Light My Fire (42 page)

“No, other than I know he’s not mortal. The guy at the Guardian place said he was a”—I dug through my mem
ory for the word—”daimon. That was it. Do you know
what it means?”

“Yes. It is Latin.”

“For?” I bit Drake’s chin. “Come on, this has been
driving me nuts. I need to know who Rene is.”

“Daimon
is a word meaning fate,” he answered slowly,
his eyes smoldering with familiar passion.

“Rene is ... fate?” I asked, nibbling on his delicious
lower lip, my hands sliding down to his back, and farther
down to his oh-so-delectable butt.

“One of them, yes.” Drake’s hands did a little explo
ration of their own.

My heart dropped as I thought about what fate had in store for me. I pulled away from him and turned to look
back out the window. “I could just punch Rene in the
nose for what he’s done to me.”

“He has done nothing. Fates do not make your life,
kincsem.
They simply assist you to follow the path you’ve
chosen.”

“Oh. Well, that would explain a lot. But it doesn’t
change things, Drake. Not even your mind-numbingly
fabulous kisses change anything. I’m still damned. Every
thing has been stripped from me. Everything I wanted
and worked for is gone or ruined, all because of my in
competence.”

“You have me. And I love you.”

I slumped against the window again for a moment be
fore turning and flinging myself in his arms, kissing him
with every morsel of love in my being. “Boy, you sure
know how to squelch a pity party, don’t you?”

“It was an excellent attempt, but such a maudlin atti
tude does not suit my mate.”

“The red dragons are at war with us. And now Fiat—”
I started to say.

He kissed the words right out of my mouth. “That, too,
we will deal with. We have been at war with the red drag
ons before. Sooner or later Chuan Ren will realize that
war is not the answer. Until that time, I will keep the sept
safe.”

‘And Fiat? If I’m technically his mate now, what does
that mean to us?”

“Nothing. I will determine what to do about Fiat as
soon as I know what his intentions are.”

I looked at the man I held in my arms, his eyes blazing his emotions, every angle of his face as well known to me
as my own, his being so closely bound to mine that I
knew no one would ever be able to separate us again.
Somewhere along the line, I’d taken him into my heart,
and he’d filled the empty spaces in me I’d not known existed. I nodded, my throat tight with unshed tears.
“Your heart rate is up,” I said, my lips on his pulse point.

“You have that effect on me,” he answered, a smile in
his joke.

“Well, you know what they say: When two hearts race,
both win.”

He lifted my chin to kiss me again. “Who said that?”

“I don’t know. I saw it in on the inside of a Dove
chocolate wrapper. But it fits, don’t you think?”

“Yes, it fits.” His hands slid around to my stomach
again. “Does my child rest in there?”

Fear pricked at me for a moment, but as I stood there
clasped tightly to Drake, I realized that there wasn’t anything I had to bear alone. Fiat, the demon lords, Nora and the Guardians, even Rene the master of fate—all of them
could be faced so long as we were together.

“I don’t know,” I whispered, peeking up through my
eyelashes at him. “I really don’t know.”

He nuzzled me, the gesture so unlike the stern, arro
gant, unbending Drake, I turned into a big puddle of goo.

“I look forward to seeing what you make of your life,
Aisling Grey. I look forward to being a part of it forever.”

I smiled into his kiss. I had Drake, I had Jim, and I’d find a way to get Nora back as my mentor. Everything else, from cleansing my soul to ending the dragon war,
I’d work with Drake on fixing. I was a professional,
dammit. Nothing was so wrong that I couldn’t eventually
right it.

So naive,
the dark power whispered to me.
We, too,
look forward to what your life will become.