Beast of Fire -- a Demon Hunting Sexy Romance (28 page)

As if reading Lucan’s mind, Cullen gave him a show. Fire seemed to implode in one of the wolves’ chests. The gun the wolf held fell from the wolf’s hand and he crumbled the ground. “Go!” Cullen yelled. “Get the women out of here.”

Lucan hesitated, not sure why the hell he didn’t want to leave a demon behind, but he didn’t. The other two wolves went to their knees, grabbing their chests and that was enough for Lucan. He turned to the bedroom and went after Kresley.
 

A second later, she was shoved into his arms by a wolf – shit. Nick. He barely clung to his sword. “Going somewhere?” the wolf asked. “The fun is just getting started.”

Lucan pulled Kresley close with his free arm, palmed his sword with the other. They turned back to the room, looking for another exit. Too late. More wolf’s charged the door and plummeted Cullen’s chest with darts. Cullen fell like a rock to the ground and hit his head on the coffee table.
 

Kresley gasped at the hard connect as blood spurted from his head. But the action wasn’t over. One of the wolves dove at Cullen’s body and reached for the ring. The instant he touched that little jewel, the wolf grabbed his chest and started shaking. He collapsed across Cullen’s body, his chest imploding with fire.
 

Lucan felt like a vice had grabbed his throat and wouldn’t let go. Would that happen to Kresley if she tried to take the ring? He had no plans to find out.
 

“Idiot,” Nick spat, staring at the dead wolf. He eyed the rest of the wolves – of which there were four crammed into the tiny space. “I told you both the ring protects him when he cannot protect himself.”
 

A wolf stepped from the hallway and stared at the body draped across Cullen’s. He laughed. “Alexander always was an idiot.”

Nick grimaced, “Thank you Jess,” he said sarcastically, “for that brilliant observation. Is the building locked down?”

“All done,” he agreed. “Cops tied up in the apartment next door.”

“Bring one of them here,” Nick stated. “Throw a few bullets in their legs. We need to give the firestarter some incentive to take off that ring.”

“No!” Kresley yelled. “No. Please. Don’t hurt anyone. We don’t even know if I can remove it. I might die like that wolf just did.”

“We won’t know until we try,” Nick said. “But I’ll be easy on you. I’ll start with your boyfriend.” A bullet slammed into Lucan’s shoulder and this was no tranquilizer. It was cold, biting steel that splintered pain across his back. Then another bullet. Then another. His shoulder shook. So did his legs right before they buckled. Nick seemed pleased adding, “Once he’s bled to death, we’ll go get one of your neighbors to play with.”

Kresley dropped to the floor with Lucan. “Oh God. Oh Lucan. I’m so sorry.” Anther bullet hit his shoulder. A bone shattered he was pretty damn sure. He flinched and grabbed Kresley’s hand, pulled her close, not wanting anyone else to hear. She pressed her cheek to his. It was wet. “Immortal,” he whispered. “Won’t die. Don’t. Don’t. Take ring off.” The Seers words came back to him. “Please… Baby. Please. Don’t. Do it.” Another bullet hit his leg. He tried to hold onto Kresley but he couldn’t. She was gone. She was gone. Where was she? No. Blackness. His eyes would not work. No! He had to save her. Save. Kresley.
 
He wasn’t suppose to let her die.
 

If you takeoff that ring off it will destroy you. The words repeated in his head. He went blank.
 

***

Kresley had felt fear in her life, mostly fear of hurting others. But she realized, as of this moment, that she had never known real fear. Never breathed it into her lungs, never felt it pebble in a light sheen across her skin – never, until this day.
 

The man who was meant to be her mate, who quite possibly she was in love with for reasons beyond that, was lying on the floor in excruciating pain. At any moment, a human could be pulled through the door and tortured to leverage her actions, and since she had not had her shot, and she had no idea how much time had passed, none of this might matter – they might all soon be in flames. The Guardians could not take her to hell. She was there.
 

“Remove the ring,” Nick ordered and cocked the gun again. “Do it now.”

“All right!” she yelled and walked to Cullen’s body. She bent down.
 

“Do it!” Nick yelled back at her.
 

“Give me a minute, damn it!” Kresley shouted. She never cursed, but she wanted to curse again. She had to think. Did she have the ability to take out all of these wolves without letting innocents get killed? Because if she took this ring off and gave it to Nick, innocents would be killed. Nick would be a nightmare to humanity. She had to try to stop him. Lucan had said the purpose of her fire was to do good, to stop evil. If she could stop Nick, that would be stopping evil. She clung to that thought.
   

She reached for Cullen’s hand, covered the ring, but did not try to remove it. She wanted Nick to believe she intended to. She felt a charge go through her body, power emanating from the ring, as if it were alive, scanning her, searching for what threat she represented to Cullen. She refused to acknowledge the fear trying to tear down her mind.
 

The ring was not her enemy; Cullen was not her enemy. The wolves standing to the right of her were her enemies. She pictured those enemies in her mind, visualized what she’d seen the ring do to the wolves as she’d watched from the doorway, the way it had exploded fire inside their chests so that the fire didn’t spread. She pictured it with every bit of memory, every bit of will, she possessed. And whether it was her own doing, or the ring's power, one of the wolves shouted out and grabbed his chest. Then another. Yes! She screamed that word over and over in her mind as she destroyed the enemies. One by one the wolves fell.
 

Fearful that Nick would lash out at Lucan, she pushed to her feet and whirled around to face him. But he was gone. She didn’t go after him.
 

Instead she went to Lucan’s side, touching his face as he murmured her name. Her heart twisted in knots.
 

She grabbed the cell phone off his belt and dialed the ranch. Jag answered immediately.
 

“Oh thank God. Jag. It’s Kresley. We need you.” She hung up the phone and held her breath, waiting for the Guardians to attack. But there was no attack. Only help arrived – first Jag orbed into the room, then Marisol.
 

As Marisol bent down to heal Lucan, Jag orbed out of the room– to get more help, she assumed. She watched as Marisol held her hand over Lucan’s wounds, a healing glow radiating off her palm.
 

Out of the corner of her eye, a syringe captured her attention. It was shoved beneath the couch, within arm's reach this entire time. Her injection! How could she forget?
 

She reached for it, her gaze going to the clock. She still had an hour. An hour until her fire blazed out of control.
 
Her fire had saved lives today. It had stopped that ring from getting into the wrong hands. She would not view it as a curse any longer.
 

Lucan murmured something – her name. She shoved the syringe into her pocket. She would not let fear control her either.
 

She focused on Lucan, watched as he blinked her into focus. “Kresley.” He sat upright, looked around. “Marisol?”
 

“Yes,” Marisol said, her long brown hair cloaking her shoulders, her brilliant green eyes—the eyes of a Healer – glowing with happiness at the reunion. “It me, Marisol. And the Knights will soon be here as well.”
 

She glanced at Cullen and then back at Lucan. “I'd better go help the Wolf. He has a nasty cut on his head.” She smiled at Kresley. “But he still possesses a certain, very powerful ring, instead of Adrian, thanks to Kresley.”

Lucan grabbed Kresley and kissed her, pulled her close. He ran his hand over her hair. “You’re okay?”

“Yes,” she said, touching his face, needing to touch him, to know he was safe. “It hurt so badly seeing them shoot you like that.”

“That doesn’t matter,” he said. “You’re safe. The ring is safe and you saved lives. Those are the things that matter.”
 

“Hello Lucan.” It was Jag’s voice.

Kresley didn’t look up, but she could tell he was in the doorway to the bedroom. Instead, she watched Lucan’s face, saw the shock register, the dread, the hope. He kissed her and then pushed to his feet, turning to face the leader he so respected.
 

“Hello Jag.” He said the name as if he thought he would never say it again. She felt the doubt in him, the fear that he could not make peace with the past.

But Kresley wasn’t afraid of Jag’s refusal to accept Lucan, or of him offering forgiveness. She’d looked into Jag’s eyes. She’d seen the pride in him when he’d looked down at Lucan’s broken body before Marisol had healed him. He knew Lucan was a Knight at heart, that Lucan was willing to die to protect those in need.
 

No. It was not Jag’s acceptance Lucan had to overcome. It was still that deal he’d made a year before – he belonged to the Guardians. And in a only a few days, so would she.

Chapter Twenty

Hours after the attack in the apartment, Lucan and Jag stood inside the living room area of the Ritz suite, having yet to manage a private conversation. The waiting was pure torture for Lucan, but unavoidable as activity at the apartment had invited more chaos than conversation.
 

At present they were meeting with Cullen, with the rebel wolves as the topic of conversation. Kresley was in the bedroom in deep conversation with Marisol, catching up on the ranch activity, and he was pleased to see her smiling. Not as pleased about an upcoming reunion, or rather uneasy about it – Rock, Max, and Des were to arrive any minute. Lucan didn’t know what to expect from the reunion. Would he be able to look them in the eyes?
 

"The issue is not my willingness to oversee the Council,” Cullen stated, standing hands on his hips, the sun at his back through the open curtains. “But I cannot focus on winning their confidence when my own pack does not have mine. I must flush out these rebels.”

“Then you will need help,” Jag stated simply. “My Knights will fight with you.”

Cullen stared at Jag, unblinking, sizing him up. No surprise in his expression, though Lucan had no doubt that he was as stunned by the offer as Lucan himself. “You would fight by the side of a Demon?”

Jag slid a thoughtful hand over his goatee, studied Cullen a moment. “I believe we want the same things. Peace. A common good.” He paused. “And to see Adrian burn in hell.”
 

 
Cullen’s eyes went wide, and then he and Jag laughed. Lucan did not laugh. He could not overcome his dislike of any wolf so easily, not after watching them murder humans. And not after watching Cullen make love to Kresley;real or imagined – it had been torture to endure.
 

A knock sounded on the door and Lucan took the reprieve. He yanked the door open and Tara stood there. “Hi,” she said. “Cullen said I should come here.”

“Yes,” Cullen called. “In here.”

But Tara didn’t move. She stepped to the side to allow a companion to show himself. Lucan’s hand tightened on the doorknob with a vise-like grip. The stranger from the night before at the apartment appeared, the one who had killed the wolves.
 

At least six foot six, and as broad as he was tall, the stranger took another step forward. This time his face was not painted – he intended Lucan to know who, and what, he was. Lucan blinked at what that pale face revealed, at the unexpected vision of the wings tattoo slicing across high cheekbones, and brushing the edge of a straight nose.
 

“Give us a moment, Tara,” Lucan finally said, easing back enough to allow her to slip past, and she wasted no time doing so.
 

The hallway light began to flicker, as if this stranger sucked out its juice, stole the electricity that allowed it to have life. He had a way of doing that, Lucan thought, of taking life.
 

Lucan’s narrowed his eyes on the stranger, his mind tracking the legends, of centuries of whispers, the kind one assumes are more fiction than reality. But now he knew – the Fae were not mere fiction, neither were they Angels or Demons.
   

“I guess you save the makeup for Demon-slaying parties,” Lucan commented dryly.
 

The stranger’s lips lifted, his strange swirling eyes hinting at amusement. “Does add to the assassin effect, don’t you think?”

“Here I thought I was the assassin in this city.” Lucan narrowed his gaze on the man. “Who are you?”

“My friends call me Prince Risen.”

His brow inched upward. “And your enemies.”

“Death.”

“Okay, then,” Lucan said. “I’ll call you Prince Risen because death doesn’t hold a whole lot of appeal. Not today. Ask me tomorrow. I assume Cullen calls you the same?”
 

He nodded. “He does. As does Jag. I am the one who brought them together for the Council.” He took a step closer. Stopped shoulder to shoulder. “You know who else calls me friend?” He didn’t wait for an answer. “Salvador. Only I am not bound by the same rules as he. As long as you wear those bracelets and the mark of the Guardians, you are a target. There is more that will come your way, much more. I’ve protected you, but heed my warning. These are dire times. Make the right choices, Lucan, so I don’t have to do what neither Jag, nor Salvador, wont do.”