Passion Ignited (20 page)

Chapter
Nineteen

“What happened to the family?” Raider
asked.

“She let them go. Told them to get to
safety.”

Raider traced circles on the back of Nitro’s
hand as he looked at her brother. He was silent as he pictured the
scene Ash had just described. “She showed compassion that
night.”

“She did. A little bit sneaks out of her here
and there, but I haven’t seen anything like what happened that
night until you came along. We’ve always felt separate from the
world. Not really human, not really demon, so we didn’t know that
it could happen to us. We’ve heard for centuries how people and
demons are fated to one mate. But I know that it’s true now,
because you’re hers. I saw her humanity rip her inner demon to
shreds when it came to you.” He sighed. “She loved you.”

Raider’s jaw clenched. Hearing the story of
her past had dried up his tears, but hearing that he affected her
the way she affected him made tears well in his eyes again. “I love
her.”

Ash stood up as if he couldn’t stand being
next to his sister any longer. Raider stood as well, stepping
toward Ash as the Ignitis paced. “I know. We need to do right by my
sister tonight. I know you burn your dead on a pyre, and I think
that’s how she’d want to go. She won’t burn at sunrise like you do,
but we could make it work.” He looked at his cell phone. “The sun
just went down—
Holy shit
!”

Raider followed Ash’s gaze and saw what had
the man so shocked. Nitro sat straight up on the bed, staring
blankly at them. As he gawked at her, she began gasping for air
desperately.

The entire world stopped. Nitro was alive.
Breathing, moving. She was
alive
.

Ash started toward her, but Raider’s hand shot
out and gripped his shoulder. “No. Look at her eyes.”

His eyes narrowed. “What does it
mean?”

“She’s infected. That
thing
bit her. It
didn’t even occur to me that she could have been
infected.”

Raider turned and looked at Nitro again. Her
lips quivered as they peeled back from her teeth, which he noticed
were now pearly white fangs. Just like his own. “Nitro, baby, it’s
me, Raid.”

She hissed and sprung from the bed, putting
more distance between them. She crouched, her eyes darting back and
forth between Raider and Ash. They approached her slowly, their
arms raised in surrender. Neither wanted her scared, and neither
would harm her. But as they neared, she went rigid and her fingers
curled. Blood dripped from her hands as she tensed. Raider looked
down and saw that she’d grown a set of claws, which were now
cutting into her palms. She bared her fangs and growled a
warning.

“Okay, okay. We won’t get any closer.” He
reached out with his senses again, touching her mind. Blood. Death.
Destruction. Hunger. But he could sense something else in her. An
awareness that the other demon hadn’t had. That, and fear. “Do you
know who we are?”

Ash looked at him in confusion before focusing
on his sister again. “Nitro, it’s me, Ash.”

“No…
” she hissed as she shook her
head.

Raider flinched. Her voice was so raw, so
alien to what it normally was. She’d had to force the words out as
though she’d had to think beforehand. She sounded nothing like
herself. “Do you know where you are?”

With her breath sawing in and out of her,
Nitro’s gaze darted around the room swiftly, her red eyes taking in
everything in seconds. Again, it took her a while to form her
hissed reply. “
Institute
.”

“No,” Ash said, taking a step toward her.
“We’re at the Guardians’ mansion. You’re safe here. Remember,
Martha Stewart’s wet dream?”

She took another step back, her back touching
the wall. “
No
,” she hissed.

Raider gentled his voice. “Ash, stop, she
wants to keep her distance.”

He halted, but his gaze never left his
sister.

Raider broke eye contact with her and looked
over at him. “We’ve got to get through to her.”

Nitro took advantage of Raider’s distraction.
Her wrist shot up as she lunged forward, connecting just under his
nose and knocking his head back. She gripped his shoulders and
surged forward, her teeth sliding into the base of his neck as she
hugged him to her. He was shocked at the intensity of her attack.
Of course, he’d been bitten before—he
was
a vampire—and the
fact that his female was doing the chomp-chomp gave him a sexual
high. At least until the acid sting coursed through his veins,
lessening the pleasure and bringing on the pain. But he could deal.
This was his female. Not dead, as he’d feared, but
alive
.
The new strength in her was remarkable.

Raider moaned against her as she drank his
lifeblood down her throat. Her moaning and growling was a complete
turn-on as she sucked him greedily.

Ash kicked into action, gripping Nitro and
ripping her off of him. He shoved her away from Raider, and as she
landed on the ground, Raider threw a hand over the open gash in his
neck.

He could only look at his female and wonder
what was next.

****

Nitro stood quickly, placing her feet shoulder
width apart as she stared at the two warriors in front of her.
Everything was all wrong. Nothing clear. Nothing the same.
Everything red. Red, like blood. Blood, she wanted. The attack on
the one warrior was easy. No challenge. She could have killed him
had she wanted to.

If she did, there would be more
blood.

She wanted blood.

She crouched slowly. She would pounce on the
warrior again. His blood had tasted good. So good. She would taste
him again. She would drink him dry. She would swim in the blood
that gave him life. Her mouth watered at the thought.

Blood, good
.

Her eyes darted to the other male. He’d been
staring at her nearly as intently as the other warrior had. Would
he taste as sweet? The male that tasted good spoke again, words
that she had trouble understanding. She should understand them.
They were familiar, but he spoke them far too fast. It was annoying
and it angered her. She should drink him dry just for that
infraction alone.

Blood, good.

The red haze that covered everything was
annoying too, even though it reminded her of blood. It seemed
wrong. She remembered colors, bright and vivid, dull and boring,
everything in between. Everything in this world was red—different
shades of it, but red all the same. Nothing in this world was
right. She stared at the two warriors who were now speaking to each
other. She shouldn’t allow that. They could be devising a plan to
capture her again. She didn’t know how they got her here, or how
they looked so close to Ash and Raider. Of course they were red,
distorted versions of the males, but she could tell who they
attempted to be. She wouldn’t be fooled again, not after that
skeletal being overtook her own form in her memories. Another trick
of the Institute, no doubt.

The one had claimed to be Ash. She’d pretended
to believe him, but he didn’t look enough like her brother for her
to believe it. But what if he
was
her brother? What if the
other
was
Raider? What if it was
her
that had
changed?

The Ash look-alike took a step toward her and
her body tensed. She wouldn’t attack him if he were truly her
brother. And the only way that was going to happen is if she got
away from him.

In a blink, Nitro was gone. She’d only just
thought of running and she was well on her way. Far faster than
she’d ever moved before, she hauled ass down a hallway and up a
flight of stairs. The door at the top splintered apart as she
rushed through it. She ran through a large, open room, narrowly
missing a few others within the Institute. She glided around them,
still faster than she’d ever thought possible, and slammed right
into another door. Stepping back, she rushed at it again. The door
didn’t break as her body collided with it. Angered, she looked down
at the knob. That looked familiar, although distorted again. She
reached out with her hand and gripped the handle. Claws she’d never
seen before brushed the door and then her skin as she closed her
hand around the knob.

It wasn’t right, and that angered her even
more. She wrenched the door open and ran through the opening.
Voices sounded behind her, the others now aware of her escape. She
shot down the stairs and bypassed a set of vehicles, including
motorcycles similar to hers and Ash’s. As she passed them, she
admired the beauty of the bikes, even if it was for a split second.
The word
Thadius
painted on the side of the tank made her
pause. A memory flashed in her mind of her horse. Well, all of her
horses. They’d all been called Thadius. In fact, all her rides had
been named the same, in honor of her first horse. Just as Ash had
named his Achilles. As quickly as the memory came, it went away,
and she got back in gear. She couldn’t waste time. Wouldn’t. She
needed to get out of here and check out her surroundings. She was
in the wrong realm and she needed to figure out how to get home.
She flashed forward, reaching the wrought iron gate. Just as she
had with the front door, she slammed right into it, not breaking
through. An alarm sounded at the house, so anyone who hadn’t been
aware of her definitely was now. She leapt up and gripped the top
of the gate and, swinging herself over the top, she dropped onto
the cold wet pavement on the other side.

Again, she heard voices behind her as she
bound down the street. She risked a glance backward and noticed the
familiar lines of the Guardians’ mansion. So, these were this
realm’s Guardians. Different, but still the warriors she’d known in
a different life. The male voices were angered as they ran after
her. She needed to find shelter. She needed to find
blood.

There was one thing she knew for certain: she
needed strength for the coming battle. The Guardians would hunt her
soon.

Chapter Twenty

Bob sat in the same spot he and Eugene had sat
the night before. The old man had stepped into the diner a few
minutes ago for two cups of coffee so they wouldn’t
freeze.

Tonight was especially cold. Bob still hadn’t
shaken the freezing feeling he’d had the last few days. In fact, it
seemed to be getting worse, and so did his violent dreams. Not that
he’d tell Kyle or Eugene about either. Last night seemed to be a
lot busier, and Eugene had been pretty pleased about their haul.
Something about girls going crazy over the injured giant, but he
hadn’t really caught what the old man had actually
mumbled.

Eugene came back and settled into the spot
next to him. After handing Bob a hot cup of coffee and some
creamer, he popped open his lid and added some to his own. “Bethany
works in there some nights. She’s the only one who’ll serve me
coffee,” he said. “Just lucked out that she was on duty
tonight.”

They leaned against the red brick building and
held their palms out, upturned as people walked by. A group of
teenage girls walked by, and he had to grit his teeth as he asked
the embarrassing question: “Can you spare any change,
ladies?”

The girls stopped dead in their tracks and
sneered at him. They all glanced at each other as if he’d spoken
alien. “Did he just speak to
us
?” one chattered.

“No, I don’t think a piece of scum would dare
talk to one of us.
Sooo
above his station,” another
said.

As one, they all seemed to flip their hair and
titter off in their too-tall heels.

As if he didn’t already feel humiliated
enough, someone calling him scum just seemed to grind it in even
more.

Talk about adding insult to injury.

“Don’t worry about them,” a gentle voice said.
“They’ve never had a rough day in their entire lives.”

Both Eugene and Bob looked up at a woman as
she bent down and dropped some dollar bills into Eugene’s hat. “In
case you need more coffee to keep you warm.” She stood back up and
walked away. Within seconds, she’d rounded the corner next to the
café and was out of sight.

The sound of whispering caught Bob’s attention
and he honed in on a group of guys who were walking their
way.

“Can you spare any change?” Eugene
asked.

One of the guys looked down at him, and just
as he passed, he kicked out, connecting with Eugene’s stomach.
Eugene humphed and lay down on the ground, wrapping his arms
tightly around himself.

“Are you okay?” Bob was on him in a second,
leaning over the old man. He looked up in time just as the group of
guys disappeared around the corner. “Eugene, are you
hurt?”

He coughed a little but sat back up and leaned
against the building. “Not the first time,” was all he
said.

Bob let Eugene sit there for a minute to catch
his breath. He seemed to be breathing alright other than the fact
that his teeth were clenched. He could sense the guy’s heart
beating wildly, but strongly, so no problem there. It only occurred
to him afterward how weird that was that he could sense that. “Come
on, let’s get you home.” He started to help Eugene to his feet,
when he heard a woman scream from the alley.