Flameborn

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First published in Great Britain by HarperImpulse 2016

Copyright © Corinna Rogerts 2016

Cover images © Shutterstock.com

Corinna Rogers asserts the moral right to

be identified as the author of this work

A catalogue record for this book

is available from the British Library

This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

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Ebook Edition © August 2016 ISBN: 9780007562213

Version 2016-07-11

Table of Contents

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Coming Soon From Corinna Rogers

Corinna Rogers

About HarperImpulse

About the Publisher

Chapter One

Fire lances out of the building, propelled not by physics but by the deft hand of a monster with a plan. Drake moves, but he’s too late for the swift arc of flame, for the way it reaches out for him, lashing in a broad arc, the heat searing his lungs even from this distance.

A hand grabs his arm, yanking him back to safety. Right. I have a partner.

That simple thought spurs Drake into action. He leaps forward, unsheathing the sword from his back and charging towards the burning building. It’s fine to be a little reckless, he tells himself, because there’s someone to watch his back.

The Inferna has taken up residence in a shitty motel, operating out of Room 183. Grumbling that it should at least have the decency to be in Room 666, Drake draws back and slams his foot into the door, splintering the wood as he dives to the side to make sure he doesn’t get hit by the blast.

When no blast follows, he blinks for a second. The door is off its hinges; a fierce wind whips sideways, yanking the fire away from him and saving him from the scorching that would have been a bitch to heal. Not only that, but an Inferna’s flames are never just fire. If any one of those had hit him, he’d be feeling a lot more than a horrendous burning sensation, which means the wind is also magical. He turns his head and catches the barest glimpse of a familiar face, tense in concentration.

“Go!”

Drake nods. They both know what it’s like, fighting for time when there isn’t any. The first step inside the motel is confusing, heat at his front, cold wind at his back, but then the hot air buffets him and he has a hell of a lot more to worry about.

Opening his eyes is always harder inside a burning building, and Drake would give almost anything not to know that so well. They water in less than a second, and the sound of the wind behind him is second only to the creaking, breaking beams of the motel itself. “Cheap plywood and plaster,” he calls over his shoulder, throwing an arm over his mouth before he tries to breathe. The heat of the air sears his lungs, no matter how much of it is whipped away from him by the wind. “It’s going up fast, so look hard!”

“I can’t keep the wind on you and look magically at the same time,” Shane shouts back. “Get out for a second.”

Drake hesitates and a beam falls. He barely rolls to the side in time, reflexively patting himself down to make sure his heavy denim and flannel haven’t caught fire yet. A spark tries to start in his beard and he swats it out, hardly feeling the prickle of pain.

“Go! You’re wasting time!”

Reason tells Drake that he has to leave, has to let Shane do his thing, because he’s the only one who can find the creature fast enough. If they put the fire out, the Inferna will simply disappear, bursting into life at a new location with a new set of lungs to breathe out the flame. Judging by the state of the motel, Drake hazards that they have four, maybe five, minutes until the whole thing comes crumbling down.

Still, instinct makes him hesitate. Shane might be able to find the creature on his own, but dealing with it is a different story. Inferna are strong, and—

Shane whacks him in the head, turning to physically kick him back out the door. The long boots he wears are heavy, even without the force of a grown man’s kick. Drake takes the blow easily, but catches sight of Shane’s exasperated, worried face. “Fine!” he shouts, and ducks out the door.

Time passes much more slowly when he’s not in the thick of the action. It wears on him, pacing back and forth outside the crumbling building, able to do nothing but wait. He tries taking a peek through one window, but even getting that close is dangerous. One of the windows near him shatters, glass exploding outwards, and Drake doesn’t take the chance that the one he’s looking through will do the same thing.

From outside, all he can see is a sphere of white light. It’s difficult to make out in the midst of all the flames, but Drake manages to keep his eyes on it. A slow swirl of magic emanates from it in a way he can feel in his bones, at least when he’s in contact with the sword he holds. Every instinct he has tells him to run inside, to find the culprit, to make sure everything is fine. That’s what he does, after all, and to be stuck on the outside looking in…

It’s anathema.

The light suddenly streaks across the room, cleaving through a wall. Drake runs left, following the light with his eyes. Shane wouldn’t move like that unless he’d found something, he reasons, and breaks the next door open with a full-body slam. He draws the sword, feeling the sweet peace of its blade surround him, and charges into the unrelenting flames.

The world splits.

Part of him is still present, fighting through the flames. Drake feels his body moving, muscles cording under the skin as he dashes in, scanning the burning motel for the Inferna’s presence. Shane had moved, so it has to be close. There—a dark blob, like a sunspot against the orange tongues of flame, darts first to the left, then to the right, evading Shane’s strikes.

The other part of Drake is anything but present.

Every gust of heat takes him farther away, showing him not the motel in front of his eyes, but memories. They don’t make sense, not all at once, but the gasping surges of fire drive him out of reality and into his mind all the same.

He’d stumbled into an Inferna lair once, in his late teens. Even that memory sends him back. Shane had been a few steps behind when Drake had tripped, stumbling into a hole as they searched for their bounty. The Inferna’s cave had exploded into flames, and Drake had found himself on a roller coaster with his mother, laughing at his father and sister, afraid of heights on the ground. Moments later, Shane had pulled him free, slapping his face, and it had taken long days for Drake to recover from the intensity of that memory.

Bright white light gleams suddenly, slicing through the flames as well as any wind could have. Shane’s light is blue and on the other side of the room; the light that deals with the Inferna’s magic comes from the sword in Drake’s hand, sanctified magic protecting him from the worst effects of inhuman magic. The memories still flood him—

“You’re such a dork!” his sister Clara laughs, and moves to sit with her friends on the school bus, even on her first day of school.

—Drake remembers where he is, and he can still move.

A sudden burst of wind and light from Shane manages to isolate the Inferna. Drake’s long legs carry him close, and the creature spits out fire—

“Why isn’t your last name Nelson?”

“They’re just foster parents. It’d be Cooper-Walker-Jones-Remmington-Nelson by now.”

—Drake takes the blast full force and hears himself let out a noise like a roar when he breaks through, slamming the sword through the creature’s writhing body, pinning it to the wall. It tries to climb up the blade, but Drake doesn’t let go, lashing out with a foot to slam it back to the wall, ignoring the—

Shane’s touch, his lips ghosting down over Drake’s spine, his voice ragged and needy, begging, hands urgent, teeth sharp—

—Drake yanks the sword free and spins, using his body weight to drive his next slice home.

The Inferna’s head rolls slowly away from its body, now sad and corporeal. It shrivels down to a coal, the inner light dying out and leaving nothing but a wrinkled skin over charred black insides. Drake exhales deeply and sheathes the sword on his back. It’s a quick draw, less than a second from the impulse of danger to the sword being in his hand and ready to use, and keeping his hands free has saved his life more times than wandering around with a drawn sword has. “Clear?” he yells, hoping Shane can hear him.

“All clear,” the call comes back. Shane peels himself away from the wall and drapes over a fallen beam. He coughs, then inhales deeply, magic tingeing the air in front of his nostrils, and breathes out deeply this time, with no trace of a wheeze. “You need an inhaler?”

Drake shakes his head. “Sword protected me. It doesn’t snap back like that.” He does feel his usual aches and pains now, the ones that come with age and a lifetime of being beaten up that are suppressed by the power the sword gives him. He nudges the coal of the Inferna’s body with a toe and it starts crumbling. “They seem like they’re getting stronger to you lately?”

“Maybe you’re just getting slower, old man,” Shane teases, and makes as if to come over and stand next to him. He thinks better of it a second later, heading for the door instead. “You get singed in that first charge, baby?”

“Got worse from the stove.” A glint of light in the center of the coals catches his eye and Drake grimaces. “Hold up, this one might still be alive. Lemme stomp it out.”

“That’s a little cruel. Let it skulk back to its master. Maybe we can follow it.”

Drake kicks the coal a little harder and it fractures into halves, then a dozen pieces when each half hits the ground, the size of a luggage carry-on when it’s split. At the center, a deep orange-red glow pulses and ebbs, startlingly bright in the center of the coals, like concentrated fire made liquid. “I’ve never seen anything like this,” he says. “I’ve cracked open a lot of Inferna.”

“Probably not as many as I have.”

Drake raises an eyebrow and Shane shrugs, coming to kneel next to the coals. “I did work for the Fire Queen’s mortal enemy for ten years.”

“I thought they were husband and wife.”

“Pretty sure they’re brother and sister, too. Doesn’t mean they aren’t mortal enemies.”

Drake snorts and prods the Inferna’s corpse with the toe of his boot. The liquid sticks to his boot for a moment, more like gel than anything, and then slowly detaches and slides back into the coal. If it weren’t for the changing play of colors, there’d be no reason to think it’s alive, much less that it’s some part of the Inferna itself. They’re small, but Drake has never had a problem with seeing them as creatures of flesh and blood before they burn away to coal. He sighs and stands up. “Can you freeze it or something? It’s bothering me and I’m not sure stomping will help.”

Shane shrugs and points a finger. A thin stream of water swirls out of the air, soaking the coals, and has no effect on the little pool whatsoever.

“Uh…”

Shane flushes hot, frowns, and points again, more firmly this time. Another jet swirls down, this one freezing as it does, though just enough that a few ice crystals form in the middle of the water. At this, the liquid flinches, glows for a moment, then settles.

“I think your finger is broken.”

“It’s not supposed to do that!” Shane stares down at his own hand, then turns and stalks out of the burned-out motel, cursing to himself and shaking his hand out at the wrist.

“Don’t worry,” Drake calls, a hint of a grin in his voice. “Happens to every guy as you get older.”

“Fucking suck my dick!”

Drake laughs, and in the second he turns his head to watch Shane slam what’s left of the door, the liquid fire moves. He sees it out of the corner of his eye, but not fast enough to get a hand on his sword. His mind misfires, going for a reaction that won’t get him killed, and comes up blank for the first time in years.

They’d had a code, back when they’d first started hunting down the magical creatures that preyed on those less able to defend themselves. They’d sworn it then, in blood and when looking in each others’ eyes. “No matter what, we keep it from getting out into the world if we can help it.”

Drake throws himself sideways as the liquid fire streaks towards the door, and if his size is good for little else it’s at least good when he wants to act like a barrier. Out the door is where Shane is, Drake remembers just in time, and opens his mouth to call.

The fire darts sideways at the last second, neatly zapping itself down his throat, and Drake almost blacks out from the pain. He would scream, if screaming didn’t involve his throat. He throws himself back violently, slamming his back to the wall with the last bit of his conscious effort, trying to dislodge whatever it is in a haze of blinding, searing pain. The fire feels like it looks, which is no consolation; searing fire made liquid feels a hell of a lot like a huge gulp of boiling oil, and Drake can feel his insides roasting more every millisecond. His lungs lock up, unable to function when something tears its way through him. He only has a fleeting second to wonder whether the creature will burn a hole out or be suffocated inside his corpse when warm hands clutch his face.

It would be nice to have his face be the last thing I see, Drake thinks dimly. It’s the only thought that registers through the pain, through the smell of his own melting insides, but forcing his eyes open is a hundred, a thousand, times harder than usual. He can feel every slide of the creature in his throat, every frantic wriggle, and as a vague plan to suffocate it Drake closes his jaw as his last act of defiance.

Something long and cool presses into the palm of his hand, and Drake’s eyes snap open.

The sword in his hand blazes, pressed there by Shane’s hands around his, and the light from the sword envelops his body. Everywhere it touches, it seals, making his flesh stronger, making his body hardier, and Drake almost lets out a sob of relief when the pain starts to fade. He tries to take a breath and his lungs slowly, begrudgingly, start working. The first gulp of air banishes the firespots on his vision, and the second makes him feel like he’s not actually dead, something he considers pretty helpful.

Drake’s fingers close around the sword without Shane’s help, squeezing it tightly for the salvation it is. The creature is still inside him, thrashing around, and Drake doesn’t dare let go.

“—Got to open up for me, baby, let me see the damage. You need to call me before you start doing idiot things like—“

Shane has been talking for a while, Drake realizes, and has to wonder whether he’d passed out after all.

“Swallowed it.” He’d expected his voice to be a raw rasp of a thing, but it sounds as normal as ever to his own ears. “It came at the door. I didn’t know what to do.”

Shane’s laughter borders on the hysterical. “Oh, now your first impulse is to swallow.”

“Shane.”

“Sorry, sorry, but don’t expect that joke to die any time soon. Is it still…”

Drake grimaces. “It’s still in me. Gimme your hand.”

He grabs Shane’s hand with the one not clutching the sword, and brings it to his own belly. Shane lets out a startled curse and yanks his hand away. “It’s—it’s hot!”

“Having any more luck with that ice?”

Shane makes a face at him and helps him off the floor, where he’d apparently fallen without realizing it. “Not sure what’s up. Might have something to do with being so close to a bunch of fire.”

“Never stopped you before. I’ve seen you make fires when you were surrounded by ice.”

“Yeah. It’s probably to do with the Ice King. Maybe he took that away from me. Pretty small revenge for destroying his palace and murdering all of his servants, but maybe he’s also a petty son of a bitch.”

“Wouldn’t you know if he is?” It’s a delicate question. Drake isn’t sure how much Shane really doesn’t remember and how much he’s just repressing because he doesn’t want to remember it. Honestly, knowing even a small fraction of the things Shane had done in the Ice King’s service, he can’t say he blames him.

Shane hesitates, then shakes his head, kicking what’s left of the door off its hinges. “I don’t remember much of that time, you know. Plus, I’m pretty sure we weren’t exactly best friends. Even when I was his number one, I was still scared as hell of him, back when I still had fear. Can you walk?”

“Nothing wrong with me.” At least, nothing feels wrong. The sturdy truck Drake bought second-hand to replace the SUV that had flipped on him is a wide older model, but neither of them blink at it when they hop into the cab. Drake gets in a bit more carefully than Shane, on the passenger’s side, and carefully lays the sword diagonally across his lap.

“Not sure I’m real comfortable with this,” Shane admits. “What if I hit a bump and you impale yourself?”

“What if you don’t drive like an asshole? Besides, I’m a lot less fond of some flaming slug eating its way through my intestines.”

“Yeah, it might damage the upholstery if it gets out. You need to go by the Church?”

Drake chews on his bottom lip for a minute, thinking. “I’d better. The sword is working really well against it, better than most things. I might be able to get something out of Father Aaron there.”

“I bet you will,” Shane mutters.

Drake shuts his mouth, clenching his jaw shut. There’s nothing good he can say to that comment that won’t start a fight, and both of them know it. Shane has never liked Father Aaron, but Drake had always assumed it was some natural aversion to the Church in general. It hasn’t abated since he got his soul back, however, and the idea that he’ll just have to accept this animosity rubs Drake the wrong way.

Shane pulls jerkily out into the street, amid unhelpful tips from Drake about how to handle the stick shift. At least he doesn’t stall at the intersection this time, which Drake decides to consider a small win. “You want me to wait in the car?”

“You don’t like it inside.”

Shane’s hands tighten on the steering wheel and his voice is tight when he speaks. “That wasn’t me. You know that. Christ, why are we still even having this conversation?”

Drake gives him a sideways look, then focuses on the road so he doesn’t lose his temper. Shane might not remember all that well, but Drake had lived through that decade and remembers it plenty for the both of them. “You’re saying you want to come in and talk to Father Aaron?”

Shane almost swerves into traffic and Drake grips the sword as tightly as he can. “Is there some way I can avoid going in and avoid you being alone with him?”

“Why don’t you want me alone with him?”

“Nothing against him, I just don’t like you hanging out with guys that want to bone you into next week.”

Drake’s eyebrows shoot straight up and he turns, incredulous, to stare at Shane’s clenched jaw, his fingers tight on the wheel. Whatever reply he’d been about to make fades on his tongue. Shane is a lot of things—irrational, flighty, over-eager, occasionally petty—but he’s not jealous for no reason. At least, he hasn’t been in the past, Drake reminds himself.

Not for the first time, he has to wonder how much of the boy he’d loved is in the man driving the truck.

“He’s a priest,” he says quietly, trying not to dismiss Shane’s feelings just because he thinks (knows) they’re ridiculous. “Even if he had some weird thing for me—which I really don’t think he does—“

“He does.”

“Even if, he’s still got his vows.” Drake carefully transfers the grip of his sword to his right hand and reaches the left over to squeeze Shane’s shoulder. “I’m flattered you think I’m hot enough to turn a priest, but seriously.”

Shane takes his eyes off the road for longer than Drake is entirely comfortable with, then grins. “Because you’re all mine, right?”

There’s something about the way he says it—relief, pride, pleasure—that makes Drake’s expression soften. “Yeah. Feels good to say it again.”

“Yeah, well, talk is cheap.” Shane’s hand tightens on his and yanks it down, pressing Drake’s palm between his legs as he drives with one hand.

“Um?” Drake looks from the road to Shane’s hand to his face, searching for something besides cocky good humor and finding nothing. “Jesus, you hedonist, wait until we get home.”

“Don’t wanna. You know fighting always makes me hard.”

“That’s your problem.”

“Always makes you hard, too.”

“That’s my problem. Dammit, concentrate on the road!”

“Road isn’t going anywhere. Come on, baby, your hand feels so good. I love the calluses and how strong you are. Feel how hard I am.”

It’s hard not to. Shane’s cock throbs under Drake’s hand, even through the denim of his jeans. Drake swallows hard, fingers curling in spite of himself. Shane’s not wrong, and that’s a problem. Fighting does usually make him more than eager to fuck, but there’ve been too many years when he wasn’t able to indulge those desires. “I’ve gotten better at holding it in,” he grumbles.

“You’re not exactly pulling away.” One hand on the steering wheel, Shane flicks open his jeans with the other, enough to make it obvious he’s wearing nothing underneath. In spite of himself, Drake swallows hard, mouth gone dry.

Shane lets out a sigh that turns into a groan. “You have about five seconds to stop looking like you’re gonna eat it, or I’m going to pull the truck over and—”

“Pull the truck over.”

Drake barely has enough time to think frantically, I meant at an intersection! before Shane swerves sideways, pulling roughly parallel to the curb and braking hard. The car is still lurching when Shane grabs his face, kissing him fiercely until they’re both flushed, sucking Drake’s bottom lip into his mouth to scrape his teeth across it and make them both groan.

“Every time,” Drake mutters, fingers flexing on the sword he can’t goddamn put down as he rearranges his position. “You’re so damn needy whenever we get into a good fight.”