She intended to leave. She’d made her decision but had yet to officially inform him. If he could command his lungs to stop breathing he would do so in an instant.
“It hurts too much, princess,” he croaked with the air his body forced on him. “I can’t see you and know you don’t want me.”
“I do want you,” she argued. Her fingers brushed over his cheek in the feather soft way that was hers alone.
“You don’t want all of me. You only want the part of me that isn’t complicated.”
“Every part of you is complicated.”
“Do you know how you’re hurting me?” Brent stared at her, willing her to see into his heart, to see what he couldn’t form into words. Had anyone sounded as pitiful as he did now?
Sara’s gaze softened. She pulled her lower lip between her teeth but this time it wasn’t coy, it was to stop them from trembling. “I’m sorry. I needed to see you.”
“Why?” he demanded. “So you could seduce me and then break my heart when you left me?”
“God, Brent.” She set her hand against her chest. “I didn’t want to hurt you. But…I’m weak. I needed you.”
Brent couldn’t stop the familiar nasty delivery, “Then you had better get used to it, princess.”
“Don’t do that,” she pled as she leaned forward, pressing both palms to his cheeks. “Don’t turn into the jerk again because you’re upset.”
“Phoenix, you’re killing me! Can’t you see that?” Brent jumped up from the chair, upending her onto her feet. He shoved her aside so he could stalk behind Fintan’s desk for the obstacle it created between them. “Just leave me to my misery, Sara.”
He heard the undeniable sound of her sniffling breath. Then heard the distressing padding of her feet toward the corridor. And experienced the silent destruction of his heart because she’d heeded his demand.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Sara wiped the moisture from her eyes in futility. There was no point clearing it when it would only be quickly replaced. She’d been foolish. In trying to lose herself in Brent once more, she’d hurt them both. Now she’d never forget the pain in his eyes or the broken sound of his voice.
A loud crash pounded from the back of the house. Power crackled in the air, lifting the hairs on her arms. Sara whipped around. Heat filled the house, telling her what she already knew.
Someone had used Fire magic, a great deal of it.
Had he…? No, Brent wasn’t that upset. Was he? God, help her if he’d done something reckless.
Sara charged toward the noise. Her foot smashed into a metal obstacle. She careened forward with only a split second to catch herself. But when she tossed her palms down they hit not carpet but something sharp instead. Sara yelped in pain as instinct had her scrambling back. Her hurried movements sent her directly into a pair of narrow legs.
“Bitch,” the grating voice of the hoyden growled. Vanessa’s palm slammed across Sara’s ear.
Though it was a rather ineffectual blow, it served to infuriate Sara. Those obstacles hadn’t been in the living room when Sara had left the office. Vanessa had set them before the noise had hit.
Vanessa had known something was going to happen.
Brent hadn’t recklessly hurt himself. Someone else was hurting him. She had to get to him!
Vanessa tore at her hair when she tried to take a step. The force brought Sara to her knees. Rage exploded within her chest—pure, fiery aggression that had nowhere to go. Any other day she’d have exercised her ire with benign activities like yoga, breathing exercises, and meditation. This wasn’t any other day.
As the blazing emotion filled her blood, boiling it beyond the point of no return, Sara felt more alive than she ever had. Her morals meant
nothing
when a loved one was threatened.
Calm washed over her. Sara stretched her hand over her shoulder, clamping it on Vanessa’s face. She seized all of the power she could access from the aether. And then with continued serenity, Sara incinerated Vanessa using the entire store of it.
The woman shrieked and flailed beneath the hand forcing fire into every available opening. Sara held her tight with vicious determination. She experienced no remorse when the body dropped to the floor. There was only the sense of deep satisfaction that she’d destroyed a threat to Brent.
Sara reached for the nearest light. Using the illumination, she traversed around the strips of brad nails Vanessa had left, all the while drawing in more power from the aether. She burst into the office and discovered a blistered and coughing Brent hiding behind the burning remains of her daddy’s desk. Across the room a blond witch picked his way over the shards left of the window. She choked not from the stench of burnt fabric, drywall, wood, and flesh but from the sight of Brent staring at her in horror.
“Sara,” he croaked through his coarsened throat. “Get out of here.” Though he built a bud of flame in his palm, he was in too much pain to win this fight.
The blond figure lifted upright within the office’s interior. His mouth spread into a grinning rictus as he built his own flame buds. “I’ll be right with you, princess. Right after I kill your boyfriend.”
“Fiancé,” Sara corrected the bastard. “The only people dying tonight are you and Vanessa.”
She took advantage of his stunned pause to reach magical fingers through the aether. It was all too easy to snatch away the witch’s magical fuel because he wasn’t expecting a defensive reaction. But it would only be defensive for a moment.
The steadily building buds fizzled in the witch’s palms. He glanced down, verifying his attack had indeed been stolen. That was all the time she needed to throw her own fireballs. They were pathetically small and inaccurately thrown but a decent distraction.
Sara shot around the desk, careful to stay out of the window’s line of sight. The blond shot a second attack, this one too big and too fast to evade. Calling on years of practicing the art of defensive moves rather than offensive powers, Sara frantically stole the fire’s fuel in midair.
The flaming ball guttered into smoke that rushed over her breathless body. The heat singed the tips of her stray hairs but her gown was untouched. Exhaling a ragged, surprised breath, Sara had a mere moment to act before he could.
While the blond witch deciphered what had happened, Sara closed the remaining distance to him. And then, exactly as she’d done with Vanessa, she closed a hand over his face. Sara willed the power to invade him. Flame shot from her palm into every available hole. He roared in pain but unlike Vanessa, his flailing did dislodge her grip.
Once free, the blond witch scraped his fingers over his lips and eyes as if the flame she’d deposited within him were still burning deep. Though she had little doubt he was now blind, Sara couldn’t afford to let him live. This man had tried to kill Brent.
Sara allowed the famed Fire witch aggression to take over. With remarkable tranquility in spite of its boiling influence, she drew in all of the magic she could hold. Sara yanked the witch’s shirt to his chin. She placed her palm above the wildly pounding organ nestled within his rib cage.
“Phoenix, forgive us both,” she whispered to their patron god for the first time in years as she released a column of flame directly into the bastard’s heart.
“Sara,” Brent called out fearfully.
She glanced back, catching him gesturing a burnt hand toward the window from his spot peeking out behind the smoldering desk. A fireball careened toward the house.
There was more than one Ena here.
Sara dove for the side of the office behind Fintan’s map table. The fireball slammed into the wall feet from where she stood. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Brent trying to stand.
“Stay down,” she hissed at him.
“But you…don’t like violence,” he rasped out of his reddened throat.
“I like violence just fine if it’s for you.”
He groaned that he loved her.
A second fireball crashed into the wall a little closer.
Time to ignore distractions and get down to business.
Sara sensed the witch’s every draw using her steady connection to the aether. And because of her keen aether perception, something no Fire witch cared to learn, she attempted to do the impossible: to steal the attacker’s fuel without line of sight. She also syphoned away the power they’d reached for, cutting off every avenue of attack. And then she held the store within her.
But when the witch stopped drawing on the aether, a chill of worry ran down her back. What if they didn’t come inside? What if they tried to run?
“Sara, no,” Brent shouted when she darted for the window.
Across shards of glass she charged, heedless to the pain. She used a discarded and charred book to bash away the remains of the window. One spry vault had her in pursuit.
The witch’s pale head was visible in the dim light cast by the porch spotlight. He sprinted up the embankment toward the trees lining the right side of the property. She stumbled after him, reaching the top when he jumped into a hatchback parked on the road below.
Anger and frustration were her fuel sources. She allowed them to enfold inside her without muddling her brain. They were the inspiration she needed to finish this once and for all.
Calling on the Phoenix for accuracy and volume, Sara focused her energy into the largest fireball she’d ever formed. Thwarted vengeance for Fintan’s death and fury over the attack on the man she loved should have made her clumsy. Instead, her horrible emotions fueled perfection.
Sara watched in composed stillness as her fireball flew through the air directly into the hatchback’s open moon roof. A shriek of agony echoed through the night air. Fitting that the hole that had probably been left open for nefarious purposes was the witch’s undoing.
The car slammed into a tree with force enough to crumple the hood into a deep V. The agonized screaming ceased. No movement was visible within the vehicle nor did anyone stir the aether.
Sara tracked down the hill, finally noting the glass embedded in her feet when they hit a pebble or twig. But she was alive.
And Brent was in far more pain.
****
Brent’s eyes filled with tears when the diaphanous fabric of Sara’s gown floated into view. Hovering over the grass, she looked like an avenging angel. And that was exactly what she was.
“Princess,” he croaked through his raw throat.
Her fingers gripped the jagged edges of the window. A low hiss escaped her as she climbed over. Brent was in unbearable flashing pain but he winced in sympathy. Soon she knelt beside him, holding her golden palm over him with a strained expression stretching her features tight.
“I don’t know the Healer’s number,” she admitted quietly.
“It’s by the phone on…” Brent’s voice trailed off when he remembered Fintan’s desk was little more than kindling. “I have it saved in my recent contacts. Bring me my phone and I’ll show you which one it is.”
“Where is your phone?”
“On the table beside my bed. Sara,” he called her name to stop her from leaving him. Though he hurt, he didn’t want to be alone yet.
She froze, halfway twisted but still on her knees. The wrinkles around her mouth told him how bad he looked.
“You told him I was your fiancé,” he said.
Sara’s lips spread into a striking smile. She gave a small laugh. “You shouldn’t have heard that in your state.”
“But I did.”
She nodded her glorious head of silky hair. “I was going to make you ask me properly when you were better but I guess I can’t now.”
Cautiously he reached for her. Air sliced his skin.
“Don’t move,” she gently chided him. “Let me call the Healer.”
“Sara. I need to know. I need to hear the words.”
“What words do you need to hear?” Sara lowered herself onto her knees in front of him and brought her face closer but not so close that the warmth of her body hurt him. “That I’ll marry you even though it’s going to put us danger? That I will have as many children as you want? That my dream is to make our race understand the only acceptable aggression is that used to save a loved one?”
Brent couldn’t see her through the flood of his tears. Sara had spoken nearly everything he’d hoped to hear and more. He would accept it all now and hope in time he’d earn the rest.
Sara drew in a sniffle. Her voice softened. “Or do you need to hear that I love you, Brenton Conley?” She let out a watery laugh. “Because I do. I only hope you can love me as a killer as much as you did as a pacifist.”
“That’s what I needed to hear,” he managed to whisper before he gave into the darkness.
Chapter Thirty-Four
Sara shrieked when Brent slumped to the side. “No!” Frantically she felt for a pulse on his wrist and his neck. Feeling nothing, she set her palm to the charred remains of his shirt. There she found the slow pound of his heart.
Drawing in a ragged breath, she made herself stand and move away. He was alive. No doubt he’d passed out from the pain. Phoenix, she hoped that was all. But the Healer had better be close.
Sara dashed out of the office in search of the phone. She flipped on the light in Brent’s bedroom only to stall where she stood. Slumped on the bed was the nude figure of Derrick. The disarray of discarded clothes hinted he’d been in a hurry to get naked.
Seduction? Was that why with four witches in the house, Vanessa had managed to set a trap for them?
Briefly checking for more traps, Sara picked her way over the carpet to the bedside table. Brent’s phone sat upside down and silenced. Because she didn’t know which of the outbound calls belonged to the Healer, she had to use deductive reasoning.
He’d called the woman the night Sara had been burnt in the cemetery. That was a Monday night but not last Monday. Today was Sunday. Thirteen days… She did the math then searched the dates for calls made in the evening on the second.
She impatiently waited for someone to answer after pushing her thumb down on the number. Five rings echoed into her ear. Finally a female voice groused into the phone, “It’s late. My fee is double.”
“Charge us triple,” Sara retorted. “I don’t care. Just please, please, can you come to McKenna House as soon as possible? Brent is badly burnt.”