Ember's Kiss

  He had appeared without Brandon hearing him approach.

  “Isn’t that right, Chen? You make it out of incinerated dragon shape shifters?” The guy winked at Brandon, and it wasn’t a friendly expression. “I’ll guess that you’re going to be the source of the new supply.”

  “Fool!” Chen roared. There was no disputing the fact that he was shimmering blue now. He straightened and was nearly as tall as Brandon. Chen’s entire body was surrounded by a halo of bright, flickering blue light.

  Brandon’s mouth fell open.

  Chen was Pyr!

  In the blink of an eye, Chen became a red dragon with gold scales and gold horns. Brandon was shocked. Chen reared back and breathed fire at the guy in the path. The plume of flame was long and vivid, and the fire licked the wooden porch of the house that had been behind the guy.

  It missed the guy because he’d become a dragon of vivid yellow and taken flight.

  Brandon thought the pair would fight each other, but the yellow dragon laughed. He thrashed his tail through the air and took a long, deep breath as he hovered overhead. “Mmm. I smell fresh mate,” he snarled, then disappeared as if he had never been.

  He was going to target Liz!

  “No!” Brandon had to fly to the defense of his mate. His dragon roared, compelling him to shift shape faster than he ever had before.

  It didn’t matter, though. The red dragon that was Chen turned on him with a snarl and moved quicker than lightning.

  By the time Brandon had shifted shape, Chen’s claws were already locked tightly around his neck. The other dragon squeezed, and his delight in the pain he caused was clear. Even in dragon form, Brandon couldn’t fight the other dragon’s deathly grip.

  He tried.

  He slashed at his opponent, still astonished that his friend would attack him. His talons dug into Chen’s shoulder and the blood ran black over his scales.

  Chen was Slayer.

  Brandon should have listened to Liz.

  He struggled with new vigor, knowing his chances of ever listening to Liz again were fading fast. Chen was murmuring something, something that made Brandon’s dragon sleepy and ineffective. The spots where his scales were missing burned, as if touched by fire, sapping the strength from his body.

  She was right about the binding spell, too.

  Brandon felt like an idiot. He got in one good punch, landing a claw to Chen’s gut, and the Slayer’s grip loosened slightly.

  Chen bared his teeth then, and Brandon heard the hiss of dragonsmoke.

  He struggled, but the dragonsmoke snaked toward his gut. He screamed when it plunged into the wound like a knife and he roared as he felt it sucking his strength. Chen chuckled darkly and his claws tightened even more around Brandon’s throat. He squeezed the life out of Brandon as his spell—because it couldn’t be anything else—was commanding Brandon’s dragon to surrender. All Brandon could see were those eyes, eyes as malicious as Chen’s had been only once.

  Chen had been lying to him.

  And it was too late for Brandon to do anything about it. Only now he realized why Chen knew so much about dragons. He’d been manipulated. He’d distrusted his observations, he’d failed to listen to Liz, and he’d been surprised.

  And now he would die for it.

  Brandon saw the colors of the vegetation dim even as he thrashed against his opponent’s ferocious grip. Chen was not as feeble in dragon form as he was in human form—his ability to fight hard made Brandon wonder whether he was feeble at all.

  The taunt in old-speak floated to Brandon’s ears, piercing the veil of pain. He recognized the yellow dragon’s voice. “If I have the mate and you have the Pyr, which one of us will he surrender to, Chen? Let’s find out.”

  Chen roared with fury at the challenge, so he had heard it, too.

  The yellow dragon would kill Liz; Brandon knew it.

  He had to stop them both.

  Terror gave him new strength and he whipped his tail against Chen, struggling with all his might. Chen snarled and his grip loosened slightly, giving Brandon time to hope.

  Suddenly there was a dizzying flash. He had the sense of being lifted and of moving through a fog. He felt nauseated, then cold. Chen’s grip loosened and Brandon fell onto a hard floor.

  For a moment he thought he was alone, but his dragon wasn’t convinced. Brandon looked again and saw a red lizard running across the floor. It slipped through the crack under the door. Brandon rose to his knees and saw an Asian woman in a tight dress marching down the path. She disappeared from sight.

  Then he was alone.

  Was she Chen, too?

  Brandon lunged for the door and collided with a burning wall of ice. He fell back with a shout of pain and narrowed his eyes, only then discerning the dragonsmoke barrier.

  He was a prisoner.

  Chen’s prisoner.

  And they were going to kill Liz.

  Brandon closed his eyes, hating that his mistakes had led him to this place. He hadn’t wanted to have any involvement with the Pyr, but now he was in serious trouble, with no idea how to solve it. He had to start to make amends, and fast.

  Liz’s life depended on it.

  Brandon shouted in old-speak as clearly as he could. “Help me! Help my mate!”

  There was no reply.

  But then, it wasn’t as if he’d practiced his dragon skills. No, he’d spent time in the surf, honing those skills, determined to make himself a future that way.

  Now neither he nor Liz had a future.

  And there was nothing he could do about it.

  Liz’s anger with Brandon lasted all the way down the middle of the island, until she got close to Honolulu. It was when the entry to the tunnel loomed before her that frustration abandoned her.

  Because fear took its place.

  Her grip tightened on the steering wheel as the entry to the tunnel came steadily closer. There hadn’t been any aftershocks for a while, she told herself. She’d driven through the mountain once already since the earthquake and everything had been (mostly) fine. It wasn’t that long of a tunnel, and she couldn’t think of anything worse happening than the mark appearing on her arm. The drive wouldn’t take long; then she could just stay in Kane‘ohe.

  All her rationalizations sounded like exactly what they were.

  She glanced at her watch and knew she didn’t have time to follow the coast around Diamond Head. She couldn’t be late. She owed it to Maureen to be there. She could do this.

  She had to do this.

  The entry to the tunnel loomed closer. Liz swallowed, told herself to remain calm, and drove into the tunnel as if everything was just fine.

  The darkness closed around the car like a shroud. Her heart was pounding and her palms were damp. She refused to think about just how much mountain was over top of her. She refused to look at the passenger’s seat or acknowledge the prickling of that brand. She kept her gaze locked on the road and closed her ears.

  Hear no evil.

  But Liz didn’t hear the spirits. She smelled something burning instead.

  Oh no. Not her test. Not here and now!

  Light—orange light that crackled into flames—sparked on the passenger’s seat. Liz could smell the vinyl burning and hear the snap of the flames. Her right arm was getting singed, and from the corner of her eye, she could see brilliant, hot lava pooling on the floor.

  Holy shit. Liz glanced right and the car swerved.

  From the passenger’s seat, a woman of flame and smoke, a woman whose fiery garments made that lava pool on the floor, smiled back at her. She was all black and orange, all heat and shadow, and her eyes were dark with mystery.

  Pele. Liz gripped the steering wheel in terror. She was being visited by a deity.

  In a way, it was a relief to confront a goddess instead of the test of her powers.

  She really had to make sure she didn’t tick Pele off.

  “You are surprised,” Pele murmured, her voice dark and sensuous.

&n
bsp; “And honored, my lady.”

  The goddess chuckled. She arranged her robes, and sparks flicked toward the dashboard. “My presence reveals the importance of your role.”

  “You honor me too much, my lady,” Liz said, keeping her manner deferential. “My skill is nothing compared to yours.”

  “You are wrong,” Pele said sternly. “You are stronger than you know. Your gift is potent and it is needed to break the spell that awakens the earth.”

  Liz swallowed. She didn’t dare to look directly at Pele, but she knew the goddess was speaking of the dark magic she had already sensed. “I gave my gift away, my lady.”

  “You are no different from him,” Pele said. “You cannot change what you are or cast it away. You gave of your power, but it is still with you. It has slumbered like embers of the fire, awaiting the moment of need.”

  Liz glanced at the goddess in her surprise.

  Pele smiled, the raw power in her expression making Liz look back to the road. She could see a pinprick of light ahead and fixed her gaze on that. Pele’s words were low and hot, insistent and inescapable. “You have only to feed the fire to bring it to a blaze again. Make no mistake—this burden is yours, Firedaughter. You have been chosen. You can triumph or you can fail.”

  “But my test—”

  “Comes to you in this place, where only you can make the difference.” Pele flicked her robes again, sending an array of sparks into the darkness. “There is a certain elegance to it that reveals the hand of the greatest goddess of all. You must embrace the fire that is yours to command.”

  “Fire kills,” Liz insisted, her nostrils as filled with the scent of the ashes that had been her mother as if she still stood on that hill. “Fire burns and destroys.”

  Especially when she tried to command it.

  “Fire purifies,” Pele insisted. “Fire is your weapon of choice. Fire sears and fire heals. You know this, Firedaughter. It is your legacy.”

  “You don’t understand. My mother died because of me! I could die! My child could die!”

  “So you would let the dragon die instead? This would make the life of your child better?”

  Liz gasped in horror. “I left him. He should be safe….”

  Pele shook her head. “Only you can break the spell that binds him.”

  Brandon was going to die without her help? But how could she count on her powers again? And how could she be sure that using her powers at all wouldn’t increase the danger?

  Pele chuckled under her breath. “Perhaps only he can ensure that you pass your test.”

  What? How could that be?

  With a thousand questions, Liz turned to the goddess, but Pele was gone as quickly as if she had never been there. The passenger’s seat was pristine, to Liz’s relief, and there was only a faint whiff of an extinguished flame in the car.

  Not wanting more company, Liz accelerated, racing toward light and sanity and Kane‘ohe.

  Her eyes widened when a rumble echoed beneath the car. She had time to hope it was an illusion before the road shook hard.

  The car swerved into the next lane without Liz meaning to do so. Fortunately, there was no other car near her. The road cracked in a great fissure right ahead of her and she floored the accelerator, hoping to cross the chasm before it yawned too wide. She saw a tendril of steam rise out of the crack and feared the worst.

  The car seemed to welcome the opportunity to show off. It accelerated like a racing car, leaping easily over the yawning crevasse in the road. Liz shot out of the other side of the tunnel just as the shaking became much worse.

  In the rearview mirror, she could see burning orange light erupting from that crack in the road. Lava. A stream of brilliant sparks shot into the air, cars honked, and she heard collisions behind her. She raced down the side of the mountain, wanting only to get back to the Institute—and as far away from the erupting volcano as possible.

  She heard the rumble of sliding rock and didn’t have to look to know what was happening. The dark magic had awakened the volcano. That’s what Pele had been warning her about.

  But how was Liz going to stop it?

  She drove down toward the parking lot like a wild woman, going even faster when she heard the avalanche slam into the road behind her. People were screaming. Houses were collapsing. Rock was rolling down to the sea. The avalanche was descending through the residential neighborhood with savage force. Liz rocketed down the winding road like a race-car driver, managing miraculously to stay just ahead of the tumbling tide of stone.

  Liz got to the parking lot and squealed the tires as she parked in Maureen’s spot. The car was at a bit of an angle, but Liz didn’t care about precision parking. She saw the rising dust of the avalanche and wanted to get as far away as possible, as quickly as possible.

  Far back up the mountain, she could see lava spewing high, like a fireworks display of brilliant orange and red. There was a river of lava already moving down the side of the mountain, so hot that it moved comparatively quickly. She grabbed her purse, locked Maureen’s car, and pivoted to run to the dock.

  Only to find a blond man with a chilly smile blocking her way. He took a deep, appreciative breath, as if he liked her perfume, and she couldn’t imagine how he could smell her from so far away.

  “So,” he said softly, his voice filled with threat. “You’re the mate.”

  The term he used told Liz that he must be another of the dragon shifters. His hungry expression gave her a clue that he wasn’t one of the good guys. Sirens were blaring and chaos had erupted behind her. No one was even going to notice if she screamed, or come to her help if she called.

  The man smiled, as if enjoying that she’d realized the desperation of her situation. She had the sense that he’d been waiting, letting her fear build to its maximum point. She was reminded of a cat playing with a mouse, ensuring that the victim understood its plight before the inevitable end.

  Liz wasn’t feeling like her demise was inevitable.

  The man shimmered blue around his perimeter, flung his hands into the sky, and shifted shape. He became an enormous dragon the color of a yellow topaz, proving her suspicions true. It looked like his talons were made of gold, and his scales seemed to be edged in gold. He had an awful lot of very sharp teeth.

  He took flight and breathed fire at Liz, his eyes shining with fury. For the first time, Liz’s legacy seemed like a gift. She could fight fire with fire.

  Maybe only a Firedaughter could face down this Slayer and win.

  Her son was going to survive and so would she.

  With that thought, Liz felt the old power rise within her. The heat of her gift surged through her veins, responding to her need and her command, just as Pele had said it would.

  When the dragon lunged toward her, claws extended, Liz didn’t bother to scream.

  This Slayer was going to get more than he expected.

  Liz raced toward the Slayer instead of away from him, making for the end of the dock. As she ran, she flung her purse strap over her shoulder so it hung across her body and left her hands free. She ducked beneath the airborne dragon and closed her eyes against his blast of flames. She was sure she felt his talons slide through her hair.

  Only surprise had made him miss.

  Liz knew that trick wouldn’t work again. She had to fight fire with fire. She recited the ancient words in her thoughts once, ensuring that she had the order and pronunciation right. It had been a long time, and there would be no second chances, but she remembered them perfectly.

  She would speak no evil.

  At the end of the dock, Liz pivoted and flung up her left hand. The dragon was closing fast, his eyes shining in anticipation of a nice, light snack.

  She called to the power that was hers by right and flung up a wall of burning flame between herself and the dragon. The spell worked with such vigor and speed that Liz was astonished.

  She was stronger than ever.

  But there was no time to marvel at her feat.


  She spun to dive into the bay. She heard the dragon roar in frustration, probably because he couldn’t stop in time to avoid the fire. When she broke the surface, she smelled something burning and hoped it was him.

  Liz glanced back in time to see him circling the end of the dock. His scales were singed and smoldering, a thread of smoke rising from his burned hide. With obvious frustration, he slashed at the wooden hut on the end of the dock, then set it on fire by breathing a plume of flames at it. There must have been a tank of fuel stashed there, because the shack exploded, sending a tower of flame into the sky.

  Then he turned to glare at her.

  Liz swam for the island with all her might. He couldn’t burn her while she was in the water, but she murmured a protection spell all the same. She was a strong swimmer and the water was much warmer than it was in New England.

  Coconut Island wasn’t far away.

  She knew she could make it.

  The ocean welled around her, its deep songs melding with her thoughts. She felt the power of the element of water and was dizzied by its influence on her. There was no buffer here—no concrete, no boat hull, no wet suit. She was surrounded by the lullaby of the water and caressed by it on every side. How had her mother dealt with so much energy? If she was going to survive, Liz had to focus and ignore her intuitive connection with the earth’s elements.

  She swam hard, her body straining. She felt something brush against her leg and nearly panicked. It was a bad time to remember that Kane‘ohe Bay was a breeding ground for hammerhead sharks.

  Only in the winter.

  Which would include December.

  Funny how knowing that the young sharks were harmless to humans didn’t slow her heartbeat much. Liz opened her eyes under the water and saw dozens of them, their dark shadows sliding around and beneath her.

  They were juveniles, she told herself sternly. No more than two feet long.

  And even adult hammerheads had very little taste for humans. She was safe.

  Well, from the sharks.

  Liz swam faster. The sharks brushed against her repeatedly, as if they needed to touch her, as if they recognized that she was a woman in connection with the planet. Liz could have done without the affection.