection, he realized why she was in such pain.