Blazing Glory (2 page)

He squinted at the warehouse in
front of him and the obscure, neat little sign hanging just above the
Skeeter’s
Morning Market banner. It read “If you need some
large-scale destruction, call the best magic outfit in the city. Call any
member of Havoc’s Crew.”

It wasn’t just a boast. The
freelance magic outfit was the best demolition crew in Lyon City, and the only
one comprised entirely of
elementalists
, wizards who
specialized in working and manipulating one particular element.

“Paranoid assholes,” Levi muttered.

He couldn’t blame them really.
Toting that much power was always bound to draw unwanted attention
and enemies.

Inside the warehouse, Levi lugged
his heavy frame past closed stalls and up the flight of stairs at the side of
the building.

The sign on the office door on the
balcony read Open. Levi pushed his way through, glad for the cool
air-conditioning and the slightly strawberry scent that wafted through the
run-down office.

“Can I help you?” asked a young
voice behind a desk that read “Heath Bones, Receptionist and Apprentice
Aeromancer
.”

Levi ignored him and addressed to
the two muscled, heavily inked and pierced men in impeccable suits talking by
the counter. At first glance, any normal individual would mistake them for
hired thugs, but like Blaze, he knew these men were
elementalists
just by the amount of ink on their skin.

“I’m looking for Blaze,” Levi
interrupted rudely and loudly. He had no time to be polite, not when the city
was on the verge of an undead epidemic.

“Who’s asking?”

Levi met hostile and unfriendly
amber eyes of the tall, golden-haired man in the chocolate-brown suit. His dark
skin was a striking contrast to the gold markings that wrapped across his neck
and dived beneath his suit. The air around them seemed hot. It wasn’t like the
heat Levi experienced when he was with Blaze in Schneider Tower, but a
different kind of heat, the kind that sparked and sizzled.

Holy
shit, is that electricity?

Levi tried to rein in his anger. He
may be a shifter capable of ripping these men to shreds, but these
elementalists
could roast him without batting an eye.

“Volt, I’ll handle this.” The other
man pressed a hand over Volt’s muscled shoulder. He had blue and green markings
and a much better disposition. He even held out a hand to Levi, who
distrustfully looked it. The man only lifted one pierced eyebrow but didn’t
comment. “I’m Gale. You must forgive Volt. Blaze is our brother, you see, even
if we’re not related by blood.” Gale smiled and showed him white tooth, making
Levi wary of the man.

Anger he understood, but this calm
temperament worried him even more. He’d known dangerous men like Gale. They
were calm on the outside, but storms waiting to be unleashed on the inside.

They’re
just being overprotective
, Levi reminded himself and reeled his temper in.
“Levi Black.”

At his name, sparks of golden
electricity shot from Volt and shorted the lights and anything that ran on
electricity. “You’re that bear shifter who left Blaze to die in Schneider Tower
a few months ago,” Volt snarled. Snakes of electricity curled up his arms.

“Calm down,” Gale hissed. “Havoc is
going to have your head if you short the entire warehouse again.”

“I didn’t leave the idiot to die. I
begged him to come with me. He fucking stayed,” Levi growled. He was unsure why
he practically shouted or why buried guilt bubbled to the surface. It took all
of him to hold back his bear. If he didn’t, the bear would force the change on
him and start mauling the other man.

“I understand, I think. Blaze has
always been reckless.” Gale nodded curtly, turning to the boy by the reception.
“Heath, can you take your mentor outside? I think he needs some air.”

Heath tentatively walked up to
Volt, his expression cautious, as if he was afraid.

“The
hell I will go outside.” Volt easily flung aside the boy’s arm. “This fucker
destroyed Blaze.”

“Did something happen to Blaze?”
Levi lunged forward without thinking and grabbed a handful of Volt’s shirt.
“Tell me!” Levi and his beast growled the last two words as one. He ignored the
little sparks of electricity traveling up his arm. Some part of him screamed to
be cautious and careful, but Levi silenced that voice.

Months of frustration, guilt, and
anger welled up inside him. Levi wasn’t sure why constant thoughts of Blaze
plagued most of his waking moments. Blaze deserved what he got. That should be
that. But the more Levi tried to erase the memory of that awful night, the more
it came back to haunt him.

When he found out Blaze had
survived, he knew he had to find him. Blaze wasn’t the only thing that
survived—the thing they’ve accidentally let out also did. If they didn’t clean
up the mess they’ve unleashed, the city would be in one hot mess.

Levi stared down Volt’s angry and
condemning eyes before finally looking away and letting go of the
elementalist
. Volt was right. He should’ve tried harder,
even if Blaze was practically a stranger to him.

The bestial part of him, though,
had recognized Blaze as more than a stranger. No matter how many times Levi
tried to deny the truth, it only steadily stared back him.

Blaze might be his potential mate.
It was almost ridiculous, because bears mated with other bears, but every
symptom was there. Blaze occupied his every thought. The more time passed with
Levi being apart from Blaze, the more his skin itched and his temperament grew
worse.

“I think you’ve done enough,” Volt
told him coldly.

“I’m going to find Blaze, and I’m
not going to leave until I know where he is.”

Whatever it was Volt saw in Levi’s
eyes made him come to some sort of decision. “If you ever hurt Blaze again,
I’ll
sizzle
you to a crisp.”

Levi growled at his threat, but he
knew the
elementalist
meant every word of it. Still,
his bear refused to be daunted.

“I have to give it to you, bear.
You have guts. Not many men could do that to Volt and survive,” added a new
voice.

The newcomer was similarly inked
and as bulky as the other two
elementalists
, except
his skin wasn’t just marked by one or two colors, but several. The spectrum of
colors on his arms and the several silver rings lining both his ears made his
copper skin and dark eyes stand out.

Levi recognized Havoc from the
promotional flyers. Like the smile on the ads, Levi knew the smile Havoc wore
wasn’t really genuine. Of all the
elementalists
there, Levi knew he was the most dangerous of the lot. Even his bear didn’t
want to tangle with Havoc. The beast knew it was facing a more dangerous
predator.

“I have no time for this shit. I
just want to know where Blaze is,” Levi demanded.

“Your boss, Dorn, told me why
you’re here. Guess he was afraid we’d mince his favorite thug up,” Havoc
commented, watching him.

Levi felt like he was being seized
up and didn’t like it one bit. After Levi’s major
screwup
in Schneider Tower, his own clan threw him out. Dorn and his mismatched crew of
outcast-for-hire shifters took him in and gave him a new job.

Before anything else, Levi needed
to clear his conscience, clean up the mess he’d unleash, and address whatever
there was between him and Blaze. Fuck, it was a damn difficult list.

“Yeah, so you know why I’m here.
Dorn says the city councilors won’t blame us as long as we clean up the mess.
So where’s Blaze? The faster you tell me where he is, the faster we can clean
this up and part ways,” Levi said impatiently.

“Gale’s scribbling Blaze’s address
as we speak.
A warning, though.
Blaze isn’t the man he
used to be, but I can see he’s in good hands” was Havoc’s confusing remark.

Snatching the piece of paper Gale
offered him, Levi snarled. He walked to the door and slammed it
shut,
glad to free himself of the sticky situation.

He sure as hell didn’t understand
what Havoc meant. It felt like he’d been assessed and had by some miracle
passed the test.
Whatever.
He was glad he was still
alive. Besides, he and Blaze had some nasty shit to deal with.

“Crazy
elementalists
,”
Levi muttered.

He looked at the address. Not
sparing another second, he shoved himself into his rusty pickup and drove to
where Blaze was holed up.

The creature they’d unleashed was
more trouble than Levi had realized. Blaze had been right all those months ago.
The thing wasn’t the average flavor of undead, but one that could make more
like it. It wasn’t a zombie or a simple ghoul. It was what the books call a
Biter.

Levi knew he and Blaze were in deep
water. If they didn’t get rid of the Biter and its horde of zombies gathering
in Gracefall, Lyon’s City largest cemetery, the city would have their heads.

Chapter Three

When pounding his fist urgently
against the door proved useless, Levi readied his shoulders and let himself in
via sheer force. The wood splintered and the door swung open, revealing a
darkened interior. There was still some sun left outside, but the apartment was
completely dark.

Fumbling against the wall, Levi
finally found and flicked on the light switch. Heavily drawn curtains covered
the windows. A shame, really, considering the expensive apartment building had
a fine view of Lyon City’s skyline and manmade river.

“Blaze?
You here?”
Levi hollered.

Crashes and thumps followed, as if
whoever was inside was shocked by the sound of his voice. “Whoever the fuck you
are, go away or I’ll burn you alive,” a cranky voice replied.

“It’s Levi Black. You might not
remember me, but I was the bear shifter with you the night in Schneider Tower.”

No response.

Levi moved forward, surprised when
his foot got caught up in piles of unopened mail on the floor. Further
inspection of the messy apartment made him come to the conclusion that Blaze
seemed to have abandoned the civilized world. Unwashed clothes and old take-out
boxes were lost among overturned furniture that looked burned and signed. It
looked like Blaze had thrown a tantrum.

One scarlet-colored envelope caught
his eye on the dining table, the only untouched piece of furniture in the
apartment. Turning the envelope over revealed the broken wax seal of the Lyon
City Council, the governing body of the city.

“I see you got the same letter,
Blaze. That’s why I’m here.”

“How the fuck did you find out
where I live?” The voice startled him.

Levi turned and spotted a man in a
pair of torn jeans and a hoodie that concealed his face, leaning by the doorway
of an opened door.
“Blaze?”
Levi frowned.

“I asked you a damn question.”

The cocky pyromancer he met months ago
was gone. The man he was speaking to snarled rather than talked, as if he was
unused to having a civilized conversation with another human being.

“I headed to your office and your
boss gave it to me. Look, Blaze. I don’t know what’s up with you and I don’t
care.” Levi gestured to the messy apartment. “But we need to clean up the mess
we’ve made, or otherwise the city councilors will have our heads.”

The last thing he expected was
harsh laughter. “I don’t care if I die, bear.”

“Yeah?
I
don’t either, but a lot of innocent people probably will. What about them?
They’re not involved in this supernatural shit. Do they deserve to die?”

Levi saw something on Blaze’s
hooded face twitch. His body grew still, and Levi knew he’d hit a mark. He’d
also lied to Blaze about not giving a damn about him, because with Blaze so
close, he wanted to walk up to him, grab his shoulders, and demand to know what
happened.

The only problem was
,
Levi had a feeling he’d want to do more than shake Blaze’s
shoulders. His bear wanted to make its mate all better, and he’d begin by
licking all his hurts away.
Literally.

“No. They don’t deserve to die,”
Blaze said softly. His hands were shaking, although Levi could see he was
trying not to show it. Something about his left hand felt off, stiff almost.

“So what the hell are you waiting
for? Let’s go. With your fire, it’ll be easy to wipe out this son of a bitch
Biter and his undead underlings.”

Irritation filled him the longer
Blaze just stood there. Blaze simply watched him. Levi couldn’t read him
because his face was concealed under his hood. Levi didn’t like that one bit.

He wanted to see Blaze’s face
again. More importantly, he wanted to see if his sharp tongue and lips would
taste as good as he’d always imagined.

“I can’t,” Blaze eventually said.

“Screw your pride, Blaze. This
isn’t time for games.”

“Didn’t you hear what I said? I
said I can’t,
not I couldn’t
.”

Levi frowned, differentiating
between his words. “What do you mean, you can’t? Havoc said you weren’t the
same man as you were—what did he mean?”

Approaching Blaze, Levi suddenly
scented the fear coming from Blaze in droves. It didn’t just touch
Blaze,
it was choking him and sucking the very life out of
him. Each step Levi took toward him made Blaze take a hesitant step back.

“Don’t come any nearer,” Blaze
whispered. “I’ll burn you.”

His fear was driving Levi mad. Rage
tinted his vision. He’d do anything and everything to rip that undead menace
and his minions to shreds for what they did to his Blaze.