Immortal Fire (8 page)

She spun around to find the
winged beast limping toward her. Donovan had also done some damage. She backed
away. “Donovan, I could use some help,” she squeaked, feeling like she was
about to vomit.

He extended a limp hand in her
direction. “Feel your power growing, Kai.”

“What?” She didn’t feel a thing
beyond fear.

“Feel it!”

She expected a bolt of lightning,
something dramatic to come shooting from Donovan’s hands, but no special
effects lit up the night. The creature grabbed hold of her arm, and just like
that heat suffused her body until her skin was on fire. Her clothes burned off,
and she slapped a hand over her naked breasts, but the fire was her covering.

The creature howled when the fire
burned his fingers. He shrank back, but didn’t give up. He came at her again.

“Kill him, Kai!” Donovan shouted.

“I can’t.”

“Do it!”

Chapter Fourteen

Donovan could still hear the hell
bird’s screams as Kai burned it alive. He closed his eyes and saw the fire in
her eyes, how they glowed red to match her skin. What terrified him most was
how she looked too much like she enjoyed what she did. The demon in her was
strong.

He glanced down at her sleeping
naked on his chest and grew tight feeling her soft breasts pressed against him.
They had spent hours locked in each other’s arms, Kai wanting to block from her
mind how she had destroyed her enemy. He had told her it was no big
deal, that
it was self-defense, but he had egged her on. And
Ove’s
daughter had shown what had been locked inside
her for years.

Inching out from under her, he
settled her on the bed and covered her. Then he stood, slipped into his jeans
and strolled over to the door. Outside the hotel room, he leaned back on the
wall and ran a hand through his tussled hair with his eyes closed. This
situation should not upset him. It’s what he wanted, what he had intended from
the start. To betray
Gethin
, to get Kai for himself,
for his cause.

“To open the barrier,” he
muttered.

“To allow underworld creatures to
come freely into the human world.”

Donovan opened his eyes.
Gethin
stood before him.

“So you’ve caught up to us. I
hoped for more time.”

Gethin
shrugged. “You’ve done what I intended, to ditch you and take the girl. She
belongs to me, Donovan. You should give her up now. After all, your power is
virtually non-existent next to hers. Next to mine.”

“I’ll protect her with my life.”
His heroic utterance sounded lame in his own ears. He wasn’t surprised when
Gethin
burst out laughing. “I have centuries of knowledge I
can share with her.”

His enemy chuckled again. “Yes,
you can teach her how to betray one’s family. Did you tell her how you killed
your cousin to be head of your family, Donovan?”

“You did that!” Donovan’s stomach
turned at the memory of all he had been involved in, at all he regretted.

“Yes,”
Gethin
agreed. “But you set him up for me. Did you tell her that all creatures from
the underworld are basically evil? That you are no different? Did you tell her
the consequences of your dream? Letting loose your evil family among innocent
humans, those she chose to live among as a human. Only by defeating her father,
the great
Ove
, can the barrier be taken down. A green
girl like Kai could never kill a demon of his power.”

“If that’s the case, then what do
you want with her?” Donovan countered. His confidence that the spell holding
Gethin
outside of the wall around their hotel room was
faltering. He sensed the shield was weakening. And when it came down, there was
nothing he could do to stop
Gethin
. The bastard was
right. Donovan’s power was limited.

Gethin
tested the wall, pushing against the invisible force holding him back. His
fingertips flashed blue, and he winced in pain before drawing back. “I want her
for the same reason you do, to train her to use her abilities, to one day kill
Ove
.”

A gasp sounded behind Donovan.
“Kill
Ove
?” Kai stood in the doorway, her eyes wide
with shock and fear.

Fuck!
“Kai, listen,” he began.

She slapped his hand. “Get the
hell away from me, Donovan. You’re no different from him.”

Her words were a punch in his
gut. “Let me explain.”

“There’s nothing for you to
explain!” she screamed. “I just want to get the hell out of here! I’m beginning
to think that thing I killed just wanted to save me from you and your friend,
here! No, don’t say a word. I don’t believe you. You’re a liar.”

She was so
agitated,
her skin began to darken again, turning crimson. Small blackening holes
appeared in the sheet she had wrapped around herself. She saw it and ran into
the room, slamming the door behind her. He reached for the knob and heard her
scream. By the time he got the door open, she was gone.

* * * *

“Mitzi!” Kai cried. “Where did
you come from?”

“
Shh
,”
her friend whispered. “They’ll hear us and know we’re still here. Let them
leave, and then we’ll get out of here on our own.”

Kai stood still with Mitzi
stretched out around her in the form of a column at the corner of the room. The
woman was amazing and had come in the knick of time to help. Kai hoped both
Gethin
and Donovan thought she had somehow been snatched by
a demon or something, transported back to the underworld. That way
Gethin
wouldn’t use his magic to track her down, and
Donovan would just check out of the hotel.

The two men argued, and
Gethin
stormed out of the room. Donovan moved to the bed,
picked up her blouse and sniffed it with his eyes closed. His cock hardened, pushing
out his jeans at the front. Somewhere above Kai’s head, Mitzi giggled. Kai bit
her lip. Donovan must be remembering their time together. Whether they both had
different goals or not, they meshed well. At least physically. She would miss
him. And here she
was having
to start over looking for
a lover when this mess was behind her. She didn’t want to. She wanted Donovan.

Her lover left the room and
locked the door behind him. She and Mitzi held their position for while longer,
and then Mitzi slowly reformed her body. Kai watched in awe as Mitzi’s arms
narrowed from the off white flat imitation of a wall to the normal thin limbs
of a shape-shifter. Mitzi’s grinning face appeared before her, a head shorter.

“It still amazes me how you can
do that,” Kai told her, “Stretching all the way up to the ceiling like it’s
nothing.”

Mitzi shrugged. “It is nothing.”
Her smile faded. “I have to tell you something, what I should have told you
from the beginning.”

Kai groaned. “Not more secrets
and plots? Can I handle anymore? My life has already been turned upside down.”

“Well, you should know. It might
threaten our friendship even further.”

With a sigh, Kai spun away and
headed toward the bed, then stopped. “I have no clothes. Donovan took them.”

Mitzi slipped out of her skirt
and blouse and handed them over. Kai blinked when her friend reformed her
slender figure to look like she was dressed in slacks and a close fitting
blouse. If she could do that all the time, Kai didn’t know why she would bother
buying clothes.

Kai took the offering and forced
her bigger figure into the blouse and skirt. They would have to do until she
found something else. “You haven’t seen Bevin have you?” she asked.

“No, I’m afraid
Ove
called him off you.”

“So it’s true?” Despair hit. Her
father really did want her caught . . . or killed. He wanted her in the
underworld. What else was true that Donovan had told her or that she had
overheard from
Gethin
? “So what do you have to tell
me? Just get it over with.”

They peeked out the curtain at
the window, and when the area looked clear, stepped outside. Mitzi had a cheap
rental car waiting. And soon they had pulled out onto the highway. Kai glanced
at her watch. Three in the morning. She yawned as if her body had just now
figured out she should be asleep.

Mitzi chewed her lip until it
bled and then spoke. “Donovan is my cousin.”

“What!”

“Yes, third cousin actually.” Kai
noted the bitterness come into her friend’s face. “He became leader of my
family when my brother was killed a few months ago.”

Kai gasped. She wasn’t about to
admit what she had heard
Gethin
say, that Donovan had
set Mitzi’s brother up so
Gethin
could kill him. She
closed her eyes. “I should no longer be surprised. I didn’t know you had a
brother or any family. Donovan gave me the impression that his . . . your
people are not allowed to leave the underworld.”

Mitzi nodded. “Not without the
demon lords’ say so.” She flipped the lever to turn on her signal for switching
lanes, although there was no one else out on the road.
 
“There’s more.”

“Of course.”

“Fifteen years ago,
Ove
found out about the potential to use you, but only if
you manifested a demon side. You had great potential, but you showed no signs.
At the time, I was begging for permission to live up here. In order to do so, I
had to agree to become your friend, to watch you and report back to him if you
manifested any gifts.”

“Pull over,” Kai screamed. “Let
me the hell out of this car! A spy? You’ve got to be kidding me! Pull over,
damn it!” Mitzi kept trying to explain, so Kai reached across, grabbed the
steering wheel and yanked hard.

The car swerved back and forth
over the highway as they fought.

“
Kai,
let me explain.”

“There’s nothing to explain!” Kai
jabbed her foot onto the break, and the tires screeched. They were thrown
forward against the seat belts and slammed backward. Kai forced the car in
park, unbuckled her seat belt and jumped out of the car. She ran along the
highway with tears streaming down her face.

She heard a growl behind her and
looked back to find both car doors open, the hazard lights flashing and Mitzi
in cougar form chasing her. Kai ran faster. With no forethought, she aimed a
hand back behind her, and flames of fire shot from her fingers. Mitzi leaped
and rolled out of the way. Her piteous roar sounded like a plea, but Kai kept
moving.

Exhausted and losing speed, Kai
turned one ankle in the ditch along the side of the road and tumbled down it.
Mitzi pursued her. Huge paws with claws that looked like they could rip her to
pieces landed on Kai’s chest. Her body temperature rose. Her skin turned red.
She felt an itch in her hair and reached up to investigate.
Horns!

“I’ll burn you alive, Mitzi,” she
threatened. “Get the fuck off me.”

Mitzi changed back to her human
form but rested on Kai’s hips, holding Kai’s hands above her head. “Please
listen to me. I love you, Kai. You’re my best friend, and I wouldn’t do
anything to hurt you.”

“Why don’t I believe you?”

“Because you’re upset. You’re
scared.”

“Why shouldn’t I be?”

Mitzi rolled to the side of Kai
but watched her with caution in her eyes. “I know this has all been sudden, and
it’s scary. I wouldn’t have said anything. I
didn’t
report on you at all. But Donovan did tell me he would be at
the party and that I could not warn you about who he was. I had no choice. He
is the head of my family. I had to obey.”

Kai had heard of the hierarchy of
the underworld, how all people, no matter what their background or gifts bowed
to the demon lords, and then beneath them, it went on in ranks. The head of a
family made the law for that family, and everyone in a particular family had
better obey or face death. They were all evil, and she wanted nothing to do
with them, including Mitzi. Too bad it hurt like hell to lose the one person
she had been able to confide in all these years, the one person who had made
Ove’s
rejection tolerable.

“You realize that you’ve
disobeyed your leader by helping me, Mitzi?”

Her friend nodded with a slight
grin. “I’ll be sent back to that dark world and probably be put to death.”

“Dramatic much?” Kai knew it
wasn’t drama. She
shuddered
thinking of it. “Now what?
Donovan had claimed to be taking me to some demon who could train me on the off
chance I’d develop enough to challenge
Ove
.” She
rolled her eyes.

Mitzi gasped. “
Brenton
! Of course. I should have thought of that. He lives
in the human world. Come on. We’ll go to him. Donovan will never think we would
go there. We’ll show them all. You’ll kill them all, and you and I will rule
both worlds.” She giggled and stood. Kai thought maybe the girl had snapped, but
followed her anyway. She had no other choice. Either she would get strong and
defend herself or she’d get caught in the middle of a tug of war between the
factions. None appealed to her. Somehow it had to work out, and it was time to
let go of her girlish fantasies of being accepted and make it on her own.