Flamebound (23 page)

As the familiar tingle starts on my scalp, followed by an icy heat, I try to relax. To give myself over to it. It's more difficult than usual because I'm freaking out about my family, but I know that the less I fight him, the faster this will go. All magic is like that. As in most things in life, it works best with compliance.

Seconds tick by with excruciating slowness, but in less than two minutes, I can feel the effects of what he's done. My headache has dulled considerably and the dizziness is almost gone. Thank the goddess I have such a talented lover.

Once I realize the room is no longer spinning, I start to get up, only to settle right back down when he snarls at me. More heat. More tingles. Then finally a reluctant sound from Declan that I know instinctively means he's willing to let me up.

He stands first, then helps me to my feet. I'm still feeling a little unsteady, but I do my best to mask it. He's watching me for any sign that I'm in trouble and I don't want to give it to him. If I do, I know that no matter how hard I argue, I'll end up sidelined.

He doesn't handle me being hurt very well at the best of times, and I can tell he's barely hanging on to his control by a thread right now. If he had his way, he'd whisk me away from here, take me someplace where he could wrap me in cotton. And while I appreciate his concern, if I don't get to my family soon, I'm going to completely lose my mind.

“Let's take it slow,” he says, wrapping his arm around my waist as he leads me carefully through the rubble.

I don't want to take it slow. I want to run screaming through what's left of my house until I know everyone I love has escaped this living nightmare. But since my legs are barely supporting me now, I go along with him.

As we step into the foyer—or, should I say what once was the foyer—I'm stunned, horrified, by the piles of rubble that cover the marble floor in all directions. In some places the walls have caved in completely, giving me a perfect view of the outside woods that border my mother's gardens in all directions. But not all the rubble is from the house's exterior. I look up to where the third-floor landing used to be and realize there's nothing there but a gigantic hole.

Mom. Dad. Tsura. Rachael. Jared.
Their names run through my head like a mantra and I start scrabbling over the piles of debris, desperate to get to the back stairs. Desperate to get to them.

Declan is right behind me, moving aside piles of brick and stone and plaster with little more than a thought. I'm running by the time I hit the kitchen, end up plowing straight into my brother, Donovan, who is bleeding profusely from a head wound.

Stretched out on the floor beside him are Willow and two more of my sisters, Noora and Nadia. All three of them look shell-shocked, but at least I don't see any blood—which is either a very good thing or a very bad one.

I choose to think positive as I grab onto Donovan and line his face up with my own. “Have you seen Mom or Dad?” I demand.

He squints at me as if trying to figure out what I'm saying, and I realize that all four of my siblings have blood coming out of their ears. They must have been closer to the explosion site than Declan and I were.

“Sit down,” I tell Donovan, clearly enunciating my words so that he can read my lips. I lead him over to the closest wall, prepare to sit him on the ground. But Declan has seized a few pieces of debris and—using transubstantiation—has fashioned them into a chair.

Donovan sits heavily, and before I can do anything more than stroke a hand through his hair on the uninjured side of his head, a small group of policemen bursts through the back door, a door that is currently hanging by only one hinge. They're quickly followed by Witchcraft Investigations—I recognize them from their gray jackets and sour expressions—and two sets of paramedics.

I leave Donovan and the others in the EMTs' capable hands and, after grabbing Declan, start up the stairs at a run.

“There are more people up here,” I yell over my shoulder. I hear them relay the message via radio and I know that Declan and I are on our own, at least for a few minutes.

I make it to the fourth floor in seconds, start to sprint down the hall to my parents' bedroom. But I only manage to take a few steps before my already shaky legs go out from under me and I hit the ground, hard.

Declan's right behind me, but I shake him off. Try to struggle to my feet. Shout, “Mom! Dad!” at the top of my lungs. If something happened to them, I'm not sure what I'll do. Much as my mother drives me insane, she and my dad mean more to me than I've ever contemplated before. I can't handle the idea of their dying. Don't want to think what it will mean to me—or to our coven.

There's no answer. The panic grows, especially when I see what it looks like up here—I don't know how to describe it except that it appears as if a bomb went off. Which, I realize with a sinking feeling, is exactly what happened.

I start running, scrambling, down the hallway toward my parents' wing. I'm not thinking now; I'm acting purely on instinct. Behind me, Declan curses and starts moving things out of my way so that I don't hurt myself as I stumble forward.

I don't pause until I get to the makeshift security station Jared had set up right at the beginning of my parents' private hall. I freeze when I get there, my heart dropping to my feet as icy dread whips through me. Forget panicked, I'm terrified now and Declan's muttered, “Oh fuck,” certainly doesn't help matters.

Stretched out on the ground in front of us are the bodyguards Jared had stationed at the start of the hall. They're all covered in varying degrees of rubble and none of them are moving. I want to stop and check on them, but I want to find my parents as well.

For long seconds, I'm paralyzed by indecision. It's an unfamiliar state for me, made more powerful by the renewed throbbing in my head and my desperate desire to pretend none of this is really happening.

“Go!” Declan shouts to me, as he crouches down next to two of the fallen security guards. With a wave of his hand, he clears away the rubble in front of me, creating a path straight to my parents' door.

Flashing him a grateful look that he doesn't see—he's already checking for survivors—I take off down the hall, screaming for my parents. Right before I reach what used to be my parents' room and is now just a blown-up shell of a place, my mother stumbles to the doorway. She's streaked in blood, covered in dirt and grime, but she's alive. She also looks more like my mother than she has since I got here today—she's as calm as I am frantic, as in control as I am crazed.

“Dad?” I demand as I stumble to a stop in front of her.

“Tsura's with him. Even with this”—she gestures to the disaster around us—“he's doing better than he has been since this whole thing began. How is everyone else?”

“I don't know how many people were actually here, so I don't know who else I'm looking for.” I tell her about Donovan and the others I found in the kitchen. Which is when it hits me.
Rachael.
She's in her room, in the part of the house that has been absolutely decimated by the explosion.

I take off back the way I came, this time with my mother at my heels. Emergency services have arrived en masse and are swarming the place—there are more members of the royal family security detail, more cops and paramedics here now than I've seen in one place ever.

A few glom on to us as my mother and I sprint down the hallway. I'm inclined to wave them off, but with just a few words she has an entourage following behind us. Declan is still with the security guards, talking to the paramedic who is taking care of the lone survivor. But one look at my face has him springing into action. Just not the way I'd like him to.

He grabs my arm just as I'm about to step into the hallway for the other wing, the one that leads straight to Rachael's room. “It's dangerous,” he tells me when I try to wrench my arm from his grip.

“Let me go!” I demand. “Rachael's down there.”

“Fuck.” He drops my arm. “You stay here. I'll go.”

I look at the chasm yawning in front of us, the uneven boards on the other side of it that used to be my mother's hardwood floor. There's smoke drifting down the hallway, which means there's a fire in that part of the house. I can't let Declan go, can't let him risk his life for my sister.

When I say as much, he shoots me a fulminating glare. Then looks at one of the cops standing near us, points to me. “Watch her.”

“Yes, sir.” The cop steps in front of me. “I'm sorry, Your Highness—”

I blast him out of my way with a surge of magic I didn't even feel coming on, one I had no idea I even had in me. “She's my sister!” I scream at Declan. “I'm going with you.”

He locks his jaw so tightly that I'm shocked he doesn't break a tooth or three. But after a good look at my face—and the shell-shocked cop who is now on the ground at our feet—he doesn't waste time trying to argue. Instead, he grabs me and hurls me (with a little help from a spell, I'm sure) over the five-foot chasm that stretches between us and the other wing.

I land on my hands and knees and scramble to my feet, ignoring the jarring pain that comes with every move I make. By the time I'm standing again, Declan is beside me, looking as grim as I have ever seen him.

Now that we're over here, I can hear the fire crackling down the hall, can feel the residual heat of it creeping through the air. Declan turns back to the others, yells at them to get the fire department up here. One of the cops assures him they're on their way.

Declan nods, then turns back to me. “Are you sure about this?” he demands.

I nod. Who knows how long it will be before the fire department gets up here. Rachael could be dead by then.

“Okay, then. Stay behind me—follow my footsteps exactly.” Then he's grabbing my hand and we're running straight into hell.

D
eclan has an instinctive knowledge of which boards are shaky and which ones will hold our weight. I stay directly behind him as he runs across them, making sure to place my feet exactly where his have just been.

But the smoke is getting heavier the farther down the hallway we go and it's getting harder and harder to see. Fear ravages me from the inside, my body recoiling from what we have to do. Where we have to go. I ignore the warning signs from my brain and keep my feet moving forward. My already abused lungs are protesting, aching, at the sudden influx of smoke and toxins.

Ducking my head, I pull the collar of my shirt up over my nose and mouth to try to filter out some of the smoke. It doesn't work very well, but it's better than nothing. I think about what I learned in school years and years ago, about dropping to the ground and crawling to avoid the worst of it.

But the floor beneath us is way too uncertain. I'm scared enough balancing on a board here and there. I can't imagine what would happen if Declan and I tried to spread our weight out into so many different spots.

When we get to the corner, Declan stops, looks back at me. “Are you okay?” he demands. “Are you sure you want to do this?”

I'm not sure of anything at this point, but my sister is somewhere in the middle of this smoke-filled mess and I can't just leave her here. I nod, because my throat feels raw . . . and because I can't trust my voice not to shake. If Declan had any idea how scared I am right now, there's no way he'd let me go through with this.

“Which room is Rachael's?”

“The second on the left.” I'm shocked at how ravaged my voice sounds and can tell from Declan's narrowed eyes that he is, too. I squeeze the hand I'm still holding, a sign that it's okay. That I'm okay.

“Do you trust me?” he demands.

I nod more vehemently this time. If I didn't, there's no way we'd be on the fourth story of a burning house, attempting a rescue that even I know is damn foolhardy.

“Okay, then,” he says. I can feel him bracing himself, his muscles tensing up until it's a miracle he doesn't snap in half. “It's going to get ugly.”

Uglier than this?
I bite my tongue at the last second to keep from spewing the words out, but he knows what I'm thinking.

He smiles grimly. “Way uglier.” Then, making sure he has a tight grip on my hand, he rounds the corner, pulling me after him.

I gasp at my first sight of the corridor, recoil instinctively. Because this one isn't just smoke filled. It's covered in wild flames bent on devouring everything in their path. There's no way we're going to get through this without being burned to a crisp. It's not possible. And while I'm willing to die for my sister, I can't ask the same of Declan.

“Let's turn back,” I tell him. “Get the firemen.” I'm terrified doing so will end up being a death sentence to Rachael, but I also can't sacrifice Declan for her. I won't.

That's when I learn just how crazy the man I've fallen in love with is. Because instead of beating a fast retreat, he just grins at me—a flash of brilliant white teeth in a soot-streaked face. “You're not giving up that easily, are you?” he yells over the voracious roar of the fire.

“You'll die!” I scream at him, trying to hold him back as he takes his first steps down the inferno-like hallway.

“Have some faith!”

He throws one hand out to the side, the other above his head, and starts walking steadily down the corridor. I follow tentatively, expecting the flames to leap onto us at any moment. But I've underestimated Declan. From the moment he walks into this fiery hell, he is in control.

Fire is all around us, and though I feel the heat from it closing in on me, never does one spark from it so much as brush up against me. Declan holds it back—with magic or with the sheer power of his will, I'm not sure. Either way, it doesn't touch us. Even the smoke seems to retreat. It sounds ridiculous, and maybe fear is making me hallucinate, but I swear, it's easier to breathe here than it was on the other side of the stairs.

I start to relax, start to believe that we have a chance to get Rachael out of this alive. At least until we turn the corner toward her personal hallway and I get a glimpse of what hell must really look like. The entire hallway is engulfed in fire, so much so that nothing—not the walls, not the carpet, not the art—nothing, is distinguishable from the flames raging completely out of control.

Declan curses viciously. Turns to me and says, “Go back. Now.”

I can barely hear him over the roaring in my ears. Terror is a wild animal inside me—terror for my sister, terror for Declan, terror for my entire family. Because if the fire is this rapacious up here, I can only imagine how little time it will take for it to engulf the entire house.

“Did you hear me, Xandra?” he demands. “Move it!”

“Only if you come with me.” I grab his arm, start to tug him back even as I send a silent apology to Rachael. I love my sister, would die to protect her, but I can't ask Declan to do the same.

He has other ideas, however. With another muttered curse, he shakes me off. Sends me stumbling several steps away from him. Then, without a backward glance, he turns and hurls himself straight into the fire.

I cry out as it swallows him whole, an insatiable, insensate beast that he has no hope of battling. That strange tingling starts deep inside me again—my magic welling up in a panicked burst. The only problem is, I don't know what to do with it. How to wield it to help Declan or my sister.

Even knowing it's probably suicide, I plunge into the fire after Declan. I can't—I won't—let him face this alone like he's faced so many other things in his life.

I expect the worst, expect the fire to tear through my flesh and burn me alive. But amazingly, it doesn't. Heat—stifling, overwhelming, omnipresent—surrounds me, but the flames never touch me even as they surround me on all sides.

It doesn't make sense, at least not until I see Declan up ahead of me. The fire has attacked him, surrounding him completely as it licks at his hair, his clothes, his skin. I nearly scream at the nightmare of it, but then I get closer and realize that it's not burning him. That, in fact, he's
letting
the fire do that to him.

I'm terrified and in awe all at the same time. Sure, I've seen Declan play with fire before—just the other day, in his house—but every other time he's done this, it has been fire of his own making. Fire created and sustained through one's own magic is easy to manipulate. But this fire is different. This is the result of a bomb, of malicious intent and probably black magic; it should be completely uncontrollable. No matter how strong a call a witch or warlock has to an element, he or she can only influence, only really control, the manifestation of that element if she or he created it. At least, that's what I've always been taught and it's what I've always seen. Until now.

Because now, right in front of me, Declan has seized control of the flame and he isn't letting go. He hasn't extinguished it yet—I don't even know if he can. But he's definitely controlling it, stopping it from getting to me or down the hall to Rachael.

I've caught up to him now, and though the heat is nearly unbearable, I don't move. I just stare, hypnotized as he manipulates the fire like it's nothing more dangerous than a soft spring rain.

He holds his arms out in front of his body and the flames shoot up and out, into a fiery arc that meets directly above his head. And then he slowly, arduously, begins fighting the power of the fire.

More than once, the flames fight back, pushing against him, licking over him until he is completely flamebound. Horror rips through me and it takes every ounce of control I have to keep from screaming at him to just let it go. But it's too late for that now—even I, who know nothing about the fire element except what I've learned from my sister Noora, can see that.

If he lets go, if he loses control—even for one second—of the beast he's grabbed onto, it will be too late. Too late for Rachael, for me, and definitely too late for Declan. I'm scared to death that it's already too late for him. One wrong move, one lapse of concentration, and he'll be incinerated.

I hold my breath, squeezing my hands so tightly that my fingernails dig into my palms, all in an effort to stay completely still. I don't want to distract him. My lungs ache from fear and the dark haze of smoke that hangs in the hallway. The smoke isn't nearly as heavy as it should be with this much fire—it's not pleasant, but I'm nowhere close to coughing up a lung—and I know it's because Declan has found a way to control that, too.

Behind me, I hear people clambering up the stairs—from the noise they're making and the words I can make out, I'm pretty sure they're firemen. My knees nearly go weak with relief, but then I realize it doesn't matter. Even if they are here to fight the fire, Declan is still at risk. He can't just let go, can't just walk away because the cavalry has arrived. The flames will jump, swallow us all whole.

Closing my eyes, I offer a whispered prayer to Isis. Not for me, but for Declan.
Please, goddess, keep this brave, beautiful man alive. Keep him safe
. But when I open my eyes and look again, my worst nightmare comes true.

The fire slips out of Declan's grasp, shoots straight at the ceiling and explodes outward, completely engulfing everything around him.

I do scream then, and behind me the firemen's voices become a million times more urgent. Even knowing it's too late, knowing there's nothing I can do, I rush straight for my lover.

“Declan!” I shriek, my voice scratchy from the suddenly thick smoke. My power is welling up in me, strong and electric and surprisingly painful as it courses through my body. I'm shocked by it and furious at myself for being so. If I knew what to do with it, if I'd spent the last few weeks trying to harness my magic instead of running away from it, maybe I could be of help to Declan now.

He's directly in front of me, his entire body aflame—and this time none of it is under his control. Shrugging out of my hoodie with some distant thought of smothering the flames around him, I leap forward—only to crash into nothingness. Into a wall that shouldn't be there. A wall that I can't see. That doesn't exist.

Maybe it's because we're soulbound, or maybe it's just because I've gotten to know Declan over the last few weeks, but I know what he's done. He's the one responsible for the invisible wall between us. Even as he burns, he's determined to keep me safe.

Behind me, the firemen have finally caught up. Though many of them are fire elements themselves, they carry huge extinguishers with them—there's only so much they can do against nonmagical fire. They aim the extinguishers at the fire that surrounds Declan, but the magic-infused mist stops in midair and falls harmlessly to the ground. They look at one another, astonished, and continue to shoot.

I don't have the heart to tell them it's no use. All around me, the hallway is blackened, but there's no sign of fire, no smoke except for the lingering wisps from earlier. Declan has walled up all the flames—all the danger—on his side of the barrier.

I fall against the wall, hysterical. I beat against it with my fists as I watch, impotently, as the only man I've ever loved burns. “Declan!” I scream. “Declan!”

Next to me, the firemen mutter to themselves. A few of them dash back down the hall as they shout into their radios. They want to come at the blaze from the other side, to attack from the windows at the side of the house. I don't have the heart to tell them it won't do any good, either. Declan has sealed himself up perfectly. Too perfectly. I can see that the other end of the hallway, near Rachael's room, looks much like my end does. Burned out, blackened, but with no fire in sight. No one will be able to get to where Declan battles the fire, at least not until his magic fails.

Until he dies.

I'm on my knees now, dizzy, devastated, nearly deranged with grief. The firemen try to help, try to pull me to my feet, but I don't even acknowledge their existence. I'm too busy clawing at the wall. I can feel my magic leaking out, feel it pressing against the barrier as it, too, searches for a way to reach Declan. But there's nothing, no weakness in the barrier to exploit, no flaws to capitalize on.

I want nothing more than to curl into a ball and pretend none of this is happening, but I can't look away from Declan. I won't. He's doing this for me, sacrificing himself so that my sister and I can live. There's no way I will give in to my weakness, not when he is so filled with strength.

I force myself to watch as Declan falls to his knees in front of me. He's still burning, the fire somehow even more ravenous than when we first entered this hellish journey. His eyes lock with mine and he reaches a hand out, presses it right up to mine on the other side of the barrier he's thrown up between us.

“I love you,” I mouth to him, refusing to look away.

At that moment, all the magic that's been bouncing around in me explodes outward. I feel it slam through me, out of me, and right through the wall and into Declan.

The flames around him falter for just a moment and I push against the barrier, determined to reach him. Determined to help him.

The barrier holds against me, but I feel more magic slipping through it. I have no idea what I'm doing, but I reach deep inside myself, harness whatever power I have left and shoot it straight at the wall. Straight at Declan.

It connects—I know it does because his whole body bows up at the sudden influx of power. I watch as he staggers to his feet. Spreads his arms wide, just as he did before, and begins once again to compress the flames into a fiery arc.

Long seconds pass—the longest of my life as I continue to funnel my power into him—but even through the tears and smoke clouding my vision I can see that it's working. The fire is narrowing, compressing, under the weight of Declan's will and our combined power. Growing smaller, weaker, all the flames in the room flowing into that arc of fire even as Declan pushes his hands closer and closer together. Pushes the fire into a smaller, tighter area until finally all the flames are gone, pressed into a spinning ball of flames that Declan hurls to the ground at his feet.