Fire Kissed (29 page)

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Authors: Erin Kellison

Tags: #Fiction, #Romance, #Paranormal

BOOK: Fire Kissed
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Laurence had raised his hands to hold Adam’s arguments back. “You misunderstand.”
Jack was spared responding to Kaye’s misguided epiphany when she looked over his shoulder at Adam. “Mages don’t use the word
soul
either. We don’t like it and it really doesn’t fit.”
Laurence closed his eyes and muttered a low thank-you.
“I don’t remember much of the lore,” Kaye said. “I was a bad student. But every mage child knows that the umbra is our darkest self, and manifests the power of our House. We don’t answer to Fate, so our umbra is unbound and can be harnessed and used, as I do my fire. Just today, I met a mage, Mason, who can animate matter with his inner Shadow, his umbra. He made a fake wraith to mix with Grey’s others. Totally pulled it off.”
“And where do umbras come from?” Adam asked. A child’s question.
“It’s supposed to be a bit of our faery progenitor—though only a few Houses still know who originally sired them. Brand certainly has no idea.”
Jack squeezed Kaye’s hand, reminding himself that he had plenty of time with her. That he was not leaving her side. That these questions had to stop eventually.
Adam turned to Layla. “Does Khan know all this?”
Layla drew a big blinking breath. “Umm ... I’ve never heard him say the word
umbra
, specifically. But we did compare the idea of passing along DNA to the passing along of Shadow and its traits, as his affinity with death passed to Talia.”
“But is the umbra
unique
to a mage,” Adam said, heading into soul territory again. “Is it conserved?”
Layla shook her head, her shoulders rising, indicating she didn’t know.
Adam whipped back. “Kaye?”
“Oh ... well ... there are books on the lore, which would tell you better. Grey has them all, I’m sure. What I do know is that the penumbra is supposedly our foregoing intention, how we intend to act—there’s a House that can sense that. And the antumbra is the trail our Shadow leaves through time. Where we’ve been, what we’ve touched. There’s a House that sees that too and could follow me here. So my sense is that my umbra is mine, is me, but I don’t know if I go on after I die, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Jack and Laurence made no comment as an answer to that. There were no mages Beyond.
Adam stalked back to his schematic. Stress lined his features; deep thought hardened his gaze. “I should’ve been told about this.”
“I’ll get you something from Grey’s library,” Kaye offered to appease him.
Jack startled. He didn’t understand.
“He’s encouraged me to look into faelore, so it would be no trouble. And really, I’m not very good at this existential stuff.”
The salon went quiet for a blink while everyone processed her words. Kaye thought she was going back. Jack had a wild impulse to laugh. She was joking.
“Thank you, but no,” Adam said carefully. “It’s good to know resources are out there. I can find them without your returning to Grey.”
“Online,” Layla interjected with too much energy. “Bet you something’s on eBay.”
Adam gave her a wry look. “I wouldn’t be surprised, actually.”
“You’re going back?” Jack asked Kaye, the material question of the moment.
She gripped his arm, tight. “I can’t think of another way. Let me explain, and then I am open to suggestions.”
“This should be fun.” Jack sat back. Violence replaced his brief contentment. He needed her full reasons so that he could crush each one. She wasn’t going anywhere. This was his little war: Him against Kaye. Light against Shadow. Had been from the beginning.
He shot a look at Laurence, who said, “Adam, how about you show me how we can best keep the lights on in a power outage.” To Jack, Laurence said,
Be careful.
Jack held Kaye’s gaze for the duration of the rolling of papers, the hurried gathering of laptops, and the exit of the others. Then he started over, saying again, though an octave lower, “You’re going back?”
Her polite mask dropped as soon as they were alone. “It’s my world. It’s who I am. I need to be inside magekind,” she said. “You know that. And especially now that I’ve got my House wards.”
“Is this decision because of your father?”
“It has nothing to do with him.” Kaye stood, paced. Kept herself away from him. “I want to see him, understand some things, but no, I’m not doing anything for him. I can make a difference here. Or I can try. People died yesterday.”
“And Grey?” Just saying the name made the room go white. Her answer would only dictate the amount of force he’d exert to get her to stay. He could stand to be burned again. He wouldn’t mind at all.
“My father is right about that: I’m perfectly placed between Grey and my father’s group. Right in the middle. There is too much at stake to abandon it now.”
The rhythm of his heart was irregular. “You can’t go back.”
“But I’ve got a plan for the future,” she said.
“Dear God,” he prayed. He was going to lose his mind.
She grabbed the top of the sack and lifted the heavy bundle. “I’m going to build a warded house. I’m going to make sure that seat on the Council is mine, but as soon as I can, I will hold it
without
Grey. I have to, or I’ll be stuck with him forever as a spy or a pawn.” Her intensity flared. “The stones are everything. I just need a damn building on top of them to be safe and strong among the other Houses.”
“I’ll build it,” Jack said. How fast could a mage house be built?
“And with a real house, my new so-called supporters, and a Council seat, I’ll have a voice in the decision as to how magekind proceeds. If need be, I can be as conniving and ruthless as the best of them. But for
peace.
”
The Order was arming itself. His sword had been prepared. Generals were planning where and how to strike.
She did need a warded house. He’d begin right away.
“Because I can’t plot against my kind and I can’t fight yours,” she said. “I can’t do it. I won’t do it. You, and Michael before you, ruined me.”
“And you just plan to move out when your house is ready? You think Grey will allow it?” This ought to be good.
“There’s an issue I intend to use to distance myself.”
“What kind of issue?” His tone was mild, but the avenging angel within was bursting through his control.
“A private one.”
He should just kill Grey. He didn’t need a good reason. End this. It was wartime anyway, and Grey was the enemy.
“If he dies,” Kaye said, as if she could read his mind, “then no mage will trust me. All my work will be for nothing. Don’t do that to me.”
“Do it to you?” Had she any idea what she’d done to him?
“Trust me.”
“How, when this is insane?”
“I’m doing my best,” she returned. “I’ve helped a little, I hope.”
That wasn’t true. She’d performed spectacularly. She had no idea how much it had tortured him.
“You will tell me everything, especially what is between you and Grey.” His voice was mellow, curiously even considering he’d come up against a wall inside. It was as if the oceans had gone very still and the wind had stopped blowing and the world was slowing its rotation.
Kaye seemed to retreat. Why did she keep moving away from him?
“Stop,” he said. “Stop right there.”
“Bastian.”
“You will answer me. You weren’t alone in this. I suffered with you every goddamned second.”
Now she went white.
She sat. Kept her back straight. Looked nowhere in particular. “Fine.” Her breath was all wrong. But then, so was his. “Grey doesn’t need his ring to draw Shadow from people. He can do that by touch. It’s how he messed with Custo, but I didn’t realize it until after the wolf was loose. There.”
He took “there” to mean “done.” So his mind cranked unwillingly to the simple conclusion. She’d been with Grey, which meant he’d been taking her Shadowfire every time he touched her.
He’d touched her.
She’d looked ill these past days because she was ill, not because she was drinking.
Had she known when she became engaged to Grey? Didn’t matter; Jack knew she would have made the same choice with Ava in the house. Damn Michael.
“I can beg off on the grounds that he’s diminishing my Shadow,” she said. “That I won’t stand for it anymore. And I won’t. I think he’ll try to reason with me, say it’s not his fault, or not deliberate, and give me some time to get strong again.”
Jack paced to the table. He wasn’t thinking, couldn’t with the ice on his skin at her revelation. Diminishing her? Grey would die. Very simple.
“And I need to stay in a warded house until mine can be built,” she went on, as if she didn’t have other choices. Maybe she thought she didn’t. “If I’m out in the open, I won’t last a day. The other Houses would dispose of me so they can return to the status quo.”
Kaye was mistaken. Grey would never leave her alone. Not in a million years. She was a light in the dark, and any who saw her would draw near and try to take her for their own. And she had no idea what happened to soldiers in between two opposing armies.
A valiant effort, but no.
“I thought we’d come to an agreement. A joint thing,” he said for lack of better words: a pledge, a union, promises. “And then you went off on your own.”
Grey would take her again and again to make a point. That’s what a tyrant did.
“I didn’t lie to you, if that’s what you think.” She pulled back again, an island unto herself.
And he understood why: She thought he didn’t want her anymore after Grey. She thought she was alone again.
“No,” he agreed. “You don’t lie when it matters. I know why you did what you did.”
Which made her tremble. But she kept her chin level.
“I’d like to make a new contract with you, if you’re willing.” His voice was angry, but he couldn’t help it.
The thought of Grey taking from her ... Jack didn’t think the rage would ever leave him.
She lifted her eyebrows in a miserable question.
What?
See? He could read her mind too.
“It’s simple,” he said. “Very straightforward so that you don’t misinterpret my intentions again.”
She closed her eyes, waiting.
He wanted them open. “Kaye.”
She lifted that Shadow-black gaze his way.
“From this moment on to forever, there is no one but me.”
 
 
Kaye concentrated very hard on what Bastian was saying, but she couldn’t actually understand it. She’d thought this whole conversation had been conducted in English, but the meaning of each statement seemed to slide past the one before it. And that last bit ...
“Wha—?” But her throat was closing up and she had that rushing feeling behind her eyes.
“You will agree,” he said about as angry and terrible as he’d ever been since she’d known him. Of course, he had every right to be.
She hitched for air, but it came out like she was crying. Which she wasn’t.
“Say yes.” He towered over her.
She wheezed, looking up, afraid. “What was the question?”
There was no question. “You’re mine,” he said.
So she had heard him. “Okay?” She was shaking hard. Because he couldn’t mean what she wanted him to mean. After what she’d done ... no... . And hadn’t she just told him that she wasn’t leaving magekind? That was her place.
Her ribs hurt.
It had to be the job. That he wanted her to continue to work now that she was inside. And she would; she’d never really expected to stop. Not when he needed ... just ...
He growled, seemed furious, looked about, then snagged something. Held it out to her.
A tissue.
She blew her nose, which was difficult because her hands shook. She needed another for her eyes, but she was suddenly moving through the air with his mouth pressed hot on hers.
Flying. Weightless. Held so tight by his angel strength she didn’t care if she was crushed against him, as long as they were one.
She fisted her hands on the shirt at his neck and kissed him back. The return was urgent, wet, roughened by his afternoon growth. She inhaled the scent of him, Jack Bastian, as much as her lungs could take.
“You’re
not
going back to that house,” he said, smoothing hair out of her eyes and unsticking it from her tear-salted cheeks. “I will ward you.”
She looked into his eyes, and shut herself up. That look broke all plans.
“You got in between Grey’s group and your father’s too easy,” he said. “But do you know, do you have any idea, whose support you really have? You stand between two armies now. Did you know you have one at your back?”

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