Fire and Flame (4 page)

Sara snapped her focus back to the windshield. What the future held for her was worrying. Life had been exciting days ago when she’d thought she had her father’s support to carry her through into her amazing new career. Now it was frightening because she didn’t. And it was frightening because leaving Indiana would be a necessity rather than a privilege.

Brent was not about to let her leave.

He didn’t have to speak the words. She knew.

Sara wasn’t going to stay in a situation that would make her miserable. And Brent would. He could never make her happy.

Her only hope would be to find a position with someone more powerful than Brent. She prayed the high priestess over the Hudson region was willing to take her on. Sara would finish the campaign she’d begun in her junior year as soon as she could escape her father’s guard dog.

Chapter Four

By the time the third hour passed, it had begun to bother Brent that Sara hadn’t shed a single tear. He’d slept on and off, not because he’d wanted to but because he’d been awake for the past seventy-two hours straight. But he was a light sleeper. The only noise that had come out of her during the past hundred and eighty minutes were irritated snuffles.

She’d loved her father. So why hadn’t she cried for her loss?

And had she truly left behind a boy who claimed to love her after a mere half-hour long goodbye?

Though the thought of the shower she’d taken sent a flare of burning jealousy within him, he couldn’t stop the consideration of how he would have reacted if she’d done it to him.

Brent would have destroyed the campus.

“Pull over at the next exit,” he snapped.

Sara’s attention shot in his direction as a startled noise escaped her. She’d thought he’d been asleep. He wished he could have snoozed longer than a handful of minutes. It was impossible with her so near.

Brent hadn’t been alone in her company for longer than a half hour since he’d met her. Those instances had usually been when Fintan had asked him to drive his daughter on errands. Rides in the car were the only times she’d been unable to come up with an excuse to avoid him. She couldn’t avoid him now.

Sara didn’t argue that she’d already stopped for gas an hour ago. She pulled into a travel plaza filled with eighteen-wheelers, RVs, and handfuls of other travelers on four wheels. Brent knew he was giving her a chance to strand him when he pulled himself out of her car. He’d take the chance. If he didn’t get a few minutes away from her to clear his head, he was going to do something rash.

Being civil to her took a considerable effort. Or rather, holding his tongue had made the muscles in his cheeks ache. He wouldn’t have bothered controlling himself if Fintan waited for her at home.

The situation would have been improved if she’d at least behave as if her beloved father were gone. A few tears would soften Brent’s ire. At least if she were crying he could abide behaving like a coward. Now he only did it out of respect for her father when he’d much rather shout at her to at least act as if she had a heart in that beautiful body of hers.

Brent shot out of the car the first chance he got. He charged down the sidewalk into the glorified gas station’s interior. There he found the restroom, and then locked himself in a stall.

He opened his consciousness to the aether, drawing in a bud of Fire magic into his hand. The heat sliding along his palm provided little of its usual comfort. Brent hurled the flame into the clear water within the surprisingly clean commode. The bud hit, sizzling into a puff of smoke. It wasn’t satisfying in the least.

Repeating the action until the toilet water simmered slowly eased some of his irritation. Wisps of heat floated above the ceramic. He held his hands over the top, feeling the heat he’d created. With a shaking breath, he flushed it so he could do his business without fear of being scalded.

Brent washed up despite only partially exercising his frustration. He stared into the mirror noting the deep creases in his forehead and the crevices around his eyes and mouth.

She
did this to him.

And he didn’t even have the outlet of shouting at her. Maybe he should have trusted her to drive herself home.

But no. Sara never would have packed all of her things unless he’d overseen it.

And she’d flee Indiana the first chance she got. He’d have to persuade her otherwise. Brent hoped her respect for her father’s memory and the sense of duty bred into her since birth would be enough because he certainly had never had any control over Sara McKenna.

****

The scent of smoke tickled Sara’s nose when Brent threw himself into the passenger seat five minutes after she’d returned from buying them drinks. She’d never known him to smoke and the scent was unlike any tobacco she’d ever come in contact with. He smelled like fire.

Brent had been using his magic. Inside a roadside gas station. She bit down on the question of his sanity. She already knew the answer. He was ruthlessly sane.

He wouldn’t have used magic unless he’d deemed it necessary. Had someone tried to attack him? Or was the reason more insidious?

From the way he sat against the car door as far as he could go without being on the outside
,
she wondered if the silence had weighed heavily on him. It weighed on her even though the ride had been quiet while he slept. Sara had been no more relaxed than she would have been if he’d ranted at her. Perhaps it was time to see if Brent needed to shout.

She put the car in reverse without pointing out the Pepsi she’d bought him. He noted it anyway. Knowing she’d bought the strawberry kiwi juice for herself, Brent took the soda in his hands, quickly cracking the cap, and then greedily gulped it down. Sara waited until she’d merged onto the highway before speaking her fear.

“You smell like smoke,” she said with derisive emphasis on the final word. “Did you take up a bad habit?”

He snorted, a rough sardonic sound. Sara sent a glance at him. Brent shook his head before setting it atop his palm against the window.

“Well?” She demanded impatiently when he offered up no explanation.

“I’m not smoking cigarettes.”

The answer proved he’d behaved foolishly. Once again, she focused a little of her attention on the aether around them. If he decided to call on Fire in the car, she wanted warning.

Sara continued in her most confrontational of tones. “I can’t believe you used magic in a gas station! What if you were caught?”

“I wasn’t,” he quickly retorted.

She shook her head in slow dismay. “Daddy never would have done something like that.”

“There is a lot your father wouldn’t have done that I would.”

Sara didn’t like his answer. It sounded darker than the steady tone he’d employed. What would Brent do now that he was high priest?

She glanced over again. His eyes were closed just as they had been the first three hours of the drive. But his lips were pressed thin and the muscle in his cheek pulsed. He definitely wasn’t sleeping this time.

“He was your mentor,” Sara said. “You were supposed to learn from him.”

“I thought the only thing I was supposed to do was guard him.” He opened a single eye and glared at her. “You called me his guard dog often enough.”

“Maybe if you hadn’t acted like a dog—”

“How did I act like a dog? Did I hump every bitch in sight?”

No.

Sara had heard several rumors that he’d been involved with this girl or that. Only one witch had ever come forward with definitive proof: one of his T-shirts. However, Brent had been seen often enough with
human
girls.

Nevertheless, she had an answer for him. “You barked at everyone who looked at you funny. And you sat at your master’s feet like he could do no wrong.”

“As far as I’m concerned he never did,” was Brent’s sharp retort. “Do you believe otherwise? Is that why you haven’t shed a single damn tear for his passing?”

Sara’s back lifted straight as if someone had tightened the winch of her spine. “How I grieve for Daddy is none of your business—”

“Everything is my business now.”

Her jaw dropped open clear to her collar at his dark response. Sara hadn’t expected him to boss her around this soon. She’d thought he’d at least wait until after the funeral. “If you think your new position is going to make me listen to you anymore-”

Sara’s words halted in mid-sentence when something tickled her consciousness—an unfamiliar sensation like a vacuum sucking the air out of the Lexus’s cabin. Instinct put her on high alert.

“I don’t think it. I know it,” Brent continued the argument, proving whatever she felt wasn’t his doing.

A flare of orange in the rearview mirror sent Sara’s heart hammering. “Hold on,” she shouted as she twisted the wheel to the right. The vehicle barreled off the exit a mere hundred feet from them.

Brent bolted upright in the leaned bucket seat. “What the hell are you doing?” He reached for the steering wheel until something in the mirror caught his attention. “Phoenix,” he snarled even as his eyes fixed forward. “It’s a trap, Sara.”

“I know,” she admitted because now that she saw the pickup truck waiting in the dark, she
did
. “But we can’t get into a Fire fight on the highway without getting into serious trouble!”

This time when he reached for the steering wheel, he didn’t hesitate to yank it from her. “Keep your foot on the gas but put your head down.”

“I’m not hiding in the floorboards while you fight them!”

“And I’m not arguing with you when we’re surrounded!” Furious crimson rose in his cheeks as he glanced at her determined expression. “Just do what I say for once in your life!”

“I can syphon if you’ll let me,” Sara argued even as she put her head down. She found herself hunched over the center console toward Brent in her effort to follow his order.

He shot a startled look down when her head brushed his arm. “What are you…?” Brent gave a rough shake of his head, and then focused on the problem at hand. “Pull your foot off the gas and apply the break.” His attention returned to the trap. “Sara, I can’t think with you like that!”

Rather than consider why that was, she repeated herself. “Let me syphon, Brent.” She pushed up his sleeve so she could press her skin to his.

“Whatever,” he responded with a flustered tone as he put the car in park and jabbed the button, lowering the window. “Just keep your head down.”

They were sitting ducks in the car with witches surrounding them. But they’d be more vulnerable outside without the tentative armor of a heavy vehicle.

Sara concentrated her attention on the aether. She sensed two witches drawing power several feet ahead. No doubt they were preparing an attack. A third at their back spun a small thread of magic. Frantically she stole all of the energy she could access, allowing it to well up within the bud that held her power. And then she willed it into Brent. As soon as she’d emptied space within the bud, she drew in more energy to take its place.

“By the Phoenix,” Brent muttered under his breath in an awed tone.

Orange flared in the distance. Brent’s opposite hand lifted, focusing a blast of Fire at the attackers. An explosion struck the road ahead. Sizzling yellow light ripped through the darkness.

Sara sensed a pull on the aether in the distance. Brent had missed. Surely her father’s guard dog had better aim and control than he’d shown. Had he aimed his attack at the incoming missiles rather than the casters?

If he’d let her
see,
she had a good chance of robbing their attackers of their magical fuel. She’d never practiced without line of sight. In truth, she’d rarely practiced anything like this.

“Get in your cars and go home,” Brent called out the window. “No one has to die tonight!”

“One arrogant upstart and a cowering princess don’t scare us!”

That answer didn’t bode well. These people knew exactly who was in the car. The strange witches had no intention of letting them leave. The flare of amber behind the Lexus proved it. Brent cursed under his breath even as he shot an attack behind the car to counter the one they’d built.

Sara lifted herself for a look at their foes. If she could only see—

Brent’s left palm shoved at her scalp. “Keep your head down!” She’d been about to growl at him for putting her into a compromising position when he snarled, “And for crying out loud, push your seat back! I can’t do this with you half way in my lap!”

With an angry jerk, she tugged on the button that lowered the seat. The mechanical whirring was far too slow for her tastes given she’d been reminded of how close she was to Brent’s pride and joy. Sara concentrated on syphoning away the energy from their foes to get her mind off exactly what that joy might look like.

With her steady draws, Brent was able to access twice as much power and the witches outside were left fighting over the paltry leftovers. She didn’t watch what he did, didn’t want to know what lengths he’d have to go to in order to keep them both safe.

A mere pair of minutes passed before she was the only witch drawing on the aether. She continued syphoning until Brent exhaled a long breath and then declared, “It’s over.”

He popped open the door for the unsavory job of cleaning up the mess. This was one thing she wouldn’t try to help with.

Chapter Five

The registration in the glove box claimed a Stellan Ena had owned the vehicle. Ena. It was the surname of the priest Brent had killed three days ago—the priest who had ended Fintan’s life.

Brent had thought he could at least get Sara home where it was marginally safe before the offspring would come looking for vengeance. And he’d hoped the Ena brood would allow them to observe proper mourning before retaliating. He should have known better than to hope.

He twisted the keys they’d left in the ignition with his gloved hand, and then put the beat-up vehicle into drive. Too many seconds passed before he’d arrived back at the waiting Lexus. Out the window he called, “Follow me.”