Bound by Flame (6 page)

More than that, it mattered to her. How he felt. What he wanted.

Cynda took a deep breath and let it out, making the cream-colored sheets shiver. “I was thinking the one with the paint might have been—”

Nick cut her off by putting his finger to his lips. “We’ll talk about that later, okay?”

Cynda’s mouth tightened. “My silence does have an expiration date.”

“Understood. And thank you.”

“Family’s…important.” She gave a little shrug, and the sheet slipped down her bare skin, to the top of her breasts.

Nick’s cock throbbed, stiff and miserable in his jeans, and he had to force himself to pay attention to Cynda’s next words.

“Family is family, I guess,” she said. “Even if they aren’t what you want them to be.”

“Or who you expect them to be.” He centered himself as best he could, regained control of his body with a few mantras, then crossed to the bed and eased himself onto the mattress beside Cynda.

The urge to touch her nearly overwhelmed him, but he kept himself under the tightest control, even when she looked up at him, green eyes almost expectant, like she was hoping for something good.

Heat flowed between them.

He wasn’t imagining that. Nick was sure of it. His muscles tightened. His cock got hard all over again, this time a pulsing misery.

What he had seen in the alley, Cynda’s emotions, her interest, it wasn’t just wishful thinking.

I could kiss her.

I could kiss her right now
.

As if she could hear his thoughts, Cynda’s body tensed in anticipation, and it was all Nick could do not to bend down and ease that satin cover down across her nipples, her belly, her legs, slowly, letting the silky fabric brush her skin until he bared her completely. Left her lying before him, exposed and waiting for his lips.

But that wasn’t an option.

Damnit.

Once more, Nick used a few mantras to calm his body and restore his focus. “Speaking of family, firebird, there were more attacks against fire Sibyls last night.” He tried to keep his tone calm. “You’ll be needing some extra protection.”

“I wondered.” Her pretty mouth tugged into a frown. “It felt—well, personal, in the alley. Like I was the target. Because I’m a fire Sibyl.”

Nick felt some relief that she had missed the whole protection comment for the moment. They could come back to that when she got stronger.

As for the rest, he hated what he had to tell her, hated that the news would wound her, but she had to know. And he intended to be right here for her, every second, while she dealt with it. Whatever she said or did, he was man enough to take it.

“You
were
the target.” He reached to touch her cheek, but put his hand back on his knee. “And other fire Sibyls, too. Not everyone came through as well as we did.”

“Oh, Goddess.” Cynda turned on her side to face him, grabbed his wrist and squeezed, her green eyes boring into his. “Who? Where?”

Steeling himself for a possible outburst of emotion, flames, or both, he said, “The fire Sibyl from the South Bronx triad got killed.”

“Nori,” Cynda whispered, and let him go.

She rolled to her back and stared at the ceiling, tears flowing down her freckled cheeks.

Nick put his hand on her shoulder.

She didn’t burn him or jerk away, which surprised and pleased him.

“I’m sorry, Cynda.”

Cynda swallowed and nodded. Then she put her hand over his and kept crying, staring at the ceiling and yet obviously at nothing at all.

Nick let her cry. He knew she needed to do it, had to do it.

The way Sibyls interacted, they were like sisters and cousins. Each triad was family to the next. He respected that, even if he had never known a bond like that with anyone save for his long-dead grandmother and his twin, Creed.

Second by second, minute by minute, he sat beside her without interrupting the flow of her emotions—and he was watching when dark anger began to edge out the grief on Cynda’s face.

Nick understood that, too, and he welcomed the sight of it. That was the fight in Cynda. The warrior.

Next would come—

Fire exploded in a ring around Riana’s bedroom walls.

“Suck it up,” Nick said sharply, to get her attention. “Haul it back, firebird.
Now
.”

Cynda glared at him, but he felt the rush of air as she brought the fire under control, doused it, and absorbed the heat energy back into her body. Black streaks marked all four walls, and melted candles now dripped quietly down plaster and wood, spilling onto the floor.

Nick’s eyes watered from the tang of ash and flame, but he didn’t dare blink.

Cynda tried to sit up, but he was ready for that, too. He let Gideon join him, shielding him from serious burns as he eased Cynda back down to the mattress and held her there, all too aware of every inch of her body.

She threw fire at him, thrashed against him, but Nick wouldn’t relent, or let himself go past protecting Cynda from herself.

“Not yet,” he said, almost nose to nose with her, with Gideon’s echo in his words. “Rest until you’re healed. Then we’ll find the bastards behind this and roast them—together.”

Cynda’s warm breath spread across his face.

She was half snarling, half growling with the force of her rage and determination. Her eyes blazed as she said, “Swear?”

Nick heard the feral rumble in his own voice as he said, “On my family’s lives.”

3

“I don’t need a bodyguard.” Cynda stormed away from Nick and out of Riana’s kitchen, trailing fire through the air behind her. “Riana! Where are you? We need to talk.”

She stopped beside the communications platform and glared into the projective mirrors Sibyls used to transmit messages across long distances. Chimes clattered all over the brownstone, answering the hot whirlwind of Cynda’s energy.

The kitchen door swung softly on its hinges.

Cynda didn’t have to look to know Nick had followed her into the living room. He was shadowing her. Sticking to her like demon-man glue because Riana had
asked
him to.

I’ll kill her.

Riana knew Cynda didn’t need a complication—a distraction—like Nick Lowell beside her, twenty-four/seven.

Cynda wanted to scream.

Physical attractions aside, relationships never worked out in her life, and she sure didn’t need to start one now, even if it was just sex.

“Nobody’s here but us,” Nick said in tones so calm Cynda ached to roast him—tight low-riders, muscle-hugging T-shirt, black boots, and all. “Riana and Creed went for a run to the townhouse. It’s time for you and me to hunt down Max Moses before morning report.”

Cynda didn’t turn around. Her shoulders sagged as she absorbed the fire energy she’d been gathering. She felt unnaturally tired for so early on a Monday morning, and a little sore from the ordeal in the alley last Friday night. Most of her cuts and bruises had healed, but she still wished she could buy a new ass.

Sunlight streamed through the front door and windows of the Upper East Side brownstone, into the home that was no longer hers, but she barely had the will to deal with that thought. She pressed her hands against her flannel-lined jeans and heavy white tunic, trying to keep a grip on her emotions, just as she had been forced to do so many years ago at Kylemore Abbey, when her father gave her away.

Nick said nothing, and didn’t try to approach her.

A little coolness washed across the heat of Cynda’s anger. The man knew how to give space at the right moments, which was wonderful and horrible at the same time. One less thing to hold against him, one less excuse to ignore the wild sensations he stirred in her body.

Her fingers twitched.

She wanted to reach into all the sparkles of sunlight, touch the pulsing bits of spark and flame, and find some fire. She could taste its sweet sulfur tang each time she opened her mouth, smell its hypnotic, acrid scent wherever she went, whatever she was doing. Fire burned everywhere, inside everything. On good days, she took what she needed from the world’s ample, hidden flames, and that burning heat cradled her like a gentle, insistent lover.

On bad days…

Cynda closed her eyes.

On bad days like this, she blew shit up.

Visions danced behind her eyelids, images of fried clothes, smoking walls, singed hair.

She opened her eyes fast.

To center herself, she pushed up the sleeve of her tunic and focused on the tattoo on the inside of her right forearm—mortar, pestle, and broom, in triangular points around a dark crescent moon.

The mark of a Sibyl.

She was a warrior now, the pestle of her triad, not some shaking six-year-old abandoned because her fire making scared her family half to death. At Motherhouse Ireland, Cynda had learned the ways of the Dark Goddess, and fought for control over her own elemental power. The mark on her arm, the mortar, pestle, and broom, signified that Cynda had won that battle—mostly—then sworn an oath to use her weapons, advanced fighting skills, and command of fire to save the untrained, weak, and innocent from the supernaturally strong.

Not to blow shit up.

Especially her former home.

Cynda’s throat tightened.

Familiar scents of sage and apples, and even a hint of lavender made her want to cry. Her home. This had been
her home
. Now that Riana had married Creed, everything had changed. This little stay back at the brownstone just ground that point deeper into her heart, and made Cynda grieve the loss of her home, the previous simplicity of their triad and living together as a group, all over again.

She moved her gaze from her wrist to her palms.

Life’s no fairy tale and I’m no princess. Time to grow up.

Though sometimes, she really wanted to be the happy, blessed girl in the bedtime tales, the girl who got everything she ever dreamed of having, everything she ever wanted or needed. That girl never had to worry about being homeless or friendless or without a loving family. That girl never had to find the strength to start over.

Or blow shit up.

“You…okay?”

The low, rumbling question startled Cynda. Every muscle in her body tightened at the sound of Nick’s voice, but she still didn’t turn around.

She didn’t want to deal with him right now. She just couldn’t. Yet thanks to Riana’s overcautious worrying, she
had
to.

Instinct told Cynda that Nick was the type of man who would want pieces of her she hadn’t given to anyone since the night her father left her at Kylemore Abbey. And she never would, not again. That lesson had been learned. She needed to resist Nick’s charms, which shouldn’t be hard, given his stubborn arrogance and his tendency toward an absurd level of protectiveness. Like in the alley, for instance, when he had tried to keep her down while he did all the fighting.

Why didn’t I tell Riana and Merilee about that paint can?
Cynda tried her best to ignore an image of Nick, naked on his knees, looking at her like his soul had been torn in half. Then like he wanted to kiss her. She shook her head.
Why didn’t I insist we were fighting Astaroths, especially when they were targeting me
?

The image of Nick on his knees wouldn’t go away.

And she would
never
forget the look on Nick’s face in that alley, when he hadn’t wanted to fire on the unknown demon. Nick had already sacrificed so much in the battle against the Legion, and now he might have to sacrifice his brother, too.

A change in the air currents, an increase in heat and ambient bits of fire told Cynda that Nick had moved nearer.

She imagined she could feel the warmth of his breath playing against her neck, and she definitely caught a whiff of his unusual scent. That mixture of ocean and musk. Everything dangerous and intriguing, yet too vast to be conquered.

She moved toward the communications table.

Nick followed.

“I asked if you were okay,” he said. His voice reminded her of distant thunder, barely contained. Always so serious, and so brief.

With a deep breath and a mental push to repel any fire energy she might have gathered on reflex, Cynda turned to face him.

Nick stood only inches away. He gazed at her with his inscrutable black-diamond eyes, clearly waiting for—no, no—
demanding
an answer.

Heat skittered along Cynda’s skin, but she fought to control it.

No good.

A tiny hole opened in Cynda’s sleeve before she could pull back her flames.

The rest of her started to smoke.

Nick started to smile.

Damn him!

Cynda thought about setting his shirt or hair on fire. How funny would
that
be? But of course, the jerk wasn’t backing down. He was just standing there, wanting to know if she was okay, and he wouldn’t quit.

It was answer him or humiliate herself, so she said, “I was just—” Her voice broke.

Damn him
twice.

“Never mind,” she covered quickly. “Let’s just go. I’m fine.”

Nick held his ground.

Those black eyes flashed,
Liar.

Cynda clamped her jaw harder and shoved away heat energy. Hard. A burst of fire struck the nearest wall and exploded with a
whump
.

Nick didn’t turn his head. The meaning was clear.

I’m not afraid of you. Burn the whole place down if you want to, and I’m
not
moving.

Cynda’s eyes flicked toward the waning bit of flame she had thrown. The wall didn’t catch on fire.

When she turned her eyes back to Nick, her heart snapped and bumped like Pop Rocks pitched into a campfire.

Nick gave her a look somewhere between amusement and concern, and that only made her twice as mad. Her heart beat faster. She wanted to punch him. Grab him. Kiss him. Slide her heated fingers into his jeans and see what she found—and how he liked her then.

Get a grip. You
don’t
need this. You don’t!