Seduce Me in Flames (38 page)

And yet control remained, she thought, as his warm hands curved over her bare skin. A different kind of control. The instinctual one she had told him she believed was there. It was, she realized, a part of the fire he suppressed. And because he had fought so hard to suppress all that part of himself, he had unwittingly suppressed the safety mechanism inside himself that kept him from unintentionally hurting others as well.

“Rush!” She reached for his wrists, her fingers trying to wrap around the thickness of them, trying to pull his determined, focused hands to a halt. “Rush, look what you did!”

Rush stilled, blinked his eyes and looked, seeing for the first time the ashes that had once been her pretty little under dress.

“Oh, no,” he whispered in immediate horror, “no, no, no!”

“Yes! Rush don’t you see? Look at me. Look!” She had to pull his horrified gaze away from the remnants of the dress down around her feet and made him look at her unblemished body. “You did it without burning me. And then you touched me right afterward. Don’t you
understand? It means you already have the control you are looking for! It’s as deeply bred inside you as the fire itself. It means I was right. If you simply let it come to the surface, stop forcing it down, it will regulate itself. Most probably with very little effort on your part.”

“It was never like that when I was—”

“Younger?” she interrupted. “A child? An adolescent? Show me any child or adolescent in balance with themselves with all the constant changes of growth and maturation. You can’t use your childhood as a barometer for what you can do now as a mature, disciplined man. Anyone who can keep all of this volatility under such tight control must surely have the natural strength it must take to safely manipulate the gift you have. And yes, I said gift,” she spoke over him when he went to say something. “Just as sure as your natural ability to touch me in all the right ways without any training and teaching is a gift.” Ambrea took his hands and put them back on her bare skin.

Whatever argument he had been gearing up for seemed to ease out of him the instant her warmth infused the tips of his fingers. And that was when Rush realized that he could actually feel the nuances of her heat. As a being impervious to fire and unable to be burned, he had also been unable to feel even the most extreme heat. But maybe this was part of what she was saying. He had forced himself to suppress his every natural and seemingly unnatural ability when it came to this mutation. Perhaps in the process of all that, he had numbed and dulled his own ability to feel things. Even these soft, exquisite things.

“How is it you can know me even better than I know myself?” he asked her as he watched his fingers trail over the smooth perfection of her fair skin. “How is it you can take command of a country after a lifetime in exile and do it so brilliantly? How is it …”
How is it
you are so deeply entrenched in a man’s heart when he barely even knows what his heart is
?

“You were born to make fire, Rush, either with your bare hands or the explosives you juggle so well. Perhaps those things you mention are the things
I
was born to do.”

His gaze jolted up to hers. She had not heard his thoughts, couldn’t have known what he was thinking, yet the truth rang no less clear in his head.

Rush pushed away from her, stumbling back in his haste as confusion played havoc with his equilibrium. His heart was crashing around inside his chest as he tried to look anywhere but at her, at how beautiful she was, at how confused she was by his withdrawal just then. Then she tried to rally her courage, and he was forced to realize that though she made every appearance of being steady and sure, she was still just as delicate and vulnerable as she had been the day they met. The only difference was, now she pushed past her doubts and fears and forced herself to continue onward. She had learned that lesson while in his hands.

“Rush—”

“No. I—I believe you,” he said, holding out a staying hand, keeping her at arm’s length while he tried to clear his head. “I believe you,” he repeated more softly.

Ambrea no longer knew what to say or do. For the first time in days, she felt at a complete loss for action or even thought. She was tangled up in the confusion of a body in need and a man even more so. But he said he believed her.

That was when she realized there was nothing she could do for him. She couldn’t push him over a line that he was clearly unwilling to cross. She couldn’t give him a faith that he needed to find for himself. She would need to mean far more to him than she did in order to do those things. He had very steadily made it clear to
her that she was a brief stop in his life, that all his devotion was to the IM and the family he had made for himself there. And in truth she had never expected anything more from him.

Had she?

Of course not. It was impossible and they both knew it. A Tarian as lover to the queen of Allay? Bad enough she was looking to him for protection. And whoever became the empress’s consort would be expected to provide future heirs for Allay. Ambrea was no fool. She had known the very first time they made love that his withdrawal from her had been much less about protecting her interests and much more about his personal dislike of the idea of procreating. And frankly it didn’t surprise her. Why would he ever want to pass on the very genes he swore to be the bane of his existence? Why would he ever take the chance of subjecting a child to all the pain and rejection he himself had suffered?

Not that she was thinking …

Ambrea hastily turned away from him, reaching to grab the robe that one of the women had left handy for her. Her unsteady hands craved occupation, so as soon as she had tied the robe shut she reached for the platinum goblet that Eirie had left behind. The tonic was still cold, a thin mist wetting the outside of the metal cup and getting lost in the sudden dampness of her palms. She raised the cup to her lips, but before she could touch it to them his hand covered the mouth of it, urged her to replace it on the table. He turned her toward him gently, a finger touching under her chin and raising her gaze to his.

“I’m sorry. I know I’m a mess,” he said, forcing himself to give her a half-smile. “Can’t seem to make up my mind, can I? One moment I’m indulging in everything about you that makes me feel so much, and then the next I’m—”

“It’s all right,” she said softly. “I understand. I overstep myself. I take advantage of the intimacy you’ve been forced into because I know your secret.”

“Forced intimacy?” He frowned so deeply and darkly that she felt a frisson of fear touch her spine.

“I meant you were forced to me, not that I was forced to you,” she hastily made sure to clarify.

“I know what you meant,” he snapped. “Is that what you think? That I’m using you for the sake of convenience?”

“Not so much using as taking advantage of an opportunity. And after all, isn’t that what all love affairs are?” She tried to turn away but he held tight, refusing to let her.

But Rush didn’t know why he wouldn’t let go. What she was saying made sense. It was the perfect escape clause. It freed him from everything. It kept their relationship on the logical ground it belonged on.

So why did he want to shake the hell out of her? Yell at her? And what would he demand from her? Nothing. He could ask for nothing because he knew he could give nothing she needed in return.

“Rush, you’re too close,” she said suddenly, refocusing his attention on her face. She was perspiring, he realized. In his temper he must have been generating too much heat. And yet she wasn’t pushing his hands away, wasn’t being burned by his touch on her face. Maybe she was right. Maybe he could control this thing even when his emotions were out of his control. Maybe that came more naturally to him than he was giving himself credit for.

Still, he was generating too much heat for her, so he stepped back because he didn’t know how not to without dumping a bucket of water over his head.

Ambrea fanned herself with her hand, trying to cool
herself as she pulled at the collar of her robe. And that was when he saw the red flush of her skin. Not on her face and neck, but from the collar of the robe downward, over her shoulder and chest. No sooner did he notice it than she gasped, pulled on the material some more, and looked at him in confusion.

“You’re burning me!”

And for the first time in his life, Rush was absolutely positive he was under complete and easy control of himself. He was in no way burning her. But he also became aware of something in his senses clicking to attention, becoming aware of the rising heat of her body. But all of it was taking place from her neck downward. Clarity and understanding came the very instant she started to scream.

Ambrea was on fire. There were no flames she could see, but she was burning as savagely as if she were. She screamed as sudden pain ripped through her, the burn coming everywhere at once. She began to frantically rip at her robe, trying to see the source of the fire on her skin. In her panic she couldn’t seem to act. Her hands were numb and clumsy. Nothing she did was helping. She ripped away from the man she thought was the cause and stumbled blindly for the only source of relief she could think of.

Water.

“No! No!”

He locked his hands onto her, holding her as she screamed from the pain blistering all over her skin. She fought him madly, not even realizing he was grabbing for the tie to her robe, trying to unknot it. Finally with a curse of frustration he burned through it, the softer, plusher fabric much more dangerous to do that with because he could indeed end up setting her on fire. But there was no time to think about it, no time to worry
about
his
fire because something
else
entirely had a scorching hold on her.

He stripped her robe off just as the outer doors to her chamber were flung open. The guard she had handpicked to help Rush protect her came barreling in and saw her fighting him off, saw her screaming as he locked an arm around her waist and yanked her close to his body, forcibly keeping her away from the water she was seeking.

“Release her!” the guard demanded, not caring that Rush was nearly twice his size and for all purposes his highest superior next to her. Ambrea’s screams were climbing over one another. Rush didn’t have time to explain himself. He was positive that Ambrea was on the verge of death, and as he watched her skin blister and bubble right before his eyes, he thought he was watching her die.

He didn’t think. He couldn’t think. The years of training he’d had keeping a cool head as all hell broke out around him seemed to evaporate. None of it helped him. None of it could.

The woman he had fallen in love with needed him. Needed something more than the steel-spined soldier in him.

Rush closed his eyes and exhaled.

Durbin Cara, the guard who had burst into the room, was about to open fire on the Tarian man when suddenly the force of an explosion struck the room, the epicenter of it the place where his empress had been held imprisoned in his general’s arms only an instant ago. Fire roiled out toward him in a mushrooming cloud, and he hit the deck in an effort to avoid it. As it blanketed mere inches above his head, it also dissipated and then almost as fast as it began it disappeared. When Durbin dared to peer up again, the entire room was
black with soot, except for the spot on the floor where he had been lying, he noted as he got to his feet.

The general and the empress were gone.

Eirie ducked around the corner of the hallway, her heart racing with joy. The pandemonium taking place in the royal quarters was all she had needed to see to know that her well-laid plans had finally come to fruition. Curta’s poisons never failed, although this one was far more obvious than the others had been. But Suna had laid that robe in the empress’s path, as Eirie was very willing to testify. And it would be the truth of the matter. Blame and suspicion would fall squarely on Suna’s head. Perhaps Eirie would enrich the accusations to come by mentioning Suna’s discontent and jealousy. That part would be a lie, of course, but who was there to say otherwise? In the face of such evidence, the death of the Empress of Allay would be unsurprising and such a tragedy, but would in no way cloud Balkin’s immediate rise to power.

Eirie laughed and moved quickly down the hall to seek out Curta and thank her. Perhaps when Eirie became empress, she would elevate the witch to the status of her personal advisor.

It was the very least she could do.

Otherwise she would have to kill her because she knew far too much.

Bronse was pacing the open areas of the medical bay, not doing a very good job of waiting while Jet and Ophelia took their time balancing Ravenna’s hormones. Their success was measured by the occasional plaintive cries of his wife from the diagnosis bed asking him to—well, the host of ideas and choices was far too revealing of their sex life in mixed company. He was rather grateful that Jet and Rave’s little sister pretended that they weren’t hearing a single word of it.

Then, suddenly, there was a percussive explosion. After he slid down the wall he was thrown off his feet and into a nearby wall. Everything that wasn’t fastened down went flying, crashing and breaking and becoming dangerous projectiles. He managed to crouch, making himself as small as possible as a matter of instinct, and instantly looked for Rave. All three of the occupants of her care bay had been thrown aside like paper dolls. He would have run to her side, but the explosion wasn’t over. The power of it continued to press against him, on and on in a way he couldn’t understand. This was like no explosion he had ever experienced.