Kiss of Fire (29 page)

Thierry had never let any of his sons or his wife touch the coin and now Quinn knew why. It was the coin he used to challenge other
Pyr
to a blood duel.

Erik offered it to Quinn. “He gave it to me, at the end, as his legacy to his son. He assumed that I would find you and that you would survive.”

“You could have taken it from him, if you were his killer.”

“Then I would challenge you with it.” Erik shrugged. “Instead, I give it to you.”

Quinn took the coin, still unconvinced. There was too much at stake to take anything on faith.

Erik frowned, then indicated that he'd take the next turn back to his hotel. “By the way, Thierry told me to say that the Smith can make any coin his own. I don't know what that means, but maybe you do.” He held Quinn's gaze for a moment, then turned to walk down the street that led back downtown.

“You're right, Erik,” Quinn called after him. “I do.”

Erik paused and glanced back. As the other
Pyr
watched, Quinn closed his hand over the coin. He breathed into his fist three times. He murmured to the gold of its own song and felt it transform within his grasp. Then he opened his palm for Erik to see how the coin had changed. “It means that you're telling the truth.”

Erik had to walk back to him to see what he had done. When he did, he looked between the coin and Quinn, but he looked more resigned than astonished. “But you still don't fully trust me.”

There was no question in his voice and Quinn didn't answer him. He didn't have to: they both knew it was true.

He was closer to trusting the older
Pyr
though, and he could prove it.

“Sun's coming up,” he said. “You want a cup of coffee?”

Erik nodded at a donut shop. “Over there?”

“No. I'm going to make some for Sara.” Quinn held Erik's gaze steadily. “In her apartment.” He saw the moment that Erik realized he was being invited to cross Quinn's smoke. The depth of the other
Pyr
's relief persuaded Quinn that he had made the right choice.

Sara had been right about finding out the truth.

The trick would be proving Erik innocent of the third crime against Quinn and his loved ones. There were no witnesses of Elizabeth's death, and Quinn saw no point in asking Erik about his role.

A lie would be indistinguishable from the truth.

There is fire.

There is so much fire.

Sara tosses and turns, aware that she dreams but knowing she can't evade this dream's truth.

It is about Quinn.

Everything around her is burning bright, orange with hungry, licking flames. They crackle and hiss and leap so high that she can't see the walls of the kitchen, much less guess where to find the door. She feels a woman's panic as she tries to escape the inferno. She cannot feel Quinn, but this woman's thoughts are full of him.

There's a gold band on the woman's left hand. Sara lets herself slide into the thoughts of Quinn's wife, knowing this is why she is having this dream. The force of Elizabeth's love for Quinn is staggering.

She is praying for him, even as she herself is condemned to burn alive. Elizabeth pounds on the walls and shouts for help, help that she knows will not come.

No one will help her. Elizabeth has been shunned by her family and her friends, she has moved with Quinn into the wilderness to establish a farm away from those who would condemn them both, and she knows that the others will take satisfaction in her death when they learn of it.

They will say she reaped what she had sown.

Because they are fools.

Quinn is the only one who would help her. But Quinn is traveling, doing his regular route of repairing the shoes of plough horses. Elizabeth knows he will be at the most distant point by now, close to Boston, and also knows that it is no accident the golden dragon chose this day for his attack.

By the time Quinn returns to their farm, only smoking ash will remain. Elizabeth prays, even as she beats at the burning walls with her bare hands, desperate to escape. The stones of the chimney that Quinn built are hot, the thatch on the roof is burning, the kitchen is filled with blinding orange light.

Her father said that she deserved to burn for giving her hand and her heart to a demon. Her father said she would burn forever for her defiance of him, for her choice to marry a man who could take dragon form.

She never expected him to be proven right, not so soon.

Her heart had stopped when she opened the kitchen door, intending to milk the cow. A golden dragon landed in the space between house and barn, scattering the chickens and stirring the dust. When he smiled, she knew she would not see midday.

His beauty was deceptive yet fascinating. He might have been a jewel from a king's treasury, made of glittering gold and the gleam of the stone she knew as tiger eye.

Her father would have said that the wrath of God had come upon her. Elizabeth knew it was the wrath of the
Slayer
s
.

Of one particular
Slayer
. She knew from Quinn that his name must be Erik, but when she called him such, he laughed. He loosed a torrent of fire on the house, on her precious house that Quinn had built with his own hands, and Elizabeth dropped her bucket. She snatched a broom and tried to beat out the flames, only to find that the dragon continued his fiery assault.

She felt the heat and turned to find a wall of flames at her back. Her only escape was back into her kitchen and she didn't expect she'd leave it alive.

She didn't beg. She didn't plead. She lifted her chin and picked up her bucket and her broom. “You are evil,” she told the
Slayer,
whose smile only broadened. “And justice will be visited upon you. I only regret that I shall not live to see that day.”

He blew fire at her and Elizabeth retreated into the kitchen. She thought to bar the door against him but heard him moving something across the farmyard.

It was Quinn's anvil. He moved it with ease to block the door and smiled at her through the window.

“I hope you have said your prayers, Elizabeth,” he taunted, then loosed the flames.

Sara shivers in her sleep, remembering Ambrose taunting her with the same words. She knows the moment Elizabeth realizes she is doomed, the instant that the last spark of hope is extinguished. It is when the hungry flames catch the hem of Elizabeth's skirt. She beats at her clothing as the flames surround her, lick at her, devour her. Her golden ring flashes in the light, a mark of her vows, a reminder of the reason she is paying this price.

But Elizabeth has no regrets. She would love Quinn again, without hesitation. Her only disappointment is that she never bore Quinn's son. It was the only desire she ever had that Quinn didn't fulfill.

She fears then that he will blame himself for her death, and she wishes there was some way she could tell him not to do so. She chose to love Quinn, or chose not to deny the love she felt for him.

And that, Elizabeth knows in her heart, made their short life together worth every breath. The fire takes her clothing, her hair, her skin, and the pain seems more than she can possibly bear. The ring burns on her finger but she will not remove it.

Elizabeth does not scream and she does not beg for mercy. She has loved with all her heart and soul, and she has been loved in return.

And that, for her, is eulogy enough.

Sara awakened in the darkness, her breath coming in quick pants. Her dream had been so vivid that she got up to check the room for stray sparks. She sniffed for smoke and smelled only freshly brewed coffee. There was no fire, just the light waft of a cool breeze coming through the open window. She could feel Quinn's presence in the living room.

He hadn't left yet. For the moment, that was enough.

Before she spoke to him, Sara had to think about her dream. She lay back down and pulled a sheet over herself. If Quinn had been gone to Boston, then he and Elizabeth had lived near there. Sara reviewed the glimpses she'd had through Elizabeth's eyes of Elizabeth's dress and the simplicity of her kitchen.

Quinn had lived with Elizabeth in colonial America.

She recalled the golden ring and her heart clenched. No, Quinn had been
married
to Elizabeth in colonial America. But they had had no child. Did that mean that there had been no firestorm between them?

Sara curled up beneath the sheet, feeling again the power of Elizabeth's feelings for Quinn. She could understand that woman's love pretty easily.

Elizabeth had loved Quinn. She had known what he was and had accepted him, despite the censure of her father, despite the condemnation of everyone she knew.

And Ambrose had murdered her. It couldn't have been a coincidence that Quinn had been too far away to save Elizabeth.

Sara didn't doubt that Quinn blamed himself for failing her.

She rolled to her back, thinking furiously. Was this why Quinn insisted on being alone? Did he still love Elizabeth? Was he afraid of putting anyone he cared about in danger? Sara could imagine as much, given how protective he was.

Her stomach grumbled and she couldn't remember when she'd last eaten. She got out of bed and had grabbed a robe before she thought of something.

Quinn had a damaged scale on his chest when he was in dragon form. She had seen it when he had saved her from falling from the bell tower. His skin was exposed there and it was obviously a vulnerable spot.

It was also obviously something he didn't want to talk about, given how he'd avoided Sara's question when she'd first seen it.

How did the
Pyr
lose scales? Sara had a whimsical idea of what might have damaged that scale, one that she'd seen in the children's book that Erik had chosen for her. She'd flipped through the story before putting the book away, enchanted by the illustrations.

The dragon next door had a problem, in that he had loved someone he had lost and he had lost a scale from his chest as a result. That made him vulnerable when the other dragons fought, but the child in the story had proven so helpful that the dragon had loved again. And his love for the child next door had healed his wound.

It made a kind of sense. After all, Ambrose's chest showed no such vulnerability. She could imagine that the
Slayer
had never loved anyone, other than maybe himself.

Was Quinn vulnerable because he had loved Elizabeth?

If she could find out for certain what had damaged that scale of Quinn's, she might be able to figure out how to repair it.

Another woman might have been daunted by the revelation that he had loved and lost before, but Sara had loved and lost before and she was still standing. She thought it gave them something else in common. The feelings she was starting to have for Quinn proved that the heart could take a hit and recover. She interpreted her dream as evidence that Quinn could love again.

Besides, Sara Keegan wasn't afraid to work for what she wanted.

She knotted the belt of her teal silk kimono and headed for the living room. There was only one way to get an answer to her question, although she wasn't at all sure that Quinn would be eager to enumerate his weak spots.

It wouldn't stop her from solving the puzzle, either way.

Quinn wasn't surprised when the smell of fresh coffee drew Sara from the bedroom. She wore a robe in greenish blue that made her look fresh from the sea. The fabric was smooth and silky and flowed over her curves like water over a beach. Her feet were bare and he could see the tan lines from her sandals, as well as the shell pink polish she had used on her toenails. He thought of her wrapped around him, all softness and strength, and was ready for another round.

He smiled that she had left her hair loose, although he didn't know whether she'd left it that way because he liked it or because she'd forgotten to knot it up.

She did look preoccupied.

Come to think of it, she looked determined. Quinn knew enough about Sara to brace himself for trouble.

“Good morning,” Erik said, saluting Sara with his coffee cup.

“Hi,” she said, smiling for him. If she was surprised to find that they had company, she hid it well. “I'm glad you're here,” she said, looking serious again. “We've got to talk about saving the Wyvern.”