Cursed by Flame (Dragonborn Daughters #3) - Kimber White Page 0,22

“You don’t know the first thing about me and what I’m here for.”

At that moment, I knew the rest of it was a lie. No matter what else I’d been before that moment. Now, I was only here for her.

Phaedra searched my face. Her eyes. They’d been blue before. Now, they lit with glittering gold. She was unlike any fire witch I’d ever encountered. I sensed her Source was ancient.

She’d been lying about it all. Playing a dangerous game that could get her killed if she were lucky. And I knew in that moment I would die before I let that happen.

She moved first. Instead of pulling away from me, she stepped into my arms.

Want. Need. Take.

The beast inside of me clamored to get out. So did hers. A wall of fire went up all around us. It rose as high as the cyclone of water I’d made.

I kissed her. Ravenous for her, I let my fangs drop. I bit her lip. She moaned with pleasure, and it sent me nearly over the edge.

The storm raged on, and I had the distant sense that no one but us saw it. We were at the center of something unique. The rest of the world stayed calm. Phaedra herself was the storm.

She kissed me back. Aching. Clawing. I felt her pulse. It beat in time with my own.

And so I was a liar. Everything I’d told Topher. Everything I’d refused to admit to myself.

J.C. didn’t matter. The Ring didn’t matter. What happened at Birch Haven all those years ago didn’t matter. And God help me, my mother didn’t matter in that moment either.

It was just Phaedra and me and need.

The kiss went on and on. I don’t know who broke first. I know in my heart if we hadn’t broken apart, I would have sunk to the ground with her. I would have offered her my mark. Deep in my heart, I knew she would have taken it.

But we did break. Gasping. Raw with need. Phaedra took a step back. She raised a finger to her swollen lips.

A moment passed. An hour. The moon faded, and the sun began to rise.

“I have to get back,” she said. “J.C. is going to come looking for us both.”

I couldn’t answer. I could barely form coherent thoughts.

“You’re a witch,” I whispered.

“So are you,” she said.

That finally snapped me back to the present. “No,” I said. “I’m just...my mother’s son.”

Phaedra nodded, understanding. “Yes,” she said. “She was a water mage?”

I nodded.

“And she was strong. But…” Phaedra’s eyes filled with pain. “Oh. Archer. But she was broken?”

A single word. So simple. So true. It didn’t require an answer. As strong as Phaedra was in her own power, of course she could sense the truth in my own DNA.

Damn witches. You can never hide the truth from them.

Phaedra extended her hand. She grabbed on to mine. “Come on,” she said. “Before they realize we’re gone.”

I followed her then. My fire witch. And with each step came the realization that our truths might damn us both.

10

Phaedra

An ally. Archer could be my ally. That is, if he didn’t decide to turn me in to J.C. He could have. I’d be a prize to the Ring. It was the thing my parents worried about. The thing Archer himself had warned me about. And yet, Archer stirred my blood as much as the fire running through it.

For now, I would trust him.

We had no time alone for almost two days after my revelation in the woods behind the Taurus. I could have stayed in my room that night. If I had, maybe I could have kept my secret from him. But when I heard Archer’s soulful howl under that full moon, no power on this earth could have kept me from finding him.

On the third night of the full moon, the Taurus broke attendance records. Hundreds of people crowded the floor beneath me. A thousand, perhaps. J.C.’s glamor expanded the space, turning it into the size of an arena. All those people. Groping, reaching. Archer’s powerful presence kept them at bay.

I felt his protective energy. His predatory energy. He would kill for me. I knew it in my core.

When my set finished, he practically pulled me from the cage. My skin sparked at his touch. I had to concentrate on every breath to keep my fire magic in check.

He got me to my room. Every corded muscle in his body seemed poised to strike.

“We need to talk,” he said. He shut the