Free Intimidator by Cari Silverwood

its plastic edges into her other hand. Such potential there, to defeat this bodily need.
    Stom.
    Willow groaned softly. This wasn’t going away. She didn’t need this shit. This ridiculous want, this lust for a man she barely knew.
    But she’d not done this for years. The melted scar on her forearm reminded her of why she did this, and yet also, why she mustn’t.
    She flicked on the lighter. The heat seemed to radiate outward to her eyes…dancing.
    Using it beckoned. She hated doing this but the eternal fascination with fire lured her. The sweet flickering yellow and orange.
    She held her hand six inches above the fire, three inches, two.
    Heat. Flame. The smell brought memories back. Bad ones. She needed this pain, deserved it so much.
    A tear blotted onto her forearm then another.
    Nothing beat the pain of fire. Nothing. The little tongue curled and strained upward toward her skin.
    Lust vanished, hissing into the concentrated heat of the lighter flame licking across the palm of her hand.
    Yes.
    Oh yes.
    Forearm tensed, she screwed up her eyes and let it take her. Stopped. Held her hand out. Did it again.
    She deserved this for not saving her parents. Fire had taken them, why not her?
    Her sobs were quiet because she didn’t want to disturb Ally. This was between her and the fire.

Chapter 7
    Stom slammed the heel of his hand into the base of the glass console. “What is she doing? She’s burning herself? Gods! And she’s getting a weapon? Why isn’t she running like I told her to?”
    He glared at the one active, glowing square in the long, curved bank. That screen showed the view from the surveillance drone he controlled. The thing was the size of a bug and poised above where Willow sat on the back steps.
    Brask barked out a laugh and smiled. “I thought she wasn’t your concern?” The Igrakk Preyfinder was lazily reclining on the long white seat. “Hmm?”
    The off-duty dark shirt and pants he wore were a lie. Stom eyed him sourly. If he hadn’t grown to like the man, he’d have punched him, despite the audience behind them. Curse the Preyfinder system. None of them were ever truly off duty.
    He never had a moment alone to contemplate what was happening…why he wanted so dearly to dive back in and slap some sense into Willow… He glared again at the screen, and at her, where she sat in her shorts, the sun gleaming off her long thighs. Slap her, then, in the dirty earth syntax, fuck her brains out.
    “She’s not my concern. But I gave her an out. If this woman would use it she’d survive for many years before this Aids takes her life.”
    What a waste that would be.
    “I’ve been watching as you have. You know why she’s not running. It’s her friend, Ally.”
    She’d stopped burning her hand, had put away the device with the flame. Now, demons take everyone and chew on their bones, she was only crying quietly.
    This earth woman was slowly killing him.
    He sighed, sat back, and let the tension subside. “Yes. I know. She cares for her and this other one has problems adapting to new situations.”
    He absentmindedly traced the red spiral groove on his left bicep, remembering the first time he’d seen the matching one grow on Nasskia – a smaller, beautiful copy of his mark. Such wonderment had possessed him at the realization that he’d found his bond mate. Then he’d lost her and he’d vowed never to forget her, yet here he was lusting after this earth woman. Terrible.
    What sort of person was he to so easily forget a vow?
    “Even Feya sometimes take pets, Stom,” Brask said gently.
    “I never thought I was so shallow.” He swallowed, unhappy at how he must look, sad, perplexed. The Preyfinder needn’t know his every weakness.
    For a second Brask lowered his head then he looked Stom in the eyes. “You’re a Feya and a man. That’s nothing to be ashamed of.
    “Vows are not seeds blown in on the wind, they are rock.”
    “What did you avow?”
    “Never to forget her.” He inhaled,