Licked by the Flame (10 page)

It was no longer a tender act of lovemaking. Their joining had become a matter of life and death. So caught up in the whirl of sensation, she barely even detected when he shifted beneath her.

The world around her exploded in light. Sparks of magic swirled against the darkness of the sky. Raea’s entire body was awash in glitter and sensation. It felt as if she were falling, tumbling into an endless abyss, yet clinging to Kyne’s hard, damp body for rescue. He held her tight.

She could feel him throbbing inside her, his hot breath on her skin as he growled his release. She had brought him to climax and now he was doing the same for her. It would likely be the last climax she felt—he was becoming larger and more powerful with every heartbeat. The feel of him was nearly unbearable, yet she still rode the crest of her climax, clinging and crying his name.

Apparently they really had been falling, she realized. Suddenly she was on her back, pressed into the moss-covered ground beside the building. Her skin sizzled from sensation, her head spinning with color and light and a million erotic images of what Kyne was doing to her. He was driving himself into her, making her climax go on and on in a rolling sea of desire and pleasure. The constellations above them were whirling and she could feel the very life draining from her with every blissful moan.

She shut her eyes to try to regain her senses. Had she survived? Her body was limp and sated. Kyne’s weight pressed against her, yet he was not crushing her. He shifted to the side and she dragged in much-needed air.

“Raea?” He spoke her name gently.

Her heart skipped a beat at the tenderness and concern in his voice. “That was amazing.”

“Did I hurt you?”

Her body ached and she was dizzy from lack of breath, but no, he hadn’t hurt her. In fact, somehow he’d managed to save her when she’d lost all of her senses. He’d used magic to change her to human form just as they’d experienced their climax together. She’d been too far gone at the time to notice, but somehow he’d had the presence of mind.

“You used Sizing Dust just in time.”

“I very nearly didn’t,” he said, dropping onto his back beside her on the cold ground beside the little building. “The passion was so strong—I really couldn’t think straight.”

“I know. It was…unreal.”

“It was the damned machinery. Are you still feeling affected by it?”

“No, all I feel is exhausted. I think you drained every drop of energy from me,” she said.

“And you draw everything out of me,” he replied. “That’s what Baylor said the machinery does—it collects magic, draining us. The side effect, I guess, is that then passion takes over and we can’t fight that off without magic. But listen. Can you hear the thing working?”

She listened. The building had been humming before, giving off a low sound with faint vibration from the equipment running inside. Now, however, she heard nothing. Just the silence of the barren landscape and the slowing beats of her own heart.

“No. I don’t hear it.”

“That’s because it shut down,” he said. “Just like before. The machinery affected us, heightened our desire, but our passion was too much for it. I think we broke it, Raea. It’s not working now.”

“Good. Maybe I’ll be able to think straight for a while.”

“And maybe we’d better get out of here. The humans will come here soon, no doubt, to see what happened. We need to pull ourselves together and leave. Again.”

She sighed. Her body still tingled from all the passion. The last thing she wanted was to get back to reality, to find strength to go off into the night. But of course, that’s just what she would do. They came here for a purpose, and this interlude—although wonderful—had distracted them from it.

“All right,” she agreed. “Do we head back up the mountain?”

“Yes. It all comes back to this mountain, doesn’t it?”

She pushed up onto her elbow and managed to give him a smile. “All right, then. With luck, maybe we’ll find more of these machines up there.”

He grinned back at her. “And just what do you think we might do about that if—wait, look over there! A vehicle is heading this way!”

He was right. A vehicle was moving toward them from the direction of the small compound of dwellings. Twin beams of pale light shot from it into the darkness, waving and bouncing over the uneven landscape. As feared, someone had been notified of their presence.

“We’d better go!” she said quickly, adrenaline pumping energy back into her body.

But Kyne hesitated. “No, look. It’s not coming this way. It’s veering off, going that way.”

She thought for a moment to get her bearings. “Isn’t that sort of where we started?”

“That’s the direction where we found the sensor staked into the ground.”

“And you kicked it.”

“And then
we
broke it,” he said. “This could be a really good opportunity for us to find out who is responsible for this equipment, what’s really going on here. We should follow them.”

The thought of encountering whoever set up these terrible machines practically terrorized her. Of course she couldn’t admit this to him, though. This is why they were here. He was right. They should follow that vehicle. But how could they?

“Kyne, we’re too big. They’d see us for sure, and it’s too soon for Sizing Dust again.”

He thought for a moment. “Well, we could always make ourselves invisible.”

“Did you bring enough dust for that? I don’t think I did.”

“Yes. Let’s do this, Raea. We’ll have information to report back to Baylor, and if we do happen to find any more of this machinery out here, we’ll be immune to the effects for a while. Until the Sizing Dust wears off of us, at least.”

She had to admit, being able to control their actions would be a good thing, but she truly couldn’t regret all of what the machines did to them. By the Skies, Kyne was a master at lovemaking. More than anything she wanted to survive this ordeal, just so she could look forward to many more years submitting to his efforts. She hoped to the Clouds that a frenzied coupling in the wilds of Iceland was not the final act of her life.

L
ianne was aware of tension in her neck, a queasy feeling, and a slight headache. Slowly a fog lifted and she cracked open her eyes. Where on earth was she? At first glance, it didn’t seem like she was on earth at all.

A deep indigo sky formed a huge dome, dotted with glittery stars and smears of otherworldly color. Finger paints from some galactic titan? No, the sky hummed and swirled with a brilliant aurora borealis. Beautiful, actually. Black crags reached up into this sky, cutting off some of her view. The rocky silhouette of mountain. But it was closer than usual, wasn’t it? She blinked to clear her vision, clear her mind. She hugged her coat around her and was slowly aware of the chill that seeped all the way into her bones.

She was in a vehicle, parked in some desolate spot surrounded by rugged terrain. No wonder it was all so very confusing. How had she gotten here? She’d been back at the jobsite…in the trailer with that damned alarm, and then Nic…

Oh hell.
Nic
. Where was he? She must have been with him…she recalled that he’d been taking her somewhere. The driver’s seat was empty, though. She glanced out into the night, searching for some sign of him. What were they doing out here, and why couldn’t she remember?

The landscape around her was dark, but not too dark to make out the random angles of the rocky terrain. What was this place? Why would Nic bring her out to the base of the mountain?

But then he appeared in the near distance and she momentarily forgot her concerns. His face was in shadow but the sight of his muscular body moving with unexpected ease over the rough ground captivated her. The ambient light from the sky display illuminated his solid form, bouncing off him like a halo and causing his silhouette to practically glow. Memories of their bodies writhing against each other in the confined space of the storage room flooded her, bringing heat with them.

She had to forcibly hold her hands in her lap to keep from reaching for him when he moved toward the vehicle, opening the door and sliding in silently.

“Where are we?” she asked, her voice cracking as if it had been a while since she’d used it.

He seemed slightly startled by her question. “I was programming my GPS.”

“Oh,” she said, then realized that didn’t answer her question at all. “Why? Where are we going?”

“There was an anomalous signal from one of the sensors. We came here to investigate.”

“Yeah…that’s right.”

She chewed her lip. Yes, she remembered that now. The alarm system was set off by some unusual readings at the mountain. An RGS was sending impossible data, so Nic had said they needed to come look at it. He seemed to think it was important she come out here with him…for some reason. And she’d agreed.

Why on earth had she done that? It was cold and dark and she wasn’t an engineer. How the hell did Nic talk her into this? And why was everything still so damn fuzzy in her brain right now?

He started the engine and put the car into gear. The mountain was dead ahead of them, and Nic was picking up speed. He seemed even more surly and gruff than usual.

“Why did you have to get out of the car to program your GPS?” she asked.

“Bad connection in here.”

“We’re behind a mountain in Iceland. Moving ten feet away from the car gets you a better connection?”

“I needed to get a feel for the air out here.”

“The
air
?”

“Look, you said you were tired. Maybe you should go back to sleep.”

“I don’t remember falling asleep in the first place.”

“Well, you did. Fall asleep again.”

“I thought I was supposed to come out here and look at that RGS.”

“You are.”

“Then why should I go to sleep?”

“I’m not sure how long it’ll take me to find what we’re looking for.”

“Use your GPS.”

“I didn’t bring it.”

“You just said you were programming it. Hell, you keep contradicting yourself, Nic. What’s really going on? Why did you drag me out here?”

“Because I…you need to see the mountain.”

She did see the mountain. It was looming huge, directly ahead of them. It blocked the stars, blanked out the northern lights she’d been admiring, and no matter how jostled and tossed their rugged vehicle was, the mountain continued to monopolize her view. Nic glared at it like a man heading to war.

Or perhaps he was returning home. The way he clutched the steering wheel with a steely grip and laid on that accelerator, it seemed he wasn’t just driving toward the mountain, but aiming for it. They’d hit it, too, judging by the look on his face and the speed of their SUV.

“Slow down, Nic. My teeth are going to fall out. Jeez, are we checking out an RGS or flying over enemy territory?”

“I told you; the mountain is dangerous.”

“Then why are we here?”

“You need to see for yourself.”

So he’d already said. “I won’t be able to see very much if I’m knocked unconscious. Damn it, slow down. I think the back bumper just rattled itself loose.”

It really hadn’t, but she twisted to stare out the rear window anyway. Nothing but darkness behind them. There was no sign of the jobsite, no lights from their facilities, not anything comforting. There was nothing around but the black shapes of rock, swatches of sky, and the huge, looming mountain.

It appeared they were on the back side of it, all the way to the northernmost edge of their permit area. Nic must have skirted around the rugged east side of the off-limits mountain since the valley along the western side was filled with equally off-limits glacier. They were traveling up the fingerlike gorge carved out from glacial runoff as it made its way around the mountain and down toward the frigid North Atlantic to their south. Their campus lay somewhere back there, far to the west of what she presumed was their present location. The mountain was between them.

How long had they been out here, and how could she have slept through it all, especially if Nic had been driving like this? Maybe it was the jet lag. Hell, she couldn’t even remember getting into the vehicle with him. She felt…strange.

Her mind was so foggy and her limbs felt so numb. It was a little bit like waking up after a night of too much partying, except that there had been no party. There was nothing to explain her odd grogginess and memory loss. Nothing except the one thing she was determined not to think about.

Maybe her doctor had been right. He’d told her to cancel this trip, to stay home and put things in order. To make preparations. Hell, how did anyone do that? How was she supposed to sit home and prepare to die?

She was supposed to accomplish something with her time on the earth, that’s what she was supposed to do. Lianne McGowan was supposed to make a difference, to tackle life head-on. Instead, life had tackled her. A brain tumor. How in the hell did she get one of those?

The first diagnosis came while she was still in college. She never once considered that this damn thing would win. No, she was Crandall McGowan’s daughter, after all. She had plans for her life. No mere tumor was going to get in the way of her forward momentum.

She fought it with all that she had, and she beat it, too. At least, they told her she did. After a year of chemicals and poisons, scans showed it was nearly gone. She had taken her life back, bought herself some time to finally do something important. Between Daddy’s jobs and her unfortunate string of assholes, she just sort of never got around to doing that important thing.

And now her time was up. A routine screening came back positive. Additional tests confirmed the worst-case scenario: the tumor was back, growing twice as fast as it had before. And this time, it had nasty little tendrils wrapped around all sorts of sensitive parts of her brain. She asked the doctor how soon she needed to start treatments again. He’d just looked at her with pity.

Inoperable. Untreatable. Terminal
. He looked her in the eye and used those words. It took a while for them to sink in.

“If you’ve got unfinished business in your life, Lianne, now’s the time to get out there and finish it,” he’d told her.

Unfinished?
Hell, she wasn’t even thirty years old. What exactly was she supposed to have finished already? Only one thing came to mind, so she’d gone home to Marcus and cracked open a bottle of wine. She’d wasted that damn expensive wine on
Marcus
.

They’d been together six months, at that point. He’d moved in with her after the first three. She liked him. He was funny, he let her do things her way, and he had some damn sexy tattoos. He also had a crappy job, a motorcycle that she bought for him, and two ongoing paternity suits. But she overlooked that. Those were awesome tattoos.

She told him what the doctor said and he seemed really concerned for her. The doctors said she had months. Months! How was she supposed to accomplish everything she needed to do with her life in just a few months? Marcus apparently didn’t have an answer for that.

He was gone when she woke up the next morning. He took the motorcycle, all her credit cards, and his awesome tattoos. She didn’t even bother to cancel the cards. Let him have some fun. What would it matter to her? It might be interesting to see what got maxed out first: her stolen credit cards, or her.

And now here she was, still desperate to make a legacy for herself, one month later. She hadn’t seen Marcus or her doctor since then. She hadn’t really missed either of them, though, until now.

The way her mind was so blurry and her memory fuzzy, she wished she’d kept those last few doctor’s appointments. She’d known this would be a challenging job, and right now she needed all of her faculties. Maybe the doctor could have prescribed something to keep the tumor from having so much effect on her so rapidly. It really sucked that already she was starting to lose it.

“Are we getting closer to that RGS we need to check out?” she asked Nic as the vehicle rocked over the chunks of ancient, glacier-ravaged volcanic debris and she realized she was desperate to escape her own thoughts.

“It’s just up ahead.”

“Aha. No GPS needed, apparently. Did we bring all the equipment we’ll need to make an adequate assessment?”

“Yes. You oversaw the packing yourself.”

Yeah, she must have. No way she would have let him bring her all the way out here and not have been completely convinced they had everything they needed. She was just pissed off that she couldn’t remember it.

Why would
that
be the sort of thing her brain would block out? It would be so much handier to forget she’d just been groaning and panting in a closet with a guy she barely knew. Remembering the feel of Nic’s hands on her and the waves of climax he brought her to was more than a little distracting right now. She should be focusing on the job, not the tingling heat in all her sensitive places. It didn’t help her mood any to glance over at Nic and realize he seemed perfectly happy to continue ignoring her. By all appearances, he was having no trouble focusing on the job and not her.

“There, just around that boulder,” he said, pointing toward a spot on the moonlit landscape ahead of them that looked very much like all the other boulder-strewn spots out here. “Our sensor should be right about there.”

“Awesome.” She didn’t even bother faking sincerity.

He continued happily ignoring her and maneuvered the vehicle into a near-enough position, then dropped it into park. The engine shut off and he slipped out of his seat belt.

She began removing hers, too, but he stopped her.

“No. You need to wait here.”

“The whole point is for me to see this equipment, right?”

“Let me look at it first. I’ll make sure it’s safe.”

She wanted to argue, but the bleary fog that had been hovering over her seemed to descend just a bit and engulf her in a warm, fuzzy feeling. Why did she need to get out of the car? It seemed important…but maybe not. She was comfortable here, and Nic asked her to stay. She would do anything Nic asked her to do.

“Wait for me,” he said, his voice the only thing she was aware of. “And keep your coat on. It’s cold tonight.”

Of course she would do as he said. She was so tired, after all. It was cold out, just as he said, but she was warm here in their vehicle, waiting for him. Maybe she’d just close her eyes for a little while and take a rest. She could barely hold them open. Yes, she’d rest a while. Nic would be back soon and he’d explain everything.

She snuggled into her coat and gave in to the weariness.

Nic left Lianne in the vehicle. She seemed confused and his conscience pricked. He didn’t like controlling her this way, but it was necessary. There was no telling what he would find out here, and he couldn’t risk disclosing any of it to her. Strong minds like hers didn’t give up memories easily—it would be much better to keep her at least partially under his sway so he could deter unwanted memories from etching themselves into her mind in the first place.

Just what those unwanted memories might be, he still couldn’t be certain. All he knew was that he’d been sensing very strong magic out here. Fairy magic? Possibly, but more. He sensed a strange, sensual magic, too.

He’d redirected his course to follow it, feeling something rising then cresting in the way the magic pulsated from multiple locations. First he sensed it near the RGS they were heading for, then he sensed it a kilometer away, halfway around the mountain in an equipment shed he didn’t know anything about.

Reaching into the darkness to examine the sensations had been more than a little…arousing. He’d stopped a couple of times while they were driving out here and took a few minutes to mentally scan the area. It used a lot of his mental resources to remain aware of such a vast area, but he could see no way around it. Strange magic was at work here and he didn’t like it. He’d been so intent on studying it that at one point he’d lost his hold over Lianne and she’d woken and questioned him. She’d been too smart to fall for his lame excuse about programming his GPS, but hopefully her sheer exhaustion would work in his favor. He’d lulled her back to sleep and she had no idea he was searching for anything other than a defective RGS.