Chapter Fourteen

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Nathaniel

Every instinct inside of me wanted to turn and run, to seek shelter from one of the ways that vampires were even more vulnerable than humans.

Sometimes, it felt like the world overlooked that when it came to my kind. Sure, we were fast and strong, and many mortal things like sickness and age didn't touch us.

But we were vulnerable in new ways.

Sunlight.

Churches.

Garlic.

Holy water.

Wooden stakes.

Decapitation.

And, of course, fire.

Sure, humans were at risk from fires too. But where a flame licking at their skin would hurt, it wasn't going to engulf them in flames instantly, making them turn to ash in seconds.

I wasn't a vampire right now, I reminded myself as the flames licked high enough to make any escape impossible.

Sure, for some reason, I was still invisible. My heart wasn't beating. But I wasn't fully vampire anymore. There was no reason to assume I was going to be reduced to ash.

"Okay," Roxanne said, voice high and tight. "I forgot one phobia," she said.

When I looked over, she was white as a sheet, her pretty green eyes almost as wide as they'd been in the House of Mirrors.

"I can't even watch that new spin-off show of the medical drama I love because it's about the fire department," Roxanne went on, turning in a circle, seeing how trapped we were.

The heat was intense.

It felt hot enough to turn our clothing into cinders.

Sweat was already trickling down Roxanne's temples. Her pale skin was going red.

"I don't think this is one of those situations where you need to overcome your fears," I said, having to raise my voice to be heard over the flames. Who would have thought that fire could be so loud ? It was crackling, snapping, roaring, using the spelled hedges as kindling to grow even hotter, taller, wider.

It was closing in on us.

"Well, I can't Big Bad Wolf the fire down," she said, crushing herself against me.

I'm not proud of it, given the danger of the situation, but some part of me liked how she sought me when she was afraid, when she needed some extra support.

I wouldn't pretend to understand that.

Emotions, something I'd been mostly devoid of for two hundred years, still felt messy and complicated to me, despite being fed small doses of them since my curse first started.

Whatever this one was, though, it was something warm and comfortable. Something that made me want to be strong enough for both of us.

"No," I said, pulling her in close at my side when the fire tried to lick at the edges of her ponytail. "I think this is a test not for your spirit, but for your magic," I told her.

"You think I can spell the fire down?" she asked, dubious. "If that were possible, why aren't wildfires contained by a team of witches instead of fire departments?"

"I don't know," I admitted. "But you need to try," I told her as the fire moved closer, burning up the very ground around us, making the air feel thin, and I imagined Roxanne was starting to struggle to breathe, the fire sucking all of the oxygen out of the small space.

"Okay. Alright. Ah… magic. Um…"

"Fire. It's put out by water," I reminded her.

"Right. Yeah. Okay. Um," she said looking up at the sky, then raising her arms.

"What are you doing?" I asked after a moment or two with nothing happening.

"Shush," she demanded, closing her eyes again, focusing on her breathing.

I stood, wide-eyed, panic surging through my veins, as the flames moved closer and closer, the heat enough to put hell to shame.

I was starting to lose hope, to make peace with my horrific, painful end, when I felt it.

Just a spot of something wet and cool on my forehead.

Then another.

And another.

Soon, my face was wet.

Rain, cool and refreshing against the heat of the flames, was rushing down my face in small rivulets.

"That's it," I said, looking over at Roxanne, still finding her eyes closed, her arms thrown up. Her lips were moving as she whispered some sort of spell. "You're doing it," I said as the raindrops got fatter and more incessant. From a light sun shower to a torrential downpour.

The flames stopped growing.

And within a few moments, their height started to go down.

The ground around us that had flames threatening our feet just a moment before was sopping with puddles of mud that were rising.

And rising.

And rising.

Until I felt the water sloshing into my shoes.

"Uh oh," Roxy said, eyes shooting open. Her gaze went to the ground that was quickly becoming a pool.

It went above our feet, ankles, knees.

The rain had banked the fire.

And the drops had stopped.

But the water levels continued to rise.

"I can't swim," I admitted as the water teased over my thighs.

"Really?" Roxanne asked, brows scrunching as she looked at me. "Three hundred years and it never occurred to you to hop in a pool and figure out how to float?" she asked.

"I had… other things in mind," I admitted, chest feeling constricted as the water started to wrap around my waist.

Roxanne reached out, grabbing my hand, squeezing tight as the levels continued to rise.

"Don't panic," she demanded, but it was getting too late for that. The water was at our shoulders now, and I was starting to feel the ground disappear from under my shoes.

"Just move your arms," she said, showing me how. "And kick your feet a little. Not too frantically," she added when I started to do just that. "Just slow, calm movements. We're mostly water. We float. Don't panic."

"You need to do something here," I said, the water rocking calm waves under my chin.

"Ah, yeah," she agreed. "But I need you to be able to not drown first," she said.

She waited, watching me, making sure I was getting the hang of keeping my head above water.

"Okay, hold onto me."

"I need my arms," I reminded her.

"You can manage with just one and I don't want you to float away," she said, taking my one hand as she flapped the other a little faster, and using it to grab the front waistband of her pants.

I'm not proud of this part.

But my knuckles grazed the soft skin of her belly as my fingers gripped the fabric not only of her pants but her panties, and I realized just how close my hand was to a part of her that I'd been having a really hard time not fantasizing about.

Despite the life-or-death need to focus, to stay calm and controlled, desire shot through my system. It was gasoline through my veins. And the way her belly contracted feeling my touch was the match that lit the fire that burned through me, threatening to engulf me completely.

My gaze lifted to find Roxanne watching me, her pupils blown wide, her lips parted, her breath coming in deep puffs between her parted lips.

It wasn't just me.

I knew it wasn't.

It was there any time we touched.

When I'd carried her and held her after her attack.

Back in the House of Mirrors, with my arms around her.

I couldn't forget what I'd overheard back at the hotel room.

I wasn't listening. Of the human principles that I did understand, privacy was at the top of the list.

It wasn't my fault. I had superhuman hearing.

I heard each splash of water as she moved.

Then I heard the ragged breathing, the soft sighs, the sweet moans as she took herself to the edge, then crashed over it.

Despite our natures and the centuries of tradition that said we hated each other, our bodies clearly had other ideas.

Logically, I figured I could blame that on the curse, on the fact that each day, I was becoming more human than vampire. But there was enough vampire left in me that I should have been repulsed by her.

Still, most of what I'd felt for her since I'd first lain eyes on her was… interest.

Recovering herself a little faster than I did, Roxanne closed her eyes, this time she spread one of her arms wide. As if drawing something to herself as she whispered a spell under her breath.

The other arm occasionally pushed down into the water, making her body pop back upward.

Each time it did, my fingers slid against her stomach. Inevitably, her body would start to sink again as she concentrated on her spell, making my fingers gather more of the material as I tried to pull her back upward.

It wasn't long before my fingers were no longer on her stomach at all, but that triangle of flesh above her sex.

Maybe it was just my imagination, but I swore I could feel the heat of her, the way need was coiled in her stomach, just aching for my hand to slip down, to tease up her cleft, to slip inside of her wet…

Suddenly, my feet were on solid ground again, making my gaze scan around, finding the water not moving away, but the ground raising around it, creating a new island for us to stand upon.

I could stand first, and I used Roxy's pants to pull her closer to me, keeping her steady as she continued to work her spell, driving the ground higher and higher. Until there was no water licking at our bodies anymore.

A laugh, relieved and joyous, escaped Roxy as she threw her arms around my neck.

"I did it!" she said.

"You did," I agreed, forcing my hands out of her pants, even if every urge inside of me wanted to slip down, to hear her sighs and whimpers up close as she clung to me.

"And you didn't drown!"

"I didn't," I agreed as she pulled back just enough to beam at me.

I couldn't help it.

My gaze slid to her lips. I watched as they parted. As her tongue flicked out, wetting her lips, making desire stab me in the core.

Up this close, I could feel the thump of her heart against my chest, could draw conclusions to why her pulse had quickened.

It was right then, though, that a shiver racked her system. And, I fear, not a desire-filled shiver. The kind that came from being almost burned up from the fire, then chilled to the bone in water that nearly submerged her completely. Her body was exhausted and having trouble adjusting to the temperature shifts.

In fact, I felt my own flesh pebble with goosebumps.

How… annoyingly human.

"I think I should conjure some wind to dry us," she said.

"Don't you worry you might blow us away?" I asked, thinking of the torrential rain.

"I think I'm getting a hang of the magic here. It amplifies any small spell. So if I work the spell to just barely work, I think we can avoid pulling a The Wizard of Oz on us," she said, then looked over to find a tree that hadn't been there before. "But maybe just to be safe, we wrap ourselves around that tree?" she suggested.

We did just that.

But there was no reason to doubt her skills.

Roxanne really was a talented witch when she applied herself.

Not only did she conjure up a wind just strong enough to dry us without blowing us away, but she somehow managed to make it a warm summer breeze.

"Okay," she said as she moved away from the tree, reaching automatically for my hand. "What next?" she asked.

"I have a feeling that has something to do with it," I said, nodding toward where a massive crystal ball had appeared in the distance.

"Divination," Roxy grumbled. "My least favorite practice. Well," she said, sucking in a deep breath, "let's get it over with."