Visions of Skyfire

Chapter 12

“We can’t go until I get my bird.”

“Your what?”

“My bird. It’s a lorikeet and he’s at my house. Alone. I can’t leave him there to starve,” Teresa told him, silently daring him to argue.

Rune swallowed back a sigh of frustration and fought for patience. “We don’t have time to—”

“Nonnegotiable,” she said, cutting him off. With her arms crossed over her chest, she met him glare for glare and just for a moment Rune wished that his witch was a timid little thing. Easily intimidated. Willing to take orders.

He laughed silently at the thought. Hell, he’d lived eons and had yet to meet any woman who met that description. And he would have been bored to tears with her if he had. This woman would never bore him, he knew. His witch remained hotheaded and stubborn. In every incarnation throughout the centuries, she had tormented him and taunted him. She had gone her own way and the devil take any who didn’t approve.

Theirs had never been an easy path.

Rune looked at her now, his body healed and his blood still humming from the incredible sex they had just shared, and he felt a flicker of anger jolt through him. She watched him and he could almost feel the animosity sizzling between them where passion had burned only moments before. How were they to accomplish what they must if neither of them could bend? But how was he supposed to release centuries of fury overnight?

In lifetime after lifetime, the years they had spent together had never been placid. Never calm and soothing. There had always been fire and ice between them, Teresa always determined to keep him at a distance and he continually battling his rage at her choices.

This was what he had been waiting for—the moment when her powers awoke and they could embrace their destiny. Though he was pleased to at last have the woman meant for him at his side, he didn’t dare trust her to make the right choice this time, either.

Centuries of experience had taught him caution. He would commence the Mating. He would find the cursed Artifact that was at the center of their shared misery. But he wouldn’t trust her. Wouldn’t allow himself to be fooled again. Not when so much was at stake.

He shook his head. “It’s not safe for you to return home.”

“I know that. I want you to get Chico for me.”

Her eyes were glittering with the light of battle. She expected him to refuse her and was already planning to fight him on the issue. If they couldn’t even leave the bloody city in tune with each other, what were the odds that they could accomplish their quest?

“You can flame over there and be back here again before anyone even sees you,” she pointed out.

Their eyes met and clashed, will to will. He might have argued against her wishes if he hadn’t seen a quick flare of hope in her eyes. This was important to her—more so than she was ready to admit.

“We leave afterward. No arguments.”

“None,” she promised—too easily, Rune thought, but he would hold her to her word.

Was he being foolish, giving in to her desire to see her pet to safety? Possibly. But it was more expedient to do as she asked than to stand here arguing with her. He could, of course, simply grab her and flash her out of Sedona. But they were to be mates, this hardheaded woman and him. Was he really willing to begin their time together with a war that could readily be avoided?

Rune would do whatever he had to do to make sure his witch was safe and their quest successful.

“Fine,” he muttered. “Wait here.”

He called on the flames, let them sweep over him in a cascading, living blanket of blues and reds and yellows. He looked at her through the fire, then vanished.