Blaze (28 page)

Kira untangled their fingers, forcing more
intimate memories out of her head. "What's the last thing you
remember?"

"I was in a forest. Men were screaming all
around me. I was wounded, the pain in my leg was worse than any
other I've felt. I was a foot soldier in the Confederate Army and
the Union had just delivered us a harsh blow."

"Good," Kira said and patted his hand. He
didn't remember England at all—Kira silently thanked her good luck
for that. "The thing is, Tristan, I have a sort of crazy story to
tell you and I need you to just sit there, listen and try to take
it all in. Can you do that?"

"Of course, Miss," he responded before
lifting his hand closer to his face. He tugged at the wire stuck to
his wrist, the one monitoring his pulse.

"Leave that there," Kira said, covering the
spot with her hand.

"But, if I may ask, what—"

"Just listen, I promise I'll try to
explain."

Tristan nodded and set his hand back down on
the bed. His movements were slow and seemed slightly disconnected
from his brain, letting Kira know this calm mood would probably
only last until his meds wore off.

"You don't remember, but we've been friends
for a little while—good friends. I know a lot about you and I know
how you came to be here, in the hospital. But Tristan, I have to
tell you something that will seem a little scary." Kira squeezed
his hand, trying to provide an ounce of comfort. "We're in the
future. The Civil War happened one hundred and fifty years ago,
and—"

Tristan jerked into a seated position and
the beeping of the machines grew to a frantic pace. He squeezed her
shoulders, digging his fingers deep into her skin.

"What do you mean?" He said in a harsh
whisper.

"Tristan, please calm down."

"What year is it?" He said a little
louder.

"Tristan," Kira said, trying to escape his
hold.

"How is this possible?" He shook her, hard
enough to hurt, and an animalistic fear seeped into his stare.
"Where are my men? What did you do?"

Kira slapped him across the face. The sound
echoed against the sterile hospital walls and she stared at her red
palm in shock. She looked up at Tristan, who looked back at her
with an equal expression of surprise.

"I'm sorry," she said slowly.

"No, it is I who must be forgiven. Please
excuse my abhorrent behavior, I am just… well, I can't quite
explain it…confused, scared, lost…to treat a woman so—"

"It's alright," she soothed while taking his
hand, "I understand."

"I do not. How did I come to be here?"

"Let me show you something first."

Kira stood and pushed the chair aside.
Lifting her palm before Tristan's eyes, Kira lit a small and
controlled flame above her fingers, suspending it for a moment.
Tristan inhaled sharply, cutting the air. Kira sucked the fire back
in and dropped her hand.

"There are a lot of impossible things in
this world," she said before Tristan had time to regain his
composure. "And I'm one of them, but so are you."

"Are you a witch?" he asked, unable to hide
the current of fear and hatred traveling with that word.

Kira shook her head. "I'm a conduit, a
vampire hunter, and you were my friend—a good person trapped in a
life he never wanted."

"And what life was that?"

"You don't remember because I just cured
you, returned your humanity, but for decades you lived as a," Kira
hesitated, hating how crushing this word would be to hear, "as a
vampire."

Tristan flat-lined.

His human heart had had too much and it
stopped as soon as she uttered the word. His chest fell back
against the hospital bed, while his head banged painfully against
the wall.

"Tristan!" Kira jumped and shook his
shoulders, trying to wake him up. An alarm sounded from the side of
the room and the intercom system started flashing.

"Help!" Kira yelled, hoping the lightly
staffed conduit hospital still had some nurses available
somewhere.

Leaning over his chest, Kira listened for a
heartbeat but there was none. Forming a fist with one palm over the
other, Kira pumped on his chest to the count of three. She widened
his lips and forced her own breath down the opening, praying he
would wake up.

She pumped again.

His lashes slipped open to reveal nothing
but the whites of his eyes and Kira screamed.

"Move, please," a doctor charged through the
door, pushing Kira gently to the side. He put his fists on
Tristan's chest, pumping, while a nurse jammed oxygen into his
lungs.

"What happened?" The doctor asked.

"We were just talking, I was just trying to
explain…" Kira trailed off as the doctor continued to work. After
another round of CPR, the machine picked up a heartbeat again and
Kira instantly relaxed, trying to slow her heart to the same beep
beep beep of Tristan's restored pulse.

"Give him another round of relaxants," the
doctor told the nurse, who jotted a few scribbles on Tristan's
chart and reached for a shot of fluids. "Now," he turned to Kira,
"what did you say exactly?"

"I just," Kira walked closer to the bed,
lightly running her fingers over Tristan's still forearm, "I was
just trying to explain how he got here, in this time period. He's
so confused." She winced as the nurse sunk a needle deep into his
skin. "He doesn't understand any of this."

"It's alright." The doctor, blond and so
obviously a Protector, placed a hand on her shoulder. "It's not
going to be easy for him to adjust, but these things take
time."

Kira let out a loud exhale, "Have you ever
dealt with something like this before?"

"Vampires returning from the dead?" He
chuckled softly under his breath. "No, not in this lifetime. But I
have seen people with amnesia and memory loss, and they recover
eventually—forever changed maybe, but people have a way of
adjusting to situations that may seem insurmountable at first." He
squeezed her arm reassuringly.

"Yeah, I know about that—believe me," Kira
said. If she could overcome the changes in her life—the truth about
her parents, her heritage as a conduit, and her role as a
half-breed or potentially some angel meant to fall into
darkness—Tristan would figure it out eventually. "Thanks," Kira
told the doctor as he walked out the door.

"He shouldn't wake up again for a few
hours," the nurse informed her before following the doctor to the
exit.

Kira eased onto the side of Tristan's
hospital bed. Even though his skin had darkened and his eyes had
lost their striking blue hue, her Tristan had to be in there
somewhere. He would look at her with warmth and love again, and not
as a stranger or a threat.

"He looks pretty good, you know, for someone
who was dead three days ago."

Kira recognized that voice instantly and
turned to welcome Luke with a grin. He stood in the doorway with
his hands lazily resting in his pockets and his shoulders slightly
shrugged as though he were mildly uncomfortable. When he stepped
into the room, he looked down toward the floor, avoiding the
bed.

Kira thought the green in his t-shirt made
his eyes shimmer like dark emeralds, and she resisted the urge to
run a hand over the soft cotton. "Does he still think you’re a
demon witch? I myself thought the description was uncannily
accurate."

Kira rolled her eyes at the playful jab.
"You don't want to know what nicknames I have for you."

"Prince charming? Knight in shining armor?
Love of my life? You're not that original, Kira." He smirked,
looking at her piercingly under his hooded eyebrows.

Kira breathed deeply, releasing a shaky
breath, and subconsciously slipped her hand off of Tristan's. "And
you're no Disney prince."

"I know," he said and slipped closer to her,
gaining confidence with their easy banter. "Being two-dimensional
would totally cramp my style."

"Yeah," Kira started but her breath caught
when he reached his hand out to run his thumb along her lower lip.
Kira swallowed. "You don't want a perfectly packaged princess to
run off with?"

Luke moved his hand along her cheek,
stroking her skin until his fingers rested at the base of her neck.
He tilted her head slightly upward and forced her to meet his
stare. "I prefer my pain in the butt demon witch." He leaned down,
arching her head up farther.

"Luke," Kira murmured, shifted her head to
the side so his lips landed on her cheek. Even if she wanted to
kiss Luke, which she did, and even if Tristan didn't remember who
she was, which he didn't, Kira was too conscious of his body lying
still right beside her.

Luke sighed and pressed their foreheads
together, taking a deep breath before retreating a few feet away to
the empty chair next to the bed.

"So how is he actually?"

Kira appreciated the genuine concern in
Luke's tone, even if it were more for her sake than for Tristan's.
"Well, I told him he's been a vampire for the past hundred or so
years, and his heart stopped beating and he passed out… so, yeah,
not great."

"He still doesn't remember anything?" Or who
you are? Kira finished Luke's question in her own mind.

"No, nothing. But he seemed a little more in
control, at first at least. The nurse gave him a few more meds…"
Kira trailed off as she traced Tristan's body with her gaze.

He was fast asleep and not waking up anytime
soon, but what she couldn’t help noticing was how serene he looked,
even with all the confusion. His features had never appeared so
relaxed to her, not in all the times she had seen him sleep. It was
as though some invisible weight had been lifted, as though he had
been freed.

"So what did you really come here to talk
about?" Kira looked over at Luke, catching him mid-stare.

He opened his mouth, ready with a witty
reply, but closed it again. "The Council," he said and let his eyes
slip away to the window.

"Which one?" Kira sighed.

"Both." Luke leaned forward, resting his
forearms on his knees, clearly stressed out.

They both were. The past two days had been
taxing on everyone, but Kira thought she and Luke had taken the
brunt of the heat over the failed mission in England. Everyone
forgot that Luke had managed to save all of the locked up conduits
in the dungeon just because he had let a single vampire go
free—Pavia. He refused to put more blame on Kira by telling the
Council that it was her demand to let Pavia escape and instead let
everyone believe she had slipped away.

But the real stressor, for both of them, was
the Punisher Council. Never in Luke's lifetime or in his parent's
lifetime had the two Councils met in full. Whenever cross-conduit
business needed to occur, one member from each Council would travel
and make the necessary decisions. But a full meeting of all seven
members of each Council was almost unheard of—and they were meeting
today to discuss Kira's fate now that she had completely changed
the game by bringing Tristan back to life.

Kira swallowed.

Her hours of peace stowing away in Tristan's
hospital room were about to come to an end. It was almost time to
face the world and its consequences again.

"When are they supposed to get here?" Kira
asked.

Luke didn't need clarification. "Soon,
really soon."

"And what did the Protector Council
say?"

"They won't let anyone hurt you—I won't let
anyone hurt you. But they are concerned about how the Punishers
will act, what they'll demand. This goes against everything they
know. For hundreds of years, Punishers have been fueled by their
belief that vampires can't be saved, that their humanity is gone,
and what you did completely negates that."

"And there's more," Kira said. Luke
continued wringing his hands together and looked at her
questioningly.

"More than that?"

"Well, that's their argument for why Tristan
should die—that the evil will still call for him. But what's their
argument for me? I told you what that Punisher in the dungeon said.
About how he thinks I'm an angel that's falling and becoming an
original vampire, an unstoppable force. They'll want to put an end
to me before I have the chance to make that transformation."

Luke leaned back and waved his hand
unconvincingly in the air, dismissing the idea. "Come on, Kira,
that's insane. Anyone who looks at you can see what side you're
on."

"Anyone who looks at me can see my blue
eyes, or are you that used to them now?"

Luke scooted his chair closer so his knees
touched hers. "I see them. I see two bright and beautiful and warm
cobalt blue eyes that look like the sapphire heat of a burning
flame and nothing at all like the dead cold eyes of a vampire."

Kira looked away, her heart melting a little
under his scrutiny. "Yeah, well, too much sun exposure might have
affected your brain cells. Besides," Kira continued, not letting
him retort with any more compliments—she could already feel the
blood rush to her cheeks a little, "they'll say I'm too sympathetic
to vampires because I was with Tristan. Maybe they'll twist it
around so it seems like I wanted Aldrich to go free. I don't
know."

"But you've never once acted like one of
those things or felt any sort of calling like the Punisher
described, have you?"

"Of course not," Kira retorted, trying to
look angry that he even asked and not at all guilty.

Because, of course, she had.

During her fight with Aldrich, Kira had
lusted for the kill, a prolonged painful death, and maybe even for
Aldrich's blood. And that was why he had slipped free—why he had
the moment he needed to escape—because Kira had started battling
the demon inside of her instead of the one burning at her feet.
Since leaving the castle, nothing new had happened. But still, she
felt the change within her, the slight taint her flames now
carried.