Alaskan Fire (51 page)

Blaze closed her eyes, each
heartbeat a nuclear explosion in her chest.  Her whole body was on fire, again,
and every one of her senses was zeroed in on the rough, male finger that was
tracing its way under her chin and down her throat.  He was so
strong
,
so perfectly
close…

As if to answer her, he stepped closer,
until his big chest was touching hers, and one of his powerful arms wrapped
itself around the small of her back, pulling her hard against him.

Even as Blaze’s mind did a
startled double-take at that, he reached up, slid his fingers through the back
of her hair, and took a firm grip against the back of her head.  “Pretty eyes,
too,” he whispered, against her throat.

Blaze’s eyes flashed open and she
looked down to see him looking up at her, grinning mischievously.  “That’s more
like it,” he purred, and pulled her down for a kiss.

Once again, the wereverine took
her breath away.  The touch of his body to hers, the feel of his chest against
her breasts, the inescapable pull of his arms as they held her in place, the
total
maleness
of the man holding her…  Again, she was made perfectly
aware of the fact that this was
not
a nerdy college kid with a hardon
for Amazons.  This was a virile, infinitely strong, perfectly potent
man
who put everyone else she’d ever had to shame, and then some.  All of it
combined into a hot sizzle ripping through her loins where they touched his,
until she was
thrumming
with the need to rip his clothes off and drag
him to the bed.  Returning his kiss, she started angling that way, until her
knees were touching the back of the mattress.

Breaking the kiss, Jack glanced
down at the bed behind her and wrinkled his nose.  “Yep, you peed it.  I’ll go
get the hot water started.  Might wanna get your pants in the wash, too. 
Pretty sure that’s gonna leave a stain.”  Then, as if she wasn’t standing
there, red-faced and panting, he turned his back and walked off, leaving her with
a cold plate of eggs and a pee-stained sheet, staring after him in horror.

* * *

“You smell nice,” Jack said
pausing in the hallway when Blaze stepped out of the bathroom—or the
blanketed-off area that was
supposed
to be the bathroom—fully dressed
and still steaming.  A bundle of lumber over one shoulder, he popped what
looked like a cherry into his mouth and chewed on it thoughtfully as he looked
up at her hair, which she had combed out and braided.  “Hair’s pretty.”  Then
he strode past her down the hall, his pile of two-by-fours swaying easily on
his shoulder.

Blaze brandished her brush at his
back.  “Now you’re just being petty.”

“Stop threatening me with your hairbrush
and get some shoes on,” Jack said, without looking, “Today I’m gonna show you
how to repair trusses.”  He popped another of the red balls into his mouth and
dumped his load of lumber beside a ruined wall.

“Are those
cherries
?”
Blaze demanded.

“Hope so,” Jack called, as he
picked up a pre-cut board and fitted it into position along the ruined wall. 
“That little tree you planted in the corner of the greenhouse is covered with
‘em.”  Sticking another in his mouth, he chewed on it as he arranged the 2x4,
then easily nailed it into place.  The pit, Blaze noticed, got ejected onto the
floor when he was done with it, joining a couple dozen others that she could
see in the immediate area.

I have a cherry tree in my
backyard,
Blaze thought, a little stunned. 
In the middle of winter. 
She’d
always thought she’d have to live in Washington to get cherries to grow.  “So,
uh, what’s a truss?” she asked, as she went to examine his handiwork.  She
nudged the cherry pits with her foot.  “Got any of those for me?”

He dug into his pocket and handed
her a palmful of cherries and lint.  Keeping one for himself, he said around a
cherry, “A truss is what holds up a roof.  Barn didn’t have ‘em, it had a
ridgepole with rafters.  The shop has trusses.  They’re the little triangular
things that hold up a roof.”

The hole in the roof,
Blaze realized, remembering the werewolves fighting atop the shop.  “That
sounds like fun,” she said.

“It’s gonna be a bitch.  Hand me
that short two-by-four.”  He pointed with the handle of his hammer.

Grabbing it and handing it to
him, Blaze said, “So what do you know about…what you said I am…anyway?”

Jack missed a beat in hammering
the board into place.  Pausing, he looked up at her, still bent over to reach
the floor.  “What, a phoenix?”  Then he gave her that little suspicious look
and said, “Or you talkin’ a Yeti?”

Her neck twitching again, Blaze
said, “A phoenix.”

“Oh,” he chuckled.  “Well, ain’t
much to tell.”  He grabbed another board and hammered it into place, then spat
another cherry pit onto the floor.

“Why not?” Blaze demanded, once
he was finished pounding.  “Seems like you’ve been withholding some pretty
important information.”

Jack grunted.  “Not my job to
tell you what you are.  Can you hand me that one right there?”

Blaze handed him the board and
reluctantly tasted one of the fruits Jack had given her.  It was
exquisite
. 
Nothing like the dull, tasteless cherries that spent two weeks on a barge,
getting up to Alaska.  “Oohhh,” she moaned.  “This is so
good
.”  Then
she jabbed a finger at him.  “And yes, it
is
your job, because I’m
clueless.”

Jack gave her a sideways look. 
“That happens.”

“Happens how?” Blaze demanded.

“When you die,” Jack said.  He
shrugged.  “You go nuclear, rattle a few tectonics, maybe leave a crater.  Then
you show up all fresh and new and cute.”

“The baby in the firepit?” Blaze
asked.

“That’s the one,” Jack said,
around a cherry.  He made a general gesture to her and the back yard with his
hammer and said, “The rest is pretty obvious.”

Bristling, Blaze said, “Enlighten
me.  Use small words, if you have to.”

“Hmm.”  Jack slapped another
two-by-four into place, then paused, leaning against it.  Frowning at her, he
said, “You really don’t remember nothin’ at all?”  His green eyes sparkled with
curiosity.

“What you see is what you get,”
Blaze said.  “I’ve been bigger than my classmates all my life, my hair’s got
that weird red-orange color that looks like a bad dye-job, and my eyes are
somewhere between yellow, orange, and albino red.”

Jack flinched, looking up at her. 
“Your eyes are blue.”

“Those are contacts,” Blaze
growled.  “You have
no idea
what it’s like to walk into Wal-Mart and
have every kid in the store pointing and saying ‘Mommy Mommy, her eyes are
orange
!’
while their parents are trying their damndest not to stare, but doing it
anyway.”

Jack grunted, apparently seeing
her in a new light.  “Orange, huh?  Well, that makes a lot more sense.  Hell,
here I was thinking you were a halfblood or something.  Orange.”  He nodded his
approval and went back to his construction.

“So tell me about a phoenix,” Blaze
said.  “What the hell is a phoenix?”

Eying her in between setting
boards into place, Jack said, “Very rare, for one.  Back in the day, kings and
emperors had groups of huntsmen out looking for your kind all the time.  Would
pay a pretty penny to have one caught alive.  Made really nice gardens.”

Hearing that, Blaze bristled. 
“And here you’ve got one making its nest right next door, eh?”

Jack eyed her warily.  “Yeah. 
So?”

Blaze deflated, realizing again
how alone she was in the world, and how little it mattered that she was sharing
her living-space with a cranky wereverine.  At least he wasn’t trying to sell
her to the highest bidder or something.  Hell, he even seemed bound and
determined to
protect
her.  “So they caught them?  To, what, put in
their zoos?”

“Uh, well…”  Jack flushed and
rubbed the back of his neck with a callused hand before peeking up at her under
a flop of black curls.  “Uh.  Yeah, they did stuff like that.”

“Stuff like
what
,
exactly?” Blaze growled, not liking the way he seemed to be avoiding the
subject.

“Uh.”  Jack wiped sweat from his
forehead and gave her a long look.  “Not good stuff.  Really awful stuff,
actually.  It’s why you guys never spent much time around people.  Got
dangerous if you didn’t have someone you could trust, what with the crying and
all that.”

“What kind of stuff?” Blaze
prodded.

He winced.  “Uh.  Technically, I
probably should’ve sent you packing for dragon territory the minute I figured
out what you were.  At least until you were awakened.  But Hell, even a dragon
would…”  He hesitated.  “Uh.  At least unicorns can disappear whenever they
feel like it.  The fey blood and all that.”

Blaze peered at him.  “I’m a
unicorn?”

“No,” Jack growled, “You’re a
phoenix.”

“Okay,” Blaze said, “So why would
you send me packing?”

Jack took a deep breath and gave
her a long, measuring look.  She could see the debate behind his eyes before he
finally said, “Because I could go out back right now, dig up that feather, and
force you to do my every whim for the rest of your life.”  He popped a
lint-covered cherry into his mouth and chewed it thoughtfully.  “You could see
where that might get unpleasant, right?”  He hesitated.  “Specially me bein’ a
guy, you bein’ a girl, and back then, all the rulers were guys, and they were
all sorts of interested in crossbreeds and that sort of shit.”

Blaze swallowed uncomfortably. 
She
did
see, and it was making her nervous as hell.  She had to try
several times before she could get her throat to work enough to say, “You’re
telling me that
feather
is a danger to me?”

“Not a danger, as much as
something to watch out for,” Jack said.  “Kind of like Spiderman’s Kryptonite.”

“That’s Superman,” Blaze said.

Jack blushed.  “Uh.  Yeah.  I
only had pictures.”

“I’ll teach you,” Blaze assured
him.  “An hour a night until you can read that book.”  She hesitated.  “Until
then, uh, I’d really like to know what you know about being a phoenix.”

Jack took a deep breath.  “Well,
you’re
supposed
to have a temple in Egypt, another in Mexico, and a
third in China where you all can congregate and learn from each other and do
your phoenix thing, but I’m guessing that you guys stopped doing that around
the same time they put out the Bounties.”

“Bounties?”

Jack grunted and waved a dismissive
hand.  “Catholic Church.  Inquisition.  You read about it in the history
books.”

“They wanted to kill…us?” Blaze
asked, frowning.

Jack snorted.  “Hell, no.  Sure,
with most, like the moon-kissed, they just wanted to use the magic in
enchantments and artifacts, stuff that would help them expand against the
pagans, so they bled that out of us.  Critters like phoenix and unicorns, hell,
they’d keep them alive indefinitely.  Probably
still
have some tucked
away, in odd places.  Stuff like that…”  He shook his head, then looked at her
sideways.  “You ever wonder why the Catholic Church is one of the biggest
land-owners in the world?”

Blaze thought she was gonna be
sick.  “They
bled
you?”

Jack’s face darkened.  “Some of
us.”

Remembering his former wives, Blaze
went quiet.

Jack popped a cherry into his
mouth and chewed on it, glaring at the pile of lumber he’d dragged inside. 
“Good cherries,” he noted. 

“Thanks,” Blaze whispered.  All
the different facts were slamming together into her head, making the world a
hell of a lot bigger—and scarier—than she had ever thought possible.

As if sensing her growing dread,
Jack spoke softly, “I’ve got your back, sister.”

Blaze swallowed against impending
tears.  “Why?” she managed.  “I’ve been nothing but trouble for you since I got
here.”

He much-too-carefully picked lint
from a cherry, then, once it was completely clean, handed it to her.  Meeting
her eyes, he said, “‘Cause I do.”

Numbly, Blaze took the cherry,
though she couldn’t bring herself to eat it.

“The ones that are left, we kind
of stick together.”  He was looking up at her tentatively.  “The old ones,
anyway.  Not like Amber…  The ones who know better.”  Then he made a disgusted
sound and his words took on an embittered tinge and he gestured at the woods
around him.  “But every year, a couple more of us die, usually to stupid crap
like this.  Cities are spreading outward, crowding us all into tighter
quarters, and the Bounties are still out there.”  He sighed and scuffed his
foot against the floor.  “Hate to say it, Boss, but things ain’t been lookin’
too good for the Home Team for a few centuries, now.”

“What’s the bounty for a
phoenix?” Blaze whispered.

He cocked his head, intelligence
in his green eyes.  “Same as that for a unicorn, last I heard.”

Blaze got a sinking feeling in
her gut.  “What’s that?”

Jack almost looked like he didn’t
want to answer.  Reluctantly, he said, “A hundred bars of gold.  Probably more
now.  There were a lot more of you guys flying around back then.  Hell, I ain’t
even
heard
of one for a couple centuries.”

A hundred
bars
of gold…
 
Blaze suddenly didn’t feel so good.  She knew from her Econ classes that a
single Good Delivery gold bar in the world’s gold reserves cost over seven
hundred thousand dollars.  “You’re saying those bounties…they’re
still
out there?”

For a moment, it looked like Jack
would lie to her.  Then, his face darkened and he snorted, “’Course it is.  What
rich fuck wouldn’t wanna have mangoes in December?”  Jack gave her a wary look. 
“Or everlasting health?”

Suddenly, it was like the world
had just collapsed around her, leaving her drifting in the rubble of What She
Once Knew.  People wanted to kill her.  Or capture her—Jack hadn’t really been
clear on that.  People she had never even
met
.

“Are you
sure
about that?”
Blaze whispered.  “That I am…uh…that thing?”

“What, a phoenix?”

Blaze grimaced, not liking to
hear it out loud.

Jack grunted.  “Pretty sure. 
Smells right.  And there’s the feather out back.  And you just about set me on
fire when you splashed those tears on me.”

Blaze thought of all the ways she
couldn’t defend herself against werewolves, dragons, and the rest of the
nasties of the world, and she suddenly felt very small and insecure, for a
woman about the size of Goliath.  “You said you could go out back and dig up
that feather and control me?  How?”

Jack grimaced at her.  “I ain’t
gonna do it.”

“
How
?” Blaze demanded.  “I
think I deserve to know, don’t you?”

Grunting, Jack said, “You ain’t
gonna like it.”

“Oh, would you fucking
tell
me already?!” Blaze snapped.  She jabbed a thumb at her chest.  “I can handle
it, okay?”

Jack grunted.  “Sure, okay. 
Fine.  You noticed how delicate I was when I carried the damn thing around,
right?  Like it was made of freakin’ crystal?”

She peered at him.  “Don’t you
dare
tell me that thing breaks in half and my spine cracks in two.”

Jack winced.  “Said you wouldn’t
like it.”

Staring at him, she growled,
“You’re kidding.  A
feather
?  My whole…
existence
…is bound to a
feather
?” 
She didn’t believe that.  Not a whit.

“Well, not all like that,” Jack
said.  “Uh, I don’t think it could actually kill you to snap it in half, but
it’ll hurt like hell.  Guess a good way to look at it is the spine of the
feather is like the bundle of nerves running down your spine.  Each of the
floaty little branches on the feather is like a branch of nerves running
through your body.  Except instead of nerves, think life-fire.”