Fire and Flame (15 page)

Decision worked through, Sara grabbed a bowl from the cupboard then fetched the box from the pantry. Derrick settled in the dining room doorway with his arms folded in front of his chest and his body lazily bent against the wall. She ignored him and went about her usual business.

Discreetly she checked the driveway for the pickup truck while she poured the flakes into her bowl. It was parked where it had been since early Tuesday. The hybrid still sat where Vanessa had left it last night. No additional vehicles had arrived and none had gone missing. If Brent had come home, he’d already left again.

Once her bowl was arranged with milk and a spoon, Sara took it down the corridor to the office. Derrick trailed her. She tossed the door closed. It didn’t catch in the jamb.

“I can’t remember how many times I was called here to receive a stern talking to by Fintan,” Derrick said in his deep, amused voice from inside the office.

Sara settled in the chair in front of the desk. The one beside her was used as a leg rest simply to keep Derrick from taking it. Quickly she regretted her decision.

The dark-haired witch stepped around, taking up the position beside Fintan’s chair. Dark eyes stared down at her. He gestured to the brown leather manager’s chair. “Think I’d go up in flame if I sat in it?”

If she’d been a typically aggressive Fire witch, she might have told him she’d make sure he did. Even Brent hadn’t tried to use the old high priest’s chair. Until then, she hadn’t considered he would. Or that Brent had shown a good deal of respect for the dead by failing to do so.

Her lack of a response bored Derrick. The witch stepped away from the chair toward the bookcase to the right.

Without turning, he asked, “Are you giving us all the silent treatment or just me?”

Sara’s chin rose. “I’m not giving anyone the silent treatment. No one is saying anything worthy of a response.”

Derrick’s head shook slowly. “Phoenix, you’re such a stuck-up bitch.”

Sara adopted her cheeriest smile. “Thanks.”

He glanced back long enough to see her show of feigned brightness. A snort left his chest. “You don’t even care that we all think you’re a spoiled brat. You perpetuate the myth.”

She had to give him kudos for using a word like perpetuate when the other witches in the house would have merely stared at him blankly.

Maybe she was a stuck-up bitch. Or maybe half the local coven was low class compared to the McKenna brood. In any case, she had no intention of changing who she was to make them like her.

“Someone needs to bring you to heel,” he went on when she didn’t argue. “You need to be humbled until you realize you’re no better than the rest of us.”

But she was better. Sara had absolutely no doubt if she put her mind to it, she could become one of the most famous Fire witches in the country…at least in the vanilla human world. And then witches like Derrick would fall at her feet for a few seconds of her attention.

He shook his head in what looked to be disgust then started for the door.

“Where is Brent?” The words had come out of her mouth before she knew what she was doing.

Derrick swung toward her. “He’s not here.”

Colin had used the exact words, as if Brent had ordered them all to give the answer.

Sara inhaled a long breath for serenity. “I see that. But where is he if he’s not here?”

“Somewhere else,” was Derrick’s oh-so-helpful answer.

In a tight voice she asked, “When is he going to be back from somewhere else?”

His shoulders lifted—a motion she spotted out of the corner of her eye. “When he’s back.”

And then he left her alone in Fintan’s office. Her gaze touched on countless objects she could throw at the door in an effort to exercise her aggravation. But she’d never forgive herself for giving into her aggression or for destroying something of her daddy’s. There was so little of Fintan truly left. She couldn’t afford to lose a single item.

Even if he had made her life miserable when he’d left. She still loved him for the happy years he’d given her. Sara could have ended up like Brenton, unhappily living in his aunt’s house after his mother had run off.

Yes, final wish aside, Fintan had done far more good for her than bad. This was only a speed bump on the road to her wonderful future.

Chapter Nineteen

The clock on Sara’s bedside table claimed it was half past four. Afternoon sun streamed into the windows beside her bed, casting frilly shadows on the white carpet. Sara picked at her toenails nervously in her spot on the edge of one of those shadows.

Brent was back. Perry’s Dodge Challenger had pulled into the driveway at three this morning. Brent had crossed the pavement to the porch using his familiar aggressive gait. Downstairs there’d been a few noisy greetings before it had gone quiet.

Colin had been on keep-Sara-in-the-house duty when she’d gone for cereal at ten. She’d expected Brent to speak with her then. He hadn’t.

And then she’d waited all afternoon for him to visit. His voice had echoed up the stairwell as he’d spoken to Colin three hours ago. It had been the only thing of Brent’s that had come up the stairwell.

He was avoiding her.

He’d been gone for two full days and now refused to explain where he’d gone. Perhaps he didn’t owe her that but he sure as hell owed her an explanation for why he’d let three of his friends invade McKenna House without her permission. And why he’d allowed those three to bully and insult her.

Did she want the explanation badly enough to brave the company of the jerks downstairs? She didn’t think so. She’d wait to see how dinner played out before she made any decisions.

****

Twice Sara considered going back upstairs and to bed. Her guard had fallen asleep in the cushioned chair beside the rungs or else she wouldn’t have gotten this far. Perry was a piss poor guard. Perhaps Brent would realize that fact if she knocked on the door as she’d planned.

Sara drew in a quick breath, and then knocked softly twice. There was a long pause in which she heard nothing in front or behind her. She waited longer still before giving a third knock.

A muffled thump was heard through the door. Dull thuds of feet smacking against carpet made their way to her. Brent yanked the door open far faster than she’d anticipated. The whoosh of air and creak of wood made her jump a half inch.

Brent was shirtless and glaring. But…shirtless.

“Decided to knock this time?” he growled.

Sara flushed because she assumed he was referring to how she’d burst into the room on Tuesday in search of him. There’d been no knocking then.

She kept her gaze on his face to avoid seeing any other parts of him. His eyes focused on her, and then widened in surprise.

“Oh, it’s you. What do you want?” Though it was less of a growl, it was still plenty sour.

It was her? What did he mean?

Jealousy sliced through her gut when she worked out the answer. He’d thought Vanessa had woken him in the middle of the night. During the few seconds she fought the green monster of jealousy, Sara couldn’t recall why she’d come downstairs. It soon came to her.

Sara couldn’t demand the regional high priest give her explanations where his underlings could hear. But she didn’t want to ask for an invitation into his room, especially not after what she’d recently heard.

She gestured to the office door. Sara started for it without waiting for his agreement. There were no footsteps immediately but she was confident he would follow. She flipped on several lights around the desk then took the seat in front of it while she waited.

When he did arrive it was with a shirt covering his chest. “I’m tired, Sara,” he told her after closing the office door. “This had better be good.”

He’d probably said something far nicer to Vanessa
.

“Why did you invite three witches here without telling me?” she blurted out.

Brent came to a stop three feet from the door. He squinted in confusion. Then he let out a long sigh that brought his shoulders low. “They were here for your protection. I didn’t realize I had to tell you first. Especially not after the attack in the cemetery.”

“I thought the house was mine.”

His eyebrows slanted inward even as his back straightened. “I have to ask you for permission before having a slumber party?”

His derision riled her further. But his meaning was clear.

He was now regional high priest. He shouldn’t have to ask a lowly witch for permission to invite people to his home.

But it wasn’t
his
home. It was hers.

Slowly, because it was the only way to keep from shouting, Sara said, “First it was Vanessa, who you know I can’t stand. Then Colin. And now Perry and Derrick, both of whom haven’t bothered to hold their tongues while they’re here.”

“What have they done?” It was a quick question spoken in a worrisome dark tone.

Perhaps she should have held
her
tongue. She hadn’t meant to say something that would get them in trouble. She’d only wanted them to leave.

Sara shrugged her shoulders as flippantly as she could manage. “The same thing everyone else does.”

“What does everyone else do?”

“They called me princess or your majesty or a stuck-up spoiled brat.”

The muscle in Brent’s cheek began twitching. “Who called you that?”

She jabbed a finger at him. “You did, so don’t get all righteous on them.”

He took a step back. His head lolled along with the movement as if someone had hit him. “If you don’t want me to get righteous on them then why did you wake me up in the middle of the night to make me listen to you complain?”

Sara’s cheeks flushed pink because she didn’t have a valid answer. She had been complaining. Her anger over his days of avoidance had kept her awake and it had ultimately driven her downstairs for an accounting.

“If you hadn’t avoided me all day I wouldn’t have had to wake you up in the middle of the night.”

His eyes shot wide. And stayed that way for several seconds. “You’re angry that I avoided you?”

Rapidly she shook her head, illustrating exactly how much she wasn’t angry over his avoidance.

He let out a quick laugh. “That’s it! You’re unhappy because I’m not dancing attendance on you.”

Brent was making fun of her. His friends had made fun of her. Vanessa had made fun of her. Her home had become little better than the schoolyard. She wanted to go back to college where she’d reigned as a veritable queen. There she’d been appreciated. Why was she still here where she was only miserable?

She didn’t have to remain in the room with him while he insulted her. Sara got to her feet and started for the door only to have Brent step in her way.

“You know, Sara, running from an argument makes you a coward, not a pacifist,” he taunted with his green gaze fixed boldly on her face.

“I don’t care what you think of me,” she retorted as he had days ago. “Get out of my way.”

“Or what?” His lips quirked in a small smirk. “You’ll complain until I move?”

Jealousy over his nights with Vanessa, anger how he’d insulted her as much as his friends had, and frustration that she had no one but him to turn to made her want to hurt something. No, she wanted to hurt him because he was the source of all of her recent problems.

If it hadn’t been for Brent, Fintan never would have specified her duty in his will. If not for Brent, the funeral would have been a miserable weekend and then she’d have gone back to school on Monday.

Sara channeled days of fury, years of frustration, and a life ruined into her arm. Her limb moved before she’d fully understood what she’d done. A half second later Brent’s head snapped to the left from the impact of her hand, and then he stumbled to the side.

Brent’s attention whipped toward her as she shook out her aching fist. His eyes were wider than she’d ever seen them. Determination soon filled them with a swirling gleam. She stepped back, worried he’d hurt her for the pain she’d caused him.

His taunt that she was a coward kept her steady when he started across her daddy’s office with a manic glimmer in his gaze. Sara gasped with a different sort of worry when his hands found their way into her hair and behind her back.

Brent was going to kiss her!

She inhaled another startled breath when his mouth slanted over hers. Brent’s tongue slashed through her lips with the same ruthless gestures he’d used Monday night. And despite the multitude of bad emotions she’d been feeling, Sara didn’t shove him away. Instead her body heated instantly with muscle memory that remembered exactly what he’d done to her days ago.

Using his tight grip on her scalp, Brent whirled them both around. Carefully he backed her until Sara was pressed along the office door with his long, lean body holding her hostage. He kissed her breathless for several seconds longer before withdrawing his mouth to make his way to her throat. Sara let her head fall back against the heavy wood while his lips trailed hot kisses down her neck.

Brent’s scent was all around her, bathing her in his smoky tang. She inhaled a breath, drawing it within as if the cool air around them held the explanation for why she couldn’t refuse his kiss. The slow throb building between her thighs was probably answer enough. Her body wanted Brent even if her mind knew it was a bad idea.

His tongue laved over her collarbone with long, heated gestures that made her feverish. Gently he kissed his way down to the scalloped edge of her tank top. But when his nose did little to push aside the fabric, he resorted to shoving it down with his fingers. Cool air rushed over her bare chest, drawing a startled gasp from her.

Without warning Brent’s hot mouth closed over her left nipple, teasing it to life. Shivers of sensation sprang from it, flying straight to her brain then on downward to where the dampness built between her legs. Sara dug her hands into his scalp. Her vision went black as her eyes rolled up into her head. Seconds later he hissed from the pain she’d not realized she’d been inflicting.