Visions of Skyfire (7 page)

Again and again, Rune pushed his way into her body and she moved with him, meeting each and every thrust with a silent demand for more. Until, finally, that longsought release crashed down on her.

The first shattering explosions shook her to her bones and she shouted his name as her body bucked beneath his. Her hands clutched at his strong arms, holding on for her life while the world as she knew it dissolved into a shower of bright lights and sensation.

“More,”
he demanded, before her first release had finished, and with his thumb he stroked her center until she screamed again, twisting wildly in his arms, calling out his name as her body did what she wouldn’t have thought possible. She felt herself splinter and then somehow come together again, all within several amazing moments.

She was still trembling, futilely trying to catch her breath, when she heard his deep voice thunder out a howl of victory. Then his body emptied itself into her and all she could see was her Eternal, staring down at her with flames shining in his eyes.

Chapter 9

K
ellyn reclined in the oversized tub and idly stroked her fingertips through the mountain of bubbles covering the surface of the water. She’d had a rough month, she acknowledged. Hardly surprising that she needed a little pampering.

A frown curved her mouth as she remembered the bitter conclusion to her last encounter with Shea Jameson and the Eternal Torin. It had ended with Shea throwing a teleportation spell, sending Kellyn to the back end of beyond in the blink of an eye. Infuriated, frustrated, she’d awoken in a muddy field in Ireland, surrounded by cows who looked even more startled than she had felt.

Still feeling the sting of failure, Kellyn reached over to pick up her glass of champagne. She took a long sip, letting the icy bubbles soothe her tattered spirit.

“Doesn’t matter,” she assured herself, smiling at the way the light glinted off the crystal flute. “All I have to do is turn
one
of the Awakening witches. Just one. Then their plan will fall apart and I win.”

Sliding down deeper into the water, she rested her head against the cool porcelain and looked out the window at the skyline of Washington, D.C. She could have been in New Mexico right now, tromping through some hideous desert to deal with Teresa Santiago. But really, a bubble bath in civilization sounded so much better to her battered temper.

“Besides,” she whispered, “if he needs help with her, he can come and get me.”

When her phone rang, she considered not answering it. After all, hadn’t she earned a little relaxation? But the insistent, shrill tone wouldn’t be ignored and Kellyn sat up to snatch the phone off the shelf beside the tub. “What is it?”

“We missed her in the desert.”

Fury shot through her. “You mean you let those idiot human teams
kill
her?”

“No,” the voice on the other end of the line assured her quickly. “They missed her, too. The Eternal showed up and flashed her out.”

“Eternals,” she muttered, tossing the rest of her champagne down her throat as if it were medicinal. The immortal warriors had been a pain in the ass of every would-be bad guy for centuries. “I thought you said you could deal with him.”

“I can,” her caller said. “But the point was to not give ourselves away, remember?”

“As this is my plan, do you really feel it necessary to remind me of its intricacies?” Attractive or not, this particular male had begun to annoy Kellyn. She probably shouldn’t have agreed to work with him on this after all. But with his special gifts, he had proven just too tempting to ignore.

“No more than you should feel it necessary to remind me what the goal is.”

The ice in his tone let Kellyn know he was no happier about this situation than she was. Well, then, fine. She would give him a chance to fix it. “Where’s the witch now?”

“We don’t know,” he admitted. “An MP was attacked, though. Apparently he was hit by lightning.”

Kellyn smiled to herself. A powerful witch, this one.

“And there are a lot of dark zones in Sedona,” the man was saying. “My guess is the Eternal swept her into one. He was shot up pretty bad, so he’s going to need some healing time.”

“Then find her while he’s weakened.”

“That’s the plan,” he told her and hung up.

He hung up.

On
her.

Kellyn stared at the phone in disbelief. No one dismissed her. No one. Her fingers closed around the phone until the plastic shattered and shards of it dug into her palm. Then she threw the mess at the wall and watched as pieces fell to the floor like black rain.

Furious both at having her relaxation time interrupted and at the clear disrespect, she poured more champagne and quaffed it. Turning her glare on the window again, she stared at the outside world and promised herself that once this damn Awakening was finished there would be some payback.

Her bathwater had cooled by the time she stepped out of the tub, leaving all thoughts of relaxation behind.

Chapter 10

“H
e’s fried.” Landry looked at the dead MP sprawled across the shattered windshield of a sedan. The kid’s eyes were wide-open as if he were still surprised.

“What the hell happened to him?”

Landry shot the young agent beside him an incredulous look. “The witch happened to him, you fuckwit. You heard the report from the desert. She can throw lightning, for chrissakes. Looks like she landed a hit on this poor bastard.”

While the younger agent muttered to himself, Landry narrowed his eyes against the driving rain and scanned the neighborhood. He knew people were watching him. Knew they were too afraid to step outside and get pulled into a federal investigation. All but one, anyway.

“She ran off down the street there. Just left that guy smokin’ on the hood of that car.”

The boy couldn’t have been more than seventeen and both fear and excitement glittered in his eyes. Landry recognized the look. It was the thrill of the hunt.

“How long ago?” he asked the kid.

“’Bout an hour. I called to report it, but it took you guys forever to show up.” Just a touch of disgust colored his tone.

Landry agreed with him. But the MPs had to call in tips, get approval. Hell, even tracking and killing witches was filled with bureaucratic bullshit these days.

“Fine. Thanks for being a good citizen. Your country appreciates your help,” Landry told him.

“Yeah, can I come with you?” The kid was practically bouncing in his eagerness to get in on a witch kill. “I’ll stay out of the way. Swear it.”

“No. Official business,” Landry told him, then cuffed the kid on the shoulder. “But when you’re eighteen, you sign up for MP Youth Camp. Give ’em my name—Landry—as a reference.”

The kid glowed. “Thanks, dude. Seriously.”

But Landry was already moving off, his mind on the witch. They were in a dark zone, so he knew he wouldn’t be able to trace her magic. His best bet was to return to her house. To join the others already there. He wanted this damn witch.

 

Teresa was shaken.

She’d gone into this with her eyes wide-open. She was no shy virgin offering herself up on an altar of duty. She’d had sex before and had assumed that this would be no different.

She couldn’t have been more wrong.

Despite everything her grandmother had told her, taught her, the old woman hadn’t known exactly what a witch and her mate would
feel.
If just sex with her Eternal was this overwhelming, what, she wondered, would the Mating sex be like? Mate. She would be this immortal’s mate, she knew. Destiny and all that. But Teresa had promised herself that she would do her duty to her magic, to the world, all while keeping her heart separate.

She’d been in love before and that had turned into a misery the likes of which she was in no hurry to repeat. Miguel, her ex-boyfriend, had been a bastard. He’d hurt Teresa in more ways than she wanted to remember—and he was human. Just imagine what an immortal could put her through. No. She knew now that she had given Miguel power over her by the simple act of loving him.

She wouldn’t be making a mistake like that again. Especially with an already extremely powerful immortal.

A flicker of something that might have been fear sputtered into life in the pit of her stomach, then dissolved again a moment later. That was a worry for another day. For now, they needed to get moving.

“My strength has returned,” Rune said, lifting one hand and watching as blue and red flames danced across his skin.

“I see that.” Teresa moved off him and bent to pick up her clothes, but they were soaking wet and cold as ice. She really didn’t want to put them back on.

Looking back at him, she asked, “You have this house ready for me. Any chance there are clothes here, too?”

He snapped his fingers and instantly he was clothed, in black jeans, a black T-shirt and boots that looked as though they could kick their way through hell without a problem. He smiled at her as he stood up.

“Nice for you,” she said.

His fingers snapped again and she was suddenly dry and warm and dressed in the very clothes that had just a moment before been lying in a sodden heap on the floor. Even her favorite cowboy boots were dry and tucked securely on her feet. She couldn’t help giving him a smile. “Now that’s something I want to know how to do.”

“You will,” he assured her. “In time.”

“Right.” Time. It all boiled down to time. Her powers needed to be fully unleashed. She and Rune had to fulfill the Mating ritual. They had to find the Artifact that she had once hidden from the world. All they needed was time. Trouble was, the people chasing her were determined not to let them have it.

And just like that, they were back to the business at hand. “So what now? Where do we go?”

“You hold the answer to that question.” He came close enough to lay his huge hands on her shoulders. “You’ve been having visions?”

“Yes,” she admitted, staring up into his gray eyes, swirling with power and secrets as old as time. Teresa felt as if he was looking into her mind, though she didn’t feel his presence in her thoughts. Was this new connection between them strong enough for him to sense what she was thinking and feeling?

If it was, then he would be able to see everything as she thought of what had been happening in her life the last three weeks. There were signs she might have missed if she hadn’t been trained since childhood to be on the lookout for the magical world.

A black dog seemed to be outside her house day and night. Candles melted and the puddles of wax formed symbols that resonated with a part of her she didn’t recognize. Ancient whorls and circles and symbols of eternity and rebirth. Storms had rolled into Sedona often enough that the TV weatherman was completely flummoxed by what was happening. He couldn’t explain where the storms were coming from or why there were so many of them.

But she could.

The electrical energies were being drawn to her. To her power. Her growing strength and burgeoning magic.

Her dreams were haunted every night, too. Even now, the jumbled images came back to her in a flood. She didn’t understand most of them. Cages built of fire, burning ferociously in what looked like a dark cave with ancient carvings on the walls. People she didn’t know—two women with long red hair, smiling at her, and tall, powerful men like Rune, covered in flames—holding swords crossed over their chests as they took up protective postures.

In her dreams, she was chased by darkness. She could hear voices whispering behind her and footsteps that raced closer every night. Their pounding beat seemed to resonate within her for hours after she jolted awake, her heart in her throat.

Frowning, Teresa rubbed her forehead, closed her eyes and tried to focus. To sift through the memories choking her. There were more. Snippets of other lives that weren’t her own. A woman who was her—and yet not—sitting beside a campfire as coyotes howled and the night sky blazed with stars rarely seen now because of city lights. She saw the woman chased into the desert, saw her running in terror. Saw her stumble and fall, and then a rockslide rattled down a mountainside to cover her body.

And she saw her grandmother’s face. Her
abuela
had been in every dream. Every vision ended with those well-loved features smiling at her in encouragement. Whispering, “
Ahora,
Teresa,
ahora
.”

“Tell me,” Rune said, the weight of his hands pressing ever more firmly on her shoulders. “Tell me what you see.”

“My grandmother. I see my grandmother. We have to go to her in Chiapas. Mexico.”

Chapter 11

E
lena stepped outside, key in hand to lock the clinic door. It was still raining. Seemed like someone in heaven had upended a bucket on Sedona.

That thought brought a smile despite the trickle of icy water that sneaked beneath the collar of her jacket to roll along her spine. She shivered at the sensation, like a ghostly finger trailing along her skin—then she whirled around to look over her shoulder. She had creeped herself out. Not hard to understand why she was on edge. She knew there were federal agents crawling all over Sedona at that very moment, looking for Teresa.

Still, she couldn’t afford to appear nervous. Or suspicious. If the people who were after Teresa were watching the clinic, then Elena had to make it look as if nothing was wrong. As if this was just an average day. Thankfully no one was around to see the flash of temper on her features as she quietly fumed.

How had the world come to this? she wondered. Chasing down women because they were “different.” But she knew the answer as well as anyone else did. Fear. The strongest motivator in the world. Fear could turn ordinary people into a raging mob. The very people Elena served at her clinic would probably turn on her like a pack of rabid dogs if they knew her best friend was a witch.