Fireborne, p.3
Fireborne, page 3
part #1 of Raven Cursed Series
“Thank you. It’s been my goal to do more in the system. To right some terrible wrongs.” Move two: I plan to eventually bring you down one way or another.
And there it was. That would be the platform he’d run on, and I was willing to bet my story would be the one he spoke of. Sucking in a ragged breath, I kept the snide remarks that were threatening to emerge to myself.
“I’m sure you’ll be an asset wherever you decide to work.” I was still acting sunshine and syrupy sweet.
“I already know where I plan to work.” His intense cognac-colored eyes slowly drifted over me until they met mine and narrowed with an unspoken promise. District attorney’s office.
“Good for you. Later.” Our shoulders brushed as I slid through the sliver of space he’d given me.
“You too. I’ll see you around.” His voice held the threat of a vendetta. He didn’t know the person from the incident personally, but the few degrees of separation made it personal enough for him to be holding a grudge. As far as he was concerned, the man had been murdered by one of those “rogue supernaturals.” In his opinion, not all supernaturals were reprobate, immoral wielders of bad magic with no instinct control—just me. The nebulous nature of my magic bothered most supernaturals, and freaked out humans. My magic caused donors to slip into an obscure state between life and death, and that bothered people plenty.
CHAPTER 3
Madison studied the menu as if there would actually be something new on it. For the past five years, Tallulah’s Diner and Grille had been our breakfast spot. The menu, like the cozy retro appearance, remained unchanged. Black-and-white tiled floor, turquoise bottle cap-shaped stools on a wide silver base at the long counter with complementing benches throughout the restaurant. Decorating the aqua walls were cutesy pictures and stencils of the word diner. I suspected it was their late hours and breakfast food that kept them in business.
I placed the menu on the table without looking at it and finally checked the message Asher left me. Black is your color.
Sheer, raw will and the presence of an STF agent in front of me was all that kept me from hauling my butt out of the chair and going after him. Another time, I thought. Another time, and I couldn’t wait for that time to come. Asher rage had to be a condition caused by just knowing him. I couldn’t be the only person suffering from it.
“I think I’ll get the farmhouse special,” Madison finally said after moments of deliberation.
“Really? Like every other time,” I pointed out, grinning.
A blush reddened her cheeks and the bridge of her nose. “Then you should have ordered for me.”
“I considered it, but you would’ve claimed you wanted something else just to prove you’re not predictable.”
Once we placed our orders, we sat in weighted silence as Madison stared at the cup while stirring her tea. I sipped on my decaf coffee.
“So . . .” She dragged out the words. “Grayson?”
“Grayson,” I responded, ignoring her look of censure.
When I didn’t elaborate, she scrutinized me.
“Details,” she urged after several more moments of silence. Madison’s face was devoid of emotion as I told her every detail of the capture, breezing over being distracted by Asher, because that was embarrassing.
Madison shook her head after I finished.
“Indulgence goes before the fall.” I grinned.
“That’s not how the saying goes, Erin,” Madison said with a smirk.
“I know, I’m making it my own. It’s an Erin-ism.”
I couldn’t make out the Haitian French she muttered under her breath, but I was positive it wasn’t kind.
My French was rudimentary, learned from Madison’s mother, who spoke and interchanged French and English words mid-sentence. During game night, French was spoken more often to counter her husband’s Irish brogue that thickened when he was joined by his sister and brother. They spoke English and knew some Irish Gaelic. Then game night devolved into seeing who could embrace their language the most. It made for an interesting evening. They all had more than their share of stubbornness, and they’d passed it on to Madison.
“It was his indulgence,” I said. “Whatever Kelsey’s putting in those crimson martinis needs to be investigated. I don’t know a vampire who isn’t enamored by them. I camped out there because I knew he’d be there. It’s nothing short of an addiction.”
The word addiction brought a wry smile to her lips. I was constantly dealing with mine, and it was the source of many of our conflicts and the reason I was forever indebted to her. I swallowed.
“He was bound to show up there…but he found me first.”
“Found you first?” Her brows inched together.
I nodded and prepared for an interrogation.
“You must have been distracted. People don’t sneak up on you. What distracted you?” she said rapid-fire, scrutinizing me.
“Asher,” I breathed, warmth from my embarrassment creeping up my cheeks.
“He really gets your hackles up, doesn’t he?” She laughed at my expression.
“Yours too. You just live vicariously through my frustration. You want him taken down a peg or two as well.”
A smile flickered across her face at the thought, although she’d never admit it. Just the thought of that arrogant shifter dismissing me made me want to grab my tranq gun and go find him. I might have snarled a little.
“Why isn’t he in jail?”
“He hasn’t broken the law and you disliking him isn’t an arrestable offense. We have no proof of his wrongdoing or that he is in possession of any of the items you claim he has. The last time he was linked to one and we proceeded on your lead, we ended up having to settle a lawsuit,” she reminded me.
I wasn’t in the position to pass judgment on anyone for not having a clean record, but Asher’s was as spotty as a leopard. It wasn’t his questionable dealing that bothered me; it was the smugness with which he committed his indiscretions.
Twirling a fork, Madison asked, “You said you placed runed cuffs on Grayson. Then what?”
Of course she hadn’t missed how I glossed over the cuffing, apprehending, and getting him into my car.
“I took his magic,” I mumbled. The server placed a plate of waffles in front of me, and I busied myself drenching them in syrup as a distraction from her disapproving gaze. She waited until the server left before continuing.
“You didn’t just take his magic, you put him in a state of in-between,” she said. She pushed her food away. I’m sure the word conjured up the same images for her as it did for me. The fear sparked by the onlookers as I was taken away in handcuffs, my face plastered on the television, the DA’s speech about a plea deal. And me being the wrong face of my kind: death mages. It wasn’t even actually what we were. We were considered cursed by the raven. Linguistically the same, but Raven Cursed sounded innocuous, almost poetic. Not really how one would describe a person whose only magical skill was to bring death.
That wasn’t quite true. I didn’t bring death—well, I did. In a way. Sometimes. I could only use the energy produced while the donor was in a state between life and death and I borrowed their magic. If the donor died, I had use of their magic but only for a limited time. Technically, I didn’t possess my own active magic; my magic was a result of taking it from others, which was probably why the craving for it was so intense. Wasn’t it our nature to want the things we couldn’t have? Being able to hold the power, feel the surge of it, and control it, even for a short time, created a terrible void when it was gone. It was more than an empty space: It was a consuming desire that I hadn’t been able to squelch. Some might go as far as to call it an addiction. Sometimes I felt like it was. Most of the time, I felt that my magic was a curse. My curse was my magic.
Madison’s lips pressed together into a tight line, and she eyed me with a mixture of sympathy and disappointment.
“I called you in on this job because I knew you could apprehend him quickly. I didn’t think you’d use your magic. You’ve caught bounties before—many times before—without doing it. Why can’t you work without using it?”
My gaze drifted away from her. “You have the Crelic,” I reminded her softly.
“If it had gotten out that it had been stolen from us, there would have been backlash, a scandal, and calls for a reassignment of duties. I’d weather that crap storm if it meant you’d stay away from using your magic.”
Silence was my response. Nothing I could say would change her mind. This had been debated too many times.
“You missed your appointment with Dr. Sumner,” she said, tapping her fingers on the table. “I rescheduled it for the day after tomorrow. Don’t miss it.”
The command threaded its way through her words. She wasn’t being overbearing without merit; it was just getting tiring because they wanted me to be something I wasn’t, and no matter how I tried, I just couldn’t walk away from magic. My body craved it like water—like oxygen. I lived in a constant state of appetite but unable to satisfy my hunger without someone dying. I wasn’t reckless—it was just the nature of my magic, and it couldn’t be fixed by chatting it up with a therapist. I wished I could get them to understand that.
“What time?”
“Same time. Nine thirty.”
I made a face. “I don’t need him anymore. He’s not working.”
Dr. Sumner’s weekly appointments were becoming a huge inconvenience. My arrest led to me going to the Stygian, then released on the contingency that I had weekly therapy sessions until I was deemed “cured.” The memories of the incident rushed to the forefront of my mind, but I pushed them back. I was out and about, gainfully employed—well, employed, anyway—and I sort of, kind of, most of the time stayed on the right side of the law.
The therapist at the Stygian argued against my release, citing that I had been tested and found to have an “antisocial personality disorder.” In layman’s terms, a sociopath. A death mage who might be a sociopath wasn’t exactly an award-winning discovery. Finding one who wasn’t sociopathic would probably be harder. When magic could only be gained by death, toeing the line between acceptable and unacceptable behavior was hard. I knew killing was wrong; I wasn’t a monster, but I had a hard time fighting my desire. Life didn’t seem as important when I had the potential to gain magic. It should be; I knew that. I wasn’t a monster. Just weak. And flawed.
“Do you think it’s not working because you’re still borrowing magic?” Madison’s eyes narrowed, studying me.
“I meditate, exercise, and do everything possible to get it under control.”
“Except not borrowing magic and staying well away from it.”
My mouth snapped shut and I looked quickly around the room to see if anyone heard her. Madison would never willingly make a scene, and her elevated tone showed how little control she had over her mounting frustration.
“I borrow it from one person, Cory, and you know I would never do anything to hurt him. I have things under control.”
With a weak smile, she stood, her eyes soft. “Until you don’t. You’re not just borrowing from Cory. You borrowed magic from Grayson, too.”
“To subdue him.” Yeah, right. I had him locked in runed cuffs. I didn’t need to borrow his magic—I wanted to, just to feel it pulse through me, if only for the few minutes it took to get to the STF department.
Madison sighed. “I know it’s not fair that your magic is so dangerous. Erin. Sometimes life just isn’t fair and that sucks…” She paused, considering her words. “But sometimes we have to just live with what life hands us.”
Did we? Madison didn’t understand. She was an earth fae and she drew her magic from the earth. Limitless and boundless. When weakened, she could pull energy from the rich soil, the verdant trees and vibrant flowers, leaving them lifeless. Not very different from my magic, but the consequences weren’t grave. No one wept for the fallow soil, withered flower, depleted tree, or lifeless plant. If by some chance her magic was restricted by iron, she knew it was just for a moment. It wasn’t a permanent loss.
I wondered if she had ever considered what it was like to be divested of magic. To feel the loss and miss it in the way a person would miss any essential part of them—a limb. She had to understand, but she didn’t. The therapist had downgraded my desire for magic to nothing more than a magic lust, but it wasn’t that simple.
“I can use magic without killing people. You know that.” I hated that I sounded like a petulant child. I made my voice drop lower, deeper. I wouldn’t be reduced to the screw-up sister begging for a chance to prove herself, nor did I want Madison in a state of readiness for cleaning up yet another mess of mine.
“Sometimes I need magic for work. Not only can I adopt the donor’s magic, I can mimic other types of magic, too. Once I shapeshifted.”
I didn’t tell her I had no freaking idea how I’d done it and probably couldn’t do it again.
She still didn’t seem convinced that I needed magic to do my job and was clearly unimpressed by my shapeshifting. Her lips moved into a wry smile.
“Erin, you don’t just use magic, you borrow it, putting that person in a near-death state.” That part she wouldn’t let me brush over. “It’s dangerous, and every time you borrow, you put someone’s life on the line.”
“Not someone. Cory. You know I wouldn’t do anything to hurt him.”
“I know,” she responded quietly as she came around to my side of the table and pressed her lips to my forehead in a light kiss. “I know you wouldn’t do anything intentionally to hurt him. But”—silence lingered for a long time—“things can happen. You need to stop borrowing, period. Erin, I know you can.”
She didn’t sound confident, and regardless of whether she said it or thought it, for just a few seconds her face displayed her concern over having to clean things up again. This time it might not be with a neat little bow. Part of me wanted to continue the debate, but I couldn’t because my defense was weak. Madison made an effort to shift her worried frown into something that resembled a smile.
“Make sure you go to your appointment. It will help.” Her brown eyes flickered with amusement before dropping the check on the table. “I know what the bounty was for finding the Crelic. You can afford it.”
The heaviness in her smile lingered with me long after she left.
CHAPTER 4
The contract job that I’d accepted from a frequent client definitely wasn’t what I’d expected. As I leaned against the desk in my small office, which felt even smaller due to the overpowering presence of my new clients, I wondered if it was too early for an Irish coffee. Their narrowed eyes watched me with the same level of intensity with which I watched them. This seemed like a really bad joke: A shapeshifter, a mage, and a vampire walk into an office. But it wasn’t a bad joke; it was a bad situation.
Finding lost magical objects and catching bounties were my preferences. I hated cleaning up messes. It was what people paid me to do, but sometimes I felt like telling people to clean up their own crap. This was one of those times. But it was a job, and I needed the money if I was going to move out of my apartment and work on earning my freedom from weekly counseling. I needed every job I could get.
“Gentlemen, who won?” I was having a difficult time tempering my sarcasm.
I looked at the shifter. The light glow in his hazel eyes warned me that he was not amused. He ran his hand over his nut-brown beard, several shades lighter than his hair. He was ruggedly handsome and aware of it. I wasn’t going to let that distract me from how lethal he could be—those good looks were just as dangerous as the animal that shared his body. Slim, angled features mirrored his tall, well-defined physique: a wolf, stealthy and deadly.
Standing next to him was a person who rivaled the shifter’s lethality. While the shifter was solid muscle, visible through his shirt, this man was wispier. I assumed, because he was a vampire, that he was just as strong. He grinned, baring razor-sharp fangs, and his onyx eyes sharpened. Another warning.
“Won what?” he asked as he shoved his hands into his pockets, stepping closer to me with the grace and stealth typical of his kind. My reaction was to slide my hand close to the knife at my side.
“The pissing contest,” I said. “You guys whipped it out big time.”
I looked at the mage. His hunter-green eyes didn’t seem dangerous, but he possessed the same level of menace as his companions. I could feel his magic, and it took everything in me to stay in my spot and not get a taste. I closed my eyes for just a moment, inhaled it, let it wash over me. Ignore it, I told myself. Just thinking about it was a slippery slope. When I opened my eyes again, his inquiring gaze held mine. I’d piqued his curiosity as much as he’d awoken my urges. It was a bad combination. I couldn’t tamp down my curiosity, my desire to experience his magic, and his interest was making it even more difficult to resist. I wanted it. He wanted it. But “it” could get pretty bad for both of us.
The mage gave me a charming smile. Broad features were offset by sharp cheekbones that reminded me of the many sculptures in the park. This was Kieran, an elemental mage, gifted with the use of fire. My fingers tingled at the thought of feeling the sparks, of controlling something as noncompliant and dangerous as fire.
I needed to break my train of thought.
“I expected better from you, Kieran,” I chided.
His grin widened.
“These two”—I waved a hand toward the vampire and the shifter— “can’t help themselves. They just can’t help whipping things out for people to get a look-see, but you usually exercise restraint.”
“They came here for help, Erin, not a lecture,” said the deep, cultured voice of the man who emerged from the corner like an elusive wave. Ignoring his presence was easier when he was out of sight; now he overtook the room. This was my job and he had been relegated to the corner to be a quiet observer. Obviously, he had no idea what that meant.
