Fire and Flame Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Chapter Thirty

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Chapter Thirty-Three

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  Epilogue

  Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  Fire and Flame

  by

  Anya Breton

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Fire and Flame

  COPYRIGHT © 2013 by Anya Breton

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Contact Information: [email protected]

  Cover Art by Debbie Taylor

  The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

  PO Box 708

  Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

  Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

  Publishing History

  First Faery Rose Edition, 2013

  Print ISBN 978-1-61217-883-7

  Digital ISBN 978-1-61217-884-4

  Published in the United States of America

  Dedication

  To my mother Susan

  for teaching me to be self-sufficient

  and to my father Thomas

  for showing me it's okay to be weird.

  Prologue

  Indiana, 1996

  Sara McKenna didn’t want to go inside. She wanted to go back home—to return to her smiling friends, her pink bedroom and her fuzzy Boo bear. The only thing she had left now was her Boo bear. Sara squeezed it tightly in her pale arms for the warmth it brought.

  “Sara,” a deep male voice said soothingly from what seemed like miles above her.

  She lifted her eyes to the man at a hesitant pace. Four days ago, her mama had told Sara that this strange man with his sleek blonde hair and cool blue eyes was her daddy. She’d believed it because Fintan had Sara’s eyes and hair. He had the eyes and hair her dark-haired, dark-eyed mama hadn’t had. Plus her mama wouldn’t lie to her.

  But her mama had lied to her. She’d said she’d always be there. Maybe this man wasn’t really her daddy.

  “Chin up, Sara,” Fintan said while lifting her chin with his thumb and his forefinger until they saw eye-to-eye. “You are my daughter. You are beautiful. You are smart. You are the light on a dark day.” He smiled then, stretching the wrinkles set in his cheek thin on his handsome face.

  She couldn’t help but smile in return and bask in the glow of his praise.

  “You go in now and make those children see the princess you are,” Fintan softly urged. “If you’re still smiling when I pick you up later, I’ll buy you a tiara.”

  “A tiara,” Sara repeated with widening eyes. “A real tiara with diamonds and rubies and gold?”

  Fintan’s lips stretched wider still. “A real tiara fit for a princess—my princess.”

  Sara had to be smiling when she finished school. She had to go inside the old room and prove to them that she was a princess so she could earn her tiara.

  She stared through the dirty glass into her new classroom. Small groups of children crowded around tables while the teacher sat at the front looking at a notebook. Sara cast an uncertain glance up at her father and found him watching her.

  Sara wanted her tiara. More than that, Sara wanted to be the princess he said she was.

  With a last tremulous nod for her new daddy, she lifted her chin high and then marched right in to her new class.

  Four steps into the dusty room were all she made before a sharp voice snapped through the space.

  “Who are you?”

  Sara whirled to face the sound. A boy with unruly black hair and an angry face stared at her. She sensed he wasn’t like the others. He was like her.

  He was a witch.

  His green eyes narrowed as if he sensed she was like him too when everyone else around them was normal. A Darkwing Duck T-shirt fit snuggly above his grass-stained blue jeans. She liked Darkwing Duck too. Maybe they could talk about the funny things Launchpad did every week.

  Sara opened her mouth to introduce herself but the boy interrupted her first.

  “Are you just going to stand there looking at me all day?” he said with a nasty voice that reminded her of the big kid who knocked people on the ground at her last school. “Can you even talk?”

  Soon the other kids joined in, making fun of her with pointed fingers and giggles until all but two blocked the door. They were a big pack of bullies with a mean boy as their leader and she didn’t like it one bit. Sara glanced to her daddy for help but found him already speaking to her new teacher in the hall outside. He was too busy to help her now.

  What would a princess do?

  A girl with pretty red hair and a frilly pink dress peeked out from behind the mean boy’s shoulder. The girl’s blue eyes were on Sara’s Boo bear. She walked up to the girl with the pretty hair, brushing past the mean boy without caring that he’d made a scary sound deep in his throat. Once she was there, she took the girl’s hand in hers, gently tugging her away from the boy.

  Sara stepped to an empty spot where everyone would see. In a voice worthy of the best princesses, she announced, “My name is Sara McKenna and I’m going to be your new best friend. Want to hold my Boo bear? He’s a special bear!”

  Nearly all of the bullies followed the pretty redhead when the girl left the group behind.

  All but the mean leader.

  “Where are you going?” he called out with a lifted pitch. But his friends were too interested in Sara and her special bear to answer.

  The mean boy’s face went as red as Boo bear’s nose. “I’ll never speak to you again if you don’t get back here right now!” He stomped his fancy flashing sneakers angrily on the yellowed floor with dull thuds.

  Sara shoved Boo bear into the pretty girl’s arms before the girl could change her mind.

  With Boo bear securely in her grip, the redhead smiled at the mean boy. “She’s okay, Brent.”

  The boy’s face flamed the color of autumn leaves burning bright. His lips quivered when they weren’t pressed into a line thinner than her hair ribbon.

  Sara made her important announcement before the mean boy could scream at her. “Everyone gets to hold my bear for a little while and then I’ll tell you why he’s special.” She turned her head three inches and showed the bully her cheeriest smile. “You can hold him next…if you’re nice to me.”<
br />
  The fire that flared in his green eyes told Sara more than any words could. This boy would never be nice to her. Sara would simply have to be the princess and make everyone else love her.

  Chapter One

  Pennsylvania - Present day

  Sara caught the eye of the Physics major junior in the second seat from the right. She gave him her cheeriest smile, not because his attention was on her, but because he’d been staring at her breasts for the past fifteen minutes. She highly doubted he had any interest in learning about marketing for non-business majors. He was only here because he’d procrastinated all semester. Nearly everyone in the room had attended because this was the last of the available sessions in their honors program. But she would soak up the attention anyway. After all, she was sharing useful information.

  When the male’s cheeks flushed pink, she moved on with the finale of her lecture. “And so, when marketing, you must be cognizant of the ethical impact of your campaign.”

  Sara walked to the middle of the small auditorium’s amphitheater style stage. There she focused on her favorite apprentice. With a warm smile, she continued, “Consider stereotypes you may or may not be supporting, consider potentially inappropriate themes as well as sexual or violent overtones to your imagery and copy.” Sara glided to the left side of the stage. “And don’t forget that in our global economy you may not even be aware of the implications of your campaign’s meaning in a foreign country. So always…”

  Sara sent a disappointed look at the person stepping into the room a full forty minutes late. Her breath caught upon meeting the narrowed green orbs across the room. She’d know those eyes anywhere. That head of unruly black hair had been a regular fixture in her life until she’d gone away to school. This school.

  What was Brenton Conley doing here?

  Someone cleared their throat. Perhaps the apprentice at the center of the room was attempting to snag her attention. She’d faltered in the middle of a sentence in front of a class filled with students.

  What had she been saying?

  After a beat of frantic thinking, she finished her thought. “Remember to always do your homework. Thank you all for coming.”

  Agitation filled her as she buttoned up the lecture space. Clearly, she hadn’t done her homework. If she had, she might know why Brent was here.

  It was three weeks from the close of classes. She wasn’t due home for another five weeks. Her father had booked her a vacation to Florida to celebrate the commencement of her yearlong leadership position at her alma mater. So why was her father’s pet guard dog here now?

  “Great session, Sara.”

  Sara nodded absently despite knowing the female voice belonged to her boss. One by one, she hit the buttons to lift the vinyl movie screen, increase the lights, and power off the projector.

  The director of the honors program hovered beside the auditorium’s console desk. “How did your interview with NBC go?”

  She cast a worried glance up at the Fire witch leaning against the blue-gray painted wall with his arms folded across his chest. The familiar black leather motorcycle jacket contrasted sharply against the paint nearly as much as the red T-shirt beneath did with his green irises. That once supple leather was stretched taut across the muscles it hid. Lips pressed thin and chin level with his chest, he looked impatient and annoyed—two emotions commonly on display when they were forced into each other’s presence.

  But there was no indication he’d heard the woman’s question. Sara dearly hoped he hadn’t. Brent wasn’t supposed to know she’d interviewed for jobs in New York City.

  Tearing her attention from him, she spoke barely above a whisper. “It went well.”

  “I got a call from the H.R. department over at CNN,” the director continued in her steady voice, heedless of their audience.

  Sara’s heart skipped for two different reasons. The first was that she’d really wanted the job at the twenty-four hour news network. And the second was from the fear he would overhear the conversation.

  “Yes?”

  “I think you’ll get an interview. I gave them a glowing review.” Her boss’s lips spread, revealing coffee-stained straight teeth set in a smile. “Good luck when you do. But you don’t need it, Sara. You’re wonderful and everyone who meets you knows it.”

  Sara warmed beneath the woman’s praise. “Thank you very much, Mrs. Mills.”

  She couldn’t help but think of the male at the back of the room. He didn’t think she was wonderful.

  A colleague poked his head in, calling away the director. Sara’s heart skipped twice more. She’d soon be alone with Brent.

  Did she have it in her to be civil to him? He’d rebuffed her every attempt to be his friend since the second grade. She’d given up at thirteen. That’s when he’d become really nasty.

  “I’ll see you on Monday, Sara,” Mrs. Mills said as she walked to the auditorium door on their left.

  Sara murmured parting words while pushing her laptop into the sleeve inside her messenger bag. Carefully she gathered her papers in the correct order. Each was tapped into place then set into the file folder marked “Communications Honors.” Her pencil went into its sheath next. Only when everything had been put away did she face him.

  From one year to the next, Brent bulked up more than the last. In the years since second grade, he’d gone from the skinny but intimidating boy to the imposing man she saw before her now. Though he wasn’t large, there was an illusion of bulk about him as if at any moment he’d go into a Hulk-like rage. It probably had to do with his eyes—glittering green lines that had never looked happy in all the years she’d known him.

  A dusting of dark hair coated the cleft chin nearly digging into his chest—a chin she’d always thought was too long to balance out his rose lips. His anchor shaped nose still held a bump from where Jeremy Fisher had broken it during gym class in sixth grade. The bump gave him character he hadn’t needed.

  Age hadn’t softened Brent’s menacing looks. Rather the bushy black eyebrows and carefully cut sideburns only emphasized them. And now he had the broad shoulders and thick neck to go along with his formidable swagger.

  Sara adopted the sweet smile she used on wayward souls. “Just had the urge to hear a lecture on marketing?”

  “No.” Brent’s voice was even in both its baritone pitch and steady intonation. It told her nothing of why he’d come.

  She walked up the broad carpeted steps, stopping two below him. There she waited for him to explain his visit while working not to fidget her fingers on her linen slacks.

  Rather than do so, he pushed off the wall and halved the distance between them in a stiff motion of clopping leather boots. His tone remained steady, still hiding his true purpose. “Do you have someplace private we can talk?”

  Sara glanced around the room as if to say this was private.

  “Someplace where you control the doors,” he responded to her unspoken statement.

  If he wanted absolute privacy then he planned to discuss things vanilla humans couldn’t hear. The white-knuckled fists hanging beside his stiff legs might have been worrying if Brent had ever done more than hurl harmful words. However his pose worried her for a different reason. Those lips weren’t compressed into his usual irritated line. Instead, they formed a grim crescent moon. Brent was unhappy, that much was obvious. And the way his pupils darted to the left or right the moment she’d catch his gaze meant this was more than resentment for being sent on this errand.

  Something was wrong.

  Sara nodded twice. “My room is just across campus.”

  She’d always loved the small campus with its lush grass, fragrant blooms, and canopy of trees amidst Georgian architecture, but today it held none of its usual charm. It was terribly uncomfortable to pass the familiar landmarks with Brent along for the stroll. Each person who smiled and waved seemed to tighten the coil surely hidden within his back. And when those individuals happened to be male, Brent cast his glimmering green gaze on them
as though he’d like to incinerate them where they stood.

  Sara wished it were a metaphor. But as a powerful Fire witch, Brent could incinerate any of these people with the mere flick of his wrist. Though he wouldn’t dare because it would mean outing them to the unsuspecting public, Sara focused a portion of her attention on the aether all the same. If he so much as stirred Fire magic, she’d sense it within the invisible swirl of energy that surrounded everything. And she’d be ready to stop him.

  The sorority house was quiet as it always was during the dinner hour. She breezed through the living room to the stairs. Past the doors emblazoned with the names of her many sorority sisters, Sara led on until she reached her own.

  Brent cast a measuring eye over the greeting cards, cartoons, flowers, and other notes that decorated her door. When she unlocked it, swinging it within, his attention remained focused on the card she’d received on Valentine’s Day.

  Sara dropped her bag on the floor beside the door so she could snatch up her discarded nightgown. A moment too late, she spotted the pair of boxer shorts hung over her desk chair. Brent’s gaze immediately honed in on them.

  Her cheeks warmed as if she’d been caught sneaking a boy into her room. Sara battled down the reaction. She was twenty-three. She’d been a legal adult for years. And she’d been dating since she was thirteen. It should have come as no surprise to Brent she had sex with males. He’d personally punched out the guy who had taken her virginity in the tenth grade.

  Sara pulled the window shut for the distraction from her memories. “The house is empty. You can talk now and no one will hear.”