Set the Sky on Fire (Fire Trilogy Book 1) (7 page)

A blur of flesh and green registered on her retinas. It charged past, narrowly missing her. Once her vision cleared, she saw a crouched man in front of her, facing away, his knees bent to take the impact of his sudden deceleration. Ari put on the brakes too, trying to keep as much distance between them as possible. The broad shoulders of the man’s naked back bunched as he drew himself up before turning to face her. His khaki cargo shorts sat low on his hips. Her gaze slithered over his chest and up to his face.

Two emerald green eyes stared back at her. His face was serene and his gaze penetrating.

The feelings she had attempted to hide bubbled up inside her, trying to break free. They were electrifying, but she wouldn't let them escape, not now, not knowing what she might find.

The first words he spoke to her reflected his concern, the soft notes dancing over the expanse between them. As gentle as silk, they caressed her ears.

“Are you okay?” His face mirrored the concern in his voice.

“Yes,” Ari replied between gasps. “I think so.” She wanted to stop sweating, stop panting like a dog. His breathing was even, and he looked spectacular. Ari gulped as he moved slowly towards her, his palms facing her as if a sign of surrender. The man with pale blue eyes was just as delicious, Ari had to remind herself, and he was dangerous.

“I'm not here to hurt you.” She couldn’t place his accent, he pronounced the ‘you’ as more of a yee. It didn’t matter, she told herself, willing her feet to take a step away from him as she regained control of her thoughts.

“I hate to tell you this, but using me as a bowling ball wasn't exactly painless.” Her body still ached.

“I apologise for being rough with you. It was a necessity.”

How was it that watching his lips form words could be so mesmerising? Ari had to make a decision. Could this man be trusted? Was he even a man? He had saved her, hadn't he? Her confusion scrambled any semblance of rational thought she had left.

What choice do I have?

“Thank you—I think.” She shrugged the compliment to him, not wanting to meet his eye, instead, settling her gaze on his chest. A stray thought popped into her head. She wondered what it would be like to touch him, to drag her hand down and onto those abs. She bit at her lower lip. Heat prickled her face at her outlandish imagination.

“Who are you?” she asked, snapping out of it.

He took another step towards her, arms extended.

Ari mirrored the move, stepping backwards, knowing that, if he chose to grab her, he could cross the gap before she could react.

“Let me help you.” He didn't try to get any closer. “I’m not going to hurt you.”

“Again,” Ari chipped in.

“Again,” he agreed. “We need to get you out of here.”

“No argument here.”

Ari gulped down her fear. She closed her eyes for a moment and hoped she hadn’t made a fatal decision.

“Who or what are you?” her voice wavered. “What was that thing that tried to grab me?” Then, with awe, she added, “how did you fly?”

He cut her off before the list of questions grew longer.

“Come on, I'll walk you back to your car.”

He turned towards the direction of the car park and walked away, slowly, waiting until Ari was beside him before lengthening his stride. Ari, hesitantly, fell into step. Her head faced forward, but her peripheral vision was on high alert for any strange movements.

“Well, how about I start with the basics. My name is Nathaniel but my friends usually call me Nate. “I’m pleased to meet you.” He offered Ari a hand to shake.

“I'm Arianna, my friends call me Ari.” She took his hand, surprised that it felt so human. The handshake lasted a little longer than it should, as she dragged her fingers across his palm, checking it was real.

“Good,” he said, a small smile shimmering across his face, lighting up his eyes, before smoothing back once again to solemn. “And I'm a sentinel.”

Ari gaped at him.

“People generally get us confused with angels when they see us flying around like that.”

“I can see why.”

“No wings though, see.” He turned his back to her.

Without thinking, she stroked a hand down his bare back, wanting to confirm what he said. His skin was warm under her fingertips, and the muscles were firm.

“Then, what are you?” she asked.

“I’m more like a watchman. I keep an eye on what’s happening. I’m here to ensure free will is not robbed from people.”

Ari had no idea what to say.

“It's hard to get your head around,” Nate said, filling the silence.

“That's a bit of an understatement.” She looked straight into his glorious emerald eyes, then, just as quickly, looked away. “What was the other thing that came after me? Was he a sentinel too?”

“Oh yes, him. No, he is not a sentinel, he is—a huge pain in the arse.” Nate smirked a little.

Ari turned and stared at him. He was making a casual joke about something that had tried to—well, she didn't know what it had tried to do, but whatever it was, it hadn't been friendly.

“If he isn’t one of you, what is he?” she asked.

“He is what we call a seether. Complete charmers. Lucky you caught him on a good day. He seemed to be taken by you.”

“No,
I
was nearly taken by
him
.” Having her life endangered had put Ari in an unreceptive mood, even for the hottie in front of her. “What the hell is a seether?”

“Nothing pleasant. But I guess you’ve gathered that already. They can sense when people are emotionally distraught. Then, they can use a victim’s own pain to influence them.”

“To do what?”

“To grow sadness and pain in the world.” Nate frowned.

“They can do that?”

“They can try. That's where we come in. We sentinels. We try to stop them. Have been doing it for years.”

“How many of you are there?”

Nate shrugged.

“We have been here so long I’m not sure anymore. We have scattered ourselves throughout the world.”

“So it’s not going well then,” Ari suggested.

“That’s a bit harsh. The human race has yet to be wiped out, so it could get worse.”

“They’re trying to kill us?” Ari’s body shuddered. “How do you stop them?”

“In all honesty, they are not all as ruthless as him, but they all have a common goal. If they can rid this world of some of its hope, they have a good chance of overrunning the planet and taking it for themselves.”

“Why? Why do they want to destroy us?”

“We’re getting into ancient history. That is a bit more complicated.”

Nate was trying to placate her. It didn’t go down well. “I think I deserve to know what's happening here, don’t you?”

He conceded with a sigh, “I have to warn you, it might not be easy for you to understand.”

“So far, this day hasn't been lucid. Just spill it.”

“I am not from here,” he paused for effect.

“Oddly, that’s not so hard to follow. The flying through the air thing was a bit of a giveaway.” Ari had already processed that little fact, so the shock factor he was hoping for was misplaced. He looked down his nose at her as if to say interruptions were not welcome.

“Earth sits on the cusp of two other existences, ours and the seethers’. Over time, evolution has occurred almost identically on all three of our worlds. But there are differences. One of the more noticeable is our ability to effectively move air behind us to propel us forward at faster speeds. This is what gives us the appearance of flying. Try and do the same in water, and we sink like everyone else. The seethers developed this ability too. We don't know why, but you humans didn't develop that little skill.”

“What? We're primitives by your standards?”

“No, no, that’s not what I’m saying. Different, that is all. We are two very similar species that exist parallel to your own.”

“Sorry, I’m just feeling a little protective.” Ari wasn’t making this easy for him. The whole ‘I’m from another world’ thing wasn’t sitting quite as comfortably as she had first thought.

“Your world, more or less, lies between the seethers’ and ours, like a pivot point.”

“So, are they all the same?” Ari asked.

“My world is bright, the atmosphere is thin and doesn't filter the light as it does here. This impedes our vision during the day, so we evolved other senses in order to identify one another.”

“Like smell?”

A smile spread over his face, drawing back full lips over a white set of teeth.

“No, it is not quite like that. You are confusing us with dogs. I mean emotions, feelings. We can locate each other by the feelings we put out. Humans put out those same feelings.”

Ari nodded.

“The worlds themselves are very different. For instance, mine has very little anger and suffering, whereas the seethers’ world, from the information we have gathered, is overrun with those sensations. Your world is like a buffer between the two, having both pain and happiness in equal measure. It’s like a continuum.”

“You say it like it’s a good thing.”

“Do not be so sure that it’s not.” He looked at her. “Anyway, centuries ago some of the scientists from my world came here to explore and research Earth in order for us to better understand our similarities and, ah, our differences.”

“Are you sure you don’t think of us as a lower species. We do that with apes.”

“I said we don’t. Do you want the story or not?”

“Sorry.”

“We thought there was only one means of entry to Earth, and we had it secure. We still don't know how, but there was a lapse in the lock holding the boundaries tight between all three worlds. A small hole opened up. We think some of the seethers upset the programming when trying to get out of their hellish existence.”

“To take over Earth.”

“We don’t know whether they were aiming for Earth or for my world. We just know that is their goal now.”

He turned his eyes to hers. Ari’s frown of concentration encouraged him.

“You are coping very well with the concepts,” he assured her.

“Coping with the concepts?” she retorted. “I'm tossing up whether or not I should run off screaming there's a nutter on the loose.”

“But you're still here.”

“I'm still deciding,” she laughed. Ari's comfort with the stranger grew the more he talked. She even gave him a reassuring smile. When he returned it, her heart upped its tempo.

“I hope some of this is starting to make sense.” He finally looked away.

“It shouldn’t, should it?”

“Do you want me to tell you more?”

Ari nodded.

“So some of the seethers escaped into this dimension. At the same time, there seemed to be an opening of the gates of our world. A few of us, researchers like me, already lived on Earth. Others, nearest to the rift, came through from our side to help out where they could and tried to close it. Most of them were security personnel who hadn’t been here before and up until then had had no intentions of visiting. Suddenly, the rift closed trapping them here. They tried everything they could think of to get back. We all did. Even for those of us already here, it had never been a permanent assignment.”

“You’re stuck here, away from your home.”

“This is my home now. I have lived here longer than I did there. This is all I remember. Fighting for life helps you to forget what it is you have lost.”

“When it happened, when you realised you couldn’t go home, you didn’t think about it then?”

“None of us had any idea that the seethers had come through too. None of us knew what they were. Back then, we didn’t know they even existed. At first, we thought it was some of our own, gone rogue. It took a while to work out they weren’t. We were too focussed on stopping them to reflect on whether or not we could ever get back.”

“How long have you been here? What are you—like, mid-twenties. It can’t have been that long ago.”

“Over 300 years, give or take. You start to lose count …” his voice trailed off, “… or stop caring.”

Ari stared at Nate in disbelief.

“How old
are
you?”

“Old enough. We age differently. Trust me, my soul feels the age. It’s tired, and it feels thin, but I can't give up until this is finished.”

“In all this time you haven’t found a way home?” Ari spoke softly, unsure how sensitive the subject might be to her new acquaintance.

“We can only guess, but we think our world locked down the rift, and it won't reopen again until the seethers no longer walk on Earth. They wouldn’t risk another breach, not if the seethers could take advantage of it.”

“You sound like you want to go back.”

“Three hundred years of walking Earth in near solitude, watching friends die, making new friends and watching them die too, over and over. It makes you feel that way.”

“Then why don't you, well, end it.”