Touching Fire (Touch Saga) (12 page)

He stiffened and I almost flinched. I hated that I might have hurt his feelings. I wish I could give him a reason why, but all I could do was stare back at him uselessly.

“Oh…” he mumbled at last. “Well, he did tell me to stay out of sight.”

“Hey, I’ll talk to him, okay?” I assured him. “Whatever it is, we’ll figure it out.”

He said nothing for a moment, a moment where his hurt rushed through him and into me. I ached to co
mfort him. Instead, he was the one to offer me the small smile as he took my hand.

“I can still walk you to the stairs. There’s no rule about that, right?”

Squeezing his fingers, I smiled. “Not yet.”

Chapter
9

“I wish you would tell me what happened last night,” Isaiah said as we reached the stairs leading down into the foyer. He stopped and turned to me on the top landing. His hands closed over my shoulders, drawing me close into his heat. “Just tell me who did it.”

I chuckled, shaking my head. “
Let it go, Isaiah.” I placed my hands on his biceps, barely controlling myself from slipping my fingers beneath the sleeves of his t-shirt and feeling the hard muscles underneath. “Don’t worry about it, okay? It’s not a big deal.”

His
expression melted from disbelief to thunderous. “Not a big deal? Do you have any idea how scared I was? I couldn’t find you and all I could feel was your fear. I was ready to tear this place to the ground.” The muscle in his jaw jumped. His hands tightened on my shoulders, no doubt leaving bruises as he yanked me even closer, touching my front with his and sending jolts of electricity shooting down to my toes, which, I’ll admit, were curling in my sneakers. “I wanted to find whoever was hurting you and rip them to pieces. I still do. Don’t think for a second I’m going to just forget this.”

In
the movies, that would have been the moment where the boy and girl would kiss passionately and embrace each other with greedy desperation while declaring their undying love.

Nothing
that
exciting ever happened to me.

“Eeek! Human!
Remove your hand off the miss at once!”

I wasn’t sure which of us jumped higher
. It might have been me, but only because I added a little squeak to my surprise at the unexpected voice scolding us. Our heads turned in the direction of the stairs and the tiny little man watching us with obvious horror and disapproval.

He reminded me of a miniature-sized Santa Claus. His little knitted sweater stretched over his bulging belly, a mistletoe green that matched his stiff corduroy trousers.
Bushy, white eyebrows hung low over squinty blue eyes in stern annoyance.

He waddled his way up the remaining steps
on short little legs and stopped when he came to my knees. His head tipped back, far back, as he glowered up at Isaiah.

“
Perhaps such behavior is acceptable in
your
world, human, but here, we do not manhandle those above our station.”

“Hey!” I said, wondering if he knew how close he was to getting booted back down the stairs. “He wasn’t manhandling me and I’m
not above him.”

The little man
hobbled backward, turned his body and bowed low, nearly touching the toe of my sneaker with his pointy nose. “Forgive me. But there are rules.”

“
Rules?”

He dropped his voice and leaned ever so slightly in my direction. “
It’s unbecoming of someone of your status to associate with
his
sort.”

God it was like being in school all over again. I was suddenly the weird girl walking into class halfway through the semester
and being told who I should
associate
with if I wanted to fit in.

I spared a glance towards Isaiah and was a little surprised by the amusement on his face. He didn’t seem remotely offended by the constant reminder
of his humanness. The thing that amused me most was the fact that he was probably stronger and faster than most of the people in that place. I was assuming this, but I felt pretty confident in my assumption.

I looked back at
Tiny. “Well, sorry to burst your bubble, but his sort is sort of my sort, too.” I paused as I went over my words in my head and hoped they made sense. “So, yeah.”

Tiny looked puzzled
. His pointy little beard quivered like he was either trying not to cry or he was chewing gum. “This is highly unusual,” he chirped.

I snorted. “Welcome to my world.”

“Awake, I see.” Archer swept up the stairs behind Tiny and gave me a mock bow. “Princess.” He turned his shaded eyes towards Isaiah. “Human.”

I wanted to palm-face. I was very close to doing it.
But Archer was speaking again.

“Glad to see you found him … unharmed.
I know I’ll be sleeping better tonight.” He turned his attention on Isaiah. “Good to see you have all your limbs. Lucky that.”

“Good to see you
still have your mouth. Shame really.”

Archer smirked. “A human with a backbone. My, my, isn’t that … adorable.”

Isaiah grinned a little and I had no idea what to make of the manly bonding happening before my eyes. It was a little creepy.

“
What do you want, Archer?”

“To escort you to breakfast, of course. What more could I want?”

“Oh I could think of a few things,” I muttered.

“Yes well, breakfast first.
Shall we?”

I ignored the elbow he offered me, sidestepped Tiny and stalked down the steps on my own.
I heard Isaiah and Archer descending the steps behind me; neither was speaking, but I could feel their eyes burning holes into the back of my skull. It was a task to concentrate on not tripping over my own feet going down. I felt so
watched
.

At the bottom of the steps, Isaiah stopped
. “I’ll see you when you’re finished,” he said.

I agreed and turned to follow Archer the rest of the way.

The dining room was not in the basement as Delphi tried to have me believe. In fact, the dining room was nowhere near the basement and was probably the most beautiful room I had ever seen.

Washed
in warm, white light, the room gleamed like some
Mr. Clean
commercial. Sheets of ivory and marble glinted beneath the wave of sunlight pouring through the wall of French doors running along one entire wall. Lace curtains danced in a breeze drizzled with the fragrance of lavender and jasmine. The scent swept through the cavernous room to surround the twelve or so people seated around a long, rectangular table made of solid marble. Plates of silver and gold held mountains of deliciously scented foods that made my stomach knot.

My hands trembled as I pressed them into my gut, willing back the hunger. Sweat broke out across my brow and dampened the back of my t-shirt.
I prayed to God I didn’t go savage in front of all those people—in front of Ashton.

“Fallon.” Ashton waved me away from the threshold, motioning me to take the empty seat on his right.

I edged a step in, my gaze darting from him to the display of food and I gritted my teeth. Maybe if I held my breath, I could stave off the monster.

Archer reached my chair before I did and drew it out w
ith an inclination of his head. I slipped into it and was nudged deeper under the table, closer to the food. I was vaguely aware of Celia sitting across from me and the eleven other pairs of eyes watching me like I was some kind of science experiment.

“
Who is this, Acheron?” came a nasally woman’s voice.

“This is F
allon. She is a guest at the manor.”

Not his daughter. A guest. Some stranger couch
-surfing in his pad. Yeah he said not to tell anyone who I was, but I hadn’t expected his lack of acknowledgement to hurt as much as it did, which was kind of ironic considering he never really acknowledged me in the first place.

“Fallon,” someone said, making me look up from my plate.
It was a woman with hair so white it glinted in the light like freshly fallen snow. It looked soft like cotton and was elegantly styled to frame an oval face with eyes the exact replica of mine. She sat in the seat next to Celia, wearing a dress suit the color of ripe plums. She gave me an appraising glance. “How familiar you seem.”

“Uh…” My gaze darted to Ashton, then back when he merely stared back at me, being no help at all. “I have one of those faces
?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Perhaps.”

“Fallon, this is my mother, Odalyn.”

“Moth…” I trailed off as I realized what that meant
; I had a grandmother. I had no idea what I was supposed to do. Curtsy? but I was already sitting down. So I did the next best thing, I waved … like an idiot. “Hi!”

I should have curtsied.

A ghost of a smile curled her bright, red lips. “Pleasure.”

“Yeah, you too.”
I was staring. I couldn’t help it. I couldn’t look away. A grandmother!
Stop staring!
I quickly turned back to Ashton, who offered me a small knowing grin.

He motioned further along the table, next to Odalyn. “My brothers, Keane,
Voss and Arlin. Voss’ wife, Katreena, their son Aries and their daughter, Zaphara.”

The brothers were
the spitting image of Ashton, with the same dark hair, hazel eyes and movie star features. But only Voss was actually smiling. The other two looked like I’d just spat in their cereal. Arlin was on the stockier side with wider shoulders and Keane was broader in the chest, but the resemblance all around was undeniable.

Voss’
wife, Katreena was a beautiful woman with skin the color of a latte and a body made to grace the cover of some Paris magazine. Her dark hair hung around her thin shoulders, framing her exotic features with full red lips, enormous brown eyes and high cheekbones. She smiled at me kindly, which I returned.

Then there was
Aries, and it was a little jarring just how not like his parents he was. Short and round, he had a head full of curly brown hair and squinty brown eyes. His face was littered with a million freckles under a sweaty flush. He was frowning deeply, knitting his bushy brows together. He sat hunched in his seat, arms folded as he glowered at his empty plate. His sister, Zaphara was a miniature-sized version of their mother, but with a scowl that could rival her brother. She was not happy to meet me, if the ice daggers she shot at me from her eyes were any indication.

“Nice to meet you,” I murmured, speaking to Voss and Katreena.

Katreena inclined her head, but neither spoke.

Ashton continued, turning his gesturing arm to my side of the table and the person next to me.
“My sister, Lav…” he trailed off and cleared his throat when Vinnie shot him a warning glower. “Vinnie,” he finished quickly.

Vinnie clicked her tongue and
pointed a finger gun at her brother. “Good catch, little brother.”

Little brother? My dad was a
little
brother? There was something comical about that.

“Only by
twelve minutes, a fact you never let me live down.” It was said tersely, but there was no mistaking the grin in his voice.

“You’re a twin?” The question blurted out of my mouth without a single shred of consent from me.

Ashton’s hazel eyes landed on me, his amusement more pronounced in the quirk of his lips. “That’s what I’m told.”

“It’s always been a sore subject with our dear Ach,” Vinnie commented.

“And yet I get the fancy chair,” Ashton said, leaning back in the high back seat with its gilded frame and red velvet cushioning.

“It could have been mine if I wanted it,” Vinnie retorted airily. “Luckily for you, I don’t.”

Chuckling, Ashton shook his head. “Beside the ever exaggerating Vinnie is—”

I never got to find out who sat on Vinnie’s other side. In that moment, a series of voices interrupted the group and all heads turned in the direction of the doorway and the tall, beautifully aged man
who stalked in as though he owned the world. His square face was set in a hard line of disapproval beneath the razor straight mustache over his firmly set mouth. Wisps of silky white hair fluttered with every dominating stride as he claimed the distance. He held a walking stick in one gloved hand, but he never used it. The silver dragon on the head glinted in the light. Around his long legs, the hem of his coat flapped, flying open to reveal the expensive suit underneath. This was a man who knew he possessed immeasurable power and had no qualms about showing it.

Eyes the piercing blue of glaciers made a fleeting sweep over the table before finding and locking on Ashton.

“What is the meaning of this, Reaghan?” He swept his free hand towards the door and the trio darkening the threshold.

Two
clad in dark suits I didn’t recognize, but the figure trapped between them, arms clasped at his back, unconscious…

“Isaiah!” I shot out of my seat. “
Get off him!”

Those piercing eyes snapped to me and narrowed. “
Who are you?”

I felt my anger bubbling in the pit of my stomach, raging with the hunger already churning there.
I tried to stifle it back, to stop it before it could consume me, but already I knew it was a losing battle.

I was only vaguely aware of the hushed murmurs circulating the table. There were words like
human
? And
here
? But I wasn’t paying attention. My fingers curled at my sides.