Ignite the Fire: Incendiary by Karen Chance

 

 

Chapter Twelve

 

 

There was a flash of vivid blue eyes in a sun bronzed face, a crack like thunder, and a blaze of white light. Then the garden was gone, and I was back on my bed, holding my breath and expecting to see blood flowing from a dozen new wounds. I didn’t.

I saw something worse.

The lightning bursts in my skin, which had been growing like slow blooming fireworks, suddenly stopped. For a second, for one brief, wonderful second, I thought that Pritkin had somehow managed to fix this. But one look at the confusion on his face told me I was wrong.

And then I felt a familiar sensation: barbs sinking deep.

Zeus, it seemed, had decided that sauce for the goose was sauce for the gander, a fitting term for one who had appeared in goose form to one of his mistresses. But he didn’t want pleasure from me; he wanted power. My power, all that I’d taken from him and everything I had left. It felt like a hundred fangs biting deep—and starting to feed.

I screamed as every filament of stolen strength suddenly reversed course, from tearing me apart physically to doing it spiritually. My greatest fear had become my enemy’s greatest weapon, because I couldn’t think past the terror. Couldn’t concentrate, couldn’t feel, couldn’t breathe.

Couldn’t let Pritkin in.

“Cassie!”

“I can’t; I can’t!”

“You must! Look at me!”

I screamed again instead, a terrified, gut-wrenching sound, the cry of a cornered animal who knows it’s trapped. Who knows that nature is red in tooth and claw, and that there will be no mercy. No way out; no way out. I was trapped and I was going to die this way, because he was eating me, he was eating me, he was—

“Lady!” Rhea was pounding on the door, her voice frantic. “Lady, do you need me—”

“No! Stay out!” She couldn’t help, and I couldn’t let her see me like this; not like this.

So weak, I thought in disgust. I always had been, except for that brief moment on the river when I’d dared to steal power from a god, from the king of the gods. And even then, it hadn’t lasted. Aeslinn had quickly begun pulling it back, because power—

Goes both ways.

I blinked, my desperate cries suddenly silenced, as I realized—I might not be able to survive this, but I could make my opponent pay. If he had his fangs in me, then I had mine in him. And what the hell did I have to lose?

Not like a beaten dog, you bastard, I thought. I go out like a goddess, like my mother before me, like a Pythia. You might win, but I will make you bleed.

My strange new vision kicked in, showing me lightning running like thorny vines throughout my body, like a second venous system. I didn’t wait to examine them closely; didn’t care. I ripped them out, feeling my life force splatter like blood as they tore loose. Didn’t care; didn’t care; didn’t care. It beat along with my heart, a new mantra, because I was dying anyway. I just needed to last long enough to take him with me.

I looped the silver strands around my mental hands, round and round and round, ignoring their bite; it only helped me to hold on.

Then I jerked, pulling with everything I had, and felt a god falter.

“You would vie with me?” The voice was amused.

“As opposed to dying like a dog? Yes!”

He laughed. “Then dance with me, little Pythia. Let us see if there is anything of your mother in you. Or if your father’s tainted blood has poisoned yours as well.”

“Go fuck yourself,” I panted, because this was not my finest hour.

“Yes, it is,” Pritkin said, his voice rough, and kissed me.

And this time, there was something different in his touch. The previous kiss had been tender, light and careful—the caress of a man whose lover is suffering. This one was all passion, hard and demanding, and full on from the start. It awakened a fire in me that had nothing to do with pain, and everything to do . . .

With power.

Not stolen from a god, but ours, thrumming through the bond between us and sweet, sweet, so damned sweet, like honey dripping onto my lips. It healed my flesh, sang in my veins, and for a moment, all I could do was cling to him, licking it up. I felt my strength returning, my vision clearing, the ringing in my ears beginning to ease—

And then Zeus jerked us halfway across the room.

We hit the floor, and Pritkin’s body went up in strange, black smoke underneath me. I stared around at the dissipating clouds, and wondered if I was somehow imagining all this. But part of it was real enough. Zeus was sucking me dry, and in the process was throwing me physically around the room, using his power like a whip—

And, yeah, I got the irony, I thought, right before he slung me against a wall.

People outside were yelling, fists were beating on the door, and enchantments were being muttered, which did exactly nothing, because that was coven magic sealing me in, and the war mages didn’t know it. And a good thing, too. If they tried to interfere, they might get themselves killed, and add changing time to the clusterfuck of the last few days.

But I wasn’t doing so well on my own. I was dragged along the floor, suddenly grateful for boards that had given up all their splinters ages ago, only to stop when I hit the side of the tub—with my head. The blow was hard enough for me to see stars, but I found purchase on the slick side anyway, bracing myself and pulling back.

Which did nothing except to almost break my leg when I was ripped out of place and dragged over the top.

Agnes flickered into view for a second, a red-faced girl in a filthy gown that she’d never had time to change. I opened my mouth to warn her, to tell her to get out, but I didn’t have a chance. Because she was suddenly gone again, looking as surprised as I was.

Redirect spell, I thought. Rhea couldn’t keep anyone with the Pythian power from shifting in, but she could lay spells that sent them elsewhere whenever they tried it. I wondered where she’d sent Agnes as I was flung back across the room.

I landed on the bed, flipped over, and looked up—

And saw a furious woman flash back in, wearing a filthy gown that was now also dripping wet.

Oh, that was where.

Well, at least the dress was already ruined, I thought, as she was redirected back out again.

And then someone grabbed me.

It freaked me out because it felt like a real hand, but it wasn’t made out of flesh. I jerked around, wondering what this new hell was, and then froze because I didn’t know. It didn’t look like anything I’d ever seen, and I’d seen a lot.

But then, it wasn’t finished yet.

The bed sheets had started rising up and pulling away from the mattress. But instead of blood stained and mud smeared, as they’d been a second ago, they were almost blindingly white. They were also forming themselves into a familiar shape.

A well-muscled arm emerged from the billowing mass, pale but fully formed. Then a naked torso, lithe and long, like a swimmer’s body, but heavier across the shoulders. And, finally, a head, one with high cheekbones, proud arched eyebrows, and a fierce, aquiline nose, the whole adding up to a hawk-like profile that a Roman senator might have envied.

I didn’t understand how, but it was unmistakably Mircea. Looking like he’d been caught in someone’s laundry, with his body outlined against the billowing sheets, but him nonetheless. And it didn’t take long for the fabric to tighten up, to mold itself to the strong contours of his chest, the sweeping ladder of his ribs, the soft indentation of his navel, and the heavy weight of his sex.

It was a perfect recreation, to the point that I could see the outlines of his nipples, furled against the cold; could make out the pale slash of a knife scar on his hipbone, a rare reminder of the violent days of his youth; could trace the prominent veins in his forearms. Even the muscles working in his thighs were visible, as he fought to free himself from the remains of his fabric prison. He finally succeeded, with his feet coming into view and indenting the mattress.

They were as pale as marble, like the rest of him, because the sheets had disappeared all right, but they hadn’t vanished. They’d been transformed, although into what I wasn’t sure. He looked like an anatomically correct statue, like a better endowed David stepping off a plinth. Even the hair was right, with that well-kept mane flowing like sculpted stone. But it didn’t feel like stone when he knelt down and a strand of it brushed against my cheek.

It felt like him.

I knew I should run, knew that this was just another trick by Zeus, like that farce in the courtyard. But if it was a trick, it was a damned good one. And where was I supposed to go?

The poison was in my blood.

It didn’t help that it all felt so real, so exactly like the man I knew: the strength of his arms as they encircled me from behind, hardened from swinging swords and flails and carrying iron banded shields around; the steady heartbeat against my back, something vampires didn’t need but that Mircea never forgot; the cool, soft glide of his hair over my bare shoulders, like a silken river; and the scent of pine, practically his signature, heady and rich and so familiar in my nostrils.

I could feel the warmth of his breath on my neck. Could trace the pattern of calluses on his hands as they gripped my arms, so different from Pritkin’s, which had been formed by medieval quills and modern guns. I didn’t need to see the two men to tell the difference between them; I could read their skin like braille . . .

And, suddenly, I had a new volume, when the sheets on the opposite side of me started to rise up as well. For a moment, all I could see was flapping white cotton and my hair, which the air they disturbed was tossing around. Then I froze, and not just because Zeus was forcing me to brace against the footboard with my legs to avoid being thrown around the room again.

But because I immediately recognized the new arrival.

And, okay, maybe this wasn’t one of Zeus’s tricks, after all. Maybe this . . . was one of ours. Because I’d know that shape anywhere.

It was in the muscular thickness of a thigh, pushing up from the mattress. It was in the powerful chest and shoulders that followed, the result of regular workouts and even more regular fights. It was in the features on the head that fought its way out of the confining sheets: the stubborn jaw, the slightly too-large nose, and the thin lips that I’d once disliked, but had come to think balanced out the face.

Pritkin wasn’t classically handsome, being more rugged, more rough around the edges, more careless of his appearance than Mircea. Good looks weren’t part of his job description as they had been for the Senate’s chief diplomat, and he wasn’t a vain man. But I’d learned to appreciate the bad haircuts and the stubbled jaw, the rumpled t-shirts stretched over hardened pecs, and the way the soft old jeans he wore sometimes dipped down to show me a glimpse of an Adonis belt, or to hug that shapely backside.

I used to have to catch a glimpse of said backside in our workout sessions—carefully, when he wasn’t looking or when I hoped he wasn’t. These days, I ogled openly, which got me warning looks, because Pritkin didn’t play around during training. And then escalating exercise— “an extra mile of jogging today, since you’re so energetic” —as a penance. One I took gladly, because it invariably ended with us in a closet or a spare hotel room, whatever bolt hole we could find, tearing each other’s clothes off like horny teenagers.

Yes, it was unmistakably the man I loved, here via some magic I didn’t understand. Like I didn’t understand what had happened a moment ago, when he’d just disappeared. Or, for that matter, why he and Mircea were showing up like this instead of coming in the flesh to help me.

I also knew that it didn’t matter. As good as it was to see them in any form, they’d come too late. I was losing.

My strength, already tested too many times, was all but gone. Zeus might be a world away, having to command his power through space and time, but he was managing really well. Better than well. I’d thought the distance might give me a small chance, and maybe it had.

But it wasn’t enough.

I could feel myself slipping away, my mental hands loosening on the silver threads, the drain starting in earnest as my resistance faltered. I didn’t have the strength to keep fighting, having already expended the small hit of power that Pritkin had given me. Right now, it didn’t feel like I had anything left at all.

And then Mircea bit me.

I felt the agony of a bite with no preparation, felt my blood spirt and then start to seep down my shoulder, felt confusion—Mircea was tidier than that, and blood was precious. Why was he wasting it? Why was he biting me at all?

Then I realized why.

“No!” I said, fighting against the pleasure that followed the bite, a rushing wave of it that almost cancelled out the pain. But there were more ways to hurt than the physical, and my mind, clear and determined a moment ago, was suddenly panicking.

Something that ramped up when ghostly hands joined the fight, closing over mine in my mental vision, and halting the slide of lightning through my fingers.

“No!” I repeated. “Take his power and you’ll poison yourself! He’ll drain you, too!”

“Then why hasn’t he?” echoed in my mind, in Mircea’s voice. “You already sent me power—a great deal of it. Why hasn’t he pulled it back, or turned it against me?”

“Because he hasn’t had time?”

“He’s had time; he hasn’t used it. Which means he can’t—”

“You don’t know that!”

“I do know that. The gods don’t turn down power, Cassie. But diluted among the family, all the multiplied thousands of us, his doesn’t have enough strength left to hurt anyone. Not from so far away—”

“And if you’re wrong?

“I’m not. And what is the alternative?”

“Break the spell. Let me die—”

“No.” It was flat.

It was also stupid. “Better me than the whole family! Mircea—”

I felt his arms tighten possessively, while his mental voice, when it came again, was as angry as I’d ever heard it. “That is not an alternative. And he is vulnerable. Let us make him feel it.”

Then those powerful hands looped themselves in agony, and jerked back.

I thought I heard a roar—of surprise, of fury, of pain—I wasn’t sure. It was distant, unimportant. Because Mircea had begun to feed, not on my blood, but on the foreign energy pulsing within me.

It hurt—the ache bright and sharp and horrible with every draw, fighting with the pleasure of a vampire’s kiss, making me gasp and cry out. It was far worse than a normal bite, but not because of him. But because of the barbed filaments that he was drawing into him.

Little thorns were suddenly tearing loose all over my body, but they went slowly, reluctantly, and damaged as much as possible in the process. Leaving a raw, ragged soul behind, even more injured than my body. Mircea might win this contest, but would there be anything left of me when he did?

It didn’t feel like it.

I thought I’d accepted death, come to terms with it, been willing to pay the price if I could hurt my enemy in the process. But I raged against it now, faced with the terror, not just of ending, but of leaving a world to be ripped apart as Zeus was doing to me. Mircea, Pritkin, Rhea—my entire court—none of them would survive. Because Mircea might understand the gods and their power, but I understood them and their hate.

I should; they’d been teaching me about nothing else since I met them.

So, I did the only thing I could do, the only thing I had energy left for, and screamed my rage at the being who was destroying me from worlds away. I cursed his name even as I felt my hold on life slipping through my fingers, blasphemed every way I knew. And yelled my defiance at the skies—

Until familiar lips stopped me, until a familiar thigh parted my own, until Pritkin drove his tongue into my mouth and his body into mine, at almost the same moment. And I felt a burst of power explode through me like nothing I’d ever known. I gasped against him, and then gasped again when the power of his people, of the incubus royal house, ignited around us in a way that it never had before.

It was no secret that his line could multiply power. That was why Rosier commanded such great fees from other demons for a single night in his company, and why he’d wanted Pritkin back in hell, enough to make his son’s life miserable for years. Because the two of them together could generate enough power to hold his throne against all takers.

I had even experienced the effect myself a few times, and thought I understood it.

I’d been wrong.

Pieces of what looked like a star flung sky, if glimpsed through towering black storm clouds, were suddenly whirling around us. They were thick enough to blot out the room, to leave us in the middle of a glittering swath of boiling power, both alien and familiar at the same time. And I realized: I’d never seen Pritkin’s power before, had I? Just what it acted upon.

But I was seeing it now, and feeling it, when one of the rotating bands brushed against my arm, raising gooseflesh all over my body. And then my mind’s eye showed me two more hands, dark as night but sparkling with power, grab onto the thin thread of barbed lighting in my fist. That made six of them now: mine, Mircea’s, and Pritkin’s.

And, all of a sudden, Zeus had a fight on his hands.