Ignite the Fire: Incendiary by Karen Chance

Chapter Fourteen

 

 

Idid a double take, hoping that I was seeing things. But I’d been right the first time: what had been a maelstrom only a few moments ago was now a winter’s gale, still powerful, still scary. But patchy, as if some of its power was being drawn off.

Maybe because it was.

My inner eye focused on the battle for the first time in a while, and saw something concerning: the locus of the fight had shifted closer to us, as our advantage was slowly but steadily eroded. It wasn’t enough to make a difference, but it soon would be, because we were now the ones in retreat.

And for once, I thought I knew why.

I stared up at the circling clouds, black and silver, still twining together, still beautiful . . . but incomplete. There was no third color there, no bright flash of gold among the starker shades. Something was missing.

The Pythian power was absent.

I suddenly realized why all those claws in my flesh had been drawing up. Not because we were winning, but because that was what we were using as a power source—the energy that I’d stolen from Zeus and that Mircea had been laundering through the family. And only that, since my own power remained completely absent.

And without it, we had begun to falter.

Pritkin fell back against the bed a moment later, panting and spent, and stared up at me with confused panic on his face, the first time I’d ever seen that emotion from him. “Why isn’t it working? Why isn’t it working?”

Because we’re facing a god, I thought dully. We’d made power—a lot of it. Enough to have vanquished a hundred other foes. But it wasn’t enough for this one, and at this point, I didn’t know what would be. Because, if Pritkin didn’t know what to do . . .

It was over.

He was the smartest man I’d ever met. He knew a dozen languages, sped through massive old tomes like they were comic books, had forgotten more magic than most people ever knew. If he didn’t have an answer, it was probably because there wasn’t one.

Did you really think you could stand against Zeus? I thought, as Mircea’s arms tightened around me. He’d steamrollered the world—any number of worlds; he’d led a pack of human piranhas on a feeding frenzy that had wiped out half of the hells; he’d commanded the loyalty, however begrudging, of beings like Ares, who himself had been terrifying. Had I really thought that I was going to defeat something like that?

Yes, for one short moment, I had.

Probably sheer bloody mindedness, as Pritkin would say. But that wasn’t enough, any more than stubbornness, anger, desperation, or courage were. Whatever was needed, I didn’t have it, and I didn’t know who did.

The storm above us was obviously leaner now, with pieces of the room becoming visible as its essence was used up. It was flowing into the fight, trying to stave off the inevitable for another few minutes, because the power we were generating was no longer sufficient. I watched it melt away, stripping itself of strength, of life, in a futile attempt to save me, and I didn’t even know for sure what it was.

And then something started whispering to me, out of the glittering depths.

It wasn’t a voice, wasn’t even a language, at least none that I’d ever heard. It was . . . feelings, emotions, passions, but so vivid, so clear and tangible, that it almost felt like I could reach up and touch them. And along with them, they brought information, although I struggled to interpret it.

I stared from the clouds to Pritkin and back again, trying to focus with a thousand questions suddenly crowding my mind: was that his incubus up there? Was that why he and Mircea were here—had Pritkin’s demon brought them? Because it had done something like this once before, in this very room, forming itself a body out of stolen power.

But if it had brought them, why not bring their bodies, too?

Maybe because it couldn’t. Maybe they had chased that fey creature straight into Faerie, where my power didn’t work. Maybe this had been the only way to reach me—

But why make them bodies? If this was a spiritual struggle, they didn’t need them. This wasn’t about the physical . . .

Only, of course it was, I thought, wondering how I was so slow. It may not have started out that way, but we’d turned this into a physical contest, because incubus magic was sex magic. It might manifest on a spiritual plane, but it wasn’t made there. It was made here, in sweaty hands slipping over heated flesh, in whispered words and panted breaths, in physical contact—

And, finally, I understood. I didn’t know how much of that was me figuring it out, and how much was coming from the creature boiling through the air around us. I couldn’t hear it that clearly, possibly because it didn’t have much strength left. But we could fix that, couldn’t we?

And not through a vampire’s bite.

That might feel sexual, at times, but it wasn’t. It was a trick, an illusion to quiet a violent response in the victim, and an illusion wouldn’t work here. We needed the real thing.

Help me, I begged Mircea, and sent him the jumbled thoughts that were the best I could do at the moment.

But they must have been enough, because the next second, I felt a hand on the back of my neck, bending me over, felt a heavy weight against me, felt—

“Ahhh!”

A familiar warmth entered me, a familiar thickness took me, causing me to cry out in surprise, even though I’d asked for it. Because Mircea was bigger than Pritkin, bigger than most, something I’d almost forgotten. But my body welcomed him, embraced him, engulfed him as eagerly as if it had missed him, too. And the familiarity of his touch, his scent, his heartbeat thudding against my back, eased the transition from one lover to the other.

I could feel his emotions through the bond as he took me, and there was conflict there. He needed to go fast—there was no time for anything else—needed to generate power before ours was all used up. But he desperately wanted to take it slow. To savor this, to enjoy it, to properly experience what was likely our last time together. The depth of his feeling surprised me; I hadn’t expected that.

But he wouldn’t endanger me for his own gratification. Which was why he almost immediately thrust deep, causing me to cry out again, in surprise this time. He paused for a moment, giving me time to feel the pulse of him inside me, to experience his heart beating at my center, to sense the familiar heat of his body melting into my own. And then he slowly withdrew, allowing us this if nothing else, the long, slow glide of his flesh through mine, so good that it was almost torture.

Until he thrust back in, setting up a powerful rhythm that had me gasping at every move, had sweat running in rivulets over my already overheated body, had goosebumps cascading and my skin flushing and my teeth biting onto my lower lip to try to keep the most embarrassing sounds in my throat.

I found myself surprisingly emotional, too. I’d thought I was over him, or as much as I was ever likely to get. Other people seemed to be able to drop a lover, once the relationship soured, to put them in the past, to just forget . . .

I didn’t have that skill. And our relationship hadn’t soured so much as . . . not worked out. If I’d hated him, maybe it would have been easier. But I didn’t hate him; I never had.

Okay, maybe for a few hours, after the daughter he’d never told me about almost killed me, but really not even then. I’d been furious—and hurt and betrayed and just so very sad. But I hadn’t been able to really hate him; I’d come closer to hating myself for failing to do so.

I’m sorry. It thrummed through the bond suddenly, not words, not even thoughts; like with the incubus, it was more of a feeling. And the more I concentrated on it, the more I could feel it: his sorrow, his loss, his regret—and worse, the knowledge that he deserved all of it. He hated himself, as I couldn’t, for causing the rift between us. For causing me pain and putting me in danger, and for what?

Cowardice. The idea was bitter in his mind, on his tongue. It was the worst accusation one of his rank could have made against them, either in his time or our own. A master had to be many things, but most of all, he was expected to be fearless in defense of his own. But he had been a coward—

That’s unfair, I thought, and it was. There had been extenuating circumstances; he’d wanted to save his wife, who he’d believed had suffered a terrible death, and needed my abilities to do it. He had lied to me, but not for himself. He’d done it for her—

And that makes a difference? The words appeared in my mind, as clearly as if they were my own. I feared to trust you—you, who had never deceived me—feared to lose you if you knew the truth, feared to lose her, feared to risk . . .

And thus I lost it all anyway, as cowards always do.

You’re not a coward.

I was when it counted. And for that, I am sorry. I am sorry for everything, Cassie.

If I’d heard it, if those words had come from his lips, I wouldn’t have believed them. Would have assumed it was manipulation, some sort of ploy to get me back on his side. Not that I’d ever left it; we had always been allies. But still . . . there had been a rift between us, ever since I found out the truth; I couldn’t deny that.

But this wasn’t speech, wasn’t even thought, although there was some of that mixed in. This was emotion, pure and unadulterated, and as full of pain as I had been feeling. I didn’t know if the incubus was responsible for that, if we were speaking to each other through its language instead of our own, didn’t know anything.

Except that it made all the difference.

I’d never gotten an apology from Mircea, not a real one. More of an ‘I’m sorry I got caught trying to use your power to rescue the wife I didn’t tell you about, and hid the daughter I also didn’t tell you about for worry that she would tip you off.’ Somehow, I hadn’t found that too convincing.

But this . . . maybe I was crazy, and this was some kind of trick, but I didn’t think so. I felt his pain, his regret, his anger at himself. Felt the cost, the fracture in the family that never should have happened, another piece lost instead of one restored.

Felt genuine remorse, and didn’t know what to do with it.

But I guess my heart did, because it flooded the bond with so much emotion that it shocked me, and caused Mircea to suck in his breath. There was love there, and relief, and forgiveness, with part of me so happy, so joyful, to heal at least some of the breech between us. I had missed him, more than I’d allowed myself to realize, because it was less painful to shove it away, to not think at all, to not feel.

So, when I finally could, it was overwhelming.

But there was conflict, too, so much that it almost drowned out the other. Wariness, fear, hurt, distrust—because I guessed all that didn’t just go away because of an apology, did it? No matter how heartfelt. But louder than all of those was worry—because I had a lover, one who had never betrayed me, and the depth of my feelings for him was a deep thrum along the bond.

I think it surprised Mircea, how strong my feelings for Pritkin were. I felt shock, dismay, possessiveness, anger—his immediate reaction. And then confusion, sadness, regret, competitiveness, and—weirdly—a strange kind of joy. He was happy that I was happy, I realized, but there was a slew of other emotions that went along with that, which he didn’t seem to know how to handle any more than I had.

It made me feel slightly better, that someone five hundred years old hadn’t figured out human relationships, either.

But joy was there, nonetheless, and happiness that we were together again, if only for a moment. I decided to focus on that instead of the rest while I could. And I guessed Mircea agreed.             

Because one of his hands found my breast, pulling me up, pulling me back against him. Another cupped me down below, capturing my body, helping his thrusts find their mark. I felt orgasm shiver over me, time and again, felt his breath warm against my flesh, felt his tongue licking the remaining blood off my neck. My hand went up, cupping his cheek, even as my breath sped up, as if it hadn’t already been fast enough. Almost there—God—almost there!

And yet nothing.

Release remained elusive, as it had with Pritkin, which made no sense at all!

Either man could speed up my breath with a look, could bring me to the brink with a touch, could tip me over within moments. Hell, Pritkin had to actually hold back his incubus nature, whispering spells to prolong our passion, or any contact would have been disappointingly short. And Mircea . . . well, whatever problems we’d had, they had never extended to the bedroom.

Yet I couldn’t finish.

I thrashed against him, almost in anguish now, my body twisting, trying to find relief. But nothing worked. Nothing even came close.

And the Pythian power, likewise, stayed just out of reach.

What was wrong with it? I thought desperately. Why didn’t it come? I didn’t know, but I couldn’t make it; it wasn’t my slave. It had its own mind, and for the first time, I wondered: was it afraid? Did it fear Zeus, too?

Because it had reason. It was godly energy, gifted to the priestesses at Delphi by Apollo himself. But he had played nice with the All Father, hadn’t he? Just as Ares had. Both of them afraid of the repercussions if they didn’t.

And the Pythian power was merely a part of Apollo.

Maybe it didn’t think it would be enough. Maybe it didn’t want to take the risk. Maybe it thought I had already lost, and that it needed to preserve itself for Rhea and the fight to come, because it was really starting to feel that way.

Pritkin was staring at me wildly, as if he didn’t know what to do, either. But unlike me, he wasn’t used to failure; he always had a solution to everything. And the fear that he might not be able to save me this time was tearing him apart.

I could feel his emotions as well, as I lowered myself down to kiss him. Not for any magically-related reason, but because I wanted to. Because I wanted to wipe that look off his face.

Our lips touched, soft and gentle, and then hard and frantic, his hand going around the back of my head and tangling in my hair, his mouth and tongue searching for some sort of comfort in the end.

But, instead, we found something else.

A small electrical shock went through us, jumping from him to me to Mircea, as soon as we touched. It was a tiny hit of power, hardly anything, especially compared to what we had been creating. But it gave me an idea.

Or maybe it was one of theirs; I didn’t know anymore. Couldn’t tell the difference. And I guessed Pritkin couldn’t either, because he didn’t object when I kissed down his body, when I teased him with my tongue; when I took him into my mouth and licked along his length, luxuriating in the strength and feel of him, and of having his pleasure in my control. I swallowed him down, and the heady feel of him throbbing in my throat warring with the feel of Mircea pulsing into my body, a completely new sensation—

And then another one ripped through me, almost violently, like a supernova bursting across the night sky. Or as if a connection had been made between the three of us, an electric current almost as strong as anything Zeus could invent, flashing along the link in my mind, until I couldn’t look at it anymore, until it overpowered everything else, until it was like being swallowed by the sun. Until something that sounded a lot like a lock clicked shut.

Three of us, I thought dizzily; we’d needed all three of us . . .

And, finally, my pleasure exploded, orgasm tearing through me and then out into the spell, magnified a thousand times by incubus magic—and by the emotion it fed on. Lover’s Knot, I thought dizzily. Why had I never understood the title of the spell? Incubus magic used emotion as a conduit, used love not logic, and there had been a huge emotional block between us.

Until now.

But the limit we’d placed on its power was suddenly gone, and it roared back, harder and faster than ever—and so did something else. Something absent from the equation until now, but surging into the fight, glimpsing an opportunity. A sparkling tide of golden power twined around the other two streams, braiding them together, merging them until it was impossible to tell where one began and another ended.

And then all three of them turned on Zeus, with an almost human howl of fury. Taking everything that we’d made, all that power all at once, and striking back. And bitch slapped the All-Father across space and time.