Of Flame and Promise (11 page)

My magic sparked as my stare locked on to the screeching demon children being loaded like freaky livestock. As much as I wanted to live, we couldn’t just run. They were being transported to their next safe haven to feed from and breed with innocent women.

I turned to Gem, my hands crackling with blue and white flames. “Uh, uh, uh, babe. No one draws fire like me….”

We made our way up the stairs, where Gem listened closely. The entire haven was bustling with activity but it seemed to be directed outside. “I don’t like this,” Gem muttered.

“You said yourself we need a distraction and that we’re outnumbered,” I whispered tightly.

“Which is why I should lead this attack,” he snarled.

I snarled back, or at least I tried to. But all I managed was to drool on Pop’s shoulder. I wiped it with my nasty hands and went all Jersey on my wolf. “Fine. Lead it. But if you want a diversion, I can make a lot more noise.”

“Taran—” Gem started, but he was cut off by his father, who began to argue with him in Japanese. Gem barked back, furious.

Momma frowned my way. “How do you plan to distract them?”

It was Gem who answered for me. “She means to summon sunlight born of magic.”

Oh, and didn’t I have his parents’ attention then? Pop narrowed his eyes. “You can do this?”

I nodded. “Yes.”

Momma eyed me up and down. If it were possible, her scrutiny of me was more severe than, like, ever.

Vamps, demons, and demon children were immune to the sunshine. But sunlight born of magic was considered “pure” light and its power would burn them to ash. A gal like me capable of something pure? Yeah, I was. It shocked many. Including Momma. Hey, including me.

“But you are not a witch,” she said slowly.

“Which is why it will leave her weak and vulnerable,” Gemini said. His stare darkened. “I can’t ask this of you.”

“You’re not asking,” I said. “But I am telling you I’m going to do this.”

Gemini’s parents spoke quickly in Japanese. Gem shook his head slowly, clearly disagreeing with what they were saying. I couldn’t understand a word and it pissed me off.

“If you’re going to talk about me, at least say what you have to say in a language I can understand.”

Gem’s folks stared at me like I’d struck them with lightning, but Gem kept his expression hard. “They have guns, and weapons, and numbers we do not have on their side. I don’t want to lose you.”

“I don’t want to lose you, either,” I said, my voice shaking. “Any of you. So let me try.”

“No,” Gem answered.

Pop spoke low and rough, but there was a softness to it I hadn’t heard before. “You will lose each other if you do not let your mate help us, Tomo.”

Yeah. We were pretty screwed. I was a tough girl, but it was hard to be tough knowing this could be goodbye. “Just clear me a path to the truck, and trust me to do the rest—”

I meant to say more, that I was sorry for all the royal screw-ups and that it had been my honor to meet them. Most of all, I wanted to thank Gemini for loving me. But all the kind words I meant to share lodged in my throat when a vampire wrenched open the door.

Gem’s twin wolf lurched forward, decapitating the vamp in one bite. His human half exploded in wolf form, leaping over the remains and speeding ahead. There was a scream and the blast of a shotgun, and Christ in heaven, it scared the life out of me. But now was no time to hide.

His parents and I scrambled forward into an old kitchen in time to see my wolves dive through the windows on either side of the door.

More gunshots, more screaming—Gem was taking on the entire camp alone! The kitchen door burst into splinters and several armed
weres
rushed in. Pop dove on top of me, forcing me to the floor. I couldn’t see anything, but I heard more than I wanted to know.

Growls erupted and a barrage of bullets zipped over us, busting holes into the walls and doors and raining chunks of plaster and wood around us. I lay across the warped floor, covering my head, terrified it was over before it could actually start, until Pop’s weight abruptly lifted.

Only the distant sounds filled the kitchen. I peered up to find a pure white wolf with a black streak down her back covered in blood and panting with excitement. She bounded over the carnage of dead
weres,
disappearing outside the door in fewer than two strides.

I rose slowly, trying to step around the bleeding corpses and severed heads.
“Taran,”
Pop urged.

I startled. Pop stood before me with two assault rifles strapped to his back and holding a third, while his free hand pointed to the open oven. “Distraction,” he said.

Between Momma going all psycho and Pop ready to take on the Terminator, I have to admit, I needed a moment. Yet considering the air of death in the kitchen was quickly being replaced with the reek of gas, it wasn’t a very long moment.

I nodded like an imbecile and hurried forward, sliding over a pool of blood, and of course swearing, since that’s how I rolled. “Yay, team,” I muttered.

I gathered my power, keeping it within my core as I stumbled forward. “Go,” I told him. He didn’t move right away. “Go,
fast,
” I warned, my body shaking from the strength it took to maintain the growing inferno.

He nodded and ran out the door. I ran after him, unleashing a stream of blue and white right at the open oven door—

Oh, fuuuck.

The force of the blast launched me away from the house like a torpedo. Celia would have leapt out majestically, landing in a graceful crouch, and hit the ground in a mad dash.

Yeah. I so wasn’t Celia.

My limbs flailed wildly as the earth sped past beneath me. It wasn’t a conscious thought to gather my flame around me; it was more like pure instinct and the crazy desire to live. Blue and white cocooned me, shielding me from the explosion and the blazes shooting out in all directions.

To anyone passing, the scene probably looked badass, but there was nothing badass about my landing. Like a meteor striking the earth, I plowed across the lot, melting the snow and charring the earth beneath me.

I pushed up on my elbow, spitting out dirt and dumbstruck that I was still alive. I poked my head out of the large crater my crash had created and swore yet again.

In blurs of white and black, Gemini’s wolves, and that of his mother, ripped into the vampires, blood streaming from jowls and soaking their furs. The house burned and smoked as blue and white flames ate through the walls and frame. The intense heat warmed my face from where I crouched, and I was a long ways back!

At first, I thought it was a good thing—to destroy a place where so many had suffered. Except neither Pop nor I had counted on the effects it would have on the demon children.

They lost their damn minds, rocking the freight truck with enough force to bounce the wheels. One flew out, flapping, desperate to escape, only to explode to bits of quivering maggots when Pop aimed and fired. Another followed, and another. Pop killed the second, but only clipped the wing of the third.

They were breaking out. We were out of time.

I crawled out of the hole and ran to where Pop used the butt of his remaining rifle to crush the demon’s skull.

My arms electrified with energy as I flung mini-bolts from my hands, singeing anyone in my path. I needed to get to Pop. He was human, alone, and quickly running out of protection.

My hands scissored out as two
weres
charged me from both sides. The force of my lightning rammed their massive chests hard, flinging them backward to jerk and twitch along the ground. They weren’t dead, but they were hurt. Yet I didn’t have time to make the kill. Not if I wanted to save Pop.

With screams and swears, I released more lightning. The air crackled and charged as a darkening blue ray cut through the chest of a werebear and into the vamp aiming for Pop’s head. Pop tossed his rifle and ran for the one the vamp discarded upon his re-death. But Pop wasn’t the only one in trouble. I sent an extra-large bolt into the vamp who had taken Momma to the ground. That one I killed, seconds before he would have snapped her neck, sending him airborne and into the burning house.

More Tribesmen bounded for me before I was halfway across the lot. Gem’s twin took on three. I took on the rest. My fire detonated skulls and seared through bellies, mostly by luck. I didn’t aim; there was no time really. I was just trying to keep from being eaten and ripped apart.

As I ran, I watched Pop fire at more fleeing demon children. He managed to hit each one, but even from a distance, I could sense his exhaustion, just as I could see the demon children were moments from tipping the entire truck on its side.

Tears streamed down my face as my bare feet met the bitter sting of the frigid snow and sharp gravel. I didn’t have the tough hide of Celia, or the ability to heal myself like Emme, nor did I posses Shayna’s fighting skills. I was just me.

But maybe I was just what we needed.

The fury of war surrounded me as Tribesmen cocked their weapons and fired. I couldn’t spare the magic I needed, but I also couldn’t die. I dove to the ground and curled inward, using my fire as a shield. Bullets sprayed against my body, bursting into small poofs of ash as my flame ignited them.

I couldn’t see anything. But when I heard Gem’s howl, and Pop urging me forward, I leapt up in a burst of speed and light. I tore through the last remaining feet separating me from the truck. My gasping was visible in the frigid air, and my thighs burned. I was already worn out. But Momma’s pained yelp forced me to act.

I closed my eyes, ignoring the chaos around me, focusing on my inner light, the one that triggered my power, and the only thing pure about me. As I concentrated, it flickered to life and expanded, my breaths became more controlled, and my head lolled forward.
That’s it. Give me more, baby.

I was sure it would keep going. But unlike the times before, when I wasn’t so beaten and raw, this time my power resisted, ignoring my pleas to surge forth.

My light dwindled and flared, sputtering close to either swelling or extinguishing the piddly amount I managed to stir, until my anger and frustration took over and riled it awake.

The light sparked, sizzled, and
burned,
stalling briefly over the distant whines of hurting beasts, and a yelp from a wolf I knew too well. I forced away all thoughts of pain, filling myself with the peace I’d sought for so long.

Slowly, my feet levitated from the ground. A small, wicked smile inched across my face. I had the light, to clutch, to harness, to kindle, allowing it to grow into a roaring beast of its own.

There was no stopping me now. I was one with my light, a dangerous inferno begging to be released. My body spun and my power raged in tune with the terrified shrieking of the demon children. I opened my eyes in time to see a swarm of flapping bodies wiggle free of their cages, their beady red eyes trained on me.

Okay, boys, time to burn.

Light as pure as heaven erupted from my core in a sudden, mighty burst as an army of winged leathery bodies soared toward me with their fangs and claws exposed. The light, so beautiful and fierce, blinded me. I couldn’t see, but I heard a shotgun blast exploding in front of me.

For all I worked for it, and for all I owned it then, the glorious brilliance abruptly faded, leaving me at once and dropping me against the hard ground.

The jolt from the impact should have been enough to force me to my feet, but it wasn’t. My head weighed more than it should and my muscles were nothing more than useless groupings of gelatin.

I was vaguely aware of Pop rushing to my side, but it was his heartbroken voice that latched to my brain and whispered a warning. “My
son,
” he said.

My eyes whipped open, and I forced myself up on my arms only to scream. I didn’t care about the mountains of ash that had been vampires moments before, or about the empty cages and demon remains littering the truck floor and the ground around me.

I didn’t care that my magic had spared us. All I cared about was the naked body lying motionless before me.

“No!”

I crawled forward, pushing past the weakness and chills racking my body to roll Gem over and onto his back. A pained sob ripped through my throat. All I could do was scream. There, in the center of his chest, a gaping hole exposed where his heart had once beat and given him life.

He’d taken a bullet meant for me, sacrificing himself so I could live. He shouldn’t have done that. He shouldn’t have left me. Jesus
Christ,
why did he leave me?

I flung my arms around his neck and pulled him against my trembling form, my heaving breaths burning their way through my lungs.

He was dead, and despite all of my power, despite all my supposed gifts, there was nothing I could do. Instead of life, I begged for death then. For one vamp to have escaped my light, so I wouldn’t know another moment without him.

“Taran,” Momma whispered gently.

I ignored her, crying uncontrollably as Gemini’s spilling blood grew cold against my skin. Pop hooked his arms under mine. “Come, Taran,” he urged.

He tried to pull me away, but I wrenched free, drawing Gemini closer, refusing to let go. “Get off me!” I shrieked. “I won’t leave him!”

My sobs morphed into hysteria, and my grip around Gem tightened. Gem’s parents tried to speak to me, but I barely heard them over my cries and didn’t care enough to listen.

It took a small and poignant whine to snag my attention and pull me toward its source.

Before me stood Gem’s other wolf half. Although I froze, I couldn’t control the whimpering that ensued.

“Taran,” Momma said softly. “You must release Tomo so his other wolf can return to his body and heal him.”

“He didn’t die, too?” I stammered. It was a stupid question, seeing as he stood in front of me. I just thought…I thought…

When I remained unmoving, Pop reached for me again. This time, I allowed him to ease me away. My hands released Gemini carefully, despite the numbness dulling my heartbeat to painful thuds.

As I watched, Gemini’s twin wolf limped forward and merged with his human half. Gem jerked up into a sitting position, coughing and grunting, his large hand pressed tight against his chest. Agony twisted his features and perspiration released in streams down his face. His features relaxed with each breath, until he was finally able to pry his eyes open and latch them on to mine.

I flung myself on top of him, and showed him love the only way I knew how.