Inferno (13 page)

Danny smiled. “I do.”

He might even decide to stay.

Ben snuggled into the warm body pressed against his front. There was something calming and peaceful about knowing he held his mate in his arms, especially after so many years without Danny by his side. Ben tightened the arm he had around Danny’s waist and pulled him back farther. Sometimes skin to skin just wasn’t enough.

He pressed his face into the nape of Danny’s neck, drawing in a deep lungful of his strong heady scent—cinnamon and honey…and smoke?

Ben opened his eyes as he sniffed the air again, leaning back from Danny. He did smell smoke. Whether it was smoking meat, in a fireplace, or burning something down, there was no mistaking the scent of fire.

And there was definitely fire somewhere close.

Ben reached over Danny’s sleeping form and shook Abe’s shoulder. Once the man started to rouse, he rolled out of bed and reached down for his jeans. “Get up,” he told Abe as he pulled his jeans on and buttoned them. “I can smell smoke.”

Abe was moving before he even finished talking, grabbing his jeans off the floor and then pulling them up his long legs. “Go. I’ll get Danny moving.”

Ben nodded as he walked to the bedroom door, pressing his hand against it. The wood was cold, which was a good thing. He also couldn’t see anything coming in from under the door, but he still smelled smoke.

“Danny, baby, wake up.”

Ben glanced toward the bed when he heard Abe talking. For a breath of a moment, something deep inside of him lightened as he watched his brother gently wake their mate. He had been so afraid that Abe wouldn’t make it until Danny came of age. The bear had hung by a thread, the need to claim their mate overwhelming.

Ben knew he would do anything Danny wanted when the man opened his eyes and smiled up at Abe. The easy acceptance in Danny’s green eyes was what Abe needed to ground him. In one easy smile, Danny had given Ben back his brother, and that made Danny just about the best mate ever created.

Ben forced himself to look away when Abe started helping Danny get dressed. He knew if he continued to watch, he wouldn’t have his mind on what was important—finding out where the fire was burning.

And Danny’s safety came before his libido.

Once he was assured that there was no fire on the other side of the door, Ben cracked the door open and peeked out. Nothing. He almost wished there was a fire in the other room just so he would know which direction the danger was coming from.

A search of the apartment turned up nothing as well. Ben lifted his nose into the air and started inhaling small puffs of air. Too much would overwhelm him and he wouldn’t be able to pinpoint the smoke. He caught the scent and followed it to the front door of Danny’s apartment. A quick touch of the door told Ben why.

He hissed as he jerked his hand back. The door was skin-burning hot. He wouldn’t doubt one bit if there was a raging fire on the other side of the door, which was surprisingly made of metal. It helped explain why the surface had been so hot, but it also explained why the fire hadn’t reached the apartment yet. Fire burned through wood faster than steel.

Ben hurried back into the bedroom where Ben and Danny were waiting for him, both thankfully dressed. “We need to go. There’s a fire in the hallway outside the front door.”

“My neighbors,” Danny cried out. “Mrs. Morgan down in 2C can’t walk without her cane and she has a dog that she’d die without. They’re both practically deaf. They’ll never hear us yelling. We have to get them.” Danny’s face turned ashen white. “And the Gilbertsons down the hallway. Their expecting a new baby any day now.”

One part of Ben wanted to applaud his mate for having such a big heart. The other part wanted to carry him outside and forget anyone existed except the three of them. The tears glistening in Danny’s eyes told him which way he was going to go.

“Abe, take Danny out through the fire escape. Get him down to the truck and call the fire department. I’m going to follow you out and then go up one floor so I can get to the stairs. I’ll make sure everyone is alerted to the fire and gets out, even Mrs. Morgan’s deaf dog.”

“But—” Danny worried his bottom lip with his teeth. If it hadn’t been so adorable, Ben would have made him stop. But it was, so he didn’t. “You’ll be careful?”

Something inside of Ben shifted with the knowledge that his mate was worried about him. Even as confused and afraid as he was, Danny was still concerned.

“I promise,” Ben said solemnly as he took a step closer to the man that was quickly stealing his heart. He stroked a finger down the side of Danny’s high cheekbone, ending at the corner of his mouth, and then over those lips. “I have something to look forward to, Danny. I wouldn’t jeopardize that now.”

Danny blinked up at him. “What?”

Ben chuckled. “You, silly.”

Danny’s beautiful green eyes rounded. “Me?”

“Yes, you.” Ben leaned down and pressed a gentle kiss to Danny’s lips. As he raised his head, he prayed this wouldn’t be the last time he set eyes on the gorgeous man. “We’ll talk about all those things we have to look forward to once everyone is safe, okay?”

“That includes you, too, right?”

“It does.”

Danny drew in a breath as if he was trying to find his courage when he was terrified. “Okay, but I’m holding you to your promise. Break it and I will not be a happy man. I might be a pebble compared to someone built like a boulder but I can still cause a lot of damage if I’m pissed off.”

“I have no doubt.” And truthfully, Ben couldn’t wait to see a show of temper from Danny. It would be quite the sight. “Now, go. The faster you get to safety, the faster I can stop worrying about you and get to work.”

“My kitten!” Danny’s eyes darted around the bedroom in pure panic mode.

“I have her, Danny.” Abe gently patted his buttoned up shirt—his bulging buttoned up shirt. “I thought it best to tuck her away before she got lost.”

Danny’s shoulders slumped in relief and he gave Abe a look that Ben doubted he would ever forget, and all over a little ball of fur. It was pure hero worship. Ben watched something change in his brother’s demeanor as the man’s shoulders squared up and he stood a little taller. Abe had always been proud of what they did but he had never saw himself as a hero, just a firefighter doing something he loved. With one look, Danny had given Abe a gift.

“Hurry up, you two.” Ben grabbed the bags Danny had had earlier and handed them to Abe. He wasn’t quite sure what was in them but they seemed important to Danny.

“Oh, there are two fire extinguishers under the kitchen cabinet.”

“Two?” Abe asked.

Danny’s face flushed. “Better to be prepared and not need it than need it and not have it.”

Abe smiled. “I agree.”

Ben did, too. He ran and grabbed both extinguishers in the hopes he wouldn’t need either of them, but glad to have them in case he did. He might be able to minimize the damage to the building and help insure the building’s inhabitants got to safety.

Following Abe and Danny to the window that opened out onto the fire escape, Ben waited until Abe had crawled through and then helped Danny maneuver through the opening. He was going to need just a little more help what with his arm being broken and all. Once Danny had gotten safely out, Ben waited until the man had started down the metal stairs before climbing out and heading up.

When he reached the next floor up, he pounded on the window until a young man’s face appeared between the curtains. “Fire!” Ben shouted when the man’s eyes rounded with fear. He pointed down. “There’s a fire on the floor beneath you. You have to get out now!”

Ben growled when the man disappeared. He raised his hand to pound on the window again when the curtain parted. Instead of a young man, an older woman’s face appeared. She unlocked the window and raised it up.

“There’s a fire, ma’am. It’s in the hallway outside the apartment below you. I need you to use the fire escape and get out.”

“My son went to get his sister,” the woman said as she started climbing out the window in her nightgown. “She lives in the apartment across the hall.”

“Okay.” Ben helped the woman out onto the metal platform he stood on. “You head on down the stairs. I’ll make sure they get to the fire escape and then I need to alert everyone else.”

“Mrs. Morgan lives downstairs. She’s—”

“Practically deaf and has a dog that she needs.” Ben smiled when the woman’s eyebrows shot up her face. “Danny told me.”

She smiled. “Danny’s a good boy.”

“Be careful going down the fire escape, ma’am.” Ben gestured toward the open window that led into the woman’s apartment. “Can I go through your apartment to get to the hallway? I want to make sure everyone is alerted to the fire.”

“Yes, yes, go.” The woman made a shooing motion with her hand and then started down the staircase.

Ben climbed through the window, standing up straight just in time to see the young man from before come running into the bedroom with another woman behind him, a young child in her arms. Behind her was a man who was probably in his midtwenties.

“Your ma has already started down the stairs,” Ben said as he started for the doorway. “I’m going to finish alerting everyone to the fire.”

“There’s a fire alarm at the top of the main stairs,” the young man said with a small flush to his cheeks and a shrug of his shoulders. “I kind of got into trouble for pulling it a couple of times when I was younger.”

Ben wanted to say something to the young man about the dangers of playing pranks like that but the ashen color of the guy’s face said he got it. Too bad it took a fire in the place for him to truly understand how dangerous it was to pull a fire alarm when there was no fire. It also told Ben he might have a harder time than normal of getting everyone to believe there was a fire. They might think it was a joke and ignore it.

Once everyone had gotten through the window, Ben raced to the front of the apartment. The front door was open and as soon he stepped out into the hallway Ben was able to see that the fire hadn’t reached that floor yet, but it wouldn’t be long. Smoke was already starting to come up the stairs.

Ben hurried down the hallway, stopping to pound loudly on each door as he shouted “Fire” at the top of his lungs. He heard doors open as he ran down the hallway and hoped that people were actually paying attention to him. When he reached the stairs, he pulled the fire alarm and then kept going.

On the next floor down, Ben stopped and made sure that the Gilbertsons made it out before heading toward the flames he could see licking up the walls by Danny’s door. He set one fire extinguisher down out of the way and activated the other one, spraying the flames closest to him.

Ben’s gut burned as hot as the fire when he saw the large pile of debris stacked directly outside of Danny’s door. Ben was a firefighter and not a fire investigator but every instinct he had was screaming that this fire was deliberately set. Someone had stacked a bunch of debris in front of Danny’s door and set it on fire, maybe hoping to trap him inside.

Someone was trying to kill Danny.

“Watch Danny, brother,”
Ben said to Abe through their twin bond.
“I think someone set this fire on purpose, and they set it right outside his door.”

“I’ll keep him safe,”
Ben replied.
“You just better hurry up and get outside. Danny’s about to jump right out of his skin.”

“Just one more floor to go,”
Ben sent back. He knew he wasn’t going to make much headway in fighting the raging fire. It had already burned its way up the walls and was making quite a dent in the ceiling. It wouldn’t be too long before it engulfed the next floor up. Ben just hoped the fire department got here in time to save people’s homes.

When the fire extinguisher sputtered and stopped spitting out repellent, Ben set it on the floor next to the wall and reached for the other one. He sprayed the fire as best as he could but it was quickly becoming apparent that he was fighting a losing battle. The fire was bigger than a simple civilian grade fire extinguisher could handle, or even two extinguishers.

As the extinguisher began to sputter, Ben backed down the hallway toward the stairs. He wanted to give the residents of the building as much time as he could to escape the danger. When the second fire extinguisher finally gave out, Ben knew it was time to go. He set it down close to the wall so no one would trip over it and then hightailed it down the stairs.

Once on the next floor down, he banged on all the doors shouting about the fire as he hurried down the hallway to apartment 2C. He knocked loudly. “Mrs. Morgan, Danny sent me to help get you. There’s a fire upstairs. Mrs. Morgan?”

When he received no answer, Ben prayed that someone else had gotten the old woman and her deaf dog out but he wasn’t counting on it. If he left and the lady was stuck inside her apartment, Danny would never forgive him.

Ben checked the door handle. It turned but there was a bolt lock on the door a little further up. Knowing he had no other choice, Ben put his shoulder into the door and pushed with all his strength. He winced when the wood shattered, knowing he was probably going to have to replace it if the building remained standing.

“Mrs. Morgan?” Ben called out as he hurried into the apartment. The amount of smoke filling the place was not good. It meant the fire was coming through the ceiling. He needed to move quickly.