Page 33 of Wild Fires

I shrugged. “I suppose they can be. I don't know. I haven't given them much reason to be. Well, not outside work at least.”

“Why did Clarence bench you this week and assign you to me? Not that I'm complaining about that.”

I sighed. This was the last thing I wanted to talk about.

“I'm a witch.”

“Well yeah, we all are.”

“I'm a fire witch.”

“Aren't most of the Montgomery Flock?”

“Yes, but mine's a little different. I can't really create or manipulate fire the way others can. I just can't be burned by it.”

“What?”

“Fire can't hurt me, and so in this case we were out by the cliff at the first site I showed you and a wind blew through as we were putting it out. It was like a catalyst and there was a spike in the fire. Big Dick was too close to it, and I could see he was going to get burned, so I ran through the fire to push him out of it.”

“That doesn't sound like a bad thing.”

“You'd think.” Of course, I was leaving out the part about me getting stuck in the fire and my unit having to watch me go through that process. It wasn't like it hurt me or anything. But it seemed to freak them out, enough so that Clarence had benched me for it.

He checked the time and frowned.

“I should probably get home. Are you picking me up?”

“Um, sure. At your apartment complex?”

“Yup. You know the place?”

“Yes.”

“Top floor to the right.”

“So you want me to come up?”

“You don't have to.”

“I don't mind.”

In truth, I was dying to see what his place looked like.

Ryan

Chapter 11

I was surprised at how badly I wanted to just call out sick and stay in bed all day with her. I could honestly say that had never happened before.

Instead, I forced myself to leave her, shift, and fly home.

Elias used to do this sort of thing all the time, but I never had. I'd never even done the flight of shame before now.

When I landed on my balcony and shifted back, I found one major flaw in the plan. Elias had always left a door unlocked to let himself back in. Not having the need, my door was locked.

I started to panic. The mayor couldn't be caught naked out in public like this. What would people think? What would they say?

Mom and Dad weren't home, and Dean was close enough to my size that I could probably sneak in there and find something without being quite so obvious. The staff would likely see me, but they had always been discreet.