Blood Flame (Flame 1)

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An hour later and ready for a good day’s sleep, Iris stared down at the faded pink-and-green flowered quilt on her bed. She hadn’t slept beside a man in ten years. Though the queen-size mattress had been more than enough for her, it seemed to shrink but in a good way. Connor was a big man.

While he showered, she drew the covers back, turned the sheet down and plumped the pillows. She felt oddly nervous, knowing she’d be sleeping beside him. In many ways, she barely knew him.

Her room was simple, with an antique chest of drawers, a full-length mirror, a basket of dried flowers on the floor, smallish oak end tables. The French doors served as the main window. More light came from a long, narrow, diamond-paned panel of glass above the bed but only a foot from the ceiling.

Because of the protective spell, she’d felt comfortable leaving the French doors wide. She loved fresh air in a bedroom and early March had perfect temperatures in the desert to make it possible.

Slipping off her robe, she climbed into bed. She rarely slept in a nightgown and saw no need to wear one now. Besides, she was pretty sure Connor wouldn’t mind at all.

She pulled the sheet up high enough to cover her breasts, then turned on her side. She set her gaze on her garden, enjoying the beauty she could see easily at night because of her alter vision.

As the shower drummed, what she didn’t understand was what she was supposed to do with Connor. Part of her wanted to keep him tied up in her bedroom for a really long time. Another part thought she would be wise to cut her losses and run.

All this flurry of sexual craving and now satisfaction still didn’t mean she could have a real relationship with him. She’d felt him during the first few minutes of being with him on Sentinel Bridge. He had a darkness in his soul, and she had no idea why. Something had happened in his past, an event that had turned him inside out and probably something beyond the way he’d been ushered into an altered state.

Her concerns, however, wouldn’t be eased in one night. Fatigue from all she’d been through began having an effect. She breathed deeply and sleep curled through her mind.

The night had been unbelievable on every possible front, but her stomach was full, she’d had extraordinary sex with the man of her dreams, and now she needed rest. She closed her eyes and began drifting off.

She woke up just enough to feel Connor slide into bed beside her. Without thinking and maybe because she was half asleep, she scooted close to him. He was on his back and when he lifted his arm, she planted herself firmly against his side, as she had earlier on the grass. She rested an arm on his abdomen and angled a knee over his muscular thighs.

The heat of his body had an effect and she disappeared into her dreams.

When she woke up, the afternoon desert light was on the wane, the early March air cool. Connor was lying on his side and still asleep when she slid from bed.

She pulled a flowered dress from her closet, something she preferred to wear when she rose and well before she got ready for TPS duty. She enjoyed her down time first thing at night. Collecting the rest of her things, she shut the door quietly behind her.

She used the bathroom to get dressed, to apply a little mascara then a brow pencil to make her arched eyebrows behave. A touch of lip gloss and she was ready to go.

When she reentered the hall, she didn’t head to the living area but to the second bedroom in her house, the one that served as her library. She opened the door and went first to the white basinet in the corner draped with a lavender and green handmade quilt that her mother had made just for Anna. A long skirt of gathered white eyelet and lace covered the entire body and base of the basinet.

For a moment, she was drawn back to the events that had brought her to Five Bridges. She’d been at a college graduation party for one of Violet’s friends since she knew the family well. They had a private home in north Scottsdale not far from a local high-end resort, but a long distance away from Five Bridges. Her husband had been out of town on business. She’d felt perfectly safe.

But afterward, while walking down the hill to her car, they’d been abducted by several Elegance warlocks and shot up with flame drugs each bearing the additional witch alter serum.

By the time she woke up in the trunk of an unknown car, she no longer felt like herself. Her body had already started the irreversible process. Six months pregnant, she started cramping badly. She was also deep inside Five Bridges; she’d been trafficked.

Labor had begun almost immediately and she’d held her stomach in agony, her heart shattering at the same time. Babies never survived the alter. Fetuses could often tolerate harsh levels of the various flame drugs, but not the alter serum itself.

She’d called Violet’s name, but she’d been alone, her head angled painfully on top of a smelly spare tire. She’d had no idea where her younger sister had been taken.

When she began to bleed heavily, her abductors had abandoned her, tossing her onto the side of the road to die. Eliza, her wonderful witch mentor, had found her and taken her to an Elegance hospital. In that sense, she’d been fortunate.

Violet’s fate had been horrendous. From the time she’d been abducted, she’d been strung out on blood flame and used as a prostitute. For six weeks, Eliza had hunted for her and finally bought her from the low-life warlocks who’d been handling her.

Elegance Territory, like Crescent, had a dark soulless side. Iris had begun working for the Tribunal because it was the only public entity that had as its mission statement a goal to improve life in Five Bridges. She hoped one day she’d become a force for good, but she didn’t see much changing any time soon. There was simply too much evil in their world to have high expectations.

Once she’d buried her baby, Eliza had helped her come to terms with her altered state and the loss of her little girl, whom she’d named Anna. Eliza had recommended bringing some of her things from her normal life into Five Bridges. The basinet and baby quilt had been two of the things. Her bedroom furniture had been in her Phoenix home as well.

Saying good-bye to her husband had been the hardest thing she’d ever done. But she’d had no choice but to let him go. It was the only thing she could do given how changed she was. None of the five species were allowed to live anywhere but in the designated territories. And she wouldn’t have asked him to reside in Five Bridges for all the money in the world. He hadn’t put up much of a fight, but they’d both wept as much for the loss of their child as for their marriage.

Her parents had been overjoyed to learn she was alive and to see her again, yet devastated by the cruel turn of events. When she’d begun work as a TPS officer, she’d been given a passport and had been able to visit them a few times during the first year until Violet’s death. After that, she called once a year to give a report. But she’d let them go as well. It hurt them too much to know she was separated from them forever because she’d gone through the alter.

Her two brothers had grown up and married. Grandchildren were the order of the day. For her own sake, she needed her parents to forget the one remaining witch daughter who was living out her life in a constant horror show in Five Bridges. Iris could never go back to her former life and she’d never allow her family to visit her in her world.

She’d learned to embrace her witch life, however, and live it to the fullest. Part of that included grieving for Anna, even though she’d died ten years ago.