Ignited (30 page)

An arm lashed around my neck from behind and pulled me back onto the landing. I jerked against the hold, scratching and pulling at the hairy forearm that pressed against my windpipe and cut off my air supply. Mark’s muscles bunched as he tensed and yanked me off my feet. I gripped the handle of the knife and drove it backward into his meaty thigh. His hold on me loosened, and he fell, taking me with him. I sucked in a breath and fought against his arms. Mark grunted when I freed an elbow and shoved it in his gut, but he wouldn’t let me go. Finally, I reached for the knife sticking out of his leg and twisted it. The Protector shrieked and shoved me off him as he pulled at the weapon.

“I’m going to kill you,” he hissed at me.

I answered by unleashing my energy in preparation to lash out at him.

“Enough!” a male voice shouted from behind me.

I twisted around to find Alcais pointing a gun at my chest. Behind him, Erin cowered, a bruise coloring her cheek. Worse was the way she stared at the floor, her spirit gone. Her time away from him had been so short, and it was too easy to fall into a lifetime of training. It had taken me months to stop ducking for cover when voices were raised.

“Hiding in the bathroom, Alcais? That sounds just like you,” I said with barely restrained anger.

“Shut up!” he yelled.

“Send the Healer to me,” Mark told Alcais. “I need her.”

Franc thought he controlled these Protectors, but he was wrong. The hunger pervading the man’s features belied anything but a vicious motive. Mark had no use for Erin as a person, and once she healed him, he could steal her energy. And unlike the Healer they’d brought with them—a traitor my grandfather probably tricked into helping his Protectors—Erin would not be under Franc’s protection. No, she would be considered the enemy for siding with me.

Over his shoulder, Alcais told Erin, “Get over there and heal him.”

Erin’s eyes widened as she looked from her brother to Mark. “I can’t heal a wound like that. You know that.”

He reached backward, grabbed her wrist, and yanked her forward. She stumbled and fell to her knees near me, sobbing. The Protector would kill her. Over my dead body.

“I’m not letting her near him,” I told Alcais.

The sounds of fighting continued in both bedrooms, and I knew I was on my own. Erin had trained, but she was too distraught to fight. So this fight was on me.

“It’s not up to you,” Alcais said, waving the gun. “Erin? Do what I said.”

The “or else” at the end of that statement was implied, and Erin shuddered. She crawled forward, until I blocked her path to Mark. The Protector worked to tie off his injury and sat up. I stood just out of his reach, but he could change that at any time. Terror filled me imagining what he could do to my friend.

“No, Erin. You don’t have to listen to him.” I met her shattered gaze without judgment.

“It’s my fault they’re here,” she whispered with shame. “I’m so sorry.”

I slashed a hand through the air to make her stop. “It’s okay. I don’t blame you.” She started to drop her eyes and I insisted, “Erin! I don’t blame you, okay? Now, please get up.”

Behind her, Alcais scowled and took a step forward. I glared at him and he stopped, rethinking approaching me. At my feet, Erin fought her fear and rose in wavering degrees. As soon as she stood, I saw that she’d found some of her strength. She would need it.

“Erin, go to the stairs and walk down them. Leave the house and run until you can’t run anymore.” She froze, a wild flush coloring her cheeks. I snapped my fingers. “Move! Now!”

She took one hesitant step and then another.

Alcais cursed. “I swear if you go another step, I’m going to shoot you.”

She stopped, a lifetime of fear giving her pause, and I told her, “He’s lying. He won’t do it. Keep going.”

Her body shook, and my heart broke a little more for her. “I’m scared,” she said, her voice trembling.

“It’s okay to be afraid, but you have to keep moving.” Fear for her injected urgency into my words when I shouted, “Go, damn it!”

My yell startled her into a run. Alcais aimed the gun at her, but as I’d suspected, he didn’t shoot. It was one thing to beat his sister, and another to murder her outright. Still, once she’d disappeared down the stairs, he spun on me, fury mottling his skin shades of red and pink. I knew men like him. He wanted to be a leader, to be the one everyone looked up to with respect, but he would never be that person because he was small. Small of heart, small of courage, and small of character.

“Why did you do that? She’ll tell everyone.”

I hoped she would. Maybe then Franc would lose his hold over the Healers, and they could find another way to keep their people safe.

Hands up to placate Alcais, I said, “Put the gun down. This is over.”

“You’re right. It is.” The despair on his face looked real, but I felt nothing for him as he paced a few feet back and forth, the gun waving about. “She’ll poison everyone against me. I’ll never be able to go back.”

He raised his head and let off a shout of frustration, and then he fired a shot into the ceiling. The sound reverberated in the small space, deafening me. The scent of gun powder burned my nostrils, and my eyes watered. I heard a roar from nearby that sounded like Gabe calling my name, but I didn’t dare turn my attention from Alcais.

“This is your fault,” he told me, almost in tears. “Why couldn’t you do what we wanted?”

The gun aimed at my chest, and I believed he would pull the trigger this time. “What about Franc? He wants me alive.”

Determination set his face in hard lines. “I don’t care anymore.”

Suddenly, from the stairs, Erin shouted, “Alcais, stop!”

I swore under my breath. “Erin . . .”

She ignored me, rushing onto the landing. “Franc started this, but you don’t have to be like him. Please, let’s leave. I want to see Mom and Delia. We can still go home.” As she spoke, she walked toward her brother, her hand out as she pleaded with him. “Please, Alcais. Let’s go home,” she said, weeping.

She meant it. Whatever he’d done to her, she loved her brother. That sincerity that had drawn me to her convinced her brother. He wavered a moment, longing in his eyes. But then his hand steadied again.

“Franc won’t stop while she lives. This won’t end until she’s gone.”

He squeezed the trigger. I prepared to jump sideways, and Erin did the same. Directly into the path of the bullet. It slammed her backward into my arms, and I stumbled.

“No!” The word ripped out of me in an agonized shriek. I lowered her to the ground, and the monster in me roared where we touched. I slammed my guard up to protect her, surveying the damage. Blood blossomed over her belly where the bullet hit her, and her eyes flickered closed.

“Give her to me!” Mark said, clambering to his feet.

The eagerness in his voice made me sick. Alcais surprised me when he stopped Mark from reaching his sister. “No. Leave her alone.”

“You think you can stop me, child?” Mark scoffed.

He proved his words true by knocking Alcais off his feet with his fist. I huddled my body over Erin, awaiting the Protector’s blow, but Gabe was there, fighting him off.

Erin didn’t make a sound in my arms. She was bleeding out, and this was the type of injury you didn’t recover from. If I tried to save her, I would die. The knowledge of it flooded through me, and a sob ripped out of me. Could I save her, even if I tried? Could I control the monster that even now fought to get out?

“Why did you come back?” I asked her, blinded by tears. “You could have escaped.”

Erin didn’t move. Her muscles slackened, and her weight settled against me more. “No . . .” I wailed. “Please, don’t go, Erin!”

No! Oh God, please no.

The life faded out of her brown eyes by degrees, and I sobbed, rocking her in my arms. Without thinking, I touched my fingers against her pale cheek, skin to skin, and it didn’t matter that I had my guard up. A surge of power erupted between us, and pain like I’d never known tore me apart.

C
HAPTER
T
WENTY
-
SIX

I
n the moment before she died, Erin’s energy invaded my body like an arctic blizzard. Every frozen molecule rammed the pain up another increment, and the torment made me want to claw at my skin frantically. Even my blood seemed to solidify, and my breath froze, shards of it cutting my lungs as I inhaled in desperation. I couldn’t even shiver, and time stretched on while I begged for the numbness that would surely come before death.

My grip on Erin loosened, and I crumpled to the ground next to her still body, sprawling on my back. Her empty eyes stared into mine with accusation, and another sobbing moan escaped my parted lips. My hand fell from hers, and the frigid pain snapped away. An avalanche of energy surged through me driving out the bitter frost, and I moaned at the burn of heating all at once. Fiery ice—that was what it felt like inside me. Was this what the Blackwells experienced when they became immortal, or was it different for me because of my mixed blood?

Gabe and Mark fought to one side of me, and I wanted to help. My body wouldn’t listen. I rolled my head the other direction to avoid Erin’s gaze. And I saw the Healer woman stab Asher in the shoulder while he fought Goatee Man. Another moan burst from my lips when I watched him fall. But in the confusion, somehow the woman fell, too, landing on top of Asher’s back. Perhaps Lucy had struck her. That left my sister and Goatee Man.

“Lucy,” I whispered.

Get up, Remy!
Agony speared through me, but I turned over and managed to get my feet beneath me. I rose and stumbled in dragging steps toward the bedroom. Goatee Man had cornered my sister, though she looked ready to fight back. The vase weighed a thousand pounds when I took it off the dresser and hefted it over my head. Goatee Man went down like a rock dropped off a cliff, hitting the ground with a thud after I struck him in the head. I teetered and barely managed to stay on my feet.

Lucy rushed forward, and we both turned to Asher, where he lay on the floor with the Healer sprawled over him. My sister knelt by them and pushed the woman off him. I took one step back and sank down on the bed, while Lucy cried out. The Healer had fallen on her knife when she landed on Asher, and it was buried to the hilt in her chest.

I lowered my guard for one moment, and I knew. Asher’s energy buzzed in the air, the vital power reminding me of the day I’d first met him. Intentional or not, he’d absorbed the dying Healer’s energy. Asher had gained his greatest wish—he was immortal once more. And stealing that woman’s energy didn’t seem to affect him the way stealing Erin’s had done to me. His eyes opened, and I sensed the stretching of his powers, along with his muscles, as he sat up with little care for his injuries. And why should he care? He could no longer feel them. I guessed the instant he felt my energy, though, because he winced with the first hint of pain. Slowly, I put up my walls to block him out like I had that first day on the beach. We stared at each other, and it was as if everything that had happened between us had been deleted, along with his senses.

Gabe and Lottie appeared in the doorway, and the five of us surveyed each other. Bruises and cuts (everyone), one broken limb (Asher), a knife wound (also Asher), and Gabe wheezed like he couldn’t catch his breath. I guessed broken ribs.

“Mark?” I asked.

“Ran away,” Gabe answered matter-of-factly.

I swallowed. “And Alcais?”

“Gone. He ran down the stairs while I was fighting Mark.”

Lottie pushed past Gabe to help Asher. She ripped the sheet in strips and wound one around his shoulder to stem the blood flow. Another looped around his neck to create a makeshift brace for his broken arm.

“We should get out of here before they have a chance to regroup,” she said.

Then Lucy asked, “Where’s Erin?”

I shook my head at her, unable to speak past the boulder in my throat.

My sister’s face drained of color.

From downstairs, we heard the slamming of doors before I could explain. Enemy or friend? I gritted my teeth and stood. Wordlessly, the five of us arranged ourselves into some kind of formation with Gabe and Lottie at the forefront. We waited to see what kind of hell would be unleashed on us next. I pressed a hand to Gabe’s back, and he reached back to touch my waist. The momentary connection made my pounding heart settle and my mind still.
One fight at a time.

Feet thudded up the stairs, and three women appeared on the landing. Immediately, I sensed it. I could feel Gabe, Lottie, and Asher, but this energy was different. Familiar. And there were three sources.

I stared at them in shock. The scowling blonde with the miniskirt and combat boots. The curvy vixen with fire-engine-red hair and a nose ring. The tall, elegant brunette with dark brown skin and gentle black-brown eyes. They were all different and similar at the same time. They stared at me with just as much curiosity, somehow able to divine that I was like them in a room full of people.

Phoenix
, I guessed. Seamus had lied about me being the first one born in centuries.

Lottie sensed something about them, too, but she interpreted it as a threat. She crouched, ready to attack, and I laid a hand on her shoulder. “No, Lottie. They’re like me.”

The brunette spoke up in a French accent. “We’re here with Seamus. We need to go. The Morrisseys could be on their way, and we don’t have the numbers to fight them.”

“There were two men in a bedroom on the bottom floor,” I said.

“They are gone,” the woman answered. “We found no others.”

She left the room, heading for the stairs with the other two women. I pushed Lottie ahead of me and told her, “Help me with Erin.” Lottie appeared the least hurt out of the group, and I wouldn’t leave my friend’s body here for the Protectors to find, even if she was beyond caring about such things. We left the room with the others behind us. With each step, I could feel my strength returning.

“Where is Er—”