Free Blaze by Kaitlyn Davis

supposed to be there. They were
ripping up her insides, shredding her nerves to useless strings,
swallowing her thoughts like blood.
    A face appeared above Kira. A hand, thin and
unfamiliar, cupped her cheek. It was cool, like ice, and it stung
her hot skin. Slowly the image came together. Blue eyes looking
down at her, overly large just like hers. Two small pink lips were
moving, speaking to her.
    It felt like waking up from the coma all
over again. Slowly her mind began to pull the pieces together. She
was on the floor, resting in Tristan’s lap. The woman above her was
her mother. Her mother was alive and speaking to her, trying to say
something.
    Her mother was here. She was alive. Alive.
She was all right.
    “Kira, darling, are you okay?” Her voice was
soft and warm. It was caring, like a mother’s should be, and it
lulled Kira awake. In all of her dreams, this was the moment Kira
had imagined. The reunion.
    “Mom?” Kira said, reaching her own hand to
her mother’s cheek. It was damp. “Mom,” Kira said again, just to
confirm the truth in the statement.
    Kira’s body lifted instinctively and her
arms wrapped around her mother, gripping fiercely. “I thought you
were dead,” Kira cried softly into her mother’s shoulder, “I never
thought I would actually find you.” Her mother shushed Kira and
stroked her hand down Kira’s curly hair, comforting her long lost
daughter.
    For a moment, Kira was blissfully happy. So
happy she forgot herself, forgot her control, forgot where she was.
It wasn’t until her mother cried out in pain that Kira realized
what she doing and opened her eyes.
    All three vampires stood on the other side
of the room, crouched together against the flames bursting from
Kira’s palms. The wine goblets in the cabinet started to rattle as
Kira met Aldrich’s cold stare. He was ready to knock her out if
need be. But it was an accident. She didn’t mean to.
    Kira quelled her powers, closing her fingers
tightly around her palms, trapping the fire inside.
    No one moved. The only things alive in the
room were the flickering candle flames and the shadows that danced
with them. Kira looked away with shame. At first, the ugly feeling
curdling in her stomach seemed self-directed. But peeking out of
the corner of her eye, Kira realized the shame was not for her
actions. The shame was for her mother, the blue dress cowering in
the corner behind the sturdy bodies of Tristan and Aldrich. Kira
couldn’t look at her mother like that. Couldn’t look at this woman,
who in her dreams had understood Kira perfectly—who in her only
memory had fought for Kira’s life with fire.
    Blinking away tears, Kira couldn’t help but
squirm with the wrongness of it all. She had been afraid her mother
was really dead. She had been afraid that her mother was locked up
somewhere, numb and bruised and weak. She had been afraid that her
mother’s mind had vanished from multiple feedings or beatings at
the hand of Aldrich. But Kira wasn’t prepared for this: for a
mother who was afraid of her—for a mother who couldn’t be healed by
her flames, but could die from them.
    Tristan was the first to break the
stalemate. He approached Kira, took her by the hand and forced her
to look at him. He was worried, but Kira didn’t miss the drop of
hope in his irises. She looked away.
    “Why don’t we all take a moment to sit
down,” Aldrich’s slick voice said.
    With a hand on the small of her back,
Tristan guided Kira to her seat then sat down beside her. On the
other side of the table, Aldrich did the same with her mother. Six
eyes stared at Kira, waiting for her to say something, but the
words were stuck on her tongue. She didn’t know what to say or
where to look. So she focused on the soft glowing flames over her
mother’s shoulder, trying to draw comfort from the fire.
    Again, Tristan broke the silence.
    “How,” he started but swallowed the words
when he realized how laced with mirth they were. Kira’s eyes