Fire Kissed (4 page)

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Authors: Erin Kellison

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Paranormal

BOOK: Fire Kissed
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Nearby Ms. Brand’s room, an external thought interrupted his memory
: ... drug should have put her out by now... .
From the person’s companion:
... what’s Hampstead want with the woman if he’s gay ... ?
Jack heard the lock release on the door, but he kept his seat. The two men entered, both young and strong, twin sneers curling their mouths.
“Ms. Brand isn’t here,” Jack said. The red of the battlefield memory still stained his vision.
Both men looked at the sprawl of limbs visible through the bedroom doorway.
“You came for her, but she was missing,” Jack explained, then gave a little push with his mind. Technically, angels were not to interfere with the choices of humans, but Jack’s need trumped the free agency of the parties involved—these men and the hotel’s owner. “She wasn’t here. You should search the rest of the hotel, however, before reporting back to Mr. Hampstead.”
Hampstead’s going to be pissed... .
Got to get out of this business....
“And I wasn’t here either,” he continued.
What had Ms. Brand gotten herself into? More trouble, certainly. It was time for a change ... of venue. He was relying on her bad habits for what he had in store.
The men left. Hampstead approached the room, but he was made to change his mind as well. The hotel quieted in the very early hours of the morning. The sky paled to white, then turned a dirty blue as the sun finally crested the horizon.
When the world was bathed in light, Kaye groaned from the bedroom.
Jack leaned in the door frame and waited for the shock of a strange man in her room—unless she was used to it—to wake her completely. He hoped she wouldn’t be ill. Time was wasting.
Kaye blinked, bleary. He watched as her gaze shifted to the glaring window, to the bright mess of clothing spilling off a chair. To Jack, then held.
She bolted to kneel on the mattress, her hands shaking and full of livid faefire.
“Angel,” she said, naming him as she prepared to strike.
“That won’t be necessary,” Jack said. Though he could read human minds easily, Kaye’s was a complete and utter blank, like all of the soulless mage-born. But he knew human nature well enough. If he remained at ease, she wouldn’t burn him. Most likely.
Pillow lines creased one cheek. Her auburn hair was flat on that side as well, wavy on the other. Black eyes. Her legs were braced apart, athletic in their youth. The skirt was still rucked up high on her thighs. Her stance was full of fight, so the life she’d been leading hadn’t broken her yet. Very good.
“Although historically I’m your mortal enemy—” Jack began. Mages, like the fae, had always defied Heaven. He added a smile to make the acknowledgment seem friendly. “Today, I’m your prospective employer, Jack Bastian.”
“Get out.” The blaze in her hands grew brighter, shifting to an almost citrine intensity.
Jack looked out the window at the ugly view and sighed heavily. Garish at night, the Las Vegas cityscape was hungover in the morning. “Last night the hotel’s owner drugged you. Then two men came to this room intending to relocate you while you were unconscious. I think perhaps it’s time to move on before it’s too late.”
“Thanks for the tip,” she answered. “Now leave.”
Jack returned his gaze to the blazing fire; he knew all too well its burn on angelic skin, yet the power and beauty of the shimmer were undeniable. “Where will you go?”
“That’s my business.” Kaye shrugged her shoulder and her blouse settled into more seemly coverage. The skirt remained a problem.
Jack forced his gaze back up to her face. “Will you take Mr. Hobbs’s lucrative job offer?”
She smirked darkly, a flex of intent rolling through her body as she primed to hurl her fire.
No, then.
“Or will you go to Grey House?” The old clans were Houses now. “Surely its master will take you in?”
Kaye’s eyes went wary, but the fire didn’t waver and her body remained tense, ready to act. Also good. Emotion didn’t control her. He’d need her steady.
Kaye lifted her chin. “Did he send you?”
Jack smiled, chuckling. “Ah ... no. Ferrol Grey does not do business with angels.”
Angels and mages had a long history of battling against each other, and the recent influx of Shadow back into the mortal world promised more.
Which was why Jack needed Kaye Brand, someone he could pay to be disloyal to her kind. She obviously liked money.
“So are you interested?” he asked.
“ No.”
He waited a beat for her curiosity to kick in. Noted the slight shift of her shoulders and head as she took a shallow breath. The subtle flare of her nostrils. The minute jerk of her irises.
“What exactly is the job?”
 
 
Never trust a pretty face, her father had once warned her. A pretty face masks a killer.
This angel wasn’t pretty; he was perfect, which was something altogether different, Kaye was now learning. He had none of the soul of that other angel, none of the warmth. This angel, Jack Bastian, had fair eyes, blue probably, or hazel, though she couldn’t be sure that far away. His hair was darkest brown, cut brutally short to tame a tight curl. Square face. An almost Roman nose with a full mouth to match. Though attractive, he was no model. No poet. And yet each expression and angle of his face was impossibly beautiful. Therefore, treacherous.
Angel. Memory had her throat closing. Her eyes ached as angel light filled them. She hadn’t seen another, until now.
Not her fault.
The other angel had said so himself.
Not her fault.
She’d been just a kid.
What could this one possibly want with her?
Bastian, who’d been leaning in her doorway, straightened. He was broad of shoulder, tall, and well muscled. Something dangerous in his bearing. Every bit the assassin. “We would need you to reenter magekind to gather information on how they are using the wraiths.”
The flames in Kaye’s hands diminished to a weak yellow and orange glow, as if the oxygen in the room had suddenly thinned. If she had any idea why the mage families used wraiths, she wouldn’t have her scars.
“I thought you might be curious yourself,” Bastian continued. He tilted his head and she could feel the stroke of his gaze on her scars. The stroke was echoed by a flutter deep within her belly. Fear, arousal—both sometimes felt the same.
“Well, I’m not curious,” she said, resenting the sensation. She’d barely survived the last time. She wouldn’t willingly go back. That wasn’t the kind of job she wanted. “So get out of my room.”
He didn’t move. “You’re afraid.”
“Yes, I am.” She had good reason to be. On the first day of every year she tried to manage the fear. She searched for a wraith, and she burned it up. It gave her just enough spine to keep going. She had three months left before she had to force herself to seek out and face another, and she wasn’t about to rush it.
She drew a deep breath and forcibly regained her composure. It was too early in the morning to spend herself with fire if this Bastian wasn’t going to do anything interesting. What power did angels have anyway? Or did they just stand there and pretty you to death?
Terrifying.
Run!
Yes. It was time to run. The urge was old and familiar, a knee-jerk reaction based on ten years’ worth of reinforcement. Didn’t matter that she hurt or was tired. Didn’t matter that one angel was saying one thing in her head, and another, standing in her room, was telling her the opposite.
Kaye smothered the flames in her hands and gingerly crawled off the bed so her throbbing brain wouldn’t burst. Suitcase. “And even if I weren’t afraid of wraiths, you’re missing the obvious.”
“And what’s that?”
She skirted the bed to get to the closet, staying away from Bastian. Slid open the folding doors. “It was a Grey who sicced a wraith on me. The mage families would kill me on sight.”
“The mage families could kill you regardless,” he said. “The point is, they haven’t. It’s been years since they’ve had anything to do with you.”
She surveyed her wardrobe, considering. Her brain felt like lead from last night’s drinks, making the vibrant colors of her clothes seem gaudy. But none of them were cheap. A Brand would never look cheap.
He continued, “Brand House is burned to the ground. You carry the scars of the wraith attack. Maybe they think you’ve been punished enough for refusing to marry Ferrol Grey.”
Kaye whipped back. “How could
you
know I refused him?”
And what else did he know?
“I’m an angel,” he said. “It is my business to know these things. Why did you back out of the marriage contract?”
That should be obvious; maybe he didn’t know anything after all. She turned to the closet. “I was fifteen and he was an old man.”
“Refusing Grey cost you dearly,” Bastian said behind her. “But now you’re all grown up. You’ve come into your power. They don’t come after you, Ms. Brand, because ultimately you are one of them.”
Maybe. But also because she’d kept quiet about the other angel, the one her father had captured, for a long time. She would not kid herself; that silence was everything. Out of sight, out of mind. And very, very quiet. “I’ve changed my answer to no way in Hell, but thanks for the offer.”
“I can pay you,” Bastian said. She felt him advance, a rush of white light racing across her Shadow-bred skin to buzz her nerve endings everywhere. Damn him.
Kaye could make her own money. Lots of it. Five grand a second.
The hotel cleaners weren’t likely to return the laundry she’d sent down yesterday. She threw clothes, still on their hangers, from the closet to her bed. She’d have to make do with what she had here. She’d catch a cab out front, then the first flight from LAS. Go on an adventure, a comfortable one.
“I’m also offering you the kind of protection no mortal businessman like Hampstead or Hobbs can.”
She turned and found him too close. A man, in her room, with an offer. “Ironically, I’d only need your kind of protection if I took your job.”
“Ms. Brand, you peddle your wares at the mages’ sufferance.” His voice had turned authoritative, not the right tactic with her at all, seeing as how it made her blood churn that much faster, the beat in her temples even more acute. She needed some painkiller. Narcotic, preferably.
“Their power is growing, consolidating,” he said. “The world is turning dark. Even you must feel it. The Age of Man is coming to an end. Eventually magekind will come for you.
Soon
they will come for you.”
No. She would not go willingly back to that life. She’d been running from that life for years. That other angel had even said it: The mage life wasn’t for her.
His stern mouth moved into a twist of a sardonic smile. “What about payback?”
Kaye felt a sudden tug, as if her guts were hooked on a short line. Payback, she understood. The concept had been taught to her from the cradle—how the
angels
had crushed her kind. How the mages would rise again and return the gesture.
“A wraith chewed on your face.” His voice lowered an octave. “In your mage world, doesn’t that deserve some kind of reprisal?”
Her face. A flash of anger swept her. Yes, that cruelty deserved something in equal measure.
Run!
cried the angel from the past. He might have died in that house, but his voice followed her yet. Instinct took up his warning, signaling her to hurry. Hurry now. Get packing. Get out of there.
But...
Kaye looked at the spill of fabrics across her unmade bed.
She was sick to death of running. Sick to death of forcing herself to face a wraith every year when the real monster was the Grey who sent the wraith after her in the first place. The wraith who’d attacked her had been a tool, like a knife or a gun. She’d known this from the beginning. From the first time she tracked down a wraith in an alley and set it on fire. In the back of her mind, she’d always known. Or else she wouldn’t be running still.
Run!
Again that voice urged her to save herself. But she wasn’t a kid playing dress-up anymore.
Ten years of driven flight, and she finally stopped herself in the doorway of her memory. She turned back to the beautiful ruined man who’d collapsed into his chains in the cellar of her childhood home and regarded him from the other side of time. He was owed something too. From her.
Would she choose differently now?
Would it even matter? Her angel, the one she loved, was dead and it was this Bastian who shined before her, his intensity not weakened by torture, his body not poisoned with Shadow.
She lifted her gaze to his perfect eyes and withstood the clarity of purpose that shined within them. The force of it made her ache.

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