Firestorm Forever: A Dragonfire Novel (79 page)

Marco gave Jac a steady look and she explained, speaking quickly. The information would help Eileen decide what was best for Erik. “The new dragons are clones of Boris Vassily. There will be thirteen of them all together, six more coming at the next eclipse.”

“The blood moon will ripen the eggs,” Eileen murmured. “Do you know where they are?”

“No, but Boris has exchanged challenge coins with Erik—”

“I remember that part,” Eileen interjected.

“—so, each and every one of them has a burning desire to kill him. This one was the last survivor of the first two batches. He was determined to take out Erik to establish himself as the leader of the clones.”

“He’d have accomplished their objective before they hatched, making himself ascendant,” Eileen said with a nod. Her gaze never left Erik, who was unconscious and bleeding. “But now he’s gone, thanks to you. How many
Slayers
are left?”

“Just Jorge, but he’s badly hurt after his fight.”

“So, there’s time.” Eileen nodded, her decision made. “Will you help me take him back to Sloane? If we drive, I’m afraid the journey will take too long.”

“I’ll do better,” Marco said. He drew Jac against his side, making the firestorm blaze brilliantly between them. Eileen shaded her eyes. “Erik can use fire to heal himself. We’ll heal him with the firestorm.”

Jac was awed by his choice. Eileen was clearly pleased. She nudged Erik and whispered to him, and he stirred. His eyes opened as he watched the sparks of the firestorm and Jac felt his wonder.

She felt a good bit of that wonder herself. She liked that Marco was offering this to heal the leader of the
Pyr
and that she could be a part of helping the good dragons to win.

“You bleed red,” Erik whispered. “I should have asked instead of guessing your intentions.”

“It looked bad,” Marco admitted. “I don’t blame you. I had to trick you to deceive him. But let’s see you healed before we talk more.”

Erik shifted to his dragon form in a shimmer of blue then Marco reached out to him. They locked claws and Marco held her more tightly. The firestorm heated to a brilliant white radiance and Erik tipped back his head, baring his teeth as the firestorm seared his wounds. He drew Eileen against his one side and she beckoned to Zoë. The five of them were in a tight circle, the firestorm blinding in its radiance.

Then Zoë reached out and touched the darkfire crystal still in Jac’s hand. The light in the stone flared brilliantly, illuminating them all with blue-green light, and Jac saw Erik’s wound close completely. He gasped, then sighed as Eileen shed a tear of gratitude.

That was when Jac saw the scale on Marco’s chest loosen, seemingly of its own volition. It worked itself free of his armor and began to fall.

Jac caught it, smiling with the certainty of what it meant.

“I love you, too,” she said to him, not caring who heard her confession.

Erik cleared his throat and there was a gleam of humor in his eyes. “I think you two need a little privacy now,” he said, his voice a deep rumble in his dragon form. Eileen smiled and caressed her daughter’s head and Jac felt her heart thunder in anticipation.

“Yes, we do,” she said to Marco. He laughed, then she was in his arms and the darkfire crackled. She didn’t care where they went.

She just wanted to be with him.

Forever.

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Marco manifested in Jac’s apartment, his mate crushed in his arms. They were hot and covered with dust from the desert, and he could feel the dried blood on his wounds. He was also filled with the aftermath of victory, the need to celebrate his survival in the most fundamental way. His blood was pumping and his firestorm was burning brighter and hotter than ever. That Jac had made such a noble choice had stolen his heart away for good.

That she loved him was the best news he’d ever heard.

Marco supposed it was no surprise that he’d manifested in her bedroom, in the place most indicative of what he wanted to do. The apartment was filled with the pewter light of late afternoon and the coolness that accompanied a day of steady rain. The firestorm illuminated the bedroom like a thousand candles.

Jac smiled up at him and lifted her hands away from her chest. His scale was in her grasp, held against her like a breastplate. He wished he could protect her from head to toe in similar armor, but had no chance to say as much. She pulled his head down and kissed him with a hunger he recognized as equal to his own.

Just as her power and passion was equal to his own.

She was the perfect mate for him.

There was no need for conversation.

The firestorm lit to a brilliant white light between them, and Marco felt as if he’d stepped into the center of the sun. He was sizzling with desire and overflowing with love, and Jac’s kiss told him that she felt the same way.

“The shower,” she whispered when he gave her the opportunity to catch her breath, and he couldn’t think of a better place. He carried her into the bathroom and started the water running, then tugged off his T-shirt as he turned to face her. Jac had peeled off her own shirt and discarded it. There was a smudge of dirt on her white bra and another on her cheek, but she was smiling at him with delight. She wriggled out of her jeans and he kicked off his own, then their underwear was cast out of the small bathroom, too. Her fingertips landed on the cut on his shoulder, but Marco could hardly feel it.

There was only Jac and the firestorm. He kissed her, silencing the question she would have asked, then carried her into the shower. They washed each other slowly and thoroughly, coaxing their mutual desire to a fever-pitch, even as the firestorm made their blood boil. He caressed her with his fingertips, wanting her to find her pleasure, but she stopped him with a touch.

“All of you,” she demanded. “Right now and right here. I can’t possibly wait any longer.”

“We should make it last.”

“We can’t make it last any more, at least I can’t.” Jac smiled and brushed her lips across his, her eyes dancing. “And I think it can only be a good thing to conceive a
Pyr
while celebrating a victory. He’ll have triumph in his veins.”

Marco smiled down at her. “A good sign for the future.”

“The very best.” Jac trailed her hands over him, her touch making him catch his breath. “Now,” she whispered again. “Let’s see if a
Pyr
and his mate can spontaneously combust in satisfying their firestorm.”

* * *

Maeve had her driver leave her outside the construction site in Las Vegas. A sign proclaimed that this would be the location for the new spectacular of master illusionist, Lorenzo,
Rising from the Grave
. Maeve smiled, liking the title of the show a lot. Maybe she’d stop by in December to see Lorenzo in action.

Assuming his kind were the survivors of the Dragon’s Tail Wars. Jorge had told her a lot about the
Pyr
and the
Slayers
, but not nearly enough. Maeve liked to have as much information as possible. She’d wanted to hear the
Pyr
side.

Then Cassie Redmond had contacted her.

Kismet.

The interview had seemed too good to be true, but then Maeve realized this
Pyr
—whose identity she still didn’t know for certain—wanted something in return from her. He wasn’t offering an exclusive interview for nothing. It was a wager. An exchange.

With Maeve O’Neill, internationally famous reporter.

When Maeve saw the billboards, she guessed that Lorenzo himself was the
Pyr
who would interview her. She liked his audacity a lot. Scheduling the interview at the construction site of his new theater was bold, a taunt to her to draw the obvious conclusion, a dare for her to do something about it. He thought he was baiting the hook with a big story.

Unfortunately for Lorenzo, he didn’t realize he was negotiating with Maeve the Black Queen, who was far more influential in worlds both seen and unseen than any mere reporter could be. She’d take what she wanted from him, which was every morsel of information he knew about the
Pyr
, and give nothing in return.

Except maybe clemency, if she thought he was worth it.

She picked her way to the entrance, stepping carefully through the construction debris so she didn’t mar her new Christian Louboutin shoes. She knew she was being watched and she guessed who observed her. When a gorgeous Italian man stepped out of the building and called a greeting, Maeve felt a thrill at how perfectly tasty he was. She could smell the dragon on him and wondered how humans missed such obvious clues. Lorenzo’s dark eyes gleamed with intent and intelligence and a bit of mischief. He had a scheme of his own, and she knew he wouldn’t be easy to overwhelm.

Her heart skipped in anticipation as he kissed the back of her hand. He glanced up at her, and she saw the flames dancing in the depths of his eyes, a feat that should have been impossible.

Maybe it was an illusion.

Maybe it was a trap. Maeve held his gaze and realized what he was trying to do. Even she felt a tentative response to the spell he would cast, and she admired his skill.

It had been so long since she’d faced a truly worthy adversary.

But that would only make victory all the sweeter.

* * *

For the better part of two weeks, Sam battled the riddle.

Sloane had already isolated the antibody in Drake’s blood that had kept him from getting the virus. Sam had a variety of samples to compare and it took time, even with the equipment in Sloane’s lab. She had her own uninfected human blood, Veronica’s blood after infection and after the virus had been pushed back to its latent phase. She had Drake’s blood, which resisted the invasion of the virus, and she had Sloane’s blood, both before and after his exposure to the virus.

To her relief, he hadn’t become infected even though he didn’t share Drake’s antibodies. His white blood cells had staged the same kind of vigorous defense, and had eliminated the invading virus with impressive speed.

He insisted on being contaminated again, to see if it was repeatable, and it was. His body’s reaction wasn’t affected by the fact that it had recently defended itself.

But he began to make antibodies himself.

They were slightly different from the ones Drake carried and different again from the ones Veronica’s body had made after her exposure to Drake’s blood. Somewhere, there was a key as to why the virus was banished in the
Pyr
but returned to the latent phase in Veronica. Sam began a detailed comparison of each kind of cell in each situation, seeking the critical difference.

It could take years to isolate the differences and determine their importance, and Sam knew it. She barely slept, working around the clock, pausing only to eat when she felt a bit faint. It was when she awakened that morning two weeks after Sloane’s infection that she recalled Jac’s stone.

Why
shouldn’t
the Dracontias be able to heal?

Why shouldn’t this impossible thing be as true as all the other impossible things she’d come to believe were true?

Sam leapt out of the shower and dressed in haste. She found the stone in her purse and hurried downstairs to sterilize it again. She suited up, not even bothering with breakfast, and charged back into the lab.

Once there, she put a sample of Veronica’s blood in a slender glass beaker. Then she put the Dracontias into it.

To her astonishment, the blood turned very dark and began to swirl in the beaker. It had been perfectly still before, but the stone was creating some kind of vortex. The stone was obscured from view for a moment as the blood spun all around it. Sam watched, transfixed.

Then the motion stopped and the blood returned to its lighter color. The stone floated to the surface. Sam followed her impulse and removed it from the sample, placing it in another beaker to be cleaned. She had a whole suite of tests to perform but she had a feeling already of what the results would be.

She was going to have to eat some crow if she had to tell Jac that she’d been right about the Dracontias, but Sam didn’t mind that in the least.

In fact, she was looking forward to it.

* * *

Lorenzo awakened suddenly, as if a cold hand had given him a shake.

It was dark, wherever he was, only an Exit sign glowing red in the distance. He was chilled and stiff, and had a crick in his neck as a reward for sleeping in a straight chair. He scanned his surroundings, then stood up warily, feeling relief as he recognized his location.

But what on earth was he doing in his partly constructed theater? Why was it so dark? Where were all the work crews? He glanced at his watch and was shocked to discover that it was after three in the morning.

It was incredible that he’d dozed off and lost track of the time, but that seemed to be what had happened. Lorenzo frowned. He had been working all out and hadn’t slept much lately, but that didn’t usually trouble him. He checked the date on his watch, recalling that he had come to the construction site to do an interview with Maeve O’Neill. That had been first thing the previous morning.

He remembered arriving at the site.

He remembered clearing the crews from the site, giving them a paid day off so he and Maeve could chat in private. So he could show her what he was and beguile her to report what he desired, and do so without witnesses.