Jeaniene Frost - Destined for an Early Grave

I glanced at the ever-brightening sky with loathing. If only it were an hour earlier, I could fight! I could help get my mother, or draw off some guards, or just do something, other than hide to keep a bad situation from getting far worse by being captured.

A window in the house exploded outward, two forms hurtling through it onto the ground. I recognized them and had a second of cold satisfaction when I saw Bones, his arm locked around Cannelle’s throat, give a hard twist, jerking Cannelle’s head off. Adieu, bitch, I thought, seeing him shove her lifeless body aside. But my moment of victory was short-lived. Gregor shouted an order in French and all twelve of his guards rushed at Bones.

I was already on my feet, forgetting about staying hidden, when Spade burst out of the house. He flung silver knives at the undead horde who’d descended on his best friend, drawing their attention to him instead of only on Bones. Coward, I thought viciously, seeing Gregor stay where he was near the far corner of the house. What will you do, Dreamsnatcher? Will you run while you have a chance, or risk your life to stay and fight?

The front door was kicked open. I gasped, seeing Rodney come out with my mother in his grip. Her arms were around his neck, and she was moving. She’s alive. Oh, thank God.

Gregor snarled something and drew out a sword. Rodney paused, swinging around with my mother still in his arms. Gregor’s sword seemed to flash in the predawn light as he strode toward them.

Bones and Spade were each battling half a dozen vampires apiece. Neither one of them could help Rodney. I ran, pulling knives from my belt while cursing. Gregor was too far away for me to hit him. God, why couldn’t I run any faster?

Rodney set my mother down, caressing her bloodstained cheek for just an instant, then turned to meet Gregor. He only had two knives left in his belt, and Gregor was far stronger than he.

“Gregor,” I yelled.

That ash-blond head jerked up as he saw me running flat out toward them. “Catherine,” I saw more than heard Gregor say.

In that moment of distraction, Rodney flung one of his knives. It hit Gregor in the chest, but from how quickly Gregor pulled it out, I knew it hadn’t pierced his heart. Gregor spun back to face Rodney, his sword slicing the air between them.

Instead of ducking back, Rodney charged. He barreled into Gregor with all of his undead force behind him. Gregor staggered, but didn’t go down. The knife Rodney rose to slam into Gregor’s chest never made it. Gregor grasped Rodney’s wrist with his free hand and flipped him brutally to the ground, using Rodney’s own momentum against him. That long sword flashed down in a straight, merciless line.

My mother rushed forward. “Rodney, no!” she cried.

Gregor didn’t look up. Not until that blade arced its path all the way through Rodney’s neck and came up bloody on the other side. Then Gregor looked right at me. And smiled.

I didn’t look away from Gregor’s emerald gaze. Not when he kicked Rodney’s severed head at my mother, or when he started walking toward me with a measured, unhurried stride.

As if in a dream, I stopped running. Dropped my knives and watched Gregor come. I heard Bones’s shout, but it seemed to be from far away. A dull booming began in my chest that I recognized as my heart starting up again, but even that didn’t matter. All I could focus on was the unadulterated hatred pouring through my veins, surging in ever-increasing waves, until it felt like I’d explode where I stood.

Which was why it didn’t seem unusual to me when the grass around me burst into flames. Through the red haze that dropped over my vision, it made perfect sense. The grass shouldn’t exist to be able to soak up Rodney’s blood. The house Gregor had used to torture and kill my mother in shouldn’t exist, either. In fact, everything here needed to burn. Every. Last. Thing.

Orange-and-red flames raced up the short grass to lick up the sides of the house, tangling out to cover the roof in a writhing carpet of flame. Then the grass around Gregor became an arena of fire, shooting up his legs. Seeing Gregor’s legs on fire pleased me, but it wasn’t enough. I wanted to see Gregor’s skin crackle and split. See everything around him burned into smoldering ash. And I wanted it now.

The trees next to me exploded, but I didn’t glance away from Gregor. Burn. Burn. It was all my mind was capable of thinking. Nothing seemed real anymore. Not my mother crying over Rodney’s body in great, wracking sobs, or Gregor screaming as flames covered his entire body.

“Catherine, stop!” Gregor yelled.

A part of me was bemused. Why did Gregor think I was responsible for this lovely fire? Spade must have set some new explosives on his way in. Or Bones had. I should get my mother away from here, now that Gregor was occupied with being on fire. But I couldn’t make myself move. Those hot, glorious waves of rage pulsing through me had me rooted to the spot. Burn. Burn.

“Kitten!”

Bones’s voice broke my trance. I looked at him, surprised that he seemed to be colored red and blue. So was everything else. Bones ripped his blade through the vampire in front of him and threw him to the side. With nothing obstructing my view of him, I saw his face tighten with shock.

His gaze was fixed by my waist. I glanced down—and gasped. My arms were blue from the elbow down, covered in pulsating flames that I somehow couldn’t even feel. Orange and scarlet shot out of my hands, scorching everything in my path from my feet all the way to the roof of the house.

Bones ran to me, yanking me against him, ignoring the flames that continued to sprout from me.

“Charles, take Justina!” he shouted, then my feet abruptly left the ground. Through the red/blue haze of my vision, I watched Spade snatch my mother and shoot into the air. Gregor and the house still burned below us, but even now, I saw Gregor rolling on the nonburning part of the earth, dousing the old flames fast enough to keep the new ones from consuming him.

Murderer, I thought, that savageness rising in me again. Red smothered my gaze, and Gregor screamed, rolling faster as more flames erupted on him.

Clouds shifted, allowing a beam of sunlight to sear across my face. It hit me like a roundhouse kick to the head, clearing some of the red from my vision. And at the same instant, Bones sank his fangs into my neck, sucking hard.

The last thing I saw was the blazing colors of the dawn, looking like the flames still burning below us on the ground.

BARE CONCRETE WALLS MET MY VISION WHENmy eyes opened, then a dark head bent over mine.

“All right, Kitten?”

Bones’s face, streaked with soot. A heavy scent of smoke hung in the room, in fact. Immediately, I looked at my hands. They rested over my stomach, pale and innocent. Maybe I’d imagined what happened.

I sat up so fast, my head banged into Bones’s. Mencheres stood a few feet away in the small room that I recognized as a vampire holding cell.

“Easy, luv,” Bones said, smoothing his hands down my arms.

I hoped I’d passed out after setting off those detonations and everything after it had been a terrible dream. “My mother? Rodney?”

“She’s safe. He’s gone.” Bones’s voice was a rasp.

Rodney’s death had been real, which meant the fire was real, too. The fire. Coming from me.

I didn’t want to believe it, but I remembered—oh, I remembered!—the exhilaration of letting all my hate and anger surge out of me, then watching it somehow transform into the form of fire.

“I’m pyrokinetic.”

I said it out loud, watching Bones’s face, hoping somehow, he’d offer another explanation for what had happened. He didn’t.