Incendiary (The Premonition Series (Volume 4)) (72 page)

“And, you’
re
n
o
t down with that?” Russell asks
with approval.

“Naw,” I say
, using his drawl.
“They’re all just angels to me
. E
quals
.”

“Agree
d,” he says
with a nod.

We both fal
l silent then, staring at the flam
es in the grate that slowly begi
n to make me feel tipsy
with their hypnotic dance.
The soughs of sea air against the
windowpanes create
a strange
music that wafts
around me in
a blanket of comfort.

“I remember this,” Russell says with a heavy-lidded smile
a
s he gazes
at me from his chair.

“Hmm?” I ask
sleepily.

“I forgot how much
I like this…just this,” he says
, reaching out and taking my hand ge
ntly in his. He gi
ve
s
it a light
squeeze before he let
s
me go again.

“What do you mean?” I ask
with a
limp smile.

“Just sittin’ with my best friend, watchi
n’ the fire slowly die…” he explains
,
trailing off to relive some distant memory of us.

“I like it
,
to
o
,” I admit with
my eyes transfixed on the embers.

“It usually only happens later, when our passion for each other’s replaced
with ole bones,” Russell says and smiles
wearily
.

I smile
back
dreamily, “Either I’m losing my touch o
r Anya has eclipsed me
because we’re not aging.”

“She’s done
s
omethin’,” Russell say
s
. “I’m all snake-venom
and recoil when I’m around her—
ready to strike out at anyone who gets
too
close to her.”

“Yeah?” I ask as my eyebrow lift
s
in intrigue.

“Yeah,” he admits
.
“Then, when we
’
re alone together…it’s like it
was with you ‘cept,” he glances
at me.

“Don’t l
e
ave me h
anging. Except what?” I prompt
him.

“‘Cept I got those
butterfly thing
s
you
got for Reed
,” he replies,
watching me for my reaction.

“Ohhh,” I say
with a little smirk. “
Those. What
are they like for you?”

“Ahh, you
really
want to hear this?” he asks
, looking slightly embarrassed for having brought it up.

“Uh
huh,” I nod
without hesitation.

He exhales
a deep breath before saying, “Shoot, it
’s like…it’s like I’m prowlin’ ‘
round her,
so
full of wolf-fire
and raw emotion that I want to throw back my head and howl at the top of my lungs, but it won’t stop the avalanche of attraction from fallin’ down on me.
The more I’m with her, the more
perfectly
alive I feel and greedier I am for her attention.
”

I nod
my head. “Yep, th
at sounds about right,” I agree
. “What are you going to do
about it
?”

“I don’t know,”
Russell replies
, frownin
g. “I think I messed up huge
already. I treated her like a second-rate hand-me-down.
She hates me.”

“It’s impossible to hate you, Russell
,” I reply
honestly.

“Impossible for you…she’s doin’ a pr
etty good job at it,” he replies
with a sigh.

“Yo
u’ll think of something,” I say
, believing every word.

“My track record
’
s not very good lately,” he says
, eyeing me.

“Ahh, but you have the advantage, because I’ll bet that she has the same butterflies for you t
hat you have for her,” I reply
with a wry smile. “They seem to come in pairs.”

“You
think?” he asks
.

I nod
, adding quietly, “She’ll have to come with us.”

“We
’re
leavin’ then?” he
asks
me just as softly.

“I
’m not lett
ing them break us up,” I reply
sourly.

“When?” he asks, already on
board with whatever plan we make.

A warm feeling enters
my chest at his answer. “We’ll ha
ve to work that out,” I answer
.

“I hope it’s soon,” h
e sighs
tiredly, “bein’ here is exhaustin’.”

I yawn. “Yeah,” I agree
.

I close
my eyes against the blurring firelight, deciding that I’ll make an attempt to rise and stumble to bed in a second, after I rest for a moment.

The soft sound of a latch
releasing fr
om its idle mak
e
s
my eyes open
. That sound i
s replaced by a
low, enchanting
strain of
music wh
ose
instrument completely eludes
me
…maybe it’s a steel guitar
?
Glancing toward
s
the
garden door
, t
he purplish, bruising shadows are
being pushed back by a sliver of golden light, peering through t
he crack
.

A
warm,
sultry breeze, with the reminiscent scent
of sun-baked sand
,
creeps around me. I glance
to Russell’s chair next to mine;
it’s empty. Confused, I
si
t forward and
search
the room, but it’s empty, too.

“R
ussell?” my soft voice intones
, hoping t
o hear his reply, but nothing co
me
s
.

Slowly, I ri
se from the chair
and walk in front of
the fire to the garden door.
Inching it open
, I peek
outside. The rhyth
m of the far-away music softens
, making me strai
n to hear it as my eyes adjust
to the dazzling glow of sunlight. Squinting
against the glare
, the
moss-cover
ed
,
stone path leading away fr
om the door i
s the only part of th
e garden that i
s illuminated; the rest
i
s dark and shadowy night.

Prepa
red to bar the door, I hear
Russell’s distinctive laughter coming from behind the small copse of trees
where the
garden
path le
a
d
s
. I hes
itate
, but the humorous timbre
of Russell’s laugh floats
to me again, along with wood
land sounds of winsome
fauna
.

I open the door and step
through, my bare feet peeking out beneath the silken froth of
the
ruby
-colored nightgown
while
its
train
trails
behind me
. With each step I ta
k
e beyond the door, flora gro
w
s
up along the path, chasing away the hopscotch of dead leaves and replacing them with expl
osions of vibrant
greenery
.
My legs begi
n to tremble
beneath me
with apprehension
.

“Russell
, where are you
?” I whisper
cautiously
into the receding night.

All around me
, the lushness of the garden keeps gro
w
ing
as d
ewy vines sprawl
-climb
the slate-gray walls.
My wings splay
out
in anticipation of flight
while
their edges serrate
to knife
-
like points
. A shiver of fear erupts
through
me when a wiry rabbit scampers
from behind a white-petal tree blossoming before
my eyes; the
fragrant
shower
of ivory speckles the rabbit’s
brown
,
downy hair
.

Balmy air, filled with exotic, int
oxicating scents, gently touches
my skin, bringing with it the lulling melody. Resisting it’s calming effect
,
I whisper-yell
,
“RUSSELL MARX!” into the darkness just beyond the path.

“Yeah, yeah…I h
ear you
, Red,” Russell answers
me in a distracted tone. “I’m over here.”

I blo
w out a
huge sigh of relief and straighten
up out of my defensive posture. “What
are you doing out here?” I ask with irritation dripping
from my tone
.
“Is this your magic?”

I wal
k forward on the path and round
the
trees of the
small arbor.
Then, I stumble to a halt as my stomach turns
to ice.
Russell is standing
amid Faolan and Declan
beneath a lovely, pink-flowering tree
. The fellas flank
him as
Faolan shows
Russell
a wind conjuring spell—
twisting a dust devil in an intricate dance around the garden floor.
The wind harasses
a shower of soft petals to fall upon their hair and shoulders.

Declan and Faolan
app
ear
outwardly friendly, laughing
together when Russell
magically
takes
over
the whirling dust cloud and mak
e
s
it turn
in
the opposite direction.
M
y legs and arms
are
heavy
with paralyzing fear as I discard
several
attack scenarios in my mind becau
se they all have
the potential of
result
ing
in
Russell’s death. Declan, comprehending
my predatory watchfulness, put
s
his arm around Russell in a show of
camaraderie, or a threat to me, depe
nding on
the interpretation
.
Thwarted
, I have
to suppress
the
instinctive
urge to growl at him.

Reading my enemies,
they seem
to have changed their appearance.
Faolan, tall and slender, has lost his pale veneer, and now looks almost ruddy.
Declan, too, has a normal-looking skin
tone
.
As Declan
turns
with Russell
to follow th
e path of the chaotic windstorm
, my mouth drops
open, spying
silvery
wings slicing out
ward
from
his back in tall, arching lines. Declan’s
ears
also
look
f
aerie-like
,
with elongated points where they had
once
been rounded.