Free Darkfire Kiss by Deborah Cooke Page B

Sloane whether his impressions were correct.
    There would be a firestorm linked to this one, one presaged by the total eclipse. That much was certain, as was the fact that Magnus would try to use the energy of the firestorm to his own advantage.
    Rafferty had to go.
    He glanced back at his lover, sleeping on the couch. She was all golden perfection, her lips parted as she slept, her lashes like dark feathers on her cheeks. Her hair was short and wavy, fine like that of a baby. There was one mark on her stomach, an incision healed over, but the scar didn’t make her less ideal in his eyes.
    Rafferty wished he could have lingered. He wished he could have learned more about her, discovered the root of her extraordinary confidence, unfurled her secrets, defined the line of her moral code.
    Hungry for details of her, he surveyed the living room of the town house but found no clue to her nature. It had no more character than his hotel room. Did she deliberately hide her nature from sight? Or did she—unlike Rafferty—have no need for a home and a haven? He wanted to know more about her with a ferocity that astounded him.
    But his presence here was a lure for Magnus.
    Rafferty dressed in haste, the dragon roaring for another taste of her. His lust had never been so strong, even beneath the light of an eclipse. On one level, he marveled at the change.
    On another, he simply wanted.
    He crossed the room, unable to leave without one last caress of her silken skin. He slid his fingertips across her breast and her nipple tightened immediately, as if it had already learned his touch. He smiled at his own whimsy, then stared at the blue light that danced over her body.
    That light appeared to emanate from his fingertips, to spark at the point of contact, then dance over her body in a flash of electric blue. It slid, more like liquid than flame, and Rafferty blinked in confusion.
    It was gone.
    If it had ever been. Was Rafferty seeing things that weren’t there? Who ever heard of a liquid blue flame? He was tired. He must have imagined it. His fingers hovered an inch above her skin as he hesitated.
    An old portent echoed in his thoughts, but it was one that had no credence. He was twelve hundred years old. There had never been darkfire in that time.
    There never would be darkfire.
    Even if darkfire was said to burn with a strange blue flame.
    Besides, darkfire was a kind of firestorm, and Rafferty felt no tingle of heat, no sizzle in his veins beyond the one she had already lit. He made to reach for her one more time, to check, then knew he couldn’t possibly have seen what he’d thought he’d seen.
    No. It couldn’t be darkfire.
    He was wasting time by considering pure folly. Myth. Superstition. Nonsense.
    Rafferty stepped away, tucked the blue leather-bound book into his jacket, and turned away from his ardent lover. He glanced back at the threshold of her doorway, drinking in one last glimpse of her. He paused, thinking about that light.
    Impossible.
    Rafferty turned and strode into the night, shuddering at the sense of the eclipse. He left the cul-de-sac, aware that her neighbors could be watchful, and didn’t shift until he found an alley connected to the street beyond.
    “ I have your book ,” he taunted in old-speak, broadcasting the message to Magnus. “Come get it—alone.”
    “ In your dreams ,” Magnus snarled, his old-speak carrying from everywhere and nowhere.
    Rafferty smiled, his thoughts flooded with memories of what he and the woman had done together. “ My dreams are otherwise occupied ,” he replied, knowing that she’d have command of them for a while.
    Maybe when this business with Magnus was resolved, he’d seek her out.
    Assuming that he was triumphant. It wouldn’t pay to be too confident too soon. Magnus had tricked Rafferty before.
    But not this time.
    Not this time.

Chapter 4
     
    M elissa rolled over and stretched, feeling as languid as a cat in the sun. The rosy light of morning came through