Fire and Flame (20 page)

“I’m going to have to use a knife to saw through the metal binding your wrists,” Sara softly explained. “Please don’t move.”

He began rubbing his reddened little wrists once they were free. But he didn’t hit her or call on any Fire magic. She repeated her warning as she moved the knife to his feet.

“Do you want to remove the bandana from Maggie and Tanya’s mouths or do you want me to?”

His answer was to lift the littlest girl into his lap so he could work on the knot behind her head. Sara remained where she was until Sebastian said otherwise.

“Where Mama?” the girl cried the moment she was free to speak.

“Mama is at work, Maggie,” Sebastian told her in a crisp, impatient tone.

Maggie drew in a loud snuffle. “I want Mama.”

“Stop moving,” Sebastian snapped. “I can’t break this if you’re moving.”

“Ouch, Seb. You’re hurting me!”

The boy cast a look at Sara that was equal parts helpless and irritated. She hoped the smile she gave him was sympathetic rather than pitying.

“May I try?” she asked.

“Don’t move, Maggie,” Sebastian warned in a stern, brotherly fashion. “She is going to cut the metal with a knife. It’s very sharp and can hurt you if you move.”

“Okay, Seb.”

Sara’s heart went out to them both. With even more caution, she moved to where Sebastian held the girl’s arms up for her. He oversaw the task, perhaps to make sure it was done properly. Sara was careful not to get too close to the little girl’s pale skin.

She exhaled the breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding when the band snapped without incident and Maggie was free to move her arms. Together Sebastian and Sara persuaded the girl to remain motionless so they could untie her feet.

With Maggie free, Tanya was a breeze to release. Once the metal fell to the floor, the older girl tossed her arms around Sara’s neck for a hug. Tears filled Sara’s eyes at the simple gesture from a child she hadn’t met.

“Okay, we’re going to go upstairs soon. There are still two bad witches up there,” Sara explained. “They are sleeping. Mr. Colin is watching them so they won’t do anything bad. Where are your rooms?”

Sebastian gestured toward the front of the house. “Up there on the left.”

“Do you want to go to your room or your mama’s room?”

“Mama,” Maggie exclaimed without extracting herself from her pose curled around Sebastian’s left leg.

He sent her the barest of glances before lifting his chin. “There are toys for Maggie in our room. We’ll go there.”

Sara nodded her understanding then gestured for the kids to follow her to the stairs.

****

Three unconscious witches and one unaccounted phone call to an unlisted number that had surely alerted the other half of the Ena witches did not make Brent happy. Nor did finding Perry trying to carry the unconscious witch back on his own while Vanessa texted someone. Brent wanted her gone. Sara didn’t like her and he found he agreed.

He and Perry carried the third witch into the house. Sara emerged from the basement with a girl tightly clutching her neck. Brent nearly forgot why he should be unhappy. The girl’s dark hair contrasted sharply against Sara’s golden waves. A dull throb filled Brent’s chest when he spotted her palm sliding in soothing gestures over the girl’s back.

Sara cast a glance over her shoulder. Her gaze narrowed. He hoped it was on Vanessa and not him. Brent didn’t want her angry with him when she was holding a beautiful little girl in her arms. He nearly laughed at himself for how ridiculous it sounded even in his head.

Brent and Perry deposited the last witch beside the other two unconscious figures. Colin had already bound them with metal zip ties they kept handy. Now they only had to get the witches out of the house without any of the neighbors calling the police. And they had to find out where in the hell Grace was.

He hadn’t forgotten about second group waiting for Sara to leave McKenna House. It was also possible those witches were on their way here thanks to the guy that had been hiding in the basement with the kids while Brent had been running to the attic like an idiot.

Momentarily free, Brent took the opportunity to follow Sara into the children’s room. He knocked and then entered.

Sara shook her mobile phone at the little boy. “Can you call your mama for me?”

“Use mine,” Brent suggested. Grace would be more likely to answer a call from him than from Sara’s Pennsylvanian number.

She shot him an irritated look but took his offered phone anyway. And then in her softest of voices she said, “This is Priest Conley. Do you know him?”

“I didn’t know he was priest,” Sebastian said with an eager nod. “I thought he worked for your daddy.”

Rather warmly considering the subject, Sara replied, “He did. Now that my daddy is gone, he’s high priest. He’ll want to talk to your mama to make sure she’s safe. Okay, Sebastian?”

“Okay.”

Brent hadn’t seen her with children before. It was one of the coven’s jeers—that the princess never soiled herself with children, work, or mud. But he was beginning to see how wrong the coven was. Sara had probably even been known to get muddy a time or two.

Images of a literal mud slinging fight flashed through his mind. In them Sara laughed and let out girlish squeals as they slapped the slick stuff all over each other. He made himself clear his throat and focus on the present. Sebastian typed the digits into his phone while mouthing the numbers on his small lips and bobbing his head in time with the beeps. Soon the boy had the phone up to his ear.

“Mama? It’s Seb.” He looked up at Sara and then to Brent. “Someone wants to talk to you.”

When the boy tried to hand the phone to Sara, she gestured at Brent. Brent took hold of it, inhaled a long breath, and then set about the business of being priest.

Chapter Twenty-Five

“She leaves those kids alone,” Sara exclaimed once they were safely in her Lexus. “For hours on end! Sebastian can’t be more than ten yet he’s babysitting those little girls every time their mother has to work the night shift. It’s not right.”

“No,” Brent agreed in a maddeningly calm voice.

Sara’s teeth snapped closed with an audible click. “Do you even care?”

Again he sent her an unreadable look along his shoulder. What the hell did it mean?

She shouldn’t care. There were more important things to worry about. Sara opened her mouth to lambaste him.

He cut her off, “Yes, Sara. I care.”

His intent gaze implied he wasn’t talking about the children they’d recently left with Perry. Her cheeks flushed. Sara shifted her attention to the unconscious witches in the back seat. The Ena men were slumped atop each other like guys she’d seen at many a fraternity party. Brent hadn’t bothered putting a seat belt on them. Sara could only hope they didn’t get pulled over for a traffic violation. They wouldn’t be able to explain the welts on the witches’ heads.

What was he going to do with the three of them?

Sara feared she already knew the answer. Two had actively tried to kill him. The third had attacked her. And all three had been involved in holding innocent kids hostage. He couldn’t afford to show mercy to any of them without being called weak. Sara was worried she wasn’t more upset about it.

Brent broke the short silence. “But I care more about how you could have been killed while you interrogated that guy.” He pronounced the operative word “kill” with an emphatic enunciation that proved exactly how much he cared about it. “You should have bound him before you tried to get any information out of him.”

Sara focused on the window, avoiding the grave set of his features. She hadn’t thought to bring anything to bind a guy. Fire fights weren’t exactly her thing.

Soon her thoughts went to something unrelated.

Brent had kissed her in front of his friends—in front of Vanessa. Had he kissed the hoyden the moment Vanessa had reached the Lexus too? Maybe Brent had kissed them both for luck.

Sara didn’t want to think about it.

“I’ll make sure Grace gets some help,” he continued when she’d failed to respond.

Sara’s head jerked toward him. Surprise loosened her features in what she imagined was an unattractive fashion. He met it with what looked to be a hopeful softening of his usually hard green eyes.

“That would be nice,” she allowed. The local priest should have handled the situation already but clearly he wasn’t doing his job.

Again she looked out the window to avoid wondering if he was thinking about Vanessa. And again he broke the silence first.

“Derrick is going to check the house for bombs. And then he’s going to stay until I’m finished.” Brent paused before adding, “Unless you’d rather Colin or Perry stay instead?”

She shook her head quickly, watching him from the corner of her eye. “I don’t think Sebastian would like Derrick. As far as the other, that’s your call. You’re high priest.”

His lips twisted into either a half smile or a grimace. A grimace surely because the Brent she knew didn’t smile.

They were quiet for the remainder of the ride down the beltway. Brent’s phone vibrated in the center console. He picked it up so he could hand it to her.

“Can you read that to me?”

He was unwilling to text and drive at the same time? She supposed that was mildly impressive.

“Derrick says the Escalade is gone and that no one is near the house. He’s checking the exterior now.” Sara set the phone aside. “What Escalade?”

“There was an Escalade parked down the street when I left. I thought it was a little suspicious so I asked Derrick to look for it when he went over.”

“Oh.” Sara’s answer was dull. For all of her talk about the foolishness of dividing Brent’s men, it hadn’t occurred to her someone might have been posted outside the house.

They returned to silence on the trip to McKenna House. Derrick’s Hummer was parked in the driveway when they arrived. He appeared around the back porch when Brent opened the Lexus’s door.

“Outside is clean,” Derrick announced. He held up a palm like he expected someone to toss a baseball his way. “Keys?”

Brent threw them across.

The idea a stranger might sneak into her house and install a bomb made her blood go cold. And that Derrick was willing to go in to check… She hadn’t thought him capable of that sort of selflessness. What was it about Brent that kept his friends loyal to him?

Derrick did an initial check on the front door for triggers. He disappeared into the house once he’d deemed it clear. She didn’t dare relax her back.

“Sara.”

She made a quarter turn toward Brent. Her brows lifted expectantly though she said nothing.

“I want to talk to you later.” The words rang grim in Sara’s ears. But there was an almost vulnerable set to his eyes. “When I get back.” He gestured to the three witches slumped in the back of her Lexus.

“Okay,” Sara replied as lightly as she could manage.

“I may be very late,” he warned with a small duck of his head.

Sara’s heart skipped when she thought of him knocking on her door in the middle of the night. Would he ask her down into the office?

Either way, she knew how she needed to answer. “Okay.”

****

Did she understand the implication of what she’d agreed to? Brent wanted to revel in the warmth that had suffused his extremities merely thinking she’d consented to a late night visit. But he also wanted to know if she really had.

He could put her on the spot by asking her, thus forcing a definite agreement from her—risking she’d decline him. Or he could wait until he returned and risk she change her mind while he was gone.

What if she was waiting in the kitchen when he got home? Brent nearly laughed when he imagined taking her on the kitchen island. And then his temperature lifted when he
imagined
taking her on the kitchen island.

How had he managed to avoid this for so long?

Brent reluctantly guided her inside after Derrick arrived to tell them he’d run every conceivable test on the kitchen and that it was at least safe to come in where their foes wouldn’t see them standing on the driveway. There he got a good look at the island he’d recently imagined. Someone had left breadcrumbs on the smooth surface. Brent grabbed a wet wipe to clean it. Sara sent him a bemused look that nearly made him laugh again.

“Man,” Derrick called from the office. “It’s going to be a long time before I’ve combed the entire place. You need to take care of the guys in the back seat.”

He did. But he didn’t want to leave Sara.

She nodded in agreement. “We can’t risk having someone call the cops because of the unconscious guys in the car.”

“But—”

Her blue eyes narrowed into icy slivers even as she interrupted him. “I won’t be helpless, Brent.”

“I know you won’t.”

She wasn’t helpless. But she wasn’t operating at the same level as their foes. On the other hand, she wasn’t operating on the same plane. Her unconventional brand of combat meant they didn’t know how to defend against her.

Brent inhaled a rough sigh. “I want you to run if you hear anything suspicious in here. Okay?”

She rolled her eyes to the ceiling. “No, I’m going to just stand stupidly while the house goes up around me.”

Her sarcasm was typical but he found it didn’t particularly bother him now. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. You call me if you need anything.”

Sara nodded for him while crossing her arms in front of her chest. Was that nervousness? He made himself go to the door rather than kiss her like he’d wanted to. Until they had that chat tonight, he didn’t feel like he could touch her.

She said nothing until he’d opened the door and then he heard her softly call after him. “Be careful, Brent.”

Softer still he replied, “You too, princess.”

****

Sara slammed into her bedroom an hour later. Seconds ago Derrick had informed her the upstairs rooms were clear, and that he’d personally enjoyed his time scouring her white castle. But his irritating comments weren’t why she was furious.