Caress of Flame (5 page)

Flare pulled her hands down gently but firmly. He held her hands in his and sat silently for a long moment. “You need rest.”

“I can’t sleep,” she said with certainty.

Flare smiled and blew gently into her face.

Isis felt the darkness coming and welcomed it—a surcease from her horrifying pain.

She was asleep before her head fell to the pillow. She didn’t see Flare gently wipe the tears from her face. Nor did she see him cover her with a blanket with gentle care. She didn’t see him leave the room, closing the door softly behind him. It didn’t matter. She felt safe,
truly
safe, for the first time in her memory. And it was good.

2
Chapter Four

Isis had no way of knowing what time it was when she woke up. There was no watch on her wrist—it hadn’t been part of her costume—and there were no windows to see out of. She rubbed the sleep from her eyes and stretched, yawning uncontrollably. It felt like she’d slept for hours—she couldn’t remember the last time she felt so well rested.

Rising from the bed, she smoothed her rumpled dress and approached the door that led to the sitting room. She put her ear to the door and listened, then promptly fell flat on her ass when Flare opened the door from the other side.

“I thought you would be awake,” he said, holding out his hand to help her get back on her feet. Then he held out a steaming cup for her.

Thinking the drink was coffee, she took a healthy swig. The flavor of the drink—it definitely was not coffee—was like a cross between hot chocolate and vanilla milk. It was delicious. Addictive. Before she knew it, she had downed the whole thing. She wiped her mouth guiltily and handed the empty cup back to him with some chagrin.

“Would you like some more?” he asked.

“How did you make it without a kitchen?” she asked curiously.

“I am a bachelor. Several of the women provide me with meals and the like.

Anything I need really.”

“Because you’re a bachelor?” she asked with incredulity.

“I am a warrior without a mate. It is how things are done here,” he said simply.

“Where is here?” she asked, crossing her arms. “You make it sound like we’re on a different planet.”

Flare shook his head. “Not on a different planet. Simply far below the surface of the Earth.”

“
What
?” she exclaimed.

“We are below the surface,” he said again.

“So we’re what, like, in a cave or something?” She frowned.

“No. It is difficult for me to explain—I have never had the need to. But what I am trying to tell you is that we are in a different dimension, far below the surface of the Earth. Very far. But not in a physical sense—if your people drilled to find this place they would never breach its boundaries.”

“Like how far below are we?” she asked, eyes wide with shock.

“Hundreds of miles. Maybe more, I am not knowledgeable of such particulars.

Needless to say we are far from the reach of the human world here.”

2“The
human
world?”

Flare took her hand and led her to one of the great chairs in the sitting room. “Sit. I have much to tell you and I am not certain where to start.”

“Well, start at the beginning,” she said in mounting exasperation and worry.

Flare went to his knees next to her, still holding her hand, fingers rubbing lightly over the beating of her pulse in her wrist. His eyes, when he met her gaze with his, were bright and golden, full of heat but also full of softer things. Things Isis didn’t want to even think about just now.

“I am not human,” he said, watching her closely as if to judge the reaction to his admission.

“You’re not human?” she responded, mind blank with surprise. “Then what the hell are you?”

Flare grinned, showing off the straightest, whitest teeth she’d ever seen. “I am a Shikar warrior. I am part of an ancient race that has pledged to protect the human world from evil and destruction.”

Isis had no idea how to react, so she said the first thing that came to mind. “Well, fuck, you guys are doing a terrible job.” She could have kicked herself—there was no telling how Flare would react to her obviously disrespectful words.

“We try,” he said. “But it is in your nature to destroy yourselves. We cannot change that.”

“So what’s your job as a warrior like?” She couldn’t clear her thoughts to think of anything more intelligent to ask.

“I fight alone. Not all of us do,” he explained. “I mainly hunt creatures like the one you saw me kill the other night.”

“Creatures? What kind of creatures? You mean nonhuman, right?”

“Exactly. We call them Daemons. They feed on human suffering. They’re…” He paused, looking for the right words. “They are sometimes large, sometimes small. Some of them are almost humanoid while others are nothing but horrific monsters. They too live below the surface of the Earth, but sometimes they make their way up to the surface and that is where I come in. I stop the monsters from killing innocents.”

“How come I’ve never seen any proof of these so-called Daemons?” she asked suspiciously.

Flare sighed, as if the explanations were becoming tiresome. Isis thought he just wasn’t used to talking so much—he struck her as kind of the silent, stoic type.

“There’s plenty of proof out there to find,” he admitted. “But your kind seems to look the other way when anything supernatural occurs around them. Our war is still a secret one simply because humans do not want to know about it.”

Isis put a hand to her head and closed her eyes. When she opened them she met Flare’s gaze and knew that he was telling her the truth. “How is this possible?” she 2whispered, desperately wanting to understand. “How could you have lived among us without our knowledge?”

“Humans always look the other way. It is the only explanation I have to give you,”

he said succinctly. “It is the only one I know.”

Isis absorbed his words, silent for long moments. “What do I have to do with all this? You said that you’d been watching me for two weeks. Why would you do that?”

Flare studied her, wondering if she was strong enough for the full truth yet. She looked fragile, like glass that would splinter and break under too much pressure. But there was a core of steel in her—he’d seen traces of it while watching her. She was stronger than she looked. He decided then that he would tell her everything and see how she reacted.

He watched her face closely when he answered. “You have a power. A psychic power that makes you a target for Daemons. Another group of Shikars discovered this—our spies, our Voyeurs. When we discovered it we realized that there had been increasing Daemon activity close to your dwelling and workplace. The Daemons were hunting you. I was assigned to protect you.”

Isis looked nonplussed for a moment then Flare saw a mask come over her face, hiding all her emotions from him. Hiding all but what was in her most expressive hazel eyes. He could see her pain in there as well as her resolve not to show weakness in front of him. She was indeed stronger than she knew.

“Why you?” she asked in a hoarse voice.

“I am a strong warrior. I am a good Hunter. And I am a multiple Caste Incinerator—which means I can do many things to fight on your behalf, especially by creating and controlling flame. Our Elders thought I would be capable of offering you any assistance you might need.”

“What do you care if I live or die? I’m a human. I have no ties to you.” She blinked rapidly. Flare knew she was trying not to shout.

He decided to tell her the bald truth. “It is the Daemons we are concerned about.

They are our enemy. If they were to capture you, feed on you, they would become stronger. We have to prevent such a thing at all costs. Whenever we find a human with this extrasensory perception that you possess, we protect them and in doing so we are fighting our enemy in the most effective way possible.”

“I don’t have any extrasensory whatever. I’m just a normal, quiet girl who struggles to make a living in a world that is very much against it.”

Flare wondered if she believed her own words. He had been assured that she was indeed a strong psychic and he trusted his sources and his own perception. After watching her for two weeks he knew that there was something special about her, something extra that so few other humans possessed. He wondered if he were to test her, would she rise to the challenge and discover the strength within herself?

“Wait a minute,” she said suddenly. “Just how many so-called psychics are there?”

2“We don’t know. We’ve only come across a handful in thousands of years of existence. You’re unique in a very special way, a very unlikely way. One day you will discover your power. It is inevitable,” he told her gently.

Isis stared off into space. Flare had noticed her doing this many times before, distancing herself from her surroundings, from her present situation. Seeking refuge within the still world of her mind. He waited patiently for her to come to terms with what he had told her thus far. If Isis needed anything it was patience, and luckily he had great reserves of it.

But his patience would not last forever. He knew that. For now he would go at her pace, guide her to the truth with a gentle hand and hopefully find out why she went berserk when he’d touched her the previous night. That more than anything, even his sworn duty as a warrior, was what concerned him now.

He wanted her. Fiercely. He had known from the first few days of watching her that he wanted her. And not for just one night of pleasure, but for many. Flare didn’t know how the Elders would react to his claim on this woman—for he
would
claim her—and he didn’t care. He would have her. Flare could settle for nothing less.

But there was something badly damaged inside of her. He had seen it from afar and now firsthand. Something horrible had happened to her, he was certain of it. She had no love for herself. In fact, it seemed that she hated herself most of the time. Flare wanted to know why and he wanted to fix it for her. Now. But he knew it would take time before she would open up to him. He was willing to wait—but only for so long—

before he took things into his own hands.

Isis seemed to come back to herself with a start. She frowned and met his gaze with her own. “When will you take me back?”

Flare thought for a moment. He wanted to keep her here, but he knew for certain that the Elders would frown on him keeping a woman confined to his quarters, especially one as precious as this. He would have to take her back. For now.

“I’ll take you back whenever you want. But I will never leave you, not so long as you have need of me.”

“So you’ll baby-sit me,” she scoffed. “I don’t like knowing you’ll be spying on me.”

“I won’t be spying exactly,” he smiled wryly. “But I
will
be watching over you.”

“You can’t come into the club and carry me off again like that. Ever.” She ran a hand through her hair in obvious frustration. “I don’t even have a clue how I’m going to explain what happened to my boss.”

Flare gritted his teeth and anger made the heat bake off him in waves. He tamped down on his anger, not wanting to alarm her. “I don’t want you working there anymore,” he told her honestly.

“I have to,” she told him. “The money is good and I need it to survive. It’s a very easy way to make a lot of money really fast.”

2“I do not like knowing that other men are looking upon your bare flesh.” He rose suddenly and went to retrieve a large stone box from one of his shelves.

Isis gasped to see what was in the box. When he opened it, dozens of slips of paper fell out. It was jam-packed with money—all kinds of money from all over the world. He rummaged through the paper money as if it meant nothing to him and retrieved a very thick wad of green bills.

“You must take this and promise me that you will no longer bare yourself before strangers.” He handed her the wad of hundred-dollar bills. There had to be a good two hundred of them. Twenty thousand dollars in the palm of her hand. And Flare hadn’t even hesitated to give it to her.

“Is it enough?” he asked hopefully.

Isis swallowed hard. She knew it would be hard to return to the club and explain away the fantastical events that had occurred. It might be impossible. She sighed and made her decision. “You don’t need this money?”

“No,” he admitted easily.

“Then I’ll consider it your karmic obligation for ruining my job,” she said flippantly.

“I can get you more if you need it. As much as you want,” he told her.

Isis felt her eyes go wide with surprise. “Just how do you get this money?” she asked. “I’m not going to go to jail or anything if I try to spend it?”

“The Elders supply us with funds in case we have need of it in the Territories.”

“The Territories?” She frowned.

“It’s what we call the surface world. It is but a small Territory of the world we know. As for the money, you needn’t worry that it will land you in legal trouble. And we have endless supplies of it. It would be nothing for me to supply you with an equal amount of money every week if need be.”

Isis tried to take it all in. Then her naturally suspicious nature reared its ugly head.

“Why are you doing this?”

Flare took her hand once more in his. Again he let his fingers caress her pulse, and she knew it was his way of judging her mood by the pace of her beating heart.

His gaze met hers and it was as though flames flickered within his eyes. “I do this because I do not want you to display your body before anyone but me. The money is such a small thing for me. Please, I beg you, take the funds I offer and give up your line of work. You must stop. I cannot bear it.” His fingers stroked her palms with the gentlest of touches but his voice was tortured and hurt.

The raw honesty in his voice humbled her. Flare was so unafraid to tell her his feelings that it made her feel like she was hiding behind a mask. She wished she could be so honest, so open, but she’d long ago learned that such a thing was dangerous in the extreme. To let someone know you cared was to give them a weapon to use against you.

And Isis had vowed never to care for anyone again.