Wicked Flames (Solsti Prophecy) (42 page)

Kai gritted his teeth but didn’t yell out. “That the best you got, motherfucker?” His free arm was gripped by Xavier, but his hand had full movement. In an instant, he held a ball of demon fire.

With her mind, Gin plucked it from his hand and brought it into the air between her and Xavier.

“What the fuck?” Xavier choked.

She pushed aside his voice. Shut off the old fears circling like vultures at the edge of her mind. She concentrated only on her power, and her body surged with energy.

You’re mine to command
, she thought to the fireball.

“You’re mine to destroy,” she said to Xavier.

It was time to do what she’d been born to do. She coaxed several long vines of fire out of the ball. Xavier stared, wide-eyed, as first two, then four, then five elegant tendrils speared the cold air.

He sputtered something, but God only knew what he said. Focused on ending this, she gave instruction to two lines of fire, aiming them where she wanted.

Swift. Precise. Straight into Xavier’s eyes.

He cried out, and she sent another fiery arm into his mouth. A fourth one aimed for the hand that held Kai.

And the last one snapped like a serrated whip, slicing clean through Xavier’s tail.

The tail went slack. Mathias dropped to his knees, gulping air.

I’m okay. You did it.
The thought rang out in her mind in Mathias’s deep voice, though she didn’t know how.

Xavier writhed on the ground as the fiery tendrils entered his body completely, disappearing inside him like some kind of snakes from hell. He shook and rolled side to side, mouth open but no sound coming out. Bile rose in her throat.
Oh God, I did this.

She ran to the side of the road, trying to bite back the sickness. But the image of what she’d done loomed behind her closed eyelids. She vomited.

Instantly Mathias was behind her, holding her hair. “Gin. “ His voice was hoarse. “You did it.”

“I did…” she coughed and swiped her sleeve across her mouth. “…what I said I wouldn’t do.” Tears flowed down her face. Every muscle quivered.

“You stopped a monster that no one else could. Gin, it’s okay.” He drew her into his arms. “He drank some of the extract. Had to. That has to be why he moved so fast, and why his knife wound healed fast. It’s why our balls of fire didn’t harm him. He could shrug them off.”

She shivered. “I know, but…”

“If you hadn’t done that…” he shook his head, “Kai and I might be dead. You girls might be prisoners, and the area’s tap water would be poisoned.”

“But if the extract makes people strong and helps them heal, why put it in Earth’s water? Wouldn’t they want to use it on Torth?”

“I don’t know yet. What I do know is we need to get that water back to normal before it goes to the public.” His eyes burned with admiration and concern as he helped her up. “I want to take you home more than anything, but we’re not done yet.”

She nodded. Urgency flowed through her veins at the potential danger to humans, but so did comfort at the idea of going home with him.
Home with him
. It sounded perfect. She started to turn back to the others, but Mathias stopped her. “I’m so proud of you.” He kissed her lightly.

She leaned back and covered her mouth. “Ew, I just threw up!”

He chuckled. “Don’t care. I’d wanna kiss you no matter what. And anyway, you didn’t need to see what just happened.”

She raised her eyebrows. “What are you talking about?”

“Kai took care of Xavier. He’s done causing trouble.”

“I thought I did that.”

“You incapacitated him, but Kai ensured he was completely dead.”

Oh
. “You’re right, I didn’t want to see that.” She leaned on his shoulder and took a deep breath. “Let’s fix that water.” Keeping her eyes averted, she clasped his hand as they walked toward the SUV.

“It’s okay. There’s nothing to see. We don’t leave anything behind.” Ria hopped into the car.

“I’m still not looking,” Gin muttered.
Focus on the water.

“Gin!” Brooke pulled her into a tight hug. “Oh, my gosh, I’ve never seen anything like that! That was amazing. I’m so proud of you.”

Gin leaned back and scrunched her nose. “But I…I kill—”

“Shh. Stop.” Brooke squeezed Gin’s hands. “I get it. I had to do sort of the same thing a few months ago.”

“What?” Gin’s jaw dropped. “Oh, I heard about that. Kind of.”

“It’s part of that long story I need to tell you.”

Kai draped an arm around Brooke’s shoulders. “It’s a great story. But—”

“—I’ll tell it when we have more time.” Brooke smiled at her mate.

Kai smacked Brooke’s bottom. “In you go.”

“Wait, doesn’t your shoulder hurt?” Gin watched Kai climb into the car as if Xavier hadn’t just popped one of his tendons or bones. Or both.

“Already healed.” Kai rolled his shoulder for emphasis. “It’s good to be a demon.”

“Guess so.” Gin got into the front seat and locked eyes with Mathias.

“It
is
good to be a demon.” His eyes held a blue-amber glow. “And there’s a convo you and I need to have later too.”

From the backseat, Kai had Rhys back on speaker phone. “One fucked up Deserati, gone,” he reported.

“Very cool. You need to follow this road a half mile and then you’ll be at reservoir A.”

“Probably a good time for that fire drill, Rhys.” Mathias said.

“You got it, old man.” Rhys drawled.

Mathias muttered something under his breath and Gin snuck a glance at him. Ria had told her she was five hundred years old. And Mathias was twenty years older? Gin shook her head. Mathias looked like he was thirty.
One thing at a time. Focus on the water.

This feels so weird...but so right. Using her power, and having control over it. Keeping people safe.
Helping people.
Gin felt like she was in an alternate reality, one which she could never have imagined, but which wasn’t as bad as she anticipated.

A huge white structure loomed ahead. Two cars headed toward them, slowing as they were about to pass the SUV. The driver’s window of the first one rolled down, and its occupant leaned out, gesturing for them to turn around. “Fire alarm went off. Everyone’s leaving.” A man in a lab coat squinted at Mathias. “No drills scheduled for today, so something must be wrong.”

Mathias nodded. “Okay thanks, I’ll turn around.” And he resumed his course to the reservoir. “Or not,” he chuckled.

“Rhys works fast,” Gin murmured.

Mathias guided the vehicle into the empty parking lot and stopped next to the door.
 

“You got the place to yourselves,” Rhys said through the speaker phone.

“Best news I’ve heard all day. Let’s go.” Mathias hopped out and tried the building’s door. It was locked. He eyed a keypad on the wall. “Rhys, you got this or do I need to take care of it?”

“Working on it as we speak…okay, that was the easiest password ever. You’re good to go.” The lock clicked and a green light lit up above the handle.

Mathias opened the door and they filed into a hallway. Beams from emergency lights flared, leaving shining spots that lingered and disappeared along the cinderblock walls and concrete floor. The ventilation system hummed loudly, creating a breeze that fanned Gin’s hair.

The place was humid. It smelled like clean water, not like a chlorinated pool, and not like a river. Gin guessed Brooke must be in sensory overload. “Is it weird to be around this much water? Not like a lake—I mean contained water.”
 

“Smells like heaven.” Brooke smiled and took Gin’s hand. “I’m excited to do this with you.”

“Me too.” She followed Brooke, who was striding fast. “Oh, wow.”

The hall ended at a huge room filled with swimming pool-sized tanks. Each tank had a ladder snaking up the side, and a horizontal pole extending over the middle. There had to be…Gin counted…nine tanks in the huge space. “We have a lot of work to do.”

“Yeah.” Ria looked from the tanks to Brooke. “Where are you gonna put the stuff you separate out?”

“What do you mean?” Brooke asked.

“Aren’t you gonna isolate it, so Gin can do her thing?”

“Hold on. Let me take a look up here.” Gin walked to the nearest tank and started climbing the ladder.

“Stop!” Mathias bellowed. “What are you doing?” A spear of concern shot through her.

But it didn’t come from her. She didn’t feel worried, only confused as she glanced at Mathias.

You don’t know what’s up there
. His voice rang out clearly in her head, like it had earlier.

How is this happening?
“I-I just need to get up high to look at all of these. Maybe one is empty, or mostly empty.” Gin reached a platform at the top, and could see across the tops of all the tanks.
All full—wait
. She looked down.
Yes!
“This one’s nearly empty!” She shot Mathias a look.

He stared at her like he was seeing through to her soul.

She bit her lip, still confused. Something was happening between them and she wasn’t sure what. Maybe that was part of whatever he wanted to talk about later. She turned to climb down. “Brooke, what do you need?”

Brooke met her at the base of the ladder. “I don’t need anything, since you showed me what the enzyme looks like. I can visualize it.”

“Can I just tell you, that’s amazing?” Gin said quietly.

“Yes. But you should’ve seen me struggle with the idea of molecules at first.” Brooke squeezed Gin’s hand. “Okay, so my plan is to separate the enzyme, and keep a small amount of water around it in order to move it here.” She pointed to the tank next to them.

“Then you can heat it,” Ria said.

“Sounds good.” Gin said.

Kai had a grim set to his jaw.
 

What’s that all about?
Gin made a mental note to ask Brooke later.

Kai strode over to Brooke and gave her a quick kiss. “For luck.”

Brooke beamed up at him.
 

Must be some inside joke
. But there was no mistaking the absolute love in her sister’s eyes.

Brooke took a deep breath. The humid air crackled slightly, raising the hairs on Gin’s arms.

Mathias walked over to Gin and reached for her hand.

She leaned in close to his broad chest. “What’s that in the air?”

“Your sister’s power.” He grinned at her. “She can kick ass.”

Eyes closed, Brooke looked serene, but the water in one of the tanks started churning. She frowned. “Bastard enzymes,” she muttered. “God damn it.”

Gin looked at Kai, who stood facing Brooke. His hands clasped her waist and his eyes were locked on her face.

Abruptly, Brooke huffed out a breath and dropped her head back. “They won’t stay put. I think it’s because there’s such a huge volume of them.” She shoved a hand through her hair. “The ones in the lab—those were just a few.”

“You were closer to them. Does proximity matter?” Gin asked.

Kai and Brooke shared a long look, then Kai kissed her and jogged out of the room.

Gin watched him disappear down the hall to the door, then turned to Brooke. “What just happened?”

“Kai’s getting my wet suit from the car.” Brooke kicked off her boots. “I think you had the right train of thought. I need to get in the water to corral those buggers.”

“Wait, no!” Panic churned through Gin. “You can’t get in there with magical enzymes! What if they get into your system?”

“I won’t breathe them or swallow them. I think I’ll be okay.” Brooke smiled as Kai returned. “Funny, Kai said the exact same things.”

“Huh?” With each fact or revelation that fell into place, another threw her for a loop. But Brooke was already halfway to the women’s bathroom.

“The mate bond.” Mathias wrapped an arm around her. “One of the things we need to talk about later.”

Brooke returned clad in a form-fitting black suit, a determined look in her face. “Let’s do this.” She climbed the ladder of the nearest tank, Kai right behind her. At the top she balanced on the edge, speaking softly to Kai.

Gin watched her sister in awe.
My sister kicks ass
. A rush of admiration filled her, and she was struck again with the feeling that she was exactly where she needed to be. Even if it had taken her longer to come around.

 
Brooke gave Kai a quick kiss and dropped into the tank.

Gin held her breath. Ria walked over to stand next to her and Mathias.

The air crackled once again with Brooke’s power. Kai stood like a hawk, motionless, eyes tracking. His deep voice rumbled something at Brooke.
 

Gin couldn’t make out his words. She glanced up at Mathias. “Is she okay?”

“He’s telling her which direction to send the water,” Mathias murmured. “Check it out.”

Gin and Ria both gasped as a cloud of liquid rose up from its huge container. It moved over the top, across and over to the near-empty one, and dropped in. Her mouth fell open.
Oh. My. God.

Mathias drew her even closer, kissing the top of her head. “Solsti power.”

Ria’s blue eyes were huge. “Holy shit, that’s amazing.”

Kai leaned down. Brooke’s arms wrapped around his neck, then he lifted her out of the tank and set her in front of him. He wrapped her in an embrace, stroking her hair and kissing her.

Gin was once again touched by their bond. Had Brooke said she and Kai could speak through it?
No, I’d remember that. That definitely would’ve sounded crazy to me.

Brooke started down the ladder. “One down, eight more to go.”

Gin watched as her sister and Kai worked together to move the enzymes out of each remaining reservoir and dump them in the empty tank. In sync and flawless, it seemed like they’d done this a million times.
They’re such a good team
.

Returning from the last tank, Brooke squeezed water from her hair and smiled at Gin. “Your turn.”

Gin looked up at Mathias. “I’ll need some fire.”

“I’m your personal Zippo, remember?” He grinned and spread his arms.

“Right. Okay, Zippy.” She giggled and climbed up the ladder. Reaching the platform, she looked down to see the tank was only about half full.
Well, that will make this faster
. She called over her shoulder to Mathias. “Ready.”