Visions of Skyfire

Chapter 46

He felt rather than heard her cry. It was a knife to his chest. He sensed her pain. Her fear. And the danger closing in around her. Looking back toward their camp, Rune saw a towering pillar of moonlight and knew his witch was there at the heart of it. When that light suddenly winked out, he howled in rage, called on the fire and flashed back to his woman.

At the campsite, he found Teresa on the ground, screaming as four men held her arms and legs apart while yet another hovered over her.

He crashed into that man with a body blow that sent the tormenter flying into the jungle. Rune was after him a second later and in a rage beyond anything he had ever known before, he brought his own knife down in a swinging arc, slicing across the bastard’s throat. Not pausing to admire his handiwork, he raced back to the camp to find Finn snapping one man’s neck only to drop him alongside another of his dead friends.

Teresa had come up on her knees and, trembling with shock and terror, was holding her hands to the sky, waving them frantically. Lightning flashed down and stabbed the jungle floor in an incredible sweep of power and majesty. The night shone with the brilliance of a million candles as lightning bolts pounded the trees, the river, the rocks. Animals screeched and Rune felt the very air burn along with Teresa’s frenzied movements. She jumped to her feet and kicked one man’s nuts into his throat and he dropped like a stone.

Another of the bandits grabbed at her and Rune threw fire in a river of living flame that raced across the man, wrapping the bastard in what looked like a brilliant, fiery suit. He screamed and fled into the darkness, toward the river, no doubt planning on quenching the flames in the water. Rune smiled grimly. Water wouldn’t affect an Eternal’s flame. The bastard would continue to burn—he had dealt himself a cruel fate the moment he had touched Teresa.

Rune’s fury wasn’t abated. He picked up the emasculated prick whimpering in the dirt and gave his head a hard twist, then dropped him like the trash he was. In the next instant, Rune was holding Teresa, pulling her close, running his hands up and down her body as if to assure himself that she was really alive. And safe.

Quickly, he stripped out of his coat and wrapped it around her, giving her back her pride and dignity. He felt her tremble, her entire body quaking, and he hated himself for leaving her alone. If he had been with her, none of this would have happened.

“You came,” she whispered, holding on to him and shuddering as if her bones were trying to vibrate out of her skin.

He held her close, cupping her head to his chest with one hand. If his heart was capable of beating, he knew it would have been crashing against his rib cage. Rune had known danger and had always faced it with cool deliberation. But never had he tasted panic like he had just experienced.

“Always, Teresa,” he whispered, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. “I will always come. Did they hurt you?”

“No.” She shuddered again and lifted her head to look at him. “They didn’t have time. But they were going to.”

“Well, they won’t be trying that again,” Finn said, giving one of the bodies a good kick just for the hell of it.

She shook back her hair and stared at him. “Who are you?”

“That’s Finn,” Rune told her, looking across the fire at his brother. Grateful he’d been here. “An old friend. He’s an Eternal. Like me.”

One corner of Finn’s mouth curved briefly and flattened out again in an instant. “Don’t listen to him, Teresa. I’m way better than him.”

She actually smiled and Rune felt relief slide through him like a cooling breeze drifting through hell.

“Thanks for the help,” he said.

“Not a problem.” Finn gathered up their supplies and stuffed them into the duffel bag before tossing it to Rune. “You and your witch ought to be on your way, though. Someone might come looking for this bunch.”

“Right.” Rune tossed the strap of the bag over his shoulder and said, “You’ll take care of the bodies?”

Finn grinned at him, lifted both hands and called on the fire. As the flames burned on his hands and arms, he said, “Cremation special, man. Don’t worry about it. Oh, and I’ll look into the other thing we talked about earlier.”

At the moment, Rune didn’t give a flying f*ck about the possibility of a rogue Eternal. All he cared about now was Teresa. Seeing that she was safe. Her body pressed tighter to his and he felt her rub her pelvis against his thigh. His cock jerked into action even as he told himself to get a grip. She’d come too close to disaster to be interested in any man—even her mate. So he swallowed back the need crowding him and muttered, “Thanks.”

“Don’t thank me,” Finn told him. “Just find that f*cking Artifact, will you?”

“We will.” The flames swarmed over the two of them and in an instant Rune and Teresa were gone.