Flashfire (22 page)

Cassie didn’t trust his calm attitude one bit. It was another illusion, but she was learning to look behind the mask.

Lorenzo had a plan. And he was going to share it with her. Unless he was going to do that flame thing again. JP had said it would only work once, but Cassie wanted another guarantee.

She lifted a finger in warning. “No beguiling,” she decreed. “If I see one flame in your eyes, I’m out of here.”

A muscle tensed in Lorenzo’s jaw. “I thought you trusted me.”

“You have a scheme. Until I know what it is, I reserve the right to not be beguiled.”

His eyes flashed; then he nodded tightly. “Fine.” He bit off the word and gestured again to the couch.

Cassie didn’t move. “Promise me.”

Lorenzo glared at her and the blue shimmer became brighter. “I promise.” His words were hard. This time, when he indicated the couch, his manner was more imperious.

He wasn’t nearly as tranquil as he wanted her to believe.

That was very reassuring. She crossed the room and perched on the couch, waiting for whatever plan he intended to propose.

She would never have expected Lorenzo to say what he did.

Cassie took his suggestion worse than Lorenzo had hoped.

“You’ve got to be insane!” she protested. “There is no way that anybody is going to bury me alive in the desert, not for one minute, never mind one month.”

Lorenzo gritted his teeth and fought for control. “If you would just let me explain. . . .”

“No! I don’t care what your plan is. And hey, I’ve got a passenger to think about now, too.” She patted her stomach. “Whether his arrival was planned or not doesn’t matter anymore. He’s here, so I’m going to take care of him.”

Lorenzo sat back. “So you won’t listen to the rest of my idea?”

“No! Forget it.”

Lorenzo inhaled sharply and schooled his temper. “The other option is that you remain here for a month with my father. The house is fully alarmed and apparently my father is more agile than I had believed. . . .”

“No way,” Cassie said, her tone filled with challenge. “You have to cancel your spectacle.”

“Nonnegotiable,” Lorenzo said without hesitation.

“I’m going to have to change my plans in the next nine months. It won’t hurt you to make some revisions, too.” Cassie’s lips set. “It’s only fair.”

“You don’t understand,” Lorenzo argued. “Everything has been arranged. It has taken almost a year to put all the pieces into place, and the fact that there’s so much trouble from my kind proves that I might have waited too long. The spectacle will proceed as planned. You can join me or not. It’s your choice.”

The fact that Cassie carried his son just made his disappearance more imperative. No one was going to use Cassie or their son as a point of weakness to manipulate him.

No one.

Cassie looked at him, her intense scrutiny almost making him flinch. He was aware of the crackle of the parchment in his pocket, of the dire prognosis in that prophecy. It couldn’t have anything to do with him.

Could it?

Even if it mentioned flashfire.

Where had Angelina gotten it, anyway?

“Wait a minute. There’s more to this than the illusion of survival.” Cassie was staring at him, and he could almost hear the gears turning in her mind. “It’s a
disappearing
act. You’re going to make it look like you
do
die in that car.”

Lorenzo was only mildly shocked that she’d pieced the plan together. He figured the moment he suggested she come with him, he’d given it away.

Cassie got to her feet. She began to pace the room in agitation. “It’s a vanishing act, isn’t it? You’re just going to disappear. You’re going to bail on everything and everyone! You’re going to start again somewhere else, with a new name and nice Swiss bank accounts.”

She nodded to herself, walking more quickly as his sense of vulnerability grew. “You’d have to do that regularly if you lived for centuries. It’s the only way to ensure that there are never any questions about your longevity. It makes perfect sense.” She pivoted to confront him, daring him to toss his secrets at her feet. “That’s why you don’t care what happens to me.”

“I do!”

“Prove it!”

Lorenzo couldn’t think of a thing to say.

“Of course,” she said, nodding. “You leave
nothing
to chance!” Cassie shook her finger at him. “Which means you’re not risking anything this time either.” She folded her arms across her chest, looking so determined and volatile that Lorenzo wanted to seduce her all over again. Her voice had dropped even lower than its usual husky tones, once again messing with his composure. “Especially not anything important to you, like your life.”

Lorenzo felt himself shimmering on the cusp of change. He was that annoyed and alarmed—and aroused. Damn it. He hadn’t expected her to figure out every single detail on the spot—and look so good doing it. She was everything he could want in a mate.

If, in fact, he’d ever wanted one.

Cassie tipped her head to regard him, fearless in challenging him. Her tone was fierce. “Who will be the corpse? Your father?”

“No!”

“You’re not going to just bail on him, too?”

“I have made arrangements for him to remain here.” Lorenzo didn’t like that plan any better than Cassie obviously did, but his father’s lack of cooperation had necessitated compromise.

“Uh-huh.” She gestured to the atrium. “What if Balthasar comes back? Who will defend Salvatore? Your dad looks like his fighting days are over, I have to say.”

Lorenzo’s temper flared. She was itemizing the weak points in his plan, identifying the precise areas that troubled him, and forcing him to confront them all over again. “He won’t follow the plan!”

“So you’re just going to leave him behind.” She gave him a hot look. “I have to say that I expected better of you. I thought you had some ability to care. But you’re going to look after number one, cut and run for your own convenience. You’re just like my dad. There’s nothing special about you at all.”

Her disgust was clear, and it angered Lorenzo. He’d seen how hurt she was by her father’s behavior and how deep the wound was from losing her mother.

He was not like human men, or her rat of a father.

He was not selfish and heartless.

And he couldn’t bear to have Cassie think as much.

It would have been nice if she’d at least listened to his plans to save her! Lorenzo got to his feet and jabbed a finger through the air in her direction, wanting all the while to do something better than argue. “I don’t owe you any stories. . . .”

She seized his arm, completely unafraid of him. Didn’t she understand what he was? “Wrong! You’re planning to fake your own death, to head off secretly to start your life anew someplace else, with as little baggage as possible. But this baby is baggage you can’t leave behind. What if I terminate the pregnancy?”

Lorenzo was shocked. “You wouldn’t!”

“You’re not doing a whole lot to change my mind about the importance of having more dragon shifters in our world.”

That was it.

“
Your
world?” Lorenzo demanded. “We
Pyr
are the custodians of the earth and the guardians of the four elements. We are the ones who keep the balance and ensure the future. You humans are the vermin intent upon destroying everything you touch. . . .”

Even as he said the words, he knew he didn’t believe them any longer.

But what did he believe?

He was talking about the
Pyr
as if he was of their number. And yet he had never been willing to follow Erik.

What was the firestorm doing to him?

He thought of the prophecy again—his father’s assertion and the fact that Marco had peered into his thoughts but had not wiped out the flashfire song from his memory—and fell silent.

Was the firestorm going to make a dragon out of him?

The idea astounded Lorenzo, partly because it made such unexpected sense.

“Vermin?” Cassie echoed, her eyes narrowing. He saw the flash of her anger and didn’t blame her one bit.

He had acted shamelessly.

But he couldn’t just abandon everything in a heartbeat, not after he’d spent nearly a year preparing for this spectacle. . . . He had to think. He had to regroup and modify his plan. He needed a bit of time.

Cassie continued, not interested in giving him one minute to think. “I don’t see you defending anything except yourself. Selfishness is the definition of
vermin
in my book.”

Lorenzo knew he couldn’t think fast enough to save the situation. “You don’t understand. . . .”

“No, but I know you won’t tell me,” she retorted. “And if you won’t confide in me, I won’t play along.” He admired that about her, that she gave as good as she got, that she was unafraid of him or his truth.

No. Lorenzo more than admired Cassie.

He loved her.

She was the one turning his world inside out, not the firestorm.

Erik, to Lorenzo’s chagrin, had been right that Cassie had already captured him. As much as Lorenzo would have preferred otherwise, his father had been right about his ability to fall in love with Cassie.

It was breathtakingly inconvenient. He could only have her if he trusted her with all the details of his escape plan.

Which looked a whole lot like repeating the past. Hadn’t he confided in Caterina at exactly the same point in his first escape? He could be setting himself up for the same disappointment all over again.

Cassie glared at him. “You want me to cut you some slack, feel free to share the details that will change my mind.” She eyed him, expectant, toe tapping, but Lorenzo couldn’t find the words.

It was all happening too quickly, the net of his assumptions collapsing around him like a house of cards in a stiff breeze.

Was this what Angelina had done to Salvatore?

Now that he knew her, what would be the point of his life without Cassie? He glanced at the painting of his mother’s home and a lump rose in his throat at the notion of his own future.

Alone.

Aging.

Fading, because the firestorm had come and gone.

“What happened to her?” Cassie asked quietly.

Lorenzo started. She must have followed his gaze.

Trust Cassie to find the heart of the matter. Trust Cassie to guess what he was really thinking. For centuries, he’d believed himself inscrutable and untouchable. For centuries, his shields had been impenetrable. He’d thought himself above it all, invulnerable. But it had only taken the right woman and the heat of the firestorm to prove just how wrong he had been.

Lorenzo couldn’t summon a word to his lips.

Cassie smiled, although it was a sad smile. The sight wrenched Lorenzo’s heart. “Right. You owe me nothing, seeing as how I’m just the vehicle to bear your son and human vermin besides.” When she met his gaze, her eyes were cold. “So, men are all the same, after all.”

She pulled her hand out of her pocket, spun his car keys on her finger, then turned to leave. “You owe me a car, so we’ll just call it square. Have a nice spectacle, Lorenzo.”

With that, she marched out of the room, fury in her every step.

Leaving a very astonished dragon behind her.

Cassie wasn’t happy to learn—again—that men took what they wanted, conceded nothing, then moved on. What a moron she had been to think that Lorenzo might be different. Humans were vermin, were they?

Well, bad things happened to everyone, but only stupid people blamed an entire species for their problems. Cassie was completely disappointed in Lorenzo. She’d been sure he was smarter than that.

She’d been sure that she was smarter than this.

She blinked away her tears, telling herself that he wasn’t worth mourning. No, what she’d glimpsed in him had been the illusion. His tenderness, his humor, his intelligence—that had all been the trick.

And the idea that he was bailing on the world, intending to start over somewhere else with all his money but not with her or their child, was just salt in the wound. She didn’t know that they could make a permanent relationship, but it would have been nice for him to
try
.

It would have been nice of him to care.

Cassie heard Lorenzo behind her as she marched out of his house and his life. She heard him calling after her but didn’t slow down. She couldn’t have cared less what he had to say. As far as she was concerned, he’d said plenty. To the left of the front door was another door. Cassie guessed that it led to the garage.

Perfect. She ripped it open, not caring that the security alarm went off. Lorenzo could deal with that—it was small potatoes compared to raising a child alone.

“Cassie!” Lorenzo swore and quickened his pace, shouting her name again. If he wanted something else from her, he could wait. Cassie hit the unlock button on the key for the car as she walked into the garage.

The Ferrari beeped obediently.

“No!” Lorenzo bellowed.

Cassie glanced back to discover that he was right behind her, shimmering blue.

Cassie leapt into the car, locking the doors as soon as she was inside. Lorenzo fell against the outside of the vehicle, his weight making it rock. He didn’t shift, but leaned close to the window, still shimmering blue as he looked to be wildly negotiating.

Well, she’d cracked his composure, at least.

But it was too late.

She knew he wouldn’t rip open the door: the car was too precious to him to risk damaging it.

Cassie, unfortunately, didn’t hold the car in quite as much esteem. She ignored him and whatever he was promising. It was probably all bullshit anyway.

Or beguiling. She didn’t dare listen to him, lest she be seduced by the appeal in his words. She didn’t dare look at him, lest he try to enchant her all over again. She knew he could get to her, and knew herself well enough to recognize that she hadn’t completely turned against him.

Cassie was pretty sure his earlier promise not to beguile her again was moot at this point.

He pivoted and raced back to the house. Cassie really hoped he didn’t have a second set of car keys.

He probably did.

She wasn’t going to wait to find out.