“I’ll tell you later. Right now, I hear you may need help. What can I do?”
Kristine pointed a shaking finger toward the fully engulfed mansion. “Jayce is in the basement. In a cage! I don’t know if he’s alive—or what to do if he isn’t. He’s a phoenix, but I… I…”
Amber laid a calming hand on her shoulder. “It’s all right. We’ll figure it out.”
A split second later they were in a smoke-filled space with concrete walls. Yet the room wasn’t hot. She spotted a slumped-over body in a cage.
“Jayce!” Kristine cried.
A firefighter was making his way up the stairs with what must have been the last of the three criminals over his back. He didn’t even turn around to see who had shouted.
Kristine tried to run toward the cage, but Amber grabbed her arm.
“Let me go! He needs me, and I’m fireproof.”
“I’m well aware. Married to a dragon, remember? But we need to know how to help him. We’re in the ether right now. Neither here nor there. A place between. I’ll explain later. Stay here.”
With that, Amber disappeared.
What the hell?Obviously, Amber had some big supernatural secret of her own. As mysterious as that was, Kristine gave it only a moment of her attention before returning to panic mode. “Jayce!” she yelled.
If the firefighter hadn’t heard her from this “ether” she was in, Jayce might be unable to hear her too. Just because he didn’t respond… Kristine’s hope was dying as surely as her lover was.
“Amber!” she yelled.
An older woman with long, white hair appeared next to her. Not Amber. “Who are you?”
“I’ll explain later.”
Could no one answer her questions now? She needed answers NOW.
“I know,” the woman said.
She hoped she meant she knew what to do. “Let me go to him! I’ll survive.”
“I know that too… And we’re going to deal with this—hold my hand.”
She took Kristine’s hand, and they stepped out of what felt like a cloud, leaving its cool dampness, into the crackling heat of the room. As they stood before the cage, the woman said, “I’m Mother Nature. I know what you are, little dragon. And your phoenix here needs your help. Breathe on him.”
Kristine wondered if she was actually out in the woods, hallucinating. Was this apparition telling her to do what she thought she was hearing? “Did you say to breathe on him? As in breathefireon him?”
“Yes. Bathe his body in fire, and don’t stop until there’s nothing but ash…no matter what you see or how you feel about it. Understand?”
Kristine’s mouth dropped open, but no words would come out.
The woman jammed a fist on her hip. “I’d suggest you use that mouth of yours. I didn’t just create it for kissing, you know. He doesn’t have much time.”
She didn’t have any choice but to believe the stranger and act.
Kristine held onto the hot bars of the cage, opened her mouth wide, pulled in a deep breath, and then she exhaled a blast of fire aimed right at the man she loved. It felt so wrong, and yet she’d been told his brother was reincarnated in fire—twice.
Jayce’s body caught fire and burned brightly. Kristine felt tears sting her eyes but continued her onslaught of fire until she was tapped out and his size and shape were reduced to nothing but a pile of ash. She turned to the woman to ask if she was finished.
The woman who called herself Mother Nature was gone, but a hand reached out and pulled Kristine back. A second later, she stood next to Amber in the cool ether.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the ash stir. She watched as a glowing wing emerged slowly. She gasped and stared at Amber wide-eyed. “Can I go to him?”
Before Kristine could take a step in his direction, Amber said, “Don’t try to touch him or stop him. He’ll find his own way out.”
