Battle With Fire (Demon Days & Vampire Nights)

My logical mind wasn’t always in control.

“Heard,” I said. That was about as much as I could offer him. What they’d done to me was inexcusable. Unforgivable. And not just because it was unjust, but because it was a common occurrence in that place. They’d tortured countless others before me, showing them no mercy. No common decency. Allowing them no dignity.

“But tell me this: what do you plan to do about the shifters they’ve taken?” I ground out as Penny sat down. “They’ve tortured your people. You don’t want vengeance for that?”

“I do.” A growl laced his words. “Badly. And I will have it in the form of change. I will see those responsible for the carnage torn from their places and exiled. Or killed, if they don’t go quietly.”

Fire raged in his eyes and his voice, but it was something behind it that captured my attention. Pain, not just for the shifters he’d left behind, but for me. Roger was the ultimate alpha—he looked after his people to the fullest extent, at times sacrificing his own wellbeing for theirs. He internalized their pain so that they could release it. It was all in there—a beast of festering rage that he kept on a tight leash.

If he could stuff his down, surely I could do the same?

I nodded, feeling the fire lick up my middle.

Then we understand each other, Roger thought.

“We do,” I replied, wondering what would happen if I lost that vein of logic.

He downed the rest of his drink, pulled a wad of cash from his pocket, and leafed two hundred-dollar bills from the top. He set them on the bar and called Trixie down.

“Open the bar for the regulars until that runs out.” He knocked on the wood and stepped back. “Reagan, natural dual-mage.” He turned and walked out the door.

“I still want a title,” I called after him. “A cool one.”

“That guy makes me nervous,” Penny mumbled when he’d gone.

“He makes everyone nervous. I think that’s part of his job description.”

“He just manipulated you. You know that, right?”

I sagged against the bar. “No, he didn’t. I heard what he had to say and internalized it. He made good points.”

“He just handled you like a child. They’re all worried you’re going to fly off the handle and go on a killing rampage with the elves. Cahal made a painting of what you looked like after they got through with you. He’s not the type to lie.”

Cahal would know. He’d gone to the Underworld with me, and I wasn’t so sure I would have made it back without him. After a few days of recouping with us at Roger’s super-secret ranch, he’d drifted off into the world like the shadow he was. He hadn’t said goodbye, or if we’d ever see him again, or even where he was going. One day, he was just gone.

Which would’ve been more dramatic if his dragon hadn’t been completely fine with being left behind. He’d obviously told her what was up. The dragons were still at Roger’s super-secret place, enjoying the new world and the limitless sky. We’d see them again soon. Because there was no way we were rolling into any kind of battle situation without them.

“Cahal paints?” I asked.

She looked at me with her large, solemn blue eyes. It was the sort of look a puppy would give after you swatted it for being bad. “I shouldn’t have let you sacrifice yourself. I should have been there with you.”

“They would’ve killed you outright. You wouldn’t have been there with me for long. But seriously. Cahal paints?”

“I keep having nightmares about looking back and seeing you in the elves’ castle, surrounded. I keep seeing the look on your face when you pushed us ahead of you in the Underworld. Darius was so frantic.” Tears pooled at the corners of her eyes. “It’s killing me, what they did to you. And I just walked away.”

“Good God, Penny, this is a little much for a Tuesday evening. Drink up. Have a hurricane. It’ll strip the thinking out of your brain. I’ll join you.”

“I was supposed to rescue you. And instead, you had to rescue me again. I’m nothing but dead weight.”

I swore under my breath. And now we got to the real reason Penny was having a hard time. She was hurting. She was probably scared for the future, too. Maybe we all were.

“Trixie.” I nodded to where Roger had sat. “He paid.”

“I noticed.” She nodded before returning to the drink she was making, and I got off my stool and pulled Penny up after me.

“Hey,” she said, a spell materializing in a moment and clouding me.

I wiped it away, unraveling the magic like it was nothing.

“Dang it, I hate when you do that,” she said. “I’m trying to resist. Help, this is a kidnapping!”