Fire and Flame (9 page)

“I’ve been in the guest room,” Vanessa said in a soft voice that sounded unnatural. “Should I have been somewhere else?”

“No.” The syllable came out as a gruff explosion. Brent forced a softer tone when her eyes rounded. “Is something wrong?”

“I just wondered if I should park my car somewhere else,” she replied with a little tilt of her head to the right that sent her brown hair sliding over her shoulder.

Her hand dropped away from her cheek and landed at her hip. Brent hadn’t noticed her pose or what she’d been wearing until then—or rather what she wasn’t wearing. The shorts she’d pulled on could hardly be considered shorts and her tank top barely covered her chest. His irritation doubled.

And then she continued, “Because Sara might want to have her spot back when she gets back from…wherever. Where did she go, by the way?”

“Out,” was all he said in response.

“I wouldn’t have gone out,” Vanessa purred silkily.

Brent was beginning to wish she had. He said the one thing that would get her out of his hair for a few minutes. “Yes, you should park the car somewhere else so Sara can get in and out. Good night, Vanessa.”

The flash of anger that alternately widened and then narrowed Vanessa’s gaze made Brent momentarily feel like a bastard. But she left him at a pounding pace. He was willing to play the bastard if it got him out of socializing while in a dark mood.

Brent hurried around the room, turning off the lights. He resumed his pacing in the dark. The knock minutes later belonged to Vanessa. His agitated motion was paused long enough for her to believe he’d truly gone to bed.

Sleep wasn’t going to be an option until Sara was home. And if she didn’t come home soon…he’d have to go out looking for her. She had better come home because he didn’t know if he’d be able to control his aggression if he had to scour the city for her. Someone would most certainly be hurt. Someone male.

****

A door creaked open. Sara stiffened in response. Her cereal had been rather unappetizing before the interruption. Now she’d be lucky to stomach another spoonful.

But when it was Vanessa who appeared in the kitchen from the left rather than Brent, Sara wanted to hurl fire. It didn’t help that the female was clad in practically nothing. Or that she had a smug look on her pretty face.

“Good morning,” Vanessa said in a sweet, singsong voice that made Sara’s teeth ache like the time she’d had a cavity and had eaten too much chocolate. “How did you sleep? I slept excellently.”

Sara hadn’t slept. With the countless cups of coffee in her belly and the worries of what would become of her future, she’d moved about on the bed like a barrel stuck rolling in a stream. All night.

It certainly hadn’t helped that Vanessa’s car had been in front of the house when she’d finally come home. Vanessa going out and coming back here after was proof Brent had been with her. So Sara hadn’t needed to see the skimpy tank top and shorts barely covering Vanessa’s rear to know what had happened while she’d been away.

He was such a hypocrite.

The hypocrite himself stumbled into the kitchen seconds later. The wrinkled T-shirt and pair of relaxed jeans he wore looked like he’d pulled them up off the floor. Brent rubbed his eyes groggily exactly as he had yesterday. But today was worlds apart from yesterday.

Sara whirled around and tossed her half eaten bowl of cereal into the sink. She stomped past the pair toward her bedroom. Sara was no longer sure she could remain in their company without resorting to the Fire witches’ famed aggression.

Vanessa’s smug voice echoed in the distance as Sara mounted the stairs. “What’s her problem?”

There was no answer from Brent.

Footsteps pounding on their stairs behind her explained it. Brent caught her door before she could slam it in his face. And then after an agile move, he was inside the pink room with her. She eyed him warily as he closed the door.

What did he want? Didn’t he have enough witch on his hands downstairs?

“You didn’t give me a chance to explain before you took off last night.” Brent’s voice was as hard as steel. The half squinted eyes staring across the room could have been from anger as easily as frustration.

Sara didn’t want to know what that bitch was doing here.

She opened her mouth to speak the words but promptly closed it.

Was she…? Could she be…?

Good god, she was
jealous
of that hoyden!

Sara ought to be relieved another witch had taken Brent’s focus away from her. But she wasn’t. She was furious he’d allowed the focus to be altered.

“She’s in danger,” he declared in all seriousness. “Just like you.”

She couldn’t stop the disgusted snort that escaped her.

Brent went on, “She’s been dating one of Ena’s sons. He threatened to kill her if she went to the funeral or the reading. She asked me for haven. I couldn’t refuse her. As priest, it’s my duty to protect those who need it.”

Yes, it was. But that didn’t mean she had to like it.

She barely recognized the caustic voice as belonging to her when she snarled, “I had no idea you were so attentive when you protect someone. Did you sleep in Daddy’s bed too?”

“No,” he snapped in return. Brent’s eyes shot wide without warning. His lips parted as if in surprise and his pose loosened against the door. “I didn’t sleep in Vanessa’s bed.”

No, she’d slept in
his
bed.

“Get out.” Sara’s voice was low, calm, and entirely deadly. She was furious he’d twist the facts around to make himself seem innocent.

“I paced all night waiting for you to come back,” Brent said rather than heed her demand. His slack pose soon grew rigid. With each new word, his tone tightened until he was shouting. “You deliberately evaded me when you left and then you didn’t pick up your phone calls. Someone could have attacked you!”

Sara had lost him in the subdivision minutes after she’d left because he’d been driving Vanessa’s hybrid. It was no match for her crossover’s bigger engine. And Sara had learned to drive on these roads. She knew every turn and twist like the lines on her palm.

She had to admit it hadn’t been terribly bright to ditch Brent considering the attacks during the trip home from Pennsylvania. But she couldn’t spend the rest of her life cowering because the children of her father’s murderer wanted to harm her.

“God forbid something should happen to Fintan’s princess,” Sara drawled nastily. “His riches would go to the cousins and then where would you be?”

“Please tell me you at least had someone else to protect you last night.”

“I stayed in the populated areas,” she said rather than answer him directly. Her gaze slid away.

“Sara,” he said in a low, warning voice that drew her attention back. “Did you have someone else to protect you?”

“You have no right butting your head into my business. So just—”

“I’m high priest now. I have
every
right until you swear fealty to someone else. Now answer the question, Sara. Were you alone last night?”

“Get out.”

Brent’s eyes blazed a split second before he stalked across the room. He grabbed hold of her biceps, hauling her onto the tips of her toes. The motion allowed him to pin her with the malevolent swirling of his darkened gaze.

“Did you do your duty with someone else to avoid doing it with me?” he all but shouted. Brent’s nostrils flared like a cartoon bull about to charge. His brows met at the deep crevice that had formed above his nose. If she hadn’t known better she might have thought his irises had gone evergreen.

A flare of exhilaration shot up Sara’s back. He was furious. God help her, she enjoyed it.

And then the memory of what he’d done last night filled her with indignation. “You brought this on yourself because you were busy helping Vanessa do her duty!”

Something changed in Brent’s stance. His grip on her eased while his expression morphed into slack-jawed surprise. But his surprise didn’t last long before fury returned, this time in an eerily chilly way.

His frame locked tight. Very quietly he asked, “Who was it?”

“None of your—”

“It is my business,” he shouted. Within a split second he’d gone from cold right back into fury. Brent tightened his hold on her arms. “Tell me who I have to kill next, Sara!”

She couldn’t stop her gasp at his words and the flickering gleam in his eyes that was twice as malicious.

How did she answer? She didn’t want to admit she’d been completely alone last night but she also didn’t want to put anyone in danger. Would Brent really kill someone because of her?

The answer was obviously yes because he already had. But this time was not like the other. Then he’d killed to protect them both. Now… Now his fury was based on…jealousy?

Softly Sara replied, “No one.”

The muscle in his cheek twitched. “Don’t lie to me, Sara.”

“I’m not lying.” She emphasized her answer with a rapid shake of her head. “I was reckless. I had no protection.”

His grip eased but he wasn’t finished with her. “Was it a human?”

God, he looked like he would kill a human if she’d admitted she’d been with one. The little zing of exhilaration Sara had felt when she’d realized he was jealous morphed into a shot of anger. Now that he was high priest he thought he owned them all! He would probably claim the old custom of keeping a harem. She wanted to set his head on fire for even thinking it.

“I’m not your possession, Brenton.”

Brent jerked as if he’d been hit. “Pardon?”

She gave him the explanation with a chilly delivery. “Just because you’re now high priest doesn’t make me part of your harem.” She nearly spat the word. “And even if I do become touched in the head enough that I agree to do my duty with you—to earn my inheritance—I still won’t be part of your harem.” Voice lowering and expression hardening, Sara finished, “For the last time, get out of my bedroom before I set you on fire.”

Chapter Twelve

Brent scanned her face for an explanation. He was baffled by what had happened. One moment she’d been protecting the identity of whoever had guarded her last night and in the next she’d accused him of bigamy.

As if he wanted anyone else.

The hard edge of her rounded eyes and the tight line of her ordinarily plump lips hinted she might legitimately become violent. Brent was torn. On the one hand, he didn’t enjoy being burned. On the other hand, he wanted to know who she’d been with. Yet another small part of him wanted to know if Sara would make good on her threat.

Perhaps it was something about the way she dug her fingers into her palms that clicked open a file within his mind. He’d noted it earlier.

Sara was jealous of Vanessa Aine.

Sara wasn’t happy unless she was the indisputable queen of her little court. It had both infuriated him and drawn him to her. Was her ire with the witch downstairs simply the result of being cast as the supporting actress? Or dare he hope she wanted him specifically rather than her need to have everyone falling at her feet?

Did he have it in him to test her?

Brent would leave to avoid her violence but not without getting in the last word. He slowly lifted his head while holding her eye, proving she was not in control. And then he strolled to the door.

He fixed her with his best arrogant smile. “Come find me when you’ve worked through your jealousy. Then we’ll talk about the training you asked for.” Brent continued the stroll right on out the door.

It had taken everything in him to pull off the indifferent bastard act but when the feminine scream of indignation echoed through the walls, Brent’s arrogant smile was no longer feigned.

He’d tail her if she went out again tonight. Brent wouldn’t spend another night pacing the back room only to hide away to avoid violence when she finally turned up.

Then again, she was spoiling for a fight and he was of a mind to give it to her.

****

Jealous?

Sara wasn’t jealous! No way. No how.

It didn’t matter that she’d recognized it in herself, she was
not
jealous Vanessa had been with that jerk.

Who did he think he was?

Regional high priest position aside, Brenton Conley was just another Fire witch. There was nothing particularly special about him. He wasn’t the most powerful witch she’d ever met. That distinction was her daddy’s alone. He wasn’t the handsomest. There were countless over the years that made Brent’s dark looks pale in comparison. He wasn’t a brilliant tactical mind. Though smart, he’d never won games of strategy when the coven had played. He wasn’t even fun to be around. Brent had never made her laugh. However, he could produce every other emotion in her.

How dare he behave as if he were the shit? He had a humbling coming to him very soon.

First she had to decide how to answer his challenge. She didn’t want to go downstairs for their chat about training while she was furious. But if she remained ensconced in her room, she’d be admitting she was too jealous to control her aggression.

Sara prided herself on being a rare Fire witch who never got violent. That wouldn’t change today. And certainly not for the likes of Brent.

Yet he’d be confused if she arrived happy. There had to be a reason for an improvement in her mood, especially on the heels of her father’s recent funeral. Sara snatched her phone up from the bedside table where she’d set it to silent. Several missed calls flashed on the screen, most from witches extending their condolences.

Her supposed friends had certainly sounded as if they supported her on their brief messages. And though their invitations to have coffee soon, or lunch, or even dinner had also seemed genuine, she couldn’t forget their scorn on Saturday. Brent wouldn’t believe she was happy after speaking to one of them.

Repeatedly her eyes strayed to the messages she hadn’t the heart to listen to. Johnathon had called several times. She most certainly wouldn’t be smiling after speaking to him. Not after leaving him and everything she’d adored in Pennsylvania behind for this. It was almost like another death in her life only there’d been no service commemorating the loss.