Page 4 of A Kiss of Flame
Levian wasn’t sure she believed the orb held the actual heart of an Abyssal creature, but it clearly held power. Enough that her mage and dryad sensibilities were on edge. Her skin prickled as she tamped down her concerns, wrapped the orb tightly insideher scarf, opened her enchanted bag, and unceremoniously dropped it inside.
“Shall we be going, then?” Levian chimed, turning to leave. “You could use a bath.”
To his credit, Car didn’t give her grief over what she’d just done, even if he did disagree. “Are my horns in that bag of yours?” he asked instead as he followed behind her.
Levian smirked wickedly. “They could be.”
He chuckled as they began to weave their way out of the ruins. “Kashyn was quite furious at me for making that bet,” he admitted.
She snorted. Kashyn was Car’s right hand, and Vexar, whose vile spirits they’d been swigging, his left. His crew. Much like Levian had developed a bond with Sirus and Barith over the years of working with them, Carvatticus had built bonds with Kashyn and Vex during their work in Obsidian. “Kashyn loves you, and it was me she was mad at for taking your horns. Why do you think I went into hiding?”
“She was rather furious at both of us,” he agreed with amusement. “But I suppose I’m more used to dealing with her when she’s in a mood.”
To be fair, Kashyn hadn’t been wrong to be furious. It’d been childish and stupid for Carvatticus to bet his horns after just being crowned High Daemon Lord. It had been simply egregious for Levian to take her winnings while the drunken Daemon Lord lay unconscious in his throne room.
“Do you remember that time we broke into that Spring Fae’s cellar to steal his precious bottle of wine brewed by those nymphs in the Grey Mountains of Yuthrin.”
Levian laughed. “I’ve not thought of that in years.” She, Car, Barith, and Kashyn had broken into the old fae’s cellar after he’d boasted about the wine at a rather raucous party not long after she’d first begun working with Barith and Sirus. Evenintoxicated, they’d managed through the fae’s protections, with much of her magickal help, but just when they’d been about to snatch their prize, Barith had set off a trap on accident. “I still cannot believe Barith nearly got us all drowned or that Kashyn didn’t know how to swim.”
“She does now,” Car told her with a chuckle. The pixie’s old estate was now cast in shadow, filling its corners with ominous darkness.
“It would be good to see him again,” the daemon mused. “I always thought Barith a fun sport, for a dragon. It’s funny,” he jumped over a fallen table bit of roof and landed beside her. “I always thought you two might?—”
Levian was about to cut him off, but a creaking sound beat her to the punch. Both of them went dead silent and stilled. The sound came again, but this time clearer and more like a moan. Car’s face went slack.
“A ghost?” he hissed, looking frantically around. “I hate ghosts.”
There was no otherworldly chill of a ghost Levian could sense. She shifted around the corner and peered into what remained of some large old room. The noise was coming from the wall on the other side where a great tree had taken root, as well as several large vines. Curious, she moved closer. The wall began to balloon out awkwardly. Steam rose from the surface as it splintered under the weight of the heat growing under its surface. She took several steps back. “Something’s trapped,” she declared with a gasp.
“What?” Car shouted from behind her. “Like an animal?”
Before she could assess much of anything, the wall burst open. Levian threw herself out of the way as burning debris and a giant flaming creature came hurtling directly at her.
She coughed at having the wind knocked out her, patting away tiny charring embers on her clothes. Levian jumped up andwas met with a mound of steaming sun-kissed skin and a pair of giant gold and red-scaled wings.
Levian hauled in a breath before her face began to heat, and her eyes were blurred with sparks of violet.
“Barith?” Carvatticus questioned with amused surprise. “Is thatyou?”
Chapter Two
Barith couldn’t move. The moment he realized, he struggled to breathe, then came the consuming panic. Of all the things he hated most, being trapped in cramped, dark spaces was near the top of that list—especially when the suffocating space was created by magick. As a sun dragon, his instinct when he couldn’t smash through something was to burn it. Fire licked across his skin as he summoned the flames. The spell squeezed tighter, pressing his wings into his back.
This could not be how he died. It was too humiliating. Trapped by magick inside a wall and left to rot somewhere no one would find his decaying corpse.
With a surge of desperation, Barith pressed further against the stifling magickal space, the flames around him intensifying into a compressed inferno. He tried to snarl a curse, but it came out as a desperate grunt—His body constricted under the magick’s crushing force like a giant snake coiling around him.
Worse still was the thought of Levian. She’d be furious if she found out he’d died in such a stupid way, trapped in a wall on some ill-conceived quest. And dammit, he regretted not seeing her one last time. Her glowing violet eyes, her skin flushed with magick, the face she made when she was pissed at him.
Balls to that!
With a primal snarl, he pushed every remaining tendril of magick he could summon into the fire. It relented slightly before suddenly; cool air smashed against the heat of his skin as he flew through the air. He crashed headfirst into a scraggly bush, which burst into flames.
A gasp came behind him as he shakily rose, pushing the burning twigs out of his face. “Barith?” a cool, familiar voice asked. “Is that you?”
“What in the fires of Hades areyoudoing here?” Levian snarled, her tone sharp with disbelief.
Barith froze, his chest heaving as he gulped down cool air, his skin still smoldering, what remained of his clothes little more than scorched tatters. He turned and found Levian glaring up at him with the expression he’d been desperate to see one last time only moments before. Her arms were crossed over her chest, her fair half-fae features twisted into an expression of impatience and fury. Her curls, which were now dyed a shade of dark pink, were frizzy, with several loose strands lying over her face. Her uncharacteristically ordinary outfit was dirty and singed. The panic was gone, replaced by relief and quickly bubbling fury as he peered down at her. Despite his anger, Barith couldn’t help but feel relieved to see her alive and safe. His right hand twitched, wanting to reach out and touch her.