* * *
Felicia started awake, a word echoing inside her as if somebody had spoken right into her ear.
Come.
Frowning, she rubbed her eyes with her fists and looked around her. An arm’s length away, Joshua lay asleep, as motionless as a marble sculpture, his bare chest hardly rising with his even breathing. For a while, she let her eyes linger on his fine features, on the angular, white planes only marred by a tiny scratch she had left behind on his flat stomach in the throes of passion.
He was hers.
She felt her heart beat speed up and the heat creep through her veins like liquid fire.
She wanted more. More magic. More love.
When she tore her gaze away from his chest and let it wander over the rest of his body, his hair like shiny moss growing on the dark ground, she saw a single snowflake glisten in his open palm. No bigger than a coin, it was exquisitely formed with a myriad of intricate details, stubbornly refusing to thaw although the night was barely cooler than the day had been. It brought a smile to her face. She was about to nudge it with a finger when the silent call rang in her ears again, deafening and powerful, yanking her to her feet.
Mechanically, she pulled her T-shirt back on, noticing the scorch marks on the ground where they had been sleeping. She searched inside her and found no dragon, which added to the mounting alarm. When she cast a last glance at his sleeping form, the hint of a frown etched itself into his forehead, but his pose was as rigid and at the same time relaxed as before. Was this what vampires looked like when they slept in their coffins to stay safe from the sun?
Come.
Somehow, she knew the voice wasn’t a real one, but she still turned a slow circle and used her night vision to scan their surroundings with glowing eyes. For all she could see, they were alone on the hilltop, if you discounted an owl choosing this exact moment to hoot and shoot away into the night, leaving her spooked. She lifted her eyes to the moon, so cold and far away and uncaring and mysterious. Preferring the sun, she had hated the moon and moonlight for the better part of her life. Now, it reminded her of Joshua, so how could she hate it although it made her feel uncomfortable?
Instinctively, she moved forward until she stood at the end of the plateau, her senses sharpened, longing for the presence of her dragon. She remembered it exploding out of her body when she had become one with Joshua, huger than ever and blindingly spectacular when it propelled itself higher and farther away with a single flap of its fiery wings.
Was it her dragon calling out to her? Where was she supposed to go? Why was her mind telling her that disaster was lurking and could swoop upon her with outstretched claws any instant?
With folded arms, her heat level up and her whole body taut as if prepared to spring into action, she stared at the village slumbering below, hardly more than a huddled mass of shadows punctuated by a couple of lights.
She felt more uncomfortable by the second. She wasn’t merely standing on the edge in a literal sense, but also on edge in the figurative sense, without knowing why. The air was heavy with foreboding, and it reminded her of the afternoon where a silent command had led her to the burning house with a child trapped inside. She closed her eyes, willing the present anxiety away by focusing on the memories. The moment when she had won the battle with the flames and bent them to do her bidding. She soaked it up like a sponge, her demeanor more confident the longer she feasted her inner eyes on the memory.
Power. She wanted power. She wanted this magical power.
Something had happened.
Her eyes flew open, glowing fiercely, her hands tingling with sensation as though her inner flames wanted to escape through the tips of her fingers.
There was only eerie silence.
And then there was fire.
A flame leapt into existence down in the village, tiny from where she stood, but surely enough to devour a house. Enough to entice her. While part of her brain wondered why she was always near when a sudden fire broke out, the rest of her was fighting a losing battle against the urge to be one with the flames. If she ran, would she reach the village in time to soak up the fiery energy or to experiment with her new powers? Without giving it a second thought, she whirled around to race her way downhill—only to hit a rock-solid obstacle that sent an icy shock through her.
“What’s going on? What are you doing?”
Joshua had woken up, and he sounded as alarmed as she was eager.
“Nothing,” she mumbled and stepped away, wishing she were alone and could run as fast as her dragon could fly.
A gasp told her he had spotted the distant fire. His arms were around her in the same instant that she had almost passed him by, holding on like restricting ropes bound too tight.
“What the hell have you done?”
Why did he sound so furious? And why was there fear in his eyes when she stared at him to demand that he let her go?
“What do you mean? I haven’t done anything. Now get your hands off me and let me go. I’m wanted down there. It’s calling me… I have to go!”
She was shouting, pummeling his cold stone wall of a chest with her fists to free herself. Precious seconds were wasted. She had to go. It was important to become one with the flames.
He held her to him effortlessly, like a kicking child throwing a tantrum.
“Felicia. Stay calm. Listen to me. You can’t go. You mustn’t. Felicia!”
In her desperation to break free, she unleashed her fire power, reaching within, finding a core of boiling flames like a volcano about to erupt. With a grunt of effort, she radiated the heat from her limbs, wiggling and shoving her hands at him. When she pushed both hands roughly at his chest, summoning fire to assistance, she was rewarded with a hiss of pain and sudden freedom.
Unable to form any coherent thought or care for anything but the need to unite with the flames, she fought for balance without the hold of his strong arms, shooting past and away.
“Don’t go! Stay! Stay with me!”
What was it about this man? Why did he hold such power over her?
Her feet ground to a stop.
He hadn’t sent an icy assault of hail or a cloud of whirling snow storm after her. And yet… His choice of words and a nuance in his voice that spoke of a deep connection—love?—was enough to penetrate the haze and make her hesitate. Once again waging war against what had taken control of her, she whirled around. Maybe making him understand how important this was would give her the freedom to leave?
Her mouth opened, but no words came out. The sight before her made it impossible to speak.
He shone as white as snow in the night, but what shone brighter were two handprints on his chest, as if he had been branded. She stared and stared at the ten perfectly visible fingers that had burned themselves into his skin, stared at her hands rippling with flames, and stared back at the man she loved.
More than anything else, more than his call, it shook her out of her delirium and brought her back to her senses with a sharp pain which made her head throb.
Gone were the beckoning calls of the distant fire in the village, gone the need to dance in the flames. Shivers ran down her spine. Putting one foot after the other with herculean effort, she walked up to him, magically drawn by the handprints gradually fading in intensity.
She had done this.
She had hurt the one person who least deserved it.
If he didn’t have his ice as protection, would she have burned him alive? Had she marked and marred him for life?
The fire shield surrounding her had died away, like her will, and her ability to speak. She raised her gaze to his eyes. They were opener and deeper than she had ever seen them, two icy pools of deep water, swimming with… with what? Hurt? Was he in physical pain?
Trembling, she fought for the right thing to say, her mind full of worries about how easily she could lose the control she so prided herself on having, the control he was so relentlessly asking her to maintain.
“I’m sorry
.”
Her words were no more than a whisper, and her voice was as brittle and rough and exhausted as she had hoped it would never again sound.
While his eyes were bleeding with feeling—anger, worry, hurt and so much more that she couldn’t define—his body remained frozen. He inhaled slowly and deeply. When he breathed out, cold mist seeped out through his lips, wandered in caressing hands over his body and settled on the blistering wounds on his chest. His teeth digging into his lower lip, his hands balled into white-knuckled fists, trembling with the effort, he was concentrating on working his magic. Soothing cold poured over the handprints, dipped into the shallow imprints, curled itself like healing smoke around the edges stitched into his skin. While she watched spellbound, mimicking his body language in a silent, futile effort to help, to hope, the wounds began to look less threatening.
Was Joshua in pain? Would he get better?
The questions vibrated through her being, and her headache increased.
Could her power be blessing and curse wrapped into one uncontrollable mix?
After a long time that stretched like a rubber band about to snap, he shook himself, gingerly ran a palm over one imprint, winced and stretched his limbs.
In a gesture infused with more meaning and more forgiveness than she deserved, he held out his hand. Automatically, Felicia took it and let him pull her toward their sleeping place. With slightly strained movements, he let go of her fingers, bent and threw his T-shirt on. He sank to the ground with less strength than she had ever seen him with, and looked up at her. A battle of emotions played out on his face. It was more emotional than she’d have thought it possible.
When she thought she couldn’t bear his silence anymore, he spoke the one sentence that lovers around the world dread.
“We need to talk.”
Chapter 16