Chapter Eight

Brigid stared into the fire, ruminating over everything she'd heard at Oleg's house.

And everything she hadn't heard.

I'm not going to kill Zasha.

I can't kill Zasha because I made a promise a very long time ago.

I am here to assist Brigid killing Zasha. As you guard Oleg, I guard Brigid.

Brigid hated the idea of Tenzin being her guard dog, but she could accept it in a way that she couldn't accept Carwyn's protection. Carwyn wasn't an innocent, but he'd done nothing to create this situation, and he would be collateral damage in a battle that wasn't his.

Tenzin, on the other hand, had done something. Brigid didn't know what, but there was definitely something.

Brigid heard the whisper of movement in the air that meant Tenzin was in the room. She caught a flicker of movement from the corner of her eye and reached her amnis out. The wind vampire was floating in the rafters of the giant hall, her energy humming in a low, steady way. The humans were all sleeping; Lev and Oleg's other men were busy in the barn where they kept the snow equipment. Their laughing voices and shouts carried in the frigid night air.

That left Brigid with Tenzin.

God, she missed her mate.

If Carwyn was with her, he'd be telling her a story or a joke, making her laugh and then dreaming up a trip or a scheme or something to make her look forward to the endless stretch of eternity she faced.

"How do ya do it?" Brigid blurted.

Tenzin's voice came from a distance. "I need more information to answer that question."

Another question jumped into her mind. "Why don't ya have an accent?"

Tenzin had a slight accent, but nothing like Brigid's Irish.

"I got very good at not having one," Tenzin said. "I've had time to practice."

"Do you know how old y'are?"

"Not really." Tenzin floated closer to the fireplace, then sank to the floor. "Too hot up there. The air is stifling."

Brigid looked at her, a woman perpetually frozen in her late teens. Early twenties maybe. "You've no idea how long you've lived on the earth. I can't imagine being that old."

"Of course you can't." Tenzin shrugged. "It doesn't matter anyway."

"No?" She took a deep breath, inhaling the comforting smell of smoke and ash. "How do you live forever, Tenzin?"

"You don't live forever—you live now."

Brigid frowned. "What does that mean?"

Tenzin picked up a magazine sitting on the coffee table and opened to a page with nothing important on it, then carefully tore it out. "It means I rarely look forward and I avoid looking back." She started folding the paper in front of her. "Nothing is guaranteed, you know. We're not immortal. Immortal means we will live forever, but that's very unlikely. All things die, and in our world, we usually die violently. Or stupidly. I know of a vampire who had his head removed in an automobile accident. Isn't that a stupid way to die?"

"Yes." And how utterly common. If Brigid died by losing her head in a freak accident, she'd be pissed off.

Tenzin shrugged. "It happens. War. Accidents. Fire." She glanced at Brigid. "If you're looking for some grand purpose, you won't find it."

"That's just depressin'."

"It doesn't have to be." Tenzin held up a small paper crane and set it on the coffee table. "Be useful. Allow yourself to be bored. Take pleasure in small things, Brigid Connor."

"I was shite at being bored."

"Is that why you took drugs?"

Brigid's eyes went wide. "No."

Tenzin looked up. "Then why did you take them?"

"Because drugs made me feel amazin' instead of shite."

Tenzin nodded. "That's very logical."

"It is, isn't it? If heroin was free, I would have been high all the time. People hate hearing that, but it's the truth. I loved it." Her mouth started to water. "I was so fuckin' happy when I was high."

Tenzin tore off another piece of paper. "Heroin is like opium?"

"Yeah."

Tenzin nodded again. "I've seen humans on opium. They look like idiots to me, but they seem very happy."

"You don't care what ya look like. If you feel that good, you don't care if people think ya look like an idiot. You don't care about anythin'." The bitter tang sat in the back of her throat. "That's why I stopped. Not because it was gonna kill me—well, it did kill me—or because I felt horrible on it. I didn't. I felt great. I quit because it made me a shite person."

"Because you didn't care about anything?"

"Yep. Not my family. Not other people. Nuthin'."

Tenzin pouted as she stared at the paper in her hands. "That's true. You should care about things." She methodically folded another paper crane. "Perhaps you care too much about everything now because at one point you were very selfish and cared only about dulling your pain."

She'd never thought about that. "Yeah, maybe."

"You cannot carry the weight of the world or it will break you." Tenzin finished another crane, then tore out another paper. "You asked me how I live forever."

"Yes."

"I live forever because I do not focus on the past or the future. I focus on the now. I have a very close circle of people I care about, and I care deeply about them. Also, I do not live alone."

"Ever?"

"No, I have lived alone in the past, and I know it is not good for me. Even in the half a century that I was silent in our world—before Stephen and Benjamin—I had Nima with me." Tenzin looked up. "Stephen was my first mate. He woke me from silence. Then I met Benjamin."

"And you weren't alone."

"I can be alone, but as I said, it's not good for me." Tenzin looked around the room. "You shouldn't have left your mate. You're like me. Being alone isn't good for you."

"I'm not like you." Brigid's voice was rough.

"In some ways you are."

"You left Ben."

Tenzin shrugged. "Only because I know he'll find me."

Brigid didn't want Ben to come. She didn't want him in Zasha's cross fire. That was the whole reason she'd left Carwyn.

"Do you think your giant earth vampire won't find you?" Tenzin smiled a little. "You are young. And you underestimate him."

"He was the legend and savior of my life," Brigid said. "I never underestimate him." Her voice grew rough. "He will shift mountains to find me."

Tenzin's eyes flashed. "So why?"

"Because I need time to find Zasha first."

"No."

"No?"

Tenzin crossed her legs under her body and focused on the crane. "No, that's not why you left him."

"Ya think so, really?" This should be good. "So tell me, wise sage of Penglai, why did I leave the love of my eternal life?"

"Because you think that you're not good enough. That you're not strong enough. You think you're going to die." Tenzin looked up. "And if Zasha is going to kill you, you don't want Carwyn to see it."

The lump in Brigid's throat kept her silent.

"You might be right." Tenzin set down a third crane. "You might not be good enough, but you could be."

"Because you're going to help me?"

"No." She cocked her head. "Yes. But not the way you think."

She watched from a distance as Tenzin faced off against the giant fire vampire under a snowy cedar tree.

"You're going to do it."

"Why?"

Standing in the pure white snow, framed by dark cedars, Brigid was reminded again of how utterly attractive Oleg was on a purely aesthetic level. His hair was a rich russet brown, his eyes were storm grey, and his beard with thick and luxurious. His amnis was old and there was something utterly wild about his energy, more like a fierce bird of prey than a dangerous fire vampire.

Brigid could clearly see why Oleg was rumored to have a stable of human mistresses.

"You're going to help her because she's cleaning up your mess," Tenzin said. "She's young and she has good control, but she's not a warrior."

Brigid cleared her throat. "Pardon me?—"

"No." Tenzin turned and raised a finger. "This is not a debate. You are a fighter, but only in the human sense. This one" —she pointed at Oleg— "has razed villages. This one had scars that took centuries to heal." She looked at Oleg. "You think I wouldn't remember? I do. I choose to forget a lot, but not everything."

Oleg crossed his arms over his chest and said nothing.

"He's silent because he knows I'm right." Tenzin walked over to Brigid. "You fight with guns and daggers, but anytime I've heard of you using your fire, it's to explode and cause a distraction of some kind. You need to use your fire like I use a blade."

Brigid glanced at Oleg, keeping her voice low. "That's not how fire works, Tenzin."

"It can." Oleg's voice sounded like a low rumble of thunder on the other side of a mountain. "It can be like a blade." He walked toward her slowly. "Who trained you first?"

"Katherine Mackenzie."

Oleg curled his lip. "American. No wonder you explode so much."

"Hey, I very rarely?—"

"Eh…" Oleg waved a hand. "Brute force is not a horrible thing. Sometimes it is necessary." He stepped closer. "But have you ever seen the slow suck of air when a fire is licking along a seam? Have you seen how it can flow like water?"

The scent of burnt cedar tickled her nose. Brigid looked up and saw a thin layer of fire coating the cedar branch over Oleg's head.

She hadn't even seen him start the flame.

The vampire raised a hand and called the burning flame to his open palm. The fire slid away from the branches, swirling into a glowing ball that floated over Oleg's palm.

"Our element isn't like the others," Oleg said. "The air, the earth, the water… they exist. They are matter, even the air. But fire?" His lips grew darker as he looked at the flames in his palm. "It is energy. Fire is a process. Like a woman's pleasure, fire must be fed to survive."

The ball of fire became a small rivulet of flame he slid between his fingers, the blue-and-yellow lick of heat floating just over his skin and singeing the fine hairs on the back of his hand, which turned to ash and floated away. "Don't think of your fire like rough matter, Brigid Connor. Don't think of it as something you must manage or tame. Think of it like a lover you must seduce."

Tenzin's lips were flushed when she spoke. "I would have sex with you if I were not mated and monogamous."

Brigid blinked and cleared her throat.

Oleg looked amused. "We could have tried, but there would probably have been casualties."

"Yes." Tenzin's eyes narrowed as she watched him. "But it might have been worth it."

The corner of Oleg's mouth turned up, and he turned his stormy grey eyes to Brigid. "I'll give you some advice. What you do with it is up to you."

Brigid cleared her throat, trying to ignore the flush on the surface of her skin. She could feel the heat pouring off her body. "Okay, great." She nodded. "I'm always game to learn new things. Thanks."

"Again."

It wasn't like any fire training she'd ever had before. She was in the barn and she was spilling fire slowly along the straw-strewn ground, channeling it from one pile of tinder to another. More often than not, her element collapsed on itself before she could feed it her amnis, leaving trails of ash along the concrete floor.

She let out a slow breath and took another, clamping down on the explosive temper that was starting to swirl in her chest.

"You're angry." Oleg wore a short-sleeved shirt and a pair of heavy khaki pants that looked military. He paced behind her in the barn. "Don't let it overtake you. That's what causes the explosion. You need control, not ignition."

"I'm not getting better."

"Don't be stupid," he growled. "You've only been doing this for six hours."

"Six fuckin' hours?" She glanced at the clock on the wall. "What the hell? Where is Tenzin? Is she?—?"

"She flew out to survey the raid sites that Zasha left. Now focus." He stepped closer, inches from her back.

Brigid's instinctive reaction made her fangs drop, her shoulders turn, and she reached for a dagger that wasn't there. Her skin heated and her amnis jumped to attention.

She snarled at Oleg, who froze and narrowed his eyes.

"Touchy."

"I don't like people at my back."

Oleg angled his head, nodded slowly. "Understood." He stepped to the side, a few feet away. "Better?"

Brigid nodded. She was surprised how violent her reaction had been, but she'd been away from her mate for weeks, she was low on energy, and she needed to feed. She was jumpier than she had been in years.

Oleg was still staring at her. "Someone hurt you in an unacceptable way."

They were alone in the barn. It was well past midnight, and the humans were asleep. Lev had probably followed Tenzin, and the rest of the vampires had left Oleg and Brigid alone while they practiced working with fire.

This was not a spectator sport.

"It was a long time ago."

"They hurt Zasha too. For many years." His voice was quiet. "If there is an excuse for their actions?—"

"There isn't. Abuse isn't rare, Oleg. Lots of people get hurt every day, especially women and children. They get angry, but they don't all turn into sociopathic monsters."

Brigid snapped her fingers, brought the fire to her hands, and carefully fed it to the next trail of straw.

"You're already improving." Oleg stood at attention, watching her with his hands clasped behind his back. "Perhaps, though the world would be a slightly better place if more women and children expressed their anger."

It was the thought of a man who had probably never been vulnerable to anything. "That would be nice. It would be cathartic to rage and yell and scream, wouldn't it?" She carefully nudged her fire from the first pile of tinder to the next, coaxing it with amnis. "But we can't do that, Oleg. The world punishes our rage."

Oleg lifted his chin. "Perhaps that is your problem."

"What?" Fuck. The fire went out again before it reached the next tinder. Brigid tried hard not to be angry. It seemed like the fire in her responded to explosive energy or nothing.

Apparently her aunts had all been correct: subtlety was not in her DNA.

Oleg walked carefully over to the pile of ash that marked her last failed attempt. "Your rage has never had a voice, so your fire must always protect you. Your fire cannot serve you if it is always protecting you."

Brigid blinked. "That actually makes sense."

Oleg leaned back on one booted foot and smiled a little. "I cannot help you with that, Brigid Connor. Only you know how you must give your rage a voice. But I think that only after you do that will your fire be able to work for you."