

Playing with Fire

Fire Trilogy, Book 1

Published by Devika Fernando at Smashwords

Copyright 2014 Devika Fernando

This eBook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This eBook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you're reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite eBook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

Everything you want is on the other side of fear.

Jack Canfield, The Power of Focus

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Other Titles by Devika Fernando

About the Author

Chapter 1

She wanted to burn.

The house in front of her was on fire, and the spectacle drew her magically.

From where she stood, she could hear the flames lapping at the wood and concrete, sizzling with their heat and hissing with their hunger. They sounded like snakes in a feeding frenzy, eager tongues scurrying ahead to check for more to devour as kindling material to fuel the flames. The fire's sounds were louder in her ears than the groaning of the house giving in, the cracking of surfaces and the exploding of glass. It was as though the fire were speaking to her, beckoning her closer in a malicious whisper, inviting her to join in on the hot and spicy feast.

Felicia stood rooted to the spot, eyes traveling up and down the shape that had once been a two-story house and now resembled a single, giant, burning slab, standing out in stark contrast against the black night sky. She watched the flames leap out of the broken windows and flickering in the air like brightly colored banners, watched the fire feed on the building material and furniture, raising itself to greater strength. Soon, the flames would dance across the lawn and find their way toward where she was standing, half hidden behind a tree.

Anybody in their right mind would have bolted, half scared out of their wits at the sight of the raging fire.

But Felicia wasn't in her right mind.

She could feel the fire tempting her, pulling her closer with its heat and energy, and with its promises of passion. Her pulse was racing. Had she been able to see herself at this moment, she would have looked at a face with wide eyes, pupils dilated and reflecting the dancing flames, nostrils flaring like an animal scenting the smoke.

Before she knew it, she had started walking toward the flames as if in a trance, feet moving on their own will, heart hammering in her chest.

The closer she got to the burning house, the hotter it felt. Sweat was breaking out across her body, forming tiny pearls on the bare skin of her arms and on her face. She licked her dry lips and took some more steps forward, the noise increasing, and the voices inside her urging her on.

A shout tore through the night, disrupting her dream-like state.

"Stop!"

Her head whipped around to the sound. She was more irritated than alarmed. Over her left shoulder, she saw the figure of a sprinting man. He was gesticulating wildly, repeating his warning. Or was it a command?

She didn't care. Part of her wanted to react like any normal human would have, but there was another part beyond normalcy. The flames were calling her, and she wanted nothing more than to become one with them.

Determined, she turned her head towards the burning house again, more than half of the upper story collapsing with horrible finality. There was no time to lose.

Before she knew it, she was running full tilt towards the fire, a desperate scream of "Noooooooo!" ringing in her ears until she was lost to the world around her.

All around her was heat, delicious, intensive warmth within and without. She stood in an embrace of fire, arms spread wide, turning in a slow circle on the spot, amidst a burning room. In another second, the flames would touch her, caress her, seduce her, and devour her.

There was a loud crash accompanied by a whoosh of air. Something hit her in the back with full force.

Everything went blank.

The next thing she knew, Felicia was coming to her senses, opening her eyes wide in shock. It took her a long moment to get an idea about her whereabouts. She lay stock still, her back pressed against a hard, cold surface, a heavy weight on top of her. Most of her body including part of her face felt as if it was covered in a soft fabric, despite the hardness pressing in on her from two sides. Somewhere in the not too far distance, she could hear the fire turning the house to embers, but its heat and intensity didn't reach her anymore. A few seconds went by during which she didn't move, feeling like a trapped animal and much more in danger than she had felt some moments ago.

What had happened?

Out of the corner of one eye, she could make out tree branches and the black blanket of the night sky. She must be lying on the ground of the forest near the burning building. The cool weight on top of her felt not solid but kind of... kind of like a person lying on top of her and molding her to the earth. She gasped and moved her head, which caused the person atop her to gasp too.

There was some scrambling and a low curse in a male—very male, and incredibly sexy—voice before the weight was lifted off her and she could breathe. The soft cloth over her eyes fell aside, although the rest of her body was still covered in it. She remained in her lying position, unsure what reaction was expected of her.

The house must be ablaze, because despite the trees close by, there was enough eerie light to make out her immediate surroundings. Her night vision had always been great, so wouldn't have needed so much illumination.

A few feet away from her stood a man. It must be the person that had been approaching her some time ago—how much time?—although there was something decidedly different about his silhouette.

Felicia couldn't help staring at the person. This must be the handsomest man she had ever seen, movie stars and singers included. He was extraordinarily tall and slim, dressed in black jeans and a grey T-shirt molding to his finely muscled upper body. Short, light blonde hair, slightly messy, and eyes bluer than blue made her pulse race. Although his face was set in an expression of distress, it was sculpted right out of a woman's fantasies. She had seen enough handsome men in her life, but somehow, this one got to her. There was a slow, deep, delicious burning sensation inside her belly which she had never felt before. It unsettled her as much as the way he was staring at her. Then again, how else should one look at a woman covered in God knew what fabric, lying rigidly on the forest floor?

With irritation overriding the momentary fear, she pushed herself into a sitting position. She hadn't so much as half sat up when the man was by her side as quick as lightning, putting a restraining hand against her shoulder.

"Don't. You'll hurt yourself. You're in no state to get up."

That voice! Deep, resonant, cold, confident. The heat in her belly spread like a core of liquid at the bottom of a volcano, waiting to rise and erupt. It set her off balance, the intense reaction caused by this devilishly beautiful stranger who was taking such interest in her well-being.

Her insecurity made her sound harsher than she had planned it.

"Nonsense. I can sit just fine and will be able to get up just as fine if you let me."

The man blinked, long lashes veiling and unveiling those icy blue eyes contrasting spectacularly with his pale skin. A frown of confusion or irritation was etched in his forehead, making him look all the more attractive to her.

"Are you sure? You're in shock. You must be. How are you feeling?"

So much concern.

She shied back from it and from his touch. Pulling her knees against her body, she realized she was clutching the soft cloth tighter to herself. It was in fact a long coat made of black wool, probably his. Yes, that's why he looked different from before, he must have taken his coat off and thrown it over her. But why?

When she inhaled, preparing to utter a reprimand or explanation, an intoxicating scent caught her attention. It wasn't as appealing to her as the smells of fire and smoke, but it definitely sent the core of heat and want inside her soaring to new heights. There was a woodsy and cool tint to it, maybe a hint of a snow-covered forest with a stream running through it, laced with peppermint. A slight underlying sweetness of cologne and a musky and male undertone clung to the coat too. It made her inhale again to savor his scent.

For a moment, they stared at each other, he worried and waiting for an answer, she realizing that the answers she had to give would confuse him more.

"I'm all right. I'm not in shock or anything. There's no reason to worry about me."

She hoped she sounded as reassuring and self-assured as she wanted to.

The man's frown deepened. Crouched down so close beside her, he leaned forward, and peered into her face as though he wanted to look through her eyes into her soul.

She shivered involuntarily. The man laid his other hand on her shoulder, softly yet firmly.

"Are you in pain?"

She felt like laughing because what she felt was so unlike pain, but she choked the laughter back down and worked hard to sound innocent and calm and confident.

"No, I'm not. Please stop worrying and let me go."

He dropped his hands abruptly, but didn't seem to believe a single word she was saying.

"It must be the shock. The pain will register soon enough, I'm afraid. Even if you feel perfectly fine, I'd prefer it if you could sit there until the paramedics have a look at you. They'll be on their way together with the fire brigade. It won't take long. Try to stay calm. Is there anything I can do for you?"

Hearing him mention the fire brigade and medics sent her inner alarm bells ringing. She had to get out of here! If she understood the situation right, he had saved her from the burning house and wanted to know she was taken care of. She had to run. Now!

She pushed back on her heels and moved to her feet and several steps away from him, almost knocking him off balance in the process.

"Seriously, there's no need to make a fuss about me. I haven't been hurt. I don't need any medical care. And this isn't... wasn't my house over there."

Despite her words, the man was again approaching her, hands held out. Did she imagine things or was the air getting cooler around them, as if the cold came from him?

"Listen to me," he pleaded.

God, his voice and his scent enveloping her made it difficult to think straight.

"Stop! Don't come near me!"

She was close to panicking now, a faint siren sound penetrating the forest.

Her shout did stop him in his advance. For a moment, he looked offended or maybe just truly alarmed.

"There's no need to act like I want to harm you. I pulled you out of the goddamn hands of a raging fire. I saved your life. And while I don't expect any thanks because it was the natural thing to do, I'd appreciate it if you let me handle the situation. It's best for you in your injured and confused state."

She liked the quiet authority in his voice, although another part of her rebelled against being patronized like this. It looked like she wouldn't be able to wiggle her way out of this easily, and there was no time.

Taking a deep breath and plunging ahead into the story she knew he wouldn't believe, she felt regret for warding off his care.

"Now you listen to me. It was...heroic of you to run in there and try to save me—but the thing is, I never needed or wanted any saving. I was fine and still am fine. Neither am I injured, nor am I confused. And I'm going to leave you now."

Before he could protest, she peeled the coat off herself and made to throw it to him but was stopped in mid-motion by the priceless expression on his face. He looked as though he had seen a ghost. She took a second to look glance down at herself and cringed. His expression of utter surprise and incomprehension was to be expected.

On the outside, she bore the signs of having been in a house on fire. Some of her toes peeked out of her sneakers, badly singed at the front and had partly melted soles. Her skirt's hem, coming somewhere up over her knees, was ragged and black here and there, like burned cloth snuffed out in time. The same was true for the blue-and-white-striped sweatshirt with torn sleeves, smoking at places and riddled with burn holes at other places. She could swear there were ashes and tiny bits of wood and plaster in her hair because it felt heavier and tangled. Her clothes bore testimony to the fact that he had indeed saved her life—or would have, if ever her life had been in danger from the fire.

Her body told a different story altogether. It was a picture of good health, from the few visible toes to her tanned legs, from her bare, unharmed arms to her face framed by unruly, red curls falling down over her shoulders and back. There was not a single blister, wound or scar on her skin, only a smudge or two of soot and damp earth from her stint on the ground of the forest.

Felicia swallowed. What would he think? That his eyes were playing a trick on him? That the fire had shocked him too?

Only after she had examined herself for signs of burns did she notice the marks the fire had left behind on him. His clothes were in the same bad state as hers. Looking closer, she could see welts and reddish blisters on his right arm and holes in his jeans.

Here he was, worrying his head off about her, when apparently he was the one in pain and needing medical attention.

She felt guilty. This man had risked his life to save hers, and she hadn't deserved his kindness and couldn't make him understand that it had been in vain.

The handsome stranger—her hero of the night—was still staring, mouth agape, eyes large like two luminous blue-grey glass orbs.

"I am all right," she repeated, as calmly as she could.

Instead of throwing him his jacket, she walked the few steps up to him and pressed it into his hand.

Standing so close, she was attacked by his intriguing scent and by the coolness he radiated. It pulled her in, as inexorably as the flames had, but in a different way. The liquid fire core inside her bubbled and glowed ever brighter.

Without saying a word, the man reached out and ran his free hand over one of her bare forearms, as if he wanted to make sure that what looked unharmed was truly without a blemish. He lifted his hand and tentatively brushed his knuckles across her left cheek.

She shivered. For a second, the heat inside her was about to explode. Her involuntary gasp broke the magic.

"But... but how is this possible?" the man whispered, instinctively taking two, three steps back as though it hurt him to look at her, or as though she scared him.

Forcing down her guilt and fear, she slowly moved away from him and deeper into the forest.

"Thank you," she said, the words coming from the heart but sounding meaningless.

"Wait!" he called out, voice full of emotion, striking her, hurting her somehow.

The shrill shrieking of a siren cut through the night. Neither of them had noticed it approaching, but now rotating lights and persistent wailing left no room for doubt: The fire brigade had arrived.

Her heart skipped a beat. She used the split second when the man turned his head toward the sound to slink in between the trees. Turning on her heel, she ran away from the scene as fast as she could in her damaged shoes and the semi darkness.

The sound of his beautiful voice shouting "Wait! Don't go!" hung back behind her, ringing in her ears more clearly than the siren.

She didn't want to go. But she had to go.

Chapter 2

Felicia tugged one of her unruly red curls behind her ear. She lifted a heavy box filled with books, and walked to her desk. Sitting down at the computer, she typed the details of each book into the library's stock list.

They had received a truckload of books two days ago, from a library in a different suburb which had been shut down. Ever since, she was spending most of the day checking the books for any marks disqualifying them, and entering them into the system of the titles they carried in the library. It was a dreary task despite the odd interesting discovery in between. She didn't like it that Mrs. Evans, her boss, had more or less dumped the workload on her while she did whatever it was that a library owner did all day.

Felicia had been content like this in the past, but for some weeks now, she had been feeling restless. Thinking too much about her unhappiness made her tremble. The book in her hands grew alarmingly warm. Hastily, she put it on the desk, stealing a glance around to make sure nobody was watching. The back cover where her fingers had been resting until a second ago looked slightly singed.

God, what was she doing? What was happening to her lately?

Dropping her hands into her lap and staring unseeingly at the computer screen, she let her thoughts wander to the incident two nights ago. What on earth had got into her to walk right into the burning house? And why did the stranger have to witness it, risking his life to save her? And more pressingly, why had she needed no saving?

Felicia looked at her unblemished hands in her lap, curling and uncurling them into fists and sensing a dangerous, undefinable strength lurking beneath them. If she looked into herself, listened and watched with inner ears and eyes, she always found one thing inside: fire. Of late, it had grown restless, like a dragon awaking from its long slumber and stretching its wings, sharpening its claws, feeding the fire in its belly to prepare for spitting flames.

It scared her. Would the fire grow and grow and take her over and leave her behind like a burnt-out shell, a dry, lifeless husk? Or was it in her mind? Was she slowly going insane, imagining things?

Roughly an hour later, she was sitting at her desk, lost in a promising book she had discovered earlier. Leaning back in her chair, the book held up in front of her face, she didn't realize somebody had walked up right to her until a voice broke her concentration.

"If this book teaches how to come out of a raging fire without a single mark, I would like to borrow it."

Felicia was so startled she dropped the book to the floor. That voice! She'd recognize it anywhere, although she had heard it only on one occasion. Sure enough, when she lifted her head after picking up the book, a man stood in front of the desk. Not a man. The man. The handsome stranger from two nights ago.

He was dressed in blue jeans and a black shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the top two buttons open and revealing a hint at an astonishingly white, hard, hairless chest. With difficulty, she moved her eyes up to his face, hoping the shock she felt inside didn't register.

God, his eyes were so blue. It should be forbidden to have such beautiful eyes. They shone like precious stones, luminous and with a piercing gaze once again staring into her core. Did he see fire inside her the way he somehow reminded her of ice and glaciers and impossibly turquoise lakes in Canada?

But hold on, what was she doing staring at him and in fact admiring him when she should be alarmed?

What was he doing here at her work place?

And he remembered what had happened that night. Instead of being confused about it or full of suspicion, he was joking about it. Or was he?

One corner of his mouth was tilted upward in a half smile, but his tone had been serious.

Had he spied her out because he was demanding an explanation? If yes, there was more reason for her pulse to be racing and the core of heat inside her to be in turmoil. She had no explanation. Or at least only part of an explanation that would never, ever satisfy anyone because it was too far from reality and what people would accept as true.

Drawing herself up, Felicia fished around for some reaction or other. In the process, she remembered she was looking different from the first night. With her mane of red curls tied back in a strict, no-nonsense ponytail, and dressed in ironed flannel trousers and a white blouse, it was hardly probable that he had recognized her. Maybe he was in search of an explanation for the night's happenings, and had come to the library for reading material?

"Excuse me, sir. I'm not sure what you mean. Are you looking for some special kind of book?"

There, she sounded pretty convincing to herself. She'd get through this without any trouble.

He dropped his smile abruptly. With another step, he stood so close his body was touching the desk. Leaning forward, an unreadable look in his eyes that never let go of hers, he reached out and tucked one lock of hair behind her ear, much in the way she had to do it several times a day.

"I am looking for something special indeed. Or should I say, someone special?"

His voice, a deep timbre close to a whisper, sent a delicious thrill through her. She could feel the liquid heat in her belly again. His hand that had touched her hair once again emanated coolness, as she knew she radiated heat at times.

When she instinctively moved back in her chair to put some distance between them, she noticed a few rosy welts on the back of his hand.

"You got burned!" she exclaimed, all pretense forgotten because she had never been able to see anyone with burn marks. It triggered memories. Horrible memories of her childhood that she wanted nothing more than to forget because they filled her with guilt and shame and self-loathing and made the recent developments inside her even more alarming.

Glancing at his hand and back at her, the man merely shrugged. A gleam in his eyes acknowledged that she had dropped her fake air of ignorance.

"If one runs into a room chock full of flames, it's only natural to be injured."

He emphasized the word "natural" while looking at her significantly, and the alarm bells inside her rang louder. Clearly, he was not willing to let the matter go. What should she say or do?

"Well, some people get lucky while some are less lucky, I guess," she said, hating how unsure she sounded.

What was it about this man that he made her lose the confidence and self-defense she had so strenuously taught herself over the years?

He frowned and a hint of grey seeped into his eyes, which made him look somewhat older and like a powerful, brooding Norse god.

"Luck?"

He gave it real consideration for a moment, although she had the feeling he understood it in a way completely different from what she had intended.

"I don't think that's the right word. But depending on how one interprets luck, maybe you were—are—lucky indeed. And maybe I am too."

He had lost her.

She had no idea what he was talking about, why his voice was so full of hidden meaning and he was to intent on drawing some remark or other out of her which would give her away.

To clear her mind, she focused on his injuries again, using the queasy mix of emotions inside her to regain her senses. Trying to sound as normal as possible, she said, "I am glad you got your burns treated. I hope it's nothing serious. I'm so sorry you got injured because of... because of me."

For a moment, the knowledge that she was indeed the cause for his state and that it could have been much worse for him tugged at her heart strings and brought back childhood memories. Hadn't she vowed to herself those days to never again be the reason for somebody's pain or for danger from fire? Then again, this time clearly hadn't been her fault. He had been at the wrong place at the wrong time.

What must she have looked like to him, walking willingly into the flames? Had he feared she was out on a suicide mission or had lost her mind? He certainly didn't look at her as though she were raving mad or about to kill herself. Instead, the manner in which he watched her and the choice of his words made it look as though he was expecting a certain reaction from her.

Who was this man? What did he want from her?

His answer interrupted her thoughts and mounting fear.

"It's nothing. I guess it's the price you pay if you try to play the hero."

A self-deprecating grin made his face more handsome than ever. She could stare at him for hours. But she shouldn't. Oh no, she shouldn't.

Drawing herself together, she asked, "So, have you come to borrow some books? Can I help you?"

There was that intense look in his eyes again which made their blue clearer and colder and shinier.

"I'm sure you can help me."

He stressed the "sure" and let it sink in. When she stared at him, pulse racing and hands getting decidedly warm, he took a step back and assumed a more normal pose.

"Actually, I moved here last week and have been checking places out. I came here because I'm looking for some reading material. Do I have to get a library card?"

He sounded so normal that Felicia had to blink and give herself a mental kick in the behind to act professional and do her job. It was difficult, with him still so close, and with her mind coming to terms with it that she would probably have to face him more often if he lived here and wanted a library card.

"Yes. If you could please fill this form for me, we can get you set up in a matter of minutes, and you can start borrowing right away."

She handed him a form, careful not to touch him because she still remembered the electric shock their first contact had caused. Handing him a pen and motioning for him to sit at the table set up near the entrance, she waited with baited breath while he jotted down his personal details and took out his wallet to pay for the initial fee.

It shouldn't cause her so much pleasure to look at this stranger who was indeed strange.

After processing his application, aware that he was in turn watching her now, she rose from her chair.

"Let me give you a quick tour of the library to show you what to find where."

It was customary, but this time, she felt oddly uncomfortable to walk around with him inside the building. The adjoining rooms, crammed with bookshelves and lacking enough light as well as ventilation, somehow made the air thick. It didn't help that he walked so close behind her she could feel the coldness he exuded and was again caught up in his unique scent of peppermint and winter and forest.

She hurried through the four rooms, pointing left and right and telling him about main sections like children's books, young adult fiction, school books, travel literature, comics and non-fiction. Her voice held a slight tremble to it and her words were coming too fast. Being alone with him overpowered her. She was trapped in her own desire for this man, her fascination and fear. For God's sake, this was just another man, not some demon waiting to seduce her!

Turning on her heel to hurry back to her desk and for once wishing Mrs. Evans were here and not in her office upstairs, Felicia said, "I'll leave you to your book search now. If there's anything I can do or you have trouble finding what you're looking for, let me know."

"Oh, I think I have already found what I'm looking for," he said, his deep, purely male, confident, calm voice much too close in her ear and much too full of a hidden meaning again. Why did he make it sound as though he had been looking for her?

She was feeling so much heat now, she was sure he could sense it too. Tiny beads of sweat were forming on her forehead from trying to control herself, and failing.

His gaze held her in place in the middle of the corridor. For a moment, they stared at each other, the electricity palpable in the air around them. He lifted a corner of his mouth in satisfaction.

"I'll be fine, thanks," he said before turning and walking toward one of the rooms.

She stared after him, a sense of foreboding growing inside her. Why couldn't she shake off the feeling that she'd see and hear much more of him from now on, and that he was in some inexplicable way dangerous?

No, she was going out of her mind, imagining things. Better to get this day behind her quickly, and let routine lull her back into welcome—but was it really welcome?—calmness.

* * *

Felicia was standing in the kitchen, preparing a spicy Indian marinade for roasted chicken breasts, when voices close by caught her attention. Wasn't that Cindy, her roommate, talking to a man? Would she invite one of her ever-changing boyfriends into the house? Curiosity peaked, she walked to the window and lifted a corner of the white curtain to glance out. What she saw made her drop the curtain edge and nearly squeak in surprise.

Cindy was speaking to none other than her mysterious savior and latest library customer. What the...?! Had he not only spied out her work place but also her home address? Whatever made him think he had the right to do so? Fuming with fury, she lifted her hand to open to window and interfere when it dawned on her that she had no idea what to say, and her chances of winning a shouting match with him weren't exactly high. She let her hand drop down and grip the window sill, pushing the hateful, accusing words back down and noticing her heat level had risen.

From where she stood, she couldn't hear what they were saying. Her roomie was her usual flirty, extrovert self, and she wondered what she was chatting on about so readily, the man opposite her standing still as a statue and listening with a mask of politeness which might have hidden disinterest. He held out his hand and presented her with a book, before bestowing her with a high-wattage grin full of deadly charm and turning on his heel to leave.

She blew out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. The minutes it took Cindy to recover from swooning and gazing longingly after him before walking into the house. When she confronted her in the corridor, the young woman still had a ridiculous grin plastered on her face.

"My, Feli, you haven't told me about your gorgeous new acquaintance," she chirped, waving the book in the air like a trophy.

"Maybe that's because there's nothing to tell."

Felicia ground her teeth together. More often than not, Cindy got on her nerves. Forestalling more nonsense, she asked, "What's this?"

"Your...acquaintance...has left a present for you. Said he and you were appreciating the same kind of books and he was sure this one would be perfect for you."

She was clueless what this was about. Snatching the book out of her roommate's hands, she stormed past and into her room, not bothering that she wasn't friendly in her behavior. She never was, and today wasn't going to be an exception.

In her room, she stared at the unwanted present, muttering darkly to herself about his cheek and about how she would have thrown the book at his head if he had been anywhere in sight. Why the hell did he come over with a present for her? If at all—she cringed at the thought—it would have been logical for her to gift a thank-you to the man who had saved her from a raging fire.

What a nuisance!

She shook her head at the gaudy cover and the title. The Magic in You – How to control your healing powers. Nonsense!

The best thing was to forget she'd ever met this man and get on with her life, however unhappy she was with it.

Chapter 3

She stood in front of one of the book shelves, deep in thought, not taking in the dozens of book spines she was staring at.

"What are you thinking?"

The voice—his voice—startled her so much that she wheeled around and lost her balance. His arm shot out and prevented her from falling. The movement caused her to stumble against him. They stood pressed against each other, Felicia short of breath and not only surprised but instantly tempted. The way his cool body felt against her hot limbs was magical. Standing there and feeling the electricity rush through her blood filled her with desire. Where his fingers gripped her arm, they burned themselves into her skin through the thin cotton blouse. Not like fire but like icy cold spreading from his hand through her veins. She stared up into his eyes, and they were burning too, with the same cool intensity that had haunted her dreams last night. Being so close, his scent was all around her, like a soft cloth or a feather brushing lightly across her over-sensitive skin and igniting her nerve endings.

When he bent his head low in agonizing slowness as if he wanted to kiss her, the fire core inside her doubled its strength, spread its arms of flames through her body and searched for a way to get out. The fear of having something dangerous happen made it possible for her to step away, and yank her arm out of his grip.

"What the hell do you think you're doing here, sneaking up on me?"

Her heart beat wouldn't slow down, not even with some space between them and slightly less possibility of an internal volcanic eruption.

There was a hint of amusement glimmering in his eyes, one corner of his mouth riding up in a grin that had also prominently featured in her dreams.

"This is a library. As far as I know, people are supposed to walk in and move around quietly at a place like this."

"They are. But why do I get the feeling you did this on purpose to catch me off guard?"

He shrugged nonchalantly, his grin intensifying. Instead of denying it, he stepped back some more and leant casually against a bookshelf, hands in his pockets.

"You aren't very alert, are you?"

His voice and choice of words made her bristle.

"And why's that your business?"

"People like you and I can't afford to be caught off guard. Alertness is a big advantage, even—or especially—if we're lost in thoughts," came his calm, assured reply. It took the wind out of her sails.

What did he mean with "people like us", and why did his remark hit home so much? It was indeed dangerous that she got caught off guard so easily. She knew what could happen if she got too scared or angry or sad. But what did he know about it and about her?

Before she could reply, he asked her another question.

"Did you get my present?"

The anger and self-defense were back.

"It did get it. What the heck makes you think you're in a position to give me gifts? And how did you find out where I live?"

"I'm a champion at finding people. I should be. It's my job."

Didn't anything ever shake his confidence?

"What are you? Some kind of head hunter?"

He threw back his head and laughed, sending the fire core inside her into knots and spirals at the sound of it.

"Almost. I'm a private investigator."

Made sense, didn't it? Instantly, she was suspicious.

"Has anybody ordered you to follow me around?"

An inexplicable look flitted across his now humorless face.

"Do you think there's any reason to follow you around?"

He hadn't answered her question.

"Do you always answer a question with one of yours?"

She folded her arms across her chest, in a gesture of keeping him at a distance as much as in a vain effort to keep the fire inside her at bay.

The grin appeared and disappeared.

"Yes, I guess I do. I'm an expert at not answering questions, as well."

"Well, so am I. You can go back to whoever is your boss and stop snooping around. I'm a normal person going about her daily life. A boring, common librarian who doesn't need and want to be followed and certainly doesn't need and want your gifts."

He gave up his casual pose, at once intense and purposeful again.

"You are not common or normal or boring."

It was stated as a matter, like a truth not to be questioned either by her or anybody else.

She swallowed. How much did he know about her? What did he know about her?

"How... why do you think I'm not?"

He stalked toward her. Instinctively, she moved back until her back hit the bookshelf behind her and there was no escape. He came closer still and reached out to put his hand on her arm. His fingers pressed down gently against where her pulse was throbbing in her wrist.

By now, Felicia couldn't explain what she was feeling. Did she want him to let her go or to keep touching her? Did the spark of current between them hurt her or fuel her fire?

"I can feel it," he said, his voice deeper and more intimate than before. "I know it."

She shivered, not sure whether it was from his touch or his words or from both.

It dawned on her that he must be different too. The way he obviously felt the heat she radiated, she could feel his coldness. What if he was like her, somebody with a kink who tried to fit in as best as they could because they were afraid of their otherness? On the other hand, he was far from afraid or ashamed or simply unsure. He was not like her.

He brought his face closer to her. His gaze, which had been burning into her eyes, lowered itself to her mouth. Automatically, her tongue flicked out to wet her lips. His fingers tightened their grip on her wrist and he made a soft sound somewhere at the back of his throat. Before she knew it, he had bridged the last few inches between them and laid his mouth on hers in a kiss, taking her breath away.

Instant awareness shot throw her like an arrow of fire. His cold, hard lips pressing softly against her hot, soft lips felt like heaven. The contrast in texture and temperature made it more thrilling and somehow more forbidden.

In this moment of physical connection, a message was being transmitted from him to her, wordless but meaningful.

You and I are special. You and I are meant for each other.

With electricity racing through her whole body and making it tingle, Felicia tried to absorb the silent message at the same that she tried to savor the kiss without any holding back, because she wanted it so much, although part of her feared it. She was so focused on the delicious feel of his mouth against hers and on having found a kindred spirit, that for a second, she completely forgot about the fire core inside her. Only when she felt a strange humming vibrate through her body, and he stepped back with a low hiss as though he had been whipped, did she realize something was amiss.

"Look at your hands," he said, his voice rough with emotion, admiration gleaming in his eyes.

When she did—while a part of her mourned the end of the kiss—what she saw made her gasp. She was glowing from the inside, as though there were liquid fire and not blood coursing through her veins. She also sensed her body temperature had risen, which was probably the reason why he had broken the kiss and stepped away as if burnt.

She stared and stared at her hands, which were now trembling. What was she? What had she done?

"See what I mean about being alert and in control?"

His voice once served to shake her out of her trance. She took a calming breath and realized the glowing was growing less, although she still felt hot.

Looking up at him, she was surprised and somehow deeply relieved there was no shock or fear or repulsion on his face. He must have expected or at least guessed at what he was witnessing. Was that what the talk about being different was about? Did he indeed know about her fiery personality?

"It's the reason why I gave you the book. I don't make gifts which don't make sense to ladies."

There was a certain arrogance to his tone, and it nettled her. But she was still much too confused to mind anything.

This had to be the strangest situation ever. A stranger had kissed her and she had basically turned into a glowing, over-heated freak, and he was taking it as though those things happened to him every day. And what about herself? She had let herself be kissed by this man she knew nothing about, and apparently enjoyed it so much she had almost lost control over the fire dormant inside her. When this thought hit home, she covered her mouth with her hand, the trembling becoming stronger. Hadn't she vowed never to let this happen again? She had to stop this!

"You... please go."

She hated sounding so weak and emotional. Why did he have to come into her life and complicate things further?

He looked hurt.

"Why do you want me to go?"

She said the first thing coming to her mind, which was the truth.

"You're making it difficult for me to control myself. I'm scared."

Instead of going, he took one step toward her, both arms out, palms up.

"I don't want you to be scared or lose control. I am here precisely because I can help you with that. Didn't you have a look at the book I left you?"

She frowned.

"I don't see what the stupid book has to do with it. It's about healing energies and meditation and magnetic fields in the body and such esoteric stuff."

He made an impatient sound. It infuriated her because it made her feel as though he were a teacher and she a disappointing student.

"And you don't see any connection to you and your special ability?"

Special ability.

"I don't have any special ability. I am...different. I have some strange quality sleeping inside me. It's dangerous, not special."

He shook his head.

"The problem lies exactly here. As long as you view it as something bad and out of your control, something unnatural and something unchangeable that you have to put up with and hide as best as you can, you will not succeed."

It hurt how much truth rang in his statement, although she wasn't willing to accept it. He had worded exactly how she felt about her fire core.

"Succeed at what?"

"At being yourself. At living."

He let it sink in, watching her, again moving closer to her than she liked it. Or rather, not as close as she would like it, but too close for safety.

As much as she hated to admit it, he had hit the nail on the head.

Felicia had never felt whole and never been able to accept herself the way she was. Ever since those incidents in her childhood, she had tried her utmost to deny her strangeness and cover it up. For many years, she had lived a normal life. But never a happy or fulfilled life. The past few months with their pent-up frustration and the fire making itself more noticeable had made her realize everything had been mere pretense. This was not who she was, a demure librarian living cloistered away in her home without any connections to the people around her and the life everyone else lived at her age. She was a young woman with desires and dreams deep down inside. She wanted to live.

And this man, this mysterious stranger who most probably had some hidden 'special ability' inside him too, now told her he had the solution.

Who was he?

"Who are you?"

A smile was forming on his handsome face.

"Joshua Norton. Private investigator. 32 years old. As you already know from my library card."

"That's not what I mean."

His smile widened.

"See, when you want to know about the real me, you hint at the other part of myself. Why can't you accept that the real you also includes your other part?"

His smugness frustrated her. Still, there was no denying it. Again and again, he spoke the truth. And again and again, he avoided directly answering her questions.

"It's not going to work like that!" she said, full of determination. She'd give this a chance. It was her only chance, wasn't it?

"If you want me to reveal myself and let you help me, you will have to play with open cards. For every little thing I show or tell about myself and every lesson you expect me to learn, you will have to give me a part of you in return."

They stared at each other. Time ticked by. Her heart hammered. What stupid risk was she taking? What would he reveal?

"Since when does the student demand commitment from the teacher?"

"Who said I will be the student and you will be the teacher? Who said this was ever going to be normal when both of us are so far removed from normalcy?" she shot back.

Deep down inside, she wanted him to agree so badly she was ashamed of how important he had become. Like a lifeline thrown to somebody drowning.

His gaze rested on her for long minutes more. Or maybe seconds. It felt long to her, waiting and hoping and fearing.

"Deal," he replied, holding one hand out with his palm up.

"Deal."

Biting her lip, she briefly laid her hand in his, barely touching his skin for fear of another electricity shock and loss of control. He gripped her fingers. Closing his eyes, he was doing something or maybe concentration hard. She could sense a change of atmosphere. From his hand, coldness was spreading, seeping into her. His fingers felt like ice, hard and so cold. His snow-white skin was almost translucent, as though his blood had turned to ice. Her hand felt as though she had stuck it into the freezer and kept it there for several minutes.

Felicia gasped and yanked her fingers away, gaping at him.

He opened his eyes, an unreadable expression on his face.

"This is me," he simply said, sounding calm and confident as always.

"I'm pleased to meet the real you," he added, a hint of a smile tugging at his bluish lips and reflected in his bluish-greyish eyes.

She knew her voice trembled when she answered.

"Same here."

His smile turned into a full grin.

"You know, this has got to be the weirdest introduction ever between two people," he said.

She nodded, but it was difficult to lapse back into normal, relaxed behavior after what had happened.

A sound from the front room did help to come back to her senses and realize with a start she was at her workplace doing and saying things that could not only get her fired but landed in a lunatic asylum.

Joshua—yes, she'd better call him by his name now, for hadn't he kissed her, and hadn't they established some mysterious kind of deal—drew himself up. The last traces of anything icy inside him had long vanished and he looked way too handsome in his black polo shirt and faded jeans.

Half turning toward the front room as though he wanted to leave, he shot her a meaningful look over his shoulder.

"I'd suggest you read the book properly. It'll teach you about how to think of your special ability and about how to handle it."

She was annoyed at his commanding behavior again.

"Hold on, hold on. I thought this was about you revealing things to me and not about reading who knows what kind of book. I could do that fine by myself, I don't need you or a deal."

He narrowed his eyes at her.

"I thought reading is what you do day in, day out? And as I said, I don't make gifts for fun. That particular book, which I dare say you would never have so much as glanced at without my suggestion, will do you a world of good for starters. I'll get back to you when you're ready."

He was slowly walking away, hands again stuffed into his pockets, narrow hips and tight buttocks too tempting even in her rage.

"But... but..."

Oh, how she hated spluttering like a fool! Resisting the urge to hurry after him and grab his arm, she fought hard to follow at normal speed and think of a reason to hold him back.

"How will you know when I'm ready, supposing I do read the book?"

He stopped so abruptly she almost ran into him, part of her wishing for another physical collision.

"You will read it. And I will know," he said, putting the emphasis on "will" and sounding more smug than ever.

"Trust me, Felicia," he added when she opened her mouth to protest.

The way he said her name sent a thousand butterflies dancing inside her stomach. Could butterflies survive in fire? Maybe those were moths about to throw themselves into the flames.

In a strange gesture that left the fire core inside her grumbling and spiraling with renewed desire and regret, he laid his cold hand against her bare, hot neck for a fleeting moment, turned and walked toward her office, leaving her trembling. He crossed the room with a curt nod to the lady who was waiting at the desk, and simply left, his last sentence ringing in her ears.

Could she trust him?

Chapter 4

After kicking the door shut behind her, Felicia walked into the kitchen and poured herself a glass of water. She gulped it down in one go and shuffled into her room. With a sigh, she went into the attached bathroom, had a shower, changed her clothes and did what she had been wanting to do right from the moment he had said it, although she had stubbornly been telling herself she wouldn't: pick up the darned book and see why he was so hyped up about it.

She had thrown it into a corner of her room the day before, and now she scolded herself when she saw it was dog-eared and its spine bent awkwardly. Frowning at the title and colorful cover design striving hard to evoke positive vibes and an esoteric flair, she sat down on her bed and opened the page with the table of contents.

She had hardly scanned the chapter titles, her frown intensifying, when the door to her room burst upon, and Cindy came in.

Her roommate walked over to the window, opened it wide and plunked herself at the foot end of the bed without invitation, as usual oblivious to the fact that Felicia preferred privacy and was seldom as cheerful as her. She flapped her hands about to dry the pink nail polish deftly applied to her long nails.

"How was your day?"

Felicia suppressed a sigh. She hated going through this on most days, and today it was worse, although she could see the book wouldn't lessen her general frustration.

"Bad. And yours?"

Cindy shot her a look from between the blonde strands of the pony falling into her eyes.

"Poor girl. Mine was fine. In fact, it was awesome. Have I told you that Bryan from Marketing wants to take me out on a date tonight?"

Felicia made some noncommittal sound and was treated to several minutes of the young woman describing her latest admirer.

She could feel the heat rising, smoke tendrils coiling inside her body and pushing at her to explode and get rid of this nuisance.

"My, it sure is hot in your room today!" Cindy exclaimed and fanned herself with exaggeration.

It made her realize the heat was probably radiating from her angry self. She seriously had to be careful, or she'd start glowing again or doing something stupid!

Desperately searching for a way to control herself without giving her roomie more reason to talk, she held the book higher up and shielded her face with it.

"Sounds interesting. But I'm sorry, I'm in the middle of this fascinating read and..."

"Oh, it's the book your boyfriend left you! Tell me more!" her roommate exclaimed and moved closer.

She was so startled she lowered the book and stared at the petite, blonde girl an arm's length away from her, radiating curiosity.

"My boyfriend? I don't have a boyfriend."

Thinking of Joshua as her boyfriend was ridiculous. And damn tempting. And plain impossible.

Cindy pouted.

"If he's not your boyfriend, why did he send you a gift, and why are you so intent on reading the book?"

Excellent point.

Felicia bit her lip for a second, debating with herself how to get out of this.

"He's... he's just a friend."

But was he? A friend?

At this, her companion brightened up. Checking whether her nail polish had dried, she carefully laid a hand on Felicia's knee and patted it.

"Oh please, not that lame excuse! It's what they all say. And before you know it, there's a spark and a huge boom, and there's fiery hot passion between the so-called friends."

She cringed inwardly at Cindy's choice of words. Why did everyone have to pick up the topic of fire? As if she wasn't constantly reminded of her dangerous fire within.

"Seriously, it's not like that. We barely know each other and anyway, friends isn't the right term. He's an acquaintance. And I don't plan any sparks or fire between us."

Tilting her head like a dog when it wanted to be adorable or tried to figure out how to get a treat, her companion studied her face for a moment, put off by the stubborn refusal in such a serious voice.

"I was so happy you finally had a boyfriend," she ploughed on.

Again, Felicia cringed. Her lack of love interests had been a constant point of irritation with her roommate. To Cindy, her ever-changing partners were an integral part of life. She, on the contrary, dreaded being in a relationship. Yet, sometimes—especially when Cindy was happy with one of her suitors—she felt lonely. Who would give her so much attention? Who would care for her happiness, hold her, and walk through life with her?

"Feli? Feli!"

The high, tinkling voice shook her out of her thoughts.

Her roomie was grinning at her knowingly.

"If you ask me, there's much more to it. Why else would you think so hard about him? You've got to tell me more about him!"

Felicia sighed. There was no use denying. If Cindy wanted to believe something, there was no shaking her. Which, if you looked at it objectively, wasn't such a bad thing. Yet, it happened to annoy her most of the time.

"I don't want to talk about it," she tried to wiggle out.

"Not fair! I tell you everything about my boyfriends and you won't tell me a teeny bit!"

The girl had a point.

"Hey, don't you have to get dressed for your date?"

With a glance at the clock on the bedside table and a squeak, the girl sprang from the bed. At the door, she turned back and held up a pink-nailed finger, grinning.

"Don't think you're off the hook. Tomorrow's Saturday and I'm going to use our free day to grill you for hours about your so-called friend."

She danced along the hallway to her room, leaving Felicia staring at her in dismay, shaking her head.

Seriously, sometimes she could kick herself in the butt for not having opted for a single apartment. She'd tell Cindy plain out to mind her own business, and had best keep from imagining what could never be.

Gritting her teeth, she picked up the book again, chose a chapter with the title How much is too much? and started to read.

* * *

Felicia lifted her head from the book when the light of her bedside lamp wasn't enough anymore to read without ruining her eyesight. She rubbed her tired eyes. Surprisingly, what had started with a reluctant attitude had turned out to catch her interest. The chapter she had picked spoke about control. About knowing the moment when you crossed the invisible border and when what was inside you took over. It was a topic which had been raised again and again during her life, if not by her then by her parents.

Her parents.

She swallowed back the lump in her throat, caused by the mere thought of her father and mother. It had been months since she had last picked up the phone to talk to them. More than a year probably since they had last met. And it was her fault. Who could blame two perfectly sane, admirably normal people in their prime if they didn't want to get in touch with a daughter who didn't feel part of their family?

Too much had happened.

Things she didn't want to remember and they didn't deserve.

One particular scene elbowed the other dreadful memories in the ribs and bullied its way to the fore, vivid as though it were happening again.

* * *

The eight-year-old Felicia was standing in the kitchen, fists balled at her sides, face red, trembling with anger and disappointment.

"But mommy, I want to go! Everyone is going!" she whined.

Her mother stopped laying out the dishes on the dining table and exchanged a glance with her husband, who was seated, newspaper spread out before him. Her father turned to Felicia, voice strained with having to repeat himself for the umpteenth time.

"We can't afford it. I know the other kids from school are going on the camping trip, but we don't have enough money at the moment."

Her mother joined in, eyes teary, whereas Felicia's eyes were dry despite her hurt.

"You know Daddy doesn't go to work these days. As soon as he has found another job, we will make up for it. You and Bernice and Daddy and me, we'll go camping together, someplace much nicer than the school trip. Promise."

The child stomped her foot.

"I don't want to go with you. I want to go with my classmates."

When her parents sighed in unison, she screwed up her little face in what looked like a cruel mask, heightened by the fierce red curls that stood up from her head, as though they were angry too.

"And anyway, don't promise me anything. You never keep your promises. You're a mean liar, and you don't love me. That's why you don't let me go on the trip."

Her mother dropped the last plate down onto the table with a loud bang. In a rush, she was at her side, grabbing her arm painfully hard and shaking her.

"What are you saying, you little devil? Are you calling your own mother a liar?"

The eight-year-old clearly looked frightened now, but stood her ground, trying to pry her arm loose.

"Yes. Liar, liar, liar!" she chanted.

The next instant, her mother slapped her cheek.

There was ringing silence in the kitchen.

Her father had half risen from his chair, and her mother looked stricken at her own behavior. She stumbled a few steps away and opened her mouth to say sorry.

Felicia, feeling something boiling over inside her, opened her mouth and screamed.

There was a hissing, snapping sound cutting through her wails, and after it heat everywhere.

The stove, which had already been switched off, had sprung to life with flames shooting upward to the ceiling.

She was staring at the fire, scream frozen in mid-throat. Fire flickered in her eyes and danced along her veins under her skin.

When she took a step toward the flames and screamed again, they shot higher. With a whooshing sound, they bridged an impossible distance and turned the curtains into a bright yellow blaze.

* * *

Felicia clenched her hands into fists so they wouldn't touch the sheets and burn them. Remembering the incident filled her with an unpalatable mix of feelings. Hurt. Guilt. Shame. Horror. Fascination. Fear. An odd sense of strength. The incident had sealed her fate. Everything following had cemented the path along which she had walked for years and was now feeling increasingly unhappy with.

And what things had followed! Before she could stop it or brace herself, another memory sprang onto the stage, leaving her shivering despite the rising heat level inside her body.

* * *

Felicia, to this day, had no idea where they had got the money from, but her parents had allowed her to go on the camping trip, even though she hadn't begged or demanded again.

The trip was another step closer to doom.

At night, seated around a huge, merry bonfire, the teacher encouraged them to each tell the others why they thought they were special. They were supposed to sum up their talent or special interest in words and if possible give a demonstration. Finally it was her turn and she felt edged on by all eyes resting on her—the quiet outsider, too skinny, too red-haired, too wild-eyed, too strange. In a desperate attempt to catch their attention and prove herself, she said: "I'm good with fire."

Of course this sparked snorts, disbelieving eyes, giggles and the teacher asking what she meant. Felicia got up, took a few steps closer to the bonfire, higher than herself and radiating warmth on the chilly night, and said, "Watch."

In a dramatic gesture, she stretched and held her arm right into the middle of the fire, eager to see her classmates' faces when they realized her skin wasn't burning and she wasn't feeling any pain.

She never got to see those faces.

In a matter of seconds, there was mayhem.

The children were screaming, the teacher yanked Felicia back and everyone was in hysterics that she had been about to burn to a cinder. It didn't help the matter when they were quiet enough to discover her arm was completely unaffected by the fire, and she wasn't howling and crying with pain. The silence and gawking felt worse than the hectic and shouting. In a strange voice, her teacher stated that she was extremely lucky to have been pulled back before touching the fire, and that nobody was ever to behave so stupidly. She had to sleep in the teacher's tent, humiliation and anger and remorse warring inside and not letting her rest the whole night.

She choked back a sob. These memories had so long been lying forgotten, buried under the life of normalcy she had built for herself after years and years of being different and getting miserable. What had triggered them?

To prevent another memory from surfacing, she squinted at the page of the book lying open next to her hands, still clenched in shaking fists.

The chapter ended in a series of quotes that centered on self-control.

He who controls others may be powerful, but he who has mastered himself is mightier still. (Laozi, Chinese philosopher)

Self-control is the chief element in self-respect, and self-respect is the chief element in courage. (Thucydides, Greek author and historian)

If you conquer yourself, then you conquer the world. (Paolo Coelho, Brazilian writer)

She sighed, her eyes lingering on the quotes. How true it sounded. And how very difficult.

Felicia thwacked the book shut and groaned. It was useless to sit here and remember and torture herself and circle around a goal she still didn't know how to achieve, like somebody scratching around a wound with scabs, not sure if the dry crust, once dislodged, would reveal healed skin or cause new bleeding.

She'd do what had worked on so many nights before: go out and walk around the outskirts of town. There wasn't much to like about Fairview, but it did have the perfect natural surroundings.

An hour later, Felicia felt better. She had left the suburb behind and was strolling through the forest at its outskirts. The street lights didn't reach the trees, but she didn't need their ghastly, sterile illumination. The moon was nearing its full roundness and high up on a cloudless sky. And one of the benefits—if she could call them benefits—of being different had always been her excellent night vision. Like an animal of sorts, a minimum natural illumination was all she needed to find her way in the dark forest. She had no idea why, but suspected like heat and fire, she might carry some sort of light inside her to shine the way.

The walk through the trees was like a balm for the mind and soul.

A slight breeze flew by now and then, ruffling the leaves overhead and lifting her red curls around her head without blowing them into her face. It was a tad cool, probably as she was dressed in a knee-length denim skirt and a red top leaving one shoulder bare, but she didn't mind. Walking kept her warm enough, although somewhere deep inside she longed for a blazing fire like the other night, some engulfing warmth and light to forget herself in.

The sound of water trickling over stones and winding its way through the wood reached her ears. Had she walked so far? She knew there was a smallish river running through the forest, but she had seldom ever reached it or spent much time alongside it. Water wasn't her element, in the literal sense. She couldn't swim. Another item to add onto the list of things making her different.

There was a big splashing sound like something falling into the water, smaller sounds of the same nature following.

Would she see an animal, out for a nightly hunt or drink of water?

With peaked interest and no fear, she turned toward the source of the splash and quickened her steps, taking care at the same time not to make any noise.

When she came out into a clearing and her eyes fell upon the river, her feet stopped walking, and her heart stopped beating.

What she saw in front of her looked like a scene from a fairytale or a romance novel.

Chapter 5

Before her lay the river, neither tame nor wild, neither broad nor narrow, bigger than a stream by night, although it looked smaller by day. Like a sparkling silver snake in the moonlight flooding the clearing, it wound its curvy way through the trees, dotted here and there with stones in various sizes and shrubs dipping dainty branches into the water.

It was beautiful, enchanting. Enchanted.

But what caught her eye was the half-naked figure of a man standing in the stream.

And not any man. It took her less than a second to identify Joshua with his tall, lean body and blonder than blond hair. He was only a few feet away from where she stood, half hidden between the trees. She could clearly make out his profile and what she saw made the fire core in her belly spread and stretch and beg to be let out.

He was standing in the water, to the middle of the stream, the wet currents lapping at his thighs like fingers wanting to caress him. She could discern tight black jeans hugging his legs and butt. Over the belt with the shining silver buckle, he was naked. His toned arms and chest sported just the right amount of muscle to make him look fit but not heavily muscled. The moonlight flattered him and made him look like a Norse river god. Water drops glistened on his pale skin. It was as white as paper against the backdrop of trees and night sky.

She gulped, unconsciously wetting her lips with her tongue.

This was a sight for sore eyes.

Joshua stood proud and straight, head raised high to the moon and stars. After a moment, he slowly raised his arms as though he were about to do a yoga exercise or as if there were a great weight attached to them. He lifted them up high above his head and she could see his hairless, sparkling, water-decorated chest rise and fall with deep, slow breaths.

Despite her aversion to water, everything inside her screamed at her to walk over and into the arms of this otherworldly creature that looked so damn fine and was surrounded by such a mysterious aura.

She had lifted one foot without knowing it when his next move froze her to the spot, jaw dropping.

He brought his arms down, scooped up two big handfuls of water and threw them into the air in a powerful movement. In the middle of righting himself, he whispered a word or phrase.

The water froze as surely as she had frozen a few feet away.

It took her a few seconds to realize it had turned from liquid to ice in the blink of an eye, a cascade of falling water arms and tiny drops reaching from his hands to the surface of the water. Like icicles growing from his fingers, the frozen water glinted in the moonlight, looking as hard and precious as diamonds. So did his body, still and regal in this quiet act of magic, white and glittering and almost translucent like an ice sculpture or a man of glass.

It took her breath away and made her feel light-headed the way only fire usually did.

So, she had been right, he was holding a core of ice inside him just as she was filled with fire. Or was this some trick? Her mind losing its track? A play of moonlight on cold water?

When she remembered to breathe, eyes never leaving the spectacle in front of her, his mouth moved in another whisper. With a startlingly sharp crack like a whip crashing through the air, the icicles exploded into a myriad shards of ice, now more like diamonds than before. He looked at his hands before he raised his head and turned it exactly to where she was standing, his grey-blue eyes piercing and icy.

"What do you think?" he asked, voice calm and assured as though he asked her opinion on a new gadget he wanted to buy.

Had he known all along that she was watching?

She could feel the heat rise in her cheeks and in her body. Why did he have to look so fine and annoy her so?

In an attempt to clear her head and win the upper hand, she asked coolly, "Are you expecting me to fall at your feet and worship you?"

He threw back his head and laughed, and was fascinated again.

In a few lightning quick steps, he had waded out of the water and come right up to her, stopping three feet away, dripping wet and smelling of river and forest. The cold he exuded was palpable, like so many tiny fingers brushing over her skin and making her shiver.

"Sounds like a brilliant idea," he said, voice low and intimate, eyes sparkling.

She swallowed.

"Dream on," she countered, angry because her voice shook ever so lightly, and unsettled by the stinging cold emanating from his statue-like body. In an effort to escape his hypnotizing eyes, she lowered her gaze. It came to rest on his firm, pale chest and the glistening water drops adorning his smooth skin like jewels. There was a sudden urge inside her to touch the tip of her finger against his chest to collect one icy drop or to touch her tongue to his wintry skin.

The fire inside her grew hotter and hotter despite the coldness seeping into her skin.

Once again, he made her snap out of her reverie.

"Are you asking me to dream of you?"

Her head snapped up, her mouth opened and closed like a fish out of the water. Damn this man! Did he have to turn her every word into something to his liking?

"Do you always misunderstand what people tell you?" she asked belligerently, her arms coming up and crossing in defense.

A half-grin tugged at his thin, bluish lips, once again turning him into a handsome rake.

"On the contrary. I always try and see behind the lies. I've learned to decipher what people want to express."

How could he sound so full of himself?

She groaned.

"You're darned smug, you know."

The half-grin turned into a full grin, but he let it rest.

"You haven't answered my question? What do you think?"

Felicia frowned.

"I think you don't give a damn what I think about your little display of magic. Seeing you're so full of yourself, you shouldn't need any affirmation."

He looked at her intently.

"You're right. I don't ask others for their opinion, let alone need their approval. But what if I need yours? What if it does mean something to me what you have to say?"

His confident, cool, caressing voice carried so much meaning she found herself drawn in by it again.

Was he telling her that she and her opinion were important to him?

Should she reveal what she had thought and felt while staring at him?

Suddenly, she wanted to do just that. Heck, who else was there who possessed a crazy talent and who wanted to hear what she had to say? Who else was there to help her?

"If you want to know... It looked magnificent. And forbidden. And powerful and easy at the same time. When I watched you, I admired not only your so called special gift but I also wondered whether I couldn't do a magic trick too. I felt the irresistible urge to let out the fire in me like you let the ice in you out. And it scared me and attracted me at the same time. Like... like you scare and attract me."

There, it was out.

Summoning her courage, she looked into his face.

His eyes were shining a deep grey blue, full of an emotion she couldn't place. She wondered what he thought about her admitting she was attracted to him and also feared him to some degree. No, not exactly feared him, but feared what he stood for.

"Thank you," he said.

The cold around them vanished and she stopped shivering, on the outside as well as on the inside.

Abruptly, he broke eye contact, turned and walked a few steps to the side where he stooped down to pick up a white T-shirt. Not bothering to dry himself off, he put it on and stepped into a pair of white sneakers.

How could a man look so sexy putting a T-shirt on instead of removing it?

Her gaze travelled his body, lighting with temptation at the way the fabric molded against his wet torso, and appreciating the enticing way in which his soaked jeans fit his lower body like a second skin. Inside her belly, the volcano was too ready to erupt. The eruption got postponed when Joshua sat down on the rock where he had kept his clothes and patted the place beside him invitingly.

Her feet were moving before she realized it. She sat down further away than he had indicated, drew her knees in beneath her and was acutely aware that most of her legs had been visible and much of her skin was still exposed to the gaze he lingeringly drew over her. Going out in a skimpy red top didn't seem such a good idea now, although she had to admit the way his icy eyes took her in made her proud.

Once more, she felt cold, unsure whether the night at the river bank was always chilly or whether it was the man beside her who was now staring at the water fixedly.

They sat in silence for several minutes, or at least for what felt like several minutes to her.

He broke the silence and had her full attention.

"You told me you were wishing you could do the same like me. Let me tell you one thing: You could. You can. I think you most probably already have and will definitely do so again."

She stared at him before staring at the river again, absorbing the meaning of his statement.

The two memories that had caused her to leave home popped into her mind, proof that something living inside her could indeed leap out and cause magic, though what had happened struck her as a black, bad kind of magic. He meant to tell her he could turn water to ice at will and she could influence—or cause?—fire at will, didn't he?

The implication shook her to the core, although somewhere deep inside she had always known.

Once again, she asked herself how much he knew about her and how much he merely projected his own life onto hers.

Her mind ran away from her and from rational reasoning and imagined conjuring up flames at the whisper of a word or radiating heat whenever she wanted, as though she could flip a switch inside her on and off.

It terrified her. And it fascinated her. It called to her.

"It's all about control, Felicia," Joshua continued, following his own train of thought and hitting the nail on the head for the umpteenth time.

When she had tamed her wild wishes and got over the way her heart skipped a beat when he said her name, she said, "I've been reading about self-control today."

He turned to face her, a smile playing on his lips.

"You have? Great."

He sounded satisfied and she wondered whether it was because he thought she had followed his order to read the damned book or because he believed it to be important that she informed herself about those possibilities.

"What did you learn?" he wanted to know, sounding like a teacher talking to a student.

She fixed her eyes on the river. It was much easier to talk seriously without having to look at his distant beauty and endure his knowing gaze.

"I don't know. I've always considered control to play an important role in my life. There were... incidents in my childhood which scared my parents and caused problems for me. I was told over and over again to control myself. My words, my deeds, my thoughts, my feelings. For some time, I rebelled and didn't listen, and things got worse. So, by the time I was out of high school, I finally accepted that control is the only way to have some sort of life and not end up in a lunatic asylum or on the streets."

She paused and fought to keep her voice steady and uninflected. She was usually successful at sounding normal, it was part of her way of being in control. But being around Joshua attacked her wall of defense. When she stole a glance at him from the corner of her eye, she caught him staring at her, as he so often did, pale face a mask, resembling the finely chiseled features of a statue. It was unnerving and reassuring at the same to know he paid so much attention.

"Ever since, I thought I had managed self-control perfectly. I followed a certificate course, I got a job, I moved out of home. I lived."

He interrupted her.

"You don't sound too happy about this."

She sighed.

"That's because I'm not. During the past few months, things have been slipping out of my grasp. And now I realize why. It's because I haven't lived up to now. I'm not in control, and I'm not myself. It's been one big lie."

Felicia shouted the last sentence and had to take a couple of deep breaths to keep herself from revealing more than she wanted or making an emotional wreck of herself in front of this man, who was still a stranger in so many ways.

He laid a firm, cold hand with hard, slender fingers on her bare knee, making her jump and move away, regretting it that same instant.

The place where his hand had rested so briefly tingled with sensation, and somewhere inside, the fire was screaming for more.

Did he think her prude now? Suspicious? Too scared for her own good? How did her reaction from now match the way she had allowed him to kiss her in the library?

There was no change in his tone when Joshua said calmly, "I think the kind of control you were encouraged to exercise and the kind of control the book hints at are two ends of a spectrum. One is about burying the undesirable and ignoring the monster. The other is about recognizing, acknowledging and taming or at least shaping what can't and shouldn't be ignored. If you repress something, it's still there. We can't live like ostriches, sticking their head under the earth whenever they sense danger. We have to permit the other part of ourselves to live, but rein it in and keep it on a leash, so it won't run away and get us into trouble."

She liked the metaphors he used and the way he said "we" instead of "one" or "you". And yet, he didn't sound as if he meant "we". He sounded as if he already knew everything, and behaved correctly, and expected her to follow like a sectarian would follow their leader.

The wild and lonely part inside her rebelled against him being the teacher and adviser and role model.

"You make it sound so easy," she scoffed.

"It isn't," he answered.

"It never was for me and it won't be for you. But it's not impossible, either. I'm the living proof."

There was evident pride in his voice.

She couldn't help herself, she had to daunt him.

"What, so you weren't born a perfect ice god always in control?"

The look he shot her this time was deadly.

In a fluid movement, he got up, bent down, picked up a stone and threw it into the water. With his back to her and his voice icy, he said, "If you refuse to take me seriously, this is useless."

"You mean, if I refuse to accept your authority and patronizing behavior?" she shot back.

He turned around and stalked over to her, cold radiating in waves off him, automatically causing the heat inside her to step up a notch and radiate from her skin too.

"Clearly I am in a better position of the two of us to have authority and to be listened to, am I not?"

He looked dangerous in his quiet anger. Did he have a power complex?

Stopping herself short before she could back away, she stood up straighter and stuck her pointy chin out.

"Didn't you talk about me and you revealing ourselves to each other? The only thing I can see happening so far is you revealing your magic and expecting me to listen to you whenever I am about to reveal a part of myself."

A battle between ice and fire was raging in the few inches of air between their bodies, their gazes dueling with each other, his a wintry, whitish blue and hers an amber brown glowing with orange sparks.

"And didn't I tell you to trust me? And that I'd know when the time is right for you?"

She swallowed her hasty, harsh reply back down.

He did. And deep down inside, she could feel she wasn't ready yet. He must have read the truth in her eyes because a satisfied smile flickered across his face.

Joshua took a last step closer until there wasn't more than an inch or two of space between them and she could feel her heat and his coldness warring with each other, testing the boundaries for a chance to leap and attack—or to leap and dance.

When he lowered face, her breath hitched and her pulse started racing. Inside her belly, the fire arms shot higher and higher, wanting the kiss surely about to happen.

"Don't," she whispered, despite the aching desire to feel their connection again.

Stopping a hair's breadth before her face, he whispered back, "Why?"

His breath smelled as minty and cool as the man himself. It brushed over her trembling lips, stoking the fire.

Struggling to put her conflicting feelings into words, she blurted out, "You'll get burned."

A purely masculine, dangerous grin tugged at his lips which were so enticingly close she could almost taste them.

"What if I enjoy playing with fire?" he asked, voice deep and low and full of promise.

A shiver coursed through her body. Before she could make up her mind what to answer, he had bridged the last inch and his mouth lay claim to hers.

She could swear there was a hiss of sparks, of fire released and meeting a wall of ice. His mouth felt so heavenly against her that she wanted to lean into him and make the kiss last longer. Thought was impossible, there was only sensation and the want—the need—for more.

One of his hands wound around the back of her neck and drew her face up to deepen the kiss that was dripping with passion. She closed her eyes and allowed herself to feel and enjoy for a second. When the combined cold of his lips and his fingers against her sensitive skin grew ever more intense, she automatically increased the heat inside her.

With a sound low in his throat, Joshua pressed his lips even firmer against hers for a fleeting instant, before drawing back as if indeed burnt.

After a chuckle, he said in a hoarse voice, "You are hot."

Chapter 6

Today was different.

After giving it much thought how she could lead a happier life, Felicia had decided to cook something exotic for dinner and enjoy a 'girls' night in' with Cindy. She was looking forward to the evening but also dreading it.

More than ever, this appeared to be the right time to get to know herself. For it had become clear to her during the course of the past few days that she didn't know who and what she was. And if she didn't, how would she learn how to live and let live?

And this would be the perfect opportunity to stop herself from thinking of Joshua.

Yes, he fascinated her. Yes, she was attracted to him. But no, she didn't want him to play such an important role in her life.

Knowing she was playing with fire was what terrified her and had held her back most of her life. The endless possibilities and their consequences, so vivid in her mind after watching and interacting with Joshua, had her frozen with angst. Maybe it was also what had alienated her parents from her, more than being scared she'd turn them into living torches.

Their flat was ablaze with lights in different colors, from candles to light bulbs that should have been reserved for Christmas or a garden party cum barbecue. Music was blaring out of the stereo in the living-room, a mix of Latin artists of the yesteryears and now, from Shakira and Ricky Martin to Carlos Santana and Trini Lopez, from Marc Anthony to Jennifer Lopez. She had bought a huge amount of tacos and prepared three dips of the spicy and less-spicy kind, as well as a Mexican dinner of steak fajitas with avocado, chicken enchiladas with tomato salsa, red rice with corn, and pineapple flan for dessert. They had eaten until Cindy swore she couldn't move an inch anymore, of course chattering away despite the backdrop of exotic music. Felicia had been absorbed in her meal and the light and the songs, and simply jumped out of her chair and dragged her roommate to the improvised dance floor in the middle of the room.

Time was flying by, the girls dancing alone and with each other, shimmying their hips and shouting the occasional "olé" and refilling their glasses of water (Felicia) and tequila (Cindy) at regular intervals without stopping in their fiesta.

She hadn't felt happier in years. Her roomie definitely looked like she was enjoying herself too, although by now she had thrown herself into the couch with arms and legs spread wide, declaring her fiesta would now turn into a nightly siesta and giggling about the remark for much too long.

Hard, insistent knocking on their door made itself known over the loud music, and had both of them freeze in mid-movement as well as mid-giggle.

Felicia nearly tripped over her feet while scrambling to reach the remote. After the press of a button, there was deafening silence in the room. The two stared at each other, wide-eyed and anxious.

"Did you invite some else to the party?" Cindy asked in a slurred voice.

Felicia shook her head vehemently.

"No. Do you think we were too loud?"

Was that a neighbor complaining about a sleepless night? The clock showed it was nearing eleven, and the absence of sound made them realize how high the volume had been.

Scolding herself for being nervous, she decided to check, although the knocking had stopped the moment she had cut off the music. She walked to the front door, stared through the mail slot without seeing anything or anyone, and opened the door with a careful smile plastered on her face that was surely glowing red from the dancing, conscious of her hair having its own life.

There was nobody to be seen, neither on the threshold nor anywhere in close proximity or at the two ends of the road.

With a frown, she checked again and wondered whether they had imagined the knocking. In the movement of closing the door, her eyes fell to the ground, and she froze.

On the brown doormat with its faded 'Welcome' lay a smallish, rectangular parcel with a note on top.

The nervousness was back with a vengeance. Once again, Felicia stared left and right, and timidly cleared her throat as though sound might miraculously conjure up a visitor from thin air. When there was still nobody in sight, she bent down and gingerly picked up the note with the tips of two fingers. She didn't recognize the writing. It consisted of sharp, ramrod-straight, fine letters in black ink with a masculine tilt to them. The short message written down, however, made it crystal clear who had left her the parcel in the middle of the night and vanished into nothingness like a ghost.

I hope you continue to read the book. Not just because I say so, but because it makes sense to you. I also hope you'll watch this movie, or re-watch it in case you already know it. Let me know what you have learned from it. I'll be out of town for a couple of days. – Joshua

Her frown deepened. She kicked the door shut with a foot, hit the light switch with her elbow and walked to the living-room while trying to rip of the wrapping paper. The parcel revealed a DVD with an exciting cover and the title X-Men: First Class on it. She was so surprised that she stopped short in her tracks and turned to the DVD around to check whether it was indeed the famous Hollywood movie. She had half been expecting esoteric dribble full of advices like the book. This box-office hit surely couldn't teach her anything, could it? She remembered having watched the first ever X-Men movie of the series when it had aired in 2000, and never caring enough to watch the various sequels.

Shaking her head, she re-read the note and stuffed it into her pocket before entering the living-room.

Cindy was sitting upright on the couch, looking more sober and still alarmed.

"Who was it?"

She shrugged and wondered what reaction the truth would spark.

"I couldn't see anybody, but this parcel was left on the doormat."

She walked over and briefly held the DVD in front of her roommate's face before flopping down on the other couch, happy mood dissipated into thin air.

"Hey, that's a cool movie! One of my boyfriends dragged me to it, must have been in 2011 or 2012 or so. It stars Michael Fassbender and James McAvoy, and they're both so hot and talented. You do know X-Men, don't you?"

Felicia nodded half-heartedly. She was only listening with one ear because her mind was focused on processing Joshua's message—and trying to come to terms with how she felt about him being gone for some time.

Would she miss him?

Chapter 7

An ounce of practice is worth more than tons of preaching. (Mahatma Gandhi, leader of the independence movement in India)

Felicia was sitting at the kitchen table, head bent low over the book while mindlessly breakfasting on self-mixed oats and cereals with fruits and nuts.

The chapter she had picked for reading this time was titled Practice makes perfect, and she was hopeful about it because she had already had enough of theory and wanted to move right on to practice—though how on earth she could practice with a fire core inside her, she had not the slightest idea.

She let her thoughts wander.

Why did Joshua want her to watch the movie? Where was he going? Why did she want to know?

For a moment, she wondered whether what he showed to her was only half of whatever truth and life he was living.

Maybe he wasn't a private investigator after all. Or maybe he was, and had come here only for some case and would leave as soon as it was solved? The thought sent a stab of pain and fear through her. Only a few meetings and displays of magic, and she was already loathe to lose him. What if he had a wife and children to get back to or at least a gorgeous girlfriend that didn't threaten to explode in a fire ball whenever he touched her?

Somehow, she doubted it. There was a distant and lonely and aloof air about him which made it unlikely that he led a normal family life. Besides, he had kissed her twice, and both times she had felt that he wanted to go farther. Now this was a thought to linger on...

Before she could dwell on what could or couldn't happen between them, and how far she would go, another thought crossed her mind. What if he had tired of her and simply left? And if this was the case, what would it mean to her? Sitting straighter in her chair without realizing it, she swore to herself she would not pine after that infuriating, gorgeous Norse god of ice, and continue to work on finding herself and living with fire.

"Are you thinking about your boyfriend?"

Cindy's voice cut right through her pondering and had her choke on a spoonful of breakfast.

Glaring at her, she asked, "Aren't you too awake and nosy for this time of the day?"

Her roomie didn't mind her harsh tone, as usual. Instead, she grinned and yawned. Shuffling over, she sank down onto a chair.

"It's never too early in the day to talk about boyfriends."

Felicia sighed, got up and dumped the congealed, cooled down mass left at the bottom of the bowl into the dustbin. She took extra care to wash the bowl, the spoon and her hands because she dreaded having to discuss Joshua. When she threw over her shoulder, "He's not my boyfriend, I told you so", she heard Cindy click her tongue.

"Oh, don't give me that. Then why did he send you two gifts in a row?"

Felicia whirled around.

"How did you know he's the one who left the parcel last night?"

"I didn't. I was guessing because of the way the book had been left. At least tell me his name, come on!"

"What would you do with a name?"

Now her roommate looked hurt.

Cursing silently, she sat back down at the table, determined to get this over with as fast as possible.

"All right, all right. His name is Joshua."

Her companion leaned forward on her elbows, face resting on her palms.

"And, and? God, this is as difficult as pulling out a loose tooth!"

Despite herself, she had to laugh. All of a sudden, she wanted to confide in her almost-friend. Well, at least about the side of the coin that involved her finding him attractive and him showing interest in her. The magical side was nothing to be revealed.

"I have no practice in this, bear with me," she said, surprising herself with how comfortable she sounded.

"Spill the beans. How long has this been going on? How did you meet?"

Gone was the feeling of comfort. How to tell that she had first met him when he had pulled her out of a burning house?

Cringing inwardly, she replied, "He came to the library to register some days ago. Said he was new here, and wanted to borrow books."

Cindy raised her eyebrows.

"So he's an avid reader? Should be a fit partner for someone who always hides her nose behind book pages. He sure doesn't look like a nerdy bookworm, does he?"

Once again, the lightness was back. Nerdy was the last thing that came to mind.

"To me, he's handsome in some... I don't know, cool and dangerous way. And his voice is so enticing."

And his scent, she added in her thoughts.

Cindy's grin was getting broader and broader.

"Definitely agree. You have to introduce him to me properly one day. I'll promise I won't drool again."

She giggled, but it barely registered with Felicia because she was thinking whether Joshua would take the next step and visit her. After all, they weren't in a relationship and he preferred keeping things on a mysterious level and taking the upper hand.

There was another thought that had entered her mind while listening to herself describing him.

In so many ways, he was like a vampire. Cold, hard, white, magical, commanding, knowing, secretive, powerful. But vampires didn't go out in the sunlight to leave packages at doorsteps, and he had certainly never shown any thirst for blood. Hell, vampires didn't exist—although freaks like her existed.

"Earth to Feli, are you there?"

Her roomie was waving her hand in front of her face, annoying her, but at the same time making her feel guilty for being annoyed so easily by someone who meant her no harm.

"You've got it bad, don't you? Tell me more about your handsome hunk. What does he do, how does he tick?"

She frowned.

"It's... complicated. I don't know much about him. We're mostly talking about me when we meet. That is, if we talk at all."

"Oh-hooo! What are you two up to that you don't manage to talk much?"

This time, she groaned out loud.

"Oh please, stop it! It's not like that. This isn't love, it's attraction. It's not a real relationship. We don't match, so we can't be a couple. He's my total opposite."

Why did she sound so upset?

Her companion sobered up at her tone and choice of words, but couldn't keep her mouth shut.

"Ever heard of the saying, opposites attract?"

She stared at her for a moment.

Was that it? Was it what had brought them together like two poles of a magnet? What made her long for him? Fire and ice in some weird match against or with each other?

Frowning again, she got up.

"You can spin all the love theories you want, but leave me out of it. I'm going to watch that damned movie."

Felicia walked out of the kitchen, not caring that a small voice in the back of her mind told her she should have offered Cindy to watch the movie with her, as she had been so enthusiastic about it the night before.

* * *

It was late afternoon. Feeling impossibly bored and not in the mood for another girl's session with her roommate, Felicia had packed her bag once again and left the house.

She wandered aimlessly, hands stuffed into the pockets of her short red lace skirt, her black ballerinas hitting the pavement at a neither fast nor slow, steady pace. There were some couples and families strolling around, but it became less and less crowded the more she wound her way toward the border of the city.

Before she knew it, she found herself at a crossing. To the left lay the road to the cemetery, to the right a road looking strangely familiar to her, although she was sure she had never been there. A mysterious force pulled at her from this direction, as if at the end of the road she would find something of interest. With a frown and foreboding bringing the fire core inside her to coil and bubble uneasily like some fateful soup boiling, she turned right and continued to walk. From where she was, she couldn't see the end of the road yet. When she lifted her eyes from the pavement and looked about her, her feet slowed down. The houses looked posh and grand, as did the occasional car parked in front of them. There was not a sound to be heard, nor a single person to be seen. Tall, old trees stood like sentinels in the primly trimmed, neatly organized garden plots, regal-looking and watchful.

This was an area of Fairview much too fine for her. Felicia had never much liked rich people, high society and the important and powerful who ruled or thought they did. It sparked her contempt. Walking along the deserted road amid buildings painted in shades of pastel and often sporting elaborate gates and walls, she felt ill at ease. Part of her wanted to turn back, maybe pay the cemetery a visit. Yet, there was another part tied to the end of the road, pulling her along relentlessly. Once in a while, a house looked oddly familiar to her, although she remembered it in a context of darkness.

The road turned a wide, round corner. What lay at the end of it, had her stop in her tracks and gasp.

In front of her, several feet away, stood the burnt-out remains of what must have once been the grandest of all the buildings on this road.

There was nothing more left than a blackened skeleton with here and there beams and wall pieces sticking obscenely upward like the bones of a smashed-in ribcage. The ground was strewn with debris, although most of the ashes had long since been blown away, some of it covering the massive, partly unhinged iron gate in a fine layer of grey dust.

The sight itself might have been spooky and dangerous to others, but to her it was simply fascinating. Proof of the power of fire, of how destruction could be the cause for an eerie, stark, mysterious kind of beauty that defied all the feats of human architecture.

Her feet automatically took her closer until she had walked through the huge black gate with its intricate cast-iron embellishments and was coming closer and closer to the ruins. It was when she turned her head slightly from side to side to take in the mess on the wide, forlorn grounds and saw the edge of a forest bordering the back of the garden that she froze again.

Terror filled her for a moment and her heart beat raced with a feeling akin to excitement.

This wasn't any burned down building.

This was the place where she had all but thrown herself into the fire some nights ago and been saved by a handsome, icy stranger.

With recognition came an understanding of why she had felt a magnetic pull bringing her here.

Felicia closed her eyes for a moment and tried to recall that night and why she had come here. No matter how hard she concentrated, she came up blank. Everything before her arrival and the fire was an indistinct blur. There was the towering, intimidating hulk of the mansion in nightly glory, not lighted like all the other houses, the ground full of weeds, the gate already in the lamentable state it was in now. There was the fire itself, burning so full of life and strength, and warming her.

She opened her eyes and stared at the black remnants of where a house full of furniture had stood less than a week ago.

How shocking the contrast. How strange that she should prefer the present state to the former glory.

As if she had no choice, she wandered closer, winding her way through stones, charred chunks of wood and the odd piece of dismembered furniture. She took in the details, the different degrees of burns and bizarre shapes. Inhaling deeply, she reveled in the smell of ashes, toasted wood and scorched earth. It called to her. In a different way from how the actual flames had, but undeniably powerful and appealing.

She wanted to be back in that night. For a fierce moment, she wished Joshua had never pulled her out. She had been so close to accept fire's embrace! What would happened? Would she never know now?

Felicia continued her walk through the ruin, stopping here and there to touch, to run her hands over the sometimes rough, sometimes astonishingly smooth surfaces shaped by the flames.

If she was fire, she could surely form things like this too, couldn't she? Exert power which might be fatal.

Pictures of the X-men movie she had watched some hours ago popped into her head. Mutants attracting and shaping metal, soaring through the air, wreaking havoc, performing their personal kind of magic.

She had to stand still for a moment to stop herself from trembling and bursting with heat. It would surely make her skin glow and attract attention if anybody happened to stumble upon this place.

The fire inside her leapt up and down like an eager puppy, like a child demanding attention and knowing it had reached its goal. She swallowed, took deep breaths to calm herself down, and put her hands back into her pockets. It didn't help.

When she fixed her eyes resolutely on the ground again and took step after deliberate step to distract herself from her longing to test her power and control her inner fire, a speck of color caught her attention.

A few feet away from her lay a small, soot-blackened head, its eyes staring dully right at her.

She jumped, and scolded herself for being such a coward. This was clearly the head of a plastic doll.

Stepping closer, she squatted down next to the head, not bigger than both of her hands cupped together. The doll was lying under a fallen beam of wood, propped up by another piece of debris and providing protection instead of crushing it. The majority of its hair was missing, apart from a few ghastly yellow strands glued to the ground. The side of her body not covered by the beam had melted in the heat of the fire and was no more than a brownish, pinkish puddle of plastic sticking to the earth. The doll was missing an arm and a leg, and one side of its torso had a gaping hole in it that revealed gaping emptiness.

There was something so hideous and yet so frighteningly attractive about the way the doll spoke of the power of the fire that she reached out and picked it up. She stood up and held the damaged doll with its listless blue stare and bald head in both her hands, gingerly as though her touch might finish what the disaster hadn't.

Before she knew what was happening to her, she felt a bout of dizziness. Her head swam for a moment, the sight of the doll in her hands growing blurry and being overlaid by scenes of the raging fire she had almost united with.

The heat inside her grew and grew, her palms shaking. There was a clear picture of a doll—this damaged one—burning brightly like a miniature witch at the stake.

A whoosh. A great hiss of air. Heat. More heat. A bright light.

Felicia was thrown backward by an invisible fist punching her in the gut and taking the wind out of her.

She landed on her back, narrowly managing to brace herself with her arms before her head hit the ground. Even half lying and short of breath, she couldn't tear her eyes from the sight in front of her.

The doll lay on the earth.

It was burning.

No, it wasn't simply burning, it was a ball of yellow-white fire with a blue middle, like a bright supernova fallen down from the sky. The flames shot high but were content feasting only on the little plastic shape. The fire didn't spread to the side to crawl along the dry stubs of blackened grass or leap onto the beam nearby. When there was nothing left to burn, the flames vanished, as abruptly as they had appeared from out of nowhere.

Remembering how to breathe again, Felicia raised herself to a sitting position and stared. Nothing was left of the doll apart from a tiny, insignificant pile of whitish ashes. There was a disgusting stench in the air like burning flesh and rubber tires skidding over an asphalt road when a heavy vehicle tried to brake.

She imagined she could hear a scream, as though the doll had protested against being killed by fire at last.

The flames inside her cheered and swelled in pride and licked their lips and wanted more.

Scrambling to her feet, she picked up her bag, threw a last shocked glance at the ash pile, and bolted.

Felicia ran as fast as she could down the lonely street where the street lights were slowly blinking on in the dusk, never once looking back.

What had she done?

Chapter 8

Everything you desire lies at the other end of fear.

A quote from the book echoed in her inner ear this morning.

Oh yes, she desired power. She desired working with the fire inside her. And she was afraid. More than ever.

Where was Joshua when she needed him?

The thought stopped her short.

Did she need him? What did he actually know about her? About fire? About power? He with his ice and cold calm and superiority would only stand in her way of letting it all out. They were opposites, and while they may indeed attract each other, she wasn't so certain anymore that there could be anything to learn from him.

Several days had passed with not a sight or sound of Joshua. She had gone about her life the same as before—on the outside. Inside, she was full of questions and ideas and wishes. Inside, she was a different person. And small changes had made her life more livable.

Whenever Felicia was at home, she kept music playing in the background. The meals she prepared were now for both her and Cindy. Her room was full of candles at night, and she never bothered to snuff them out when she went to sleep. She had bought a vivid wall-hanging of a red Chinese dragon and hung up dragon pictures printed out from the internet. Sometimes, she picked up the book and let her eyes wander over a page or two, but somehow, it had lost its attraction. X-Men, on the other hand, had caught her favor. She streamed the other movies of the series on her computer, replaying some scenes, wishing with all her might that she could be part of such a group, a fiery superwoman of sorts... accompanied by a man who could turn you into ice with the blink of an eye. An invincible team.

Early every morning, she donned her new running shoes and went for a jog for half an hour, sometimes running full tilt rather than jogging because it felt blissful after the initial reluctant few minutes.

Late every evening, she walked into the forest and sat on a particular rock by the riverside. Waiting. For him. For anything to happen.

Added to the fire burning inside her had been another fire. One of longing and desire. One that made her dream of a cool tongue traveling down her neck, chest and stomach like a cube of ice sliding further with each rise and fall of breath. Of cold hands with slender fingers pressing where the heat stretched against her skin and wanted out. Of icy, fresh, mint-smelling breath and a hard body against hers.

It was torture, yet felt delicious.

Part of her wanted to think and dream about Joshua, part of her took offense at it.

Was this what love was all about? How was it for Cindy, who changed her boyfriends like others changed their clothes, who was constantly happy with one or the other without suffering from love sickness or anything close to a broken heart?

More than this discovery that she could care about a man and actually want him so painfully much, one question was repeating itself over and over in her head.

Who am I?

She wanted to give herself a name, but there was none to be found.

She couldn't be a witch. Witches weren't supposed to have fire inside them. Witches knew magic, could cast spells, and were full of ancient, secret knowledge.

She couldn't be a mere pyromaniac, somebody who was happy with knowing and loving fire, or an arsonist, causing fires and distress in the crudest ways.

She couldn't be some otherworldly being like an alien... although sometimes this seemed the most plausible explanation. Then she thought of Joshua and how he would have to be a totally different species with his ice core, and how it was unlikely that two kinds of aliens had invaded earth and left freaky offspring behind.

So, what was she?

Mutant and proud, like the X-Men?

She liked it, but it left her with as little explanations as no classification at all.

* * *

Felicia was sitting at her usual spot on the stone, thinking and thinking and thinking.

Around her, it was night, the moon shining down on the rushing water and the still trees.

She didn't feel comfortable beside the river. Too much water. What if she could change that and bring some of her inner fire out to accompany her? But how?

Where to start? What had happened the day she had set the doll on fire? What triggered her special ability? How much heat could she actually handle? How much heat could she cause?

Hesitantly, she leaned forward, one hand stretched out toward the water, the other bracing her body on the rock. She thought of the heat travelling inside her body, and of how sometimes it would increase and radiate, making her skin glow or letting others think the room temperature had risen.

Taking a deep breath and exerting pressure, as though she wanted to push something from the inside out, she imagined her heat emanating from her body.

Did she trick her eyes or was a soft, golden-russet glow lighting up her skin, contrasting with the cool, silvery moonlight from above?

She bit her lip in concentration, leaned toward the river, and dipped her faintly glowing hand into the water.

First there was a shock of wet cold. It made her want to pull her hand out. She could feel the current and insistency of the night water against her fingers that had lost their heat. How to fight back? Where was the fire to draw on?

She remembered the moment when he had kissed her and she had shone as if with an inner light bulb. Holding on to the moment, longingly drawing it out, she closed her eyes and exerted pressure again. And suddenly, the water didn't feel cold to her anymore. When she opened her eyes, she could see her fingers glowing under water.

With a soft whoop of delight, she pressed harder, her teeth buried so deep in her lower lip that she drew blood. The sharp prick of pain fuelled her fire. In another moment, she had heated up much more. Wisps of steam coiled up from the place where her hand lay submerged in the water. Trembling with the pressure, she closed her eyes again and tried to draw on one of the dreams she had recently had about her and Joshua, their limbs entangled, moving as one. There was definitely warmth rising from the water around her now.

A bubbling sound made her open her eyes and stare. Was the water close to her fingers actually boiling now? Sure enough, tiny bubbles were forming on the surface, and the water was in turmoil at the spot closest to her. The part of her arm over the surface was surrounded with a ruddy shine.

A small laugh escaped her. Here she was, her fire dominating the cool river, a witch stirring up her cauldron, a mutant freeing her special talent.

The water was all but churning in an area roughly the size of a bath tub, steam rising into her face and making her hair curlier.

A voice broke the magic.

"Impressive."

Chapter 9

Felicia wheeled around. She lost her balance, and fell into the water with a splash.

Spluttering and totally forgetting about controlling her heat, she surfaced a moment later. Luckily for her—who couldn't swim—the water wasn't much deeper than up to her waist and the current was not enough to drag a grown person wherever it wanted.

Before she had time to get a slippery grip on the rock and haul herself out of the river, two strong arms took a hold of her and set her down on dry ground.

She shook herself like a wet dog and cursed. After wiping some strands of hair out of her face, she glared up.

"Don't you know better than to sneak up on people?"

Joshua chuckled drily, although he did look guilty when he cast a glance down at her soaked clothes.

"You should know by now that it's one of my specialties. Besides, I don't think a private investigator announcing his presence in advance would be successful at his job."

She gritted her teeth, chattering from the wet and cold.

"So I'm just another assignment for Mr. Pseudo James Bond?"

It only made him chuckle harder for a moment, but then his face grew frighteningly sober.

"No, you're not."

He kissed her. Hard, deep, with searing passion, and full of an emotional message that she couldn't decipher, but felt resonate inside her.

First, her lips and his were the same temperature because of her fall into the water. But slowly she felt the coolness of his mouth, and the fire core inside her picked itself up to respond.

The pressure of his lips was replaced by an icy tongue licking across her lower lip and seeking entrance. When she welcomed him, rational thought became impossible. There was only cold and heat and the wish for more. She had no idea how long it lasted, but a subtle change caught her attention and had her break the kiss reluctantly. When he stepped back and curled his lips into one of his killer smiles, eyebrows raised while scanning her from head to toe, she looked down at herself and gasped.

Apparently, the kiss had caused the heat to step it up a notch.

Not only was she glowing again, but she was also magically dry, her clothes having a crisp feel to them as if freshly ironed, her hair curling out like a wild crown instead of sticking to her face.

For an instant, she wondered whether he had only kissed her to activate the weird heating-drying system within her, or whether he had missed her as much as she had missed him. There had been such feeling behind the kiss...

She swallowed down all other harsh remarks lying on the tip of her tongue. Her knees still felt weak from the impact of the kiss, his intoxicating scent was all around her, and her own magic of fighting the water took up much too much importance to be annoyed. And to be honest, she was also too glad to have him back and at the same time too scared she'd start asking him where he had been and what he had done, which would sound like love-sick pining.

They stood silently for some time, Felicia breathing and processing, Joshua watching her in a way that made her want to bridge the few feet's distance and demand another kiss.

Finally, he dipped his chin to a fallen tree trunk not far away, walked over and leaned himself against a nearby tree, arms folded across his chest, one foot resting on the fallen trunk. She followed and sat down on the mossy wood. Although part of her wanted to focus on herself, she couldn't help looking at him, whiter than white in the moonlight. She wanted to reach out and draw him down for another kiss because the flames inside her would have nothing else, smoldering with longing deep in her belly.

"So, what have you learned?"

With the simple question, a dam broke. She skidded over the words in her haste to tell him what had happened. She mentioned the X-Men movies, the small changes she had made to her daily life, and the incident at the ruin. During the last description, his blue eyes turned somehow whiter and greyer, maybe in a way that other people's eyes darkened, because his face looked more serious now, and there was a frown etched into his forehead.

When her words grew slower and softer while talking about her warming up the water some minutes ago, he turned his head and stared out across the river, looking miles away and lost in his own thoughts. She studied his sharp profile with the fine nose and wondered how he would react. Would it all make more sense to him than to her?

Without turning back to face her, he said, "I guess it's high time to start the lessons."

This excited and angered her at the same time.

"Do you have to call it lessons? Like you're a teacher and I'm a student and you'll make me read books and listen to you preach and give me homework? Isn't this the wrong word for fascinating possibilities and uncertain experiments?"

He frowned.

"I want to call it exactly that. Lessons. You have so much to learn. You might be a freaky mutant or a goddamn wonder child or the long-awaited savior of the world, but there's no way around learning. Every single great and famous person on earth has had to learn. The gift is there, the brain is primed, the body ready, but without practice, there is no improvement, and without control, there is no real deed done. You're merely raw material now. A sharp stone that can be shaped into a weapon or statue or talisman or simply something more useful."

She hated it when he sounded so sure and commanding... and so correct.

With a huff, she threw up her hands.

"Sure, sure. Have it your way, professor."

The air around her grew icy cold and bit sharply at her skin.

"Have you watched those movies and read the book with your eyes closed?" he asked with cool contempt in his silky voice.

Her temper flared.

"What the hell do you mean? Haven't I just shared with you what it has taught me?"

"I don't think it has taught you anything, to be frank. It has filled your head with all sorts of crazy ideas and added new desires and new fears and nourished your fire. But I doubt you wanted to take any lessons away from it. Haven't you understood the importance of being in charge and of being careful, not even while watching X-Men? Don't you remember how they were no more than a bunch of freaks caught between blending in and flexing their juvenile muscles until disaster hit them and their two leaders urged them to work with what they have?"

She remained silent, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge that once again he had a valid point.

In a few quick, angry strides he was in front of her, bent down and grabbed her shoulders.

"Felicia, you're not dealing with a talent of playing piano like a virtuoso or calculating enormous sums in your head or turning tea cups into cute little bunnies. You're dealing with fire. Do you want to wait until it burns you up from the inside or until it harms somebody by turning them into a living torch if they so much as annoy you? Does somebody have to die for you to get down from your high horse, overcome your fear and learn?"

His voice was quiet and cold in its fury, but it echoed inside her head as though he had shouted. The image of the burning doll flared up in front of her eyes. She saw her parents' terrified faces when the curtains blazed. She saw Cindy fanning herself and unconsciously edging away from her when she sensed the heat of her annoyance.

It made her swallow back a lump forming in her throat. Damn this man for always being right and knowing how to convince her!

Her feelings must have shown on her face, because the grip on her shoulders grew lighter and he squatted down, so he was face to face with her.

"We had a deal. And I think it's more important than ever that we go through with this plan before it's too late. You have to get a hold of your fiery temperament, you have to tame this wild horse and saddle and ride it. Only then can it take you where you want to go. Otherwise, you have to hang in there and hope it won't crash headlong into disaster, or throw you off its back and trample you underfoot."

His way of using metaphors to get his point across gave him such power. She could perfectly picture what he had described, though in her mind, it was all about taming a fierce dragon to be able to fly and rule from its back.

"Let's get on with these lessons," she said, passion and determination in her voice and in her glowing eyes that stared straight into his two icy blue pools.

He smiled, leaned forward, and placed a kiss on her lips. It was so achingly tender and emotional she nearly melted then and there, in a way that fire could never have made her want to give in.

She wondered whether he felt as strongly, because he got up, put on a business-like face and resumed his position against the tree.

"While I'm all about ice and you're all about fire, I'm going to rely mostly on my previous experiences, successes and failures to teach you. And I rely on input from you because I can't see inside your pretty little head and guess how this is all for you. Ultimately, it's about your willingness to learn more than about my teaching."

She nodded curtly, biting back the acerbic remark that had welled up inside her at his usage of 'pretty little head' and the pride which rang through when he spoke of his experiences.

This had to work. She'd make it work. It was indeed about her and not him... or them.

"Right. The first lesson is this: Learn to picture the power inside you. Look into yourself and see the fire and acknowledge it and make it yours. It helps if it is something clearly visible because in a later lesson, you'll have to work at taking what's inside out and directing it. Understand?"

Again, she nodded. Curiosity took over.

"I bet is easier for fire. What do you imagine?"

Annoyance flickered across his face, as if he didn't like being asked a personal question.

"Give and take, remember?" she asked.

It was his turn to nod.

"I am not only ice. I am cold. I picture a frost hand reaching out and laying itself like mist or a mantle of snow or a wispy cloud of cold across people and things."

He closed his eyes and stood straighter.

There was a palpable change in the air around them. It grew colder and somehow stiller, as though the forest held its breath.

Around his body, the air grew thick and cold, filled with mist. A white smoky haze of sorts formed a protective coat around him, and he opened his eyes and whispered "yes".

The mist separated itself from his body and shaped itself into a huge hand with icy fingers reaching out and brushing over the trunk of a nearby tree. Its touch left behind a thin coating of sparkling ice. When the fingers swirled around the trunk in a graceful, semi-transparent dance, frost flowers adorned the tree, as could sometimes be seen on window panes in winter, crystal flowers of fragile beauty.

Felicia, whose heat had automatically crept into her skin to keep her warm, was watching in open-mouthed fascination.

Screw the X-Men movies, this was as real as it could get, and a million times as magical! She wanted to do this too. She wanted him to admire her like this and she wanted to feel power like this. Control, oh yes.

He sucked in a big, slightly ragged breath and the hand of frost slunk backward into his body, pulled on an invisible leash.

His gaze returned to her, a faint smile caressing his bluish lips, his skin whiter than ever.

"This is what you can do, if you put in some effort. Now go into yourself and acknowledge the fire inside you and give it a face."

She closed her eyes and tuned the world out. Immediately, the fire core inside her responded. It was eager to have her full attention, like a puppy wanting to impress and receive a treat. When she tried to look at it like something real, on the outside instead of inside her, it took on a shape.

She smiled.

Inside her, a dragon raised its head and looked back at her through glowing eyes, the tip of its tail twitching with interest like a kitten's. It looked small, like a baby dragon, but already beautiful and wonderfully magical. As if it had sensed her admiration, the fire shaped like a dragon grew and shone brighter, uncurling its long tail and unfurling a pair of wings previously tucked against its body. What now? Would it get up, flap its wings and soar out of her body?

On cue, the dragon did exactly that. She could feel the heat inside her shift and expand and travel up from her belly to her heart and beyond. It was aiming for her left hand like a vehicle shooting toward the only available exit. Automatically, her arm lifted and her hand opened because she couldn't contain the flames lapping at the confines of her skin. Her eyes flew open in time to see a flame burst from her hand, looking remarkably like a pocket-sized dragon.

She gasped and shot to her feet, the sensation of the fire out instead of inside her indescribable, tip-toeing the fine line between ecstasy and pain, between power and fear, gain and loss.

"Felicia!"

Joshua's voice, barely penetrating the haze, sounded oddly on edge.

She only had eyes for the fire dragon zooming around so fast her head spun when she followed it with her gaze, like a bird on steroids.

Cartwheeling in the air, obviously happy to be let out and unwilling to ever be caged again, the dragon zoomed here and there. It kept its distance from the still figure of a ghostly white statue-like man watching it with wary eyes, and from the rushing, cold water whispering fatal invitations. When it hit a branch and almost lost its balance in its burst of energy and merry, the baby fire dragon stopped in mid-movement. It stared at the branch before drawing itself to its full—not exactly intimidating—size and spitting a flame at it. It was so comical that a giggle threatened to spill out of her mouth. Despite the smallness of the flame, however, like a match aimed properly, the dragon managed to set the branch ablaze. The first timid lick of flame brought hungry, bigger flames in its wake. They ran their tongues toward the other branches of the tree threateningly.

"No! Do something!"

This time, Joshua's shouts pierced the bubble of fascination and burst it.

From one moment to the other, she wasn't watching the exuberant, slightly uncoordinated dragon like a lion mother would indulgently supervise the antics of her cub, but realizing that it had set a tree branch on fire and that the flames were well on their way to spreading over the whole tree.

The shock made her unable to think rationally or move.

Do something. But what? And how?

The fire dragon must have enjoyed all the flames and heat it could produce, because it sucked in a breath and made to blow out another little arrow of a flame. Before it could do so, it froze.

It took a second for her to notice the air around them had cooled down markedly. When the dragon baby turned its head, she followed the direction of its gaze and gasped.

Both of them watched as a wispy hand dived into the river and cradled some water inside its big palm. Traveling through the air to the burning tree, it splashed the water onto the flickering flames, and threw itself at the biggest of the flames to extinguish them. A blanket of ice laid itself over the glowing heat.

Before she knew what was happening, the dragon collapsed in on itself and got sucked back into her body as though responding to a magnet inside her, all of this accompanied by a tiny wail that she was sure was only audible to her own ears.

It was over.

The ensuing silence was punctured by her ragged breath, a quiet sizzle from the snuffed out branches and the triumphant rushing of the river.

She could feel the fire inside her, but in a way different from usually. An image flickered in her mind of a frightened animal curling itself into a ball.

Robbed out of energy, she sank onto the tree trunk, her gaze darting from the blackened, half-burnt branches to the river and back, avoiding to settle on the place where a terrible cold shook the air like a miniature snow storm.

While she wrapped her arms around herself and tried to process what had happened and what could have happened, it got warmer gradually. There was no sound from Joshua. No movement. Inside her, there was silence, although the fire's subdued sizzling now had more of a sulky feel to it.

When she lifted her head and looked right at the man who had once again stepped up against fire to save the day, the look on his face made her bristle.

"If you say 'I told you so' now, I'll kill you," she said in a tone bordering on belligerence.

After a long moment of silence in which his frown deepened, he replied, "That's exactly the problem. I don't think it's implausible that you could kill someone."

She had to swallow hard. Her first impulse was to laugh it off or take a stab at him for being overly dramatic, but somewhere inside her, the baby dragon dreamt of becoming huge and fierce and invincible, and the fear was still raw.

"I won't let it happen," she replied, hating how uncertain her voice sounded, although the determination was there inside her.

Almost imperceptibly, his features softened.

"I won't let it happen either."

Her eyes widened and her heart beat quickened. There was a promise in these words. They ran over her body like a caress, and fuelled hopes she didn't know existed.

However, there was this weakness inside her that made it hard to concentrate on anything. She felt spent, the way someone might after running a marathon or fasting for a day. Her batteries badly needed recharging.

Slumping forward and burying her face in her hands, she wished she were alone in her room, preferably surrounded with some candles.

She heard footsteps, and moments later, she felt a cool hand on her back, rubbing softly and rhythmically up and down. The caress was so soothing that all the knots inside her untied themselves. All of a sudden, being alone in her room was much less enticing.

"It takes its toll on us when we let our essence take us over. Controlling it won't."

"What can we do?"

With his hand now on her shoulder, massaging expertly with the right amount of pressure, she could feel him shrug.

"I don't know. An energy drink or a granola bar might help. I haven't tried anything. I focus on not letting such things happen. And yes, I told you so indeed. Your gift might be fascinating, but it's also dangerous. I asked you to envision your fire, not to let all hell break loose, or to be the bystander instead of the controller. You need to realize how important it is to have the upper hand and to think before you act. Prevention is better than cure, you know."

She groaned inwardly. There was the smugness again that crawled into so many of his statements. Surprisingly, she found it less irritating now. Maybe because his hands felt so wonderful. Maybe because he was the only one who understood her.

"Don't you think you should give me some credit? I'm a bloody beginner after all. Still green behind the ears."

He chuckled softly. The atmosphere changed. His hand moved ever so slowly from her shoulder to her neck and under her hair, leaving a trail of goose bumps behind. His index finger inched upward and touched her behind her ear, feather-light and electrifying.

"No green detected," he said, his voice deeper than usual.

His hand wrapped around the back of her head, cold fingers sliding sensually through her curls and massaging her scalp.

Gone were exhaustion and insecurity.

Her nerve endings were on fire.

When he lifted her head and tilted it slightly toward him, her tongue flicked out to lick her lips in anticipation of a kiss she longed for with all her body, her heart and her soul.

His gaze shot to her mouth and she could feel his body tense, fingers still, breath held. He drew closer until their faces were barely a couple of inches apart, his gaze lifting to meet hers.

"I'm giving you a lot of credit. For all kinds of things."

The way he said it made a delicious shiver run down her spine. His icy blue eyes were unfathomably deep and sparkling with an invitation she wanted to meet with fiery passion.

"You have an odd way of showing it," she countered, her voice no more than a whisper.

"Any suggestions of a better way?"

There was a hint of humor and a sexy promise in his voice.

Her pulse hammering in her throat, she answered, "I think I do."

Without waiting for his reaction, she bridged the gap and kissed him.

Her lips barely touched his at first, but the mere contact was enough to make her limbs turn liquid. Before she knew it, their kiss was passionate and deep and hungry, his fingers pressing her head closer, one of her hands coming up to squeeze his hard, cool arm.

Thinking was a thing of the past as the fire dragon inside her purred and stretched its limbs and grew bigger.

Yet again, he was the one to break the kiss.

With a groan so soft she wasn't sure she had heard it, he backed away. Withdrawing his hand from her glowing red curls, he ran his fingers through his hair and stared at the ground for an instant, visibly pulling himself together.

When he looked at her next, there was a small smile on his face, and his eyes were still sparkling magically.

"Better?"

Fighting with her emotions and the light tremor in her voice, she answered, "Better."

Chapter 10

They sat in silence for some time, their legs touching, each looking thoughtfully off into the distance and into themselves.

"Joshua?"

"Hm?"

"Can I ask you something?"

"Sure."

"Something personal?"

She felt him tense beside her.

"If you have to."

A giggle burst out.

"Oh come on, I'm not going to torture you with thumb screws, it's only a bloody question."

A corner of his mouth lifted up in a rueful grin.

"Don't forget that I'm all ice and cold. All of this...this sharing of thoughts and personal information, allowing someone close and getting involved in their life feels strange to me. It's a new experience. I'm not made for intimacy or social interaction."

With his last sentence, he stared directly into her eyes, face and voice serious, issuing a warning.

Somewhere deep inside, the warning was noticed and set off alarm bells.

Felicia frowned. It all made perfect sense, of course. But wasn't she fire? Couldn't she make the ice thaw and the snow melt and the winter sky brighten up?

The matter on her mind was too important to dwell on this.

"The thing is, I want to know how you learned all you know and can do. Who helped you? How did you find it all out? What did you experience?"

Sudden movement oddly left her feeling colder than his cool presence had. He got up and moved a few paces away to lean against the tree, but his gaze was on her.

"You do realize you haven't asked me one question but several?"

She shrugged and grinned.

"It all boils down to one."

He sighed.

"It does. And I guess you should know. I'd want to, if I were in your place."

Drawing her knees up and resting her chin on them, her hair a curly veil all over her body, she prepared to listen intently.

"I noticed early on that I was... different. It began innocently enough. Where the other children huddled together for warmth, were always sniveling and shivering and prepared to do anything for a place near the fire, an extra blanket or a hot drink, I didn't mind. I didn't feel the permanent cold and I kept to myself. With time, I understood that it made me superior to them in some way, that I could gain favor with our care-takers by volunteering for work outside and by not complaining constantly like the others did. I began to experiment."

For an instant, his face closed like a book while he dwelled on past memories, his lips pressed into a thin, hard line. She used the chance to give way to her curiosity.

"But wait, what children do you mean? And why do you call your parents care-takers?"

His eyes flashed on her, cold and menacing like a predator's. The atmosphere around him filled with... with what, anger? If she hadn't been so keen to know more, she would have been scared.

"You don't have to know."

She drew herself up.

"Hold on, hold on, that's not fair. You promised me an answer and..."

"I do not make promises. Ever. Remember that."

He pronounced every word separately, biting the syllables out with a growl in his voice. Divulging information about himself sure unsettled him. If he thought all that fierceness would deter her, though, he underestimated her temperament. In order to get what she wanted, she did what came natural to her at the moment: invade his private space, battle the cold with heat.

She strode over to him, more confident on the outward than on the inside. Automatically radiating heat to pierce the shield of cold he had cloaked himself in, she stepped right up and glared into his face. Grabbing one of his hands for a second before he tore it away, she insisted, "Promised or not, you admitted it yourself that I have a right to know and it could be useful for me."

To his credit, he didn't move away from her. Instead, he met her stare with one of his own, his grey-blue eyes narrowing, his jaw clenched.

"You keep misunderstanding me or deliberately turning my words on me. I didn't speak of any right to know. As far as I am concerned, you don't have any claims to stake or any rights or requests. I am here on my own free will and I am under no obligation to help you. I could walk away right now and I wouldn't be to blame. I saved your goddamned life, and that was in no way a duty, maybe not even something you deserved."

She gasped, stung by his harsh words as if he had slapped her in the face.

"Fine," she spat, "If that is what how you see it, then I'm out of here. I can walk away as freely as you. I don't need a teacher who doesn't bloody know how to treat a student. Seems to me you don't have a thing to teach me, and just want to make yourself more mysterious by dropping a hint here and there and prancing around on your high horse."

Throwing her head back defiantly, she turned on her heel and walked into the forest.

The baby dragon inside her glowed with satisfaction, flapped its wings and coughed a flame up her throat. It gave her face a ruddy shine, and made her curls sparkle in a coppery orange tone.

There was another part of her, however, that felt like crying. Why did they have to fight when moments ago they had been getting closer than ever? Was it a case of fire against ice instead of the famed 'opposites attract'?

Before she had taken more than a dozen steps, it got cooler around her. His hand was on her arm, jerking her to a stop and spinning her around so forcefully that she stumbled against his chest. Electricity hissed at the touch, and for a bizarre instant, she wanted nothing more than to kiss him again, although frustration and disappointment were boiling inside her. His face had lost some of its iciness and fury, and looked more human.

"Come on, don't huff and puff and storm away all worked-up. I said I could walk away, not that I would... or that I want to."

She continued to glare at him, but swallowed back a spiteful remark. If there was a slight chance he'd relent and reveal, she could handle her wounded pride.

He sighed, not loosening his grip, pulling her snug against his body as though he enjoyed the feel of it as much as her.

"This isn't easy for me. There was a time when I went back and back to those bitter memories and couldn't break the circle. I finally overcame it, and now I hate to look back. This is the first time that I make an effort to remember, and to talk about it."

He paused, drew himself together.

"Nobody knows."

She could feel herself softening. There was a hint of pain in his voice, although his eyes were a blank mask and he was an expert at remaining cold.

"I don't need half-baked truths and hints. I want the whole story because it's my only chance at help. You're the one who's always telling me to learn. Don't you think there is a lot to learn in what you hide from me?"

A dry, totally mirthless chuckle escaped him. He let her go and stepped back, making her fight the urge to close the distance and press herself against him.

"Sure as hell, there is a lesson in my past."

He ran his hand through his fair hair in a rare gesture of insecurity, pointed his chin toward their place not far from the river and started walking.

Her feet moved without her conscious decision. When they had resumed exactly the same positions as before, he folded his arms across his chest and shot her an unreadable look.

"Have mercy on me, unruly student."

There was an undercurrent of self-deprecating humor to his tone that was instantly replaced with a more raw and honest undertone.

"Sharing confidential things with you is a first and a fight for me. I'm going against my true nature here, try to understand."

She acknowledged it must indeed be hard for him, for she hadn't seen him like this before.

"I'm going against my true nature every day. And that won't change unless I know more. Try to understand," she said, in a surprisingly calm voice. Clearly it took him by surprise too. Emotion flickered across his face, and he lost another bit of his statue-like hardness.

With a resigned sigh, he continued with his story.

"I'm talking about children and care-takers because I was...am...an orphan. I don't know anything about my parents, not their names or where they came from or what they used to do, whether they loved each other and lived together or why they wouldn't have me. As far back as I can remember, I had been living in an orphanage in Romania. Vaslui is the poorest county in the desolate region called Moldavia, full of villages where the people are almost as poor as animals. It mostly consists of barren planes and when the icy winds from Russia blow during winter and most of the other seasons, the weather is as harsh as it can get."

Instinctively, Felicia shivered, as if she could feel the cold.

"You don't need to know more details. Let me tell you that the orphanage was a rat-hole more than a shelter for homeless children. Constant cold, never enough food, no affection, barely any education, hard work at a nearby farm. It was a joyless life, but somehow I made it through everything and was probably better off than all of them. The weather didn't worry me. And as I told you, I began to experiment with growing age."

Joshua heaved a sigh and rubbed his eyes vigorously as if he could erase the memories like that. For a moment he looked troubled, but he carried on.

"During all those lonely nights when I escaped the stinking, overcrowded confines of the orphanage and prowled the snowy cold or the muddy almost-warmth, I slowly got in touch with who I am. I discovered I could make it snow, I could turn water to ice, I could make it cold when I felt uneasy during the few warmer summer days. I guess I'm the perfect example of the old adage 'learning by doing'. Looking into myself, I found the raw material, looking outside and studying the wintery phenomenon, I found inspiration. Sometimes I stumbled upon a mysterious discovery. And more often than not, I made mistakes."

Once again, his voice trailed off and his eyes misted over when he got lost in his memories. Felicia, who had hardly been breathing during his monologue for fear that he would stop again, was close to biting her nails. Inside her, thoughts and feelings were jumbled. She felt sorry for him, she felt his hidden pain, and she shied away from imagining the dire picture his words painted. His voice, monotonous and cool as steel, made the horror come alive more than an emotional outburst could have, much in the way a war documentary evoked the terror exactly because it droned on so mercilessly.

When he had been silent for so long that she was sure she wouldn't get to hear more, he went on, bitterness creeping into the next sentences as though looking back, he hated the person he had once been.

"I was more than the loner by the time I was nine, ten years old. I was a downright bully. None of the boys knew what I could do, but all of them sensed my otherness and all of them hated me as much as I hated them. One day, the most courageous of them, a bully worse than me if you consider the fact that he stood for physical abuse while I stood for quiet terror, took away the one and only possession which meant anything to me."

He swallowed hard, his Adam's apple travelling up and down his white throat, and his teeth grinding together for a moment. There was icy hatred flashing in his eyes again. It unsettled the fire dragon inside her, but it didn't touch her.

"I wasn't like them, I didn't hoard the things I could get my fingers on. But there was a big, shiny, slightly curved, dangerously sharp tooth that belonged to me. I had apparently carried it with me when I was left at the orphanage's doorstep as an infant. It was some predator's canine tooth, speaking of size and power, engraved with tiny whirls and scribbles which nobody could make any sense of. Miraculously, none of the children or care-takers had ever dared to steal it from me, probably sensing the danger it radiated. I carried it around my neck, tied on a string, but after all these years and getting more powerful, I had stopped being careful enough."

Joshua's body tensed up even more, and Felicia caught herself biting her nails, anxious to know what had traumatized him so much.

"One day after we had had one of the few baths we were granted, the bully—he was older than me and heavily built—wrestled me down and tugged at the string so hard that it cut into my neck and tore. I didn't feel the pain, although blood was trickling out of the cut. I raced after him, screaming murder, when he ran outside, spinning the animal tooth over his head like a trophy and hurtling expletives at me. While the other boys smelled their chance and held me back, he snatched the axe we used for wood chopping and brought it down on the tooth. He didn't stop while I yelled and cried and fought the others tooth and nail to escape. It was no more than white dust against the muddy, sleet-covered ground when he was finished and laughed and laughed.

Something snapped in me. The ice power that I had been holding back all this time took over. The children let go of me as though the biting cold emanating from my skin had burned them. I walked toward the boy who had ruined my one and only precious possession, but he simply continued to laugh as though he had gone completely mad. Searching for a weapon to take revenge, my eyes fell on a row of icicles gleaming above, hanging like so many pointy swords from the roof. Without thinking, I projected my ice magic out and up and plucked the biggest icicle off. It snapped with a crack and I hurled it straight at the boy's head with my hand of frost."

Joshua stopped and closed his eyes while pain flickered on and off on his face. When he continued, his voice wasn't more than a whisper. A mantle of mist had gathered around him, slithering up his legs and curling itself like a comforting blanket around his torso.

"The icicle hit the top of his head and broke from the fore of impact, leaving the jagged part inside his bleeding head. He hit the ground with a wet, heavy thump, unable to scream."

Opening his eyes and staring into the distance, his hands reached out automatically to gather the cool mist. He swirled it around absentmindedly, and it spiraled into the air in the distorted shape of a person, collapsing on itself when he drew a shaky breath and straightened up.

"He died the same day."

An involuntary gasp escaped her, and one of her hands flew up to cover her mouth. Joshua didn't look her way. He folded his arms again and stared a hole into the air. After endless minutes, he picked up the thread, his voice now more than a whisper and once again emotionless.

"The children had all seen what had happened. Unbeknownst to me, the matron had also witnessed it because my screams had sent her running. They had all seen, but none of them understood. Only one thing was clear. I had done a terrible thing. I had caused a tragedy. I had committed a crime. More than ever, I was left alone in the days after the tragedy. Everybody was frightened of me, none more so than I myself. For the first time ever, I didn't want my special power and my solitude. Young as I was, I knew I had killed somebody, and feared I would go to hell for it."

For a split second, an odd grin lifted the corners of his mouth.

"So far, I haven't gone to hell. In fact, things got better as if a curse had been lifted."

The grin made her more uneasy than anything she had heard and seen so far, but she couldn't put her finger on it why. Was it because for a moment, he looked dangerous?

Uncrossing his arms, he pushed himself from the tree trunk he had been leaning against and turned to face her, as though he had just remembered her presence. His face closed in on itself, but his eyes held hers. He was truly speaking to her now.

"Not many weeks after the...incident, a messenger came to the orphanage. He looked richer and cleaner and fatter than anybody we had seen, and he spoke with a slight accent. After he had spoken a full two hours to the head of the institution and left, all children were summoned into the hall and an announcement was made. This man lived in England, a rich country far, far away that needed children. He had told them to choose ten of us who would travel with him to the Promised Land, and have a new life, a much better life."

A mirthless bark of laughter escaped him, but Joshua pulled himself together and continued.

"The matron read out the ten names. The last one was mine, and her voice trembled when she said it. She must have been glad as hell to get rid of the strange problem child. I can't remember much of what happened afterwards. It's all like a blur, like a scratch in the CD that I jump over to the next clear spot of the movie. Before I knew it, I was in England, in an orphanage that was heaven after what we had been through. We got fed and clothed, we were sent to school. It was a different world. Less cold, weather-wise and otherwise. Still in shock from what had happened and wary of every single change, I wasn't myself. I hid it all away inside of me, and I didn't miss it. I grew, and I grew up."

He walked over and sat down next to her, straddling the log and facing her. Right then, he looked normal and emotional. There was a mix of wonder and understanding on his face, echoing inside her mind. The wonder at how things had changed, the understanding of why he had changed.

"I discovered my love for books when I was around 17 or 18 and passing out of high school. I rediscovered myself and chose to change my life yet again. I moved to America to stay with my stepfather's brother and help with his newly opened construction business. After a short time, I quit and started my training to become a private investigator. In my free time, I devoured all the fiction on magic as well as all the classics from Alice in Wonderland over David Copperfield and Oliver Twist to Lord of the Rings."

For the first time, the hint of a smile flickered across his taut face.

"Thus, my wish to be different grew in me again. I was like them, wasn't I? I had a special talent, I could do my own kind of magic. I could be a hero instead of a loser. So I turned from fiction to non-fiction, and I went about it methodically. All those self-help books and esoteric bibles and scientific studies taught me what I'm now trying to teach you. About control and about knowing yourself. About the fine line between blending in and being true to yourself. About the need to learn."

His gaze pierced into hers when he leaned forward so much that his cool breath brushed over her face and sent a delicious shiver down her spine.

"I have never forgotten that what I have inside me can kill, and it's my biggest motivation. It's the one most important lesson I can pass on to you. With your fire, you're probably more dangerous than me. Be careful. Know yourself, your limits and your strengths and weaknesses. Don't give up on the balancing act."

He leaned closer still, until she felt like drowning inside the icy depths of his eyes, and the fire dragon hissed in anticipation, talons ready.

"Be careful," he repeated.

His lips danced over hers in a kiss which was strangely tentative and tender, reflecting the warning—or was it a plea?—of his last words.

Her mind was reeling with all she had heard and all she wanted to ask, but her body and her fire took over.

Lowering her legs and scuttling forward, she intensified the kiss, putting warmth and pressure into it as though it was her part to reassure him. Maybe this was their way of thanking each other, he for listening to him, and she for disclosing his past to her?

Are you kissing a murderer?

The tiny voice inside her was inconsequential. She didn't view him as a killer. More than before, she was fascinated by him. And for the first time since they had met, she had a feeling she understood him to some extent. All the distant aloofness and superior attitude and quiet confidence... there was a reason for it.

But where was the lesson for her?

Chapter 11

Staring unseeingly at the computer screen in front of her, Felicia remembered the revelations thrown at her a few hours ago. She wanted to concentrate on the many personalities Joshua had taken on while giving his first practical lesson and letting her in on his past, which may well have been the first theoretical lesson. Half of her mind was busy wrapping itself around all the new information and trying to draw parallels to her life, while the other half was lingering on their last kiss. Her tongue flicked out to moisten her lips in a vain attempt to find an aftertaste of cool peppermint that would remind her of him.

"Are you hungry or are you by chance thinking of me?"

Her head shot up and she jerked so hard that she nearly pushed the mouse off the desk with her right hand, while the flames inside her soared high in alarm.

"For heck's sake, will you finally stop doing that?"

Joshua was standing in front of the desk, looking handsome as the devil and holding onto a duffel bag slung over one shoulder.

The intense gaze with which he devoured her matched the timbre of his voice a moment ago, full of sensual innuendo shooting straight to the fire core inside her belly.

"I don't think I will," he teased. "I like sneaking up on you."

She crossed her arms and arched one eyebrow.

"Oh yeah? Do you also like being burned alive? Because I swear if you don't stop, I will turn you into cinder soon."

It drained the humor right out of his face. He scowled at her and stepped closer.

"Very funny. I'm not stopping precisely because of that reason. I can afford to startle you until you learn to be alert. You're not going to turn me into a human torch, but you might do it to some unsuspecting mortal if I don't keep at it."

She sobered up too.

Great, did that mean she was in for some more patronizing lecturing? How much more efficient and interesting were the lessons where he gave of himself instead of merely giving advice.

"Why are you here?"

He tilted his head, and the grin was back.

"Why? Don't you like it when I visit you?"

She gave it a moment's thought and wasn't surprised when the answer found its way out.

"I do. But that isn't your reason, is it?"

His expression grew unreadable again. After opening his bag, he piled several books on her desk.

"Like the obedient citizen I am, I came to return the books I borrowed."

Disappointment knotted in her stomach, but she ignored the feeling. He was playing cool and hard to catch again. Well, she was hot enough for both of them, wasn't she?

"Perfect. And like the professional librarian I am, I can't let you go without new reading material. We had some wonderful books brought in that I am sure you'd enjoy. Would you let me show them to you?"

She was totally unpracticed at flirting, but tried to make her voice sound enticing and promising. The fire inside her knew what to do. It crept into her eyes, spread to the tips of her hair, and made her red finger nails glow. Today was the first time she had given in to her desire and painted her nails in a fiery color, not caring one bit that it didn't match her demure librarian's uniform. His body tensed, and despite her own heat, she felt and saw the cold shivering in the air around his body, like a mirage shimmering over an asphalt road on a sweltering hot summer day.

"I'm not a man who keeps a woman from her duty," he replied, his tone as flirtatious as hers, his eyes sparkling between the impossible turquoise blue of a Canadian lake and the grey of polished silver jewelry.

When she got up and walked through the row of rooms toward the final, smallest one where they had once discovered each other, every nerve in her body was tingling with anticipation. She could feel his gaze on her like cool fingers brushing over her sensitive skin. The dragon inside her extended and withdrew its claws like a cat kneading its owner when it received blissful attention. The tip of its tail twitched in anticipation, and the temperature inside her climbed up the ladder in record speed.

She wanted him.

It was as simple and as complicated as that.

She might not love him yet, but it was useless to fight against the desire she felt for this fascinating man, the only one who could ever be right for her.

At the back of the room, surrounded by book shelves on three sides, she stopped without turning around. Her pulse was racing and her breathing had sped up. When she concentrated and exercised pressure, the fire inside her crawled up and swept over her skin until she was aglow amidst the books, like a human-sized firefly filled to the brim with energy and want. Turning around slowly, she hoped her eyes were glowing the way she wanted them to.

The hungry and appreciative look she received from him fuelled the flames until she was afraid they could never be stoked. She wanted to walk up to him and sate her physical need for him, but he held up a hand as white as snow. By now, she was so filled with fire and longing she felt close to bursting, vibrating, humming, with it. He took a deep breath, his eyes not straying an inch from her face. The white, cold mist swarmed over his body much in the way the barely visible flames clung to her silhouette. When he shrugged his shoulders, it slithered off him. A big hand formed. Frowning with concentration, he made it split into two hands. On a whisper from him, they sailed through the air toward her.

She stood rigid, desire coiling inside her like a snake waiting to pounce and feast. The hands of icy mist, not too cold when they collided with her heat, stroked over her hair. The feather-light touch barely unsettled her curls, but sparks zinged through her body. One misty hand laid itself against her throat, pressing first softly and then harder, much as if she were tying a silk scarf around her neck too tightly. For a second, she was acutely aware of the possibility that he could exert more pressure and strangle her.

The dragon inside, growing with each shaky breath she took, grinned and twitched its tail harder, the thorny ridges on it gleaming like tiny knives. The other hand of mist wandered lower and brushed over one breast, receiving an instant reward when its sensitive tip reacted to the magical touch through the fabric of bra and blouse.

Both of them moaned in unison.

It broke the spell.

In three long strides, she was in front of him, gripping the lapels of his black leather jacket and lifting herself to her toes to press her lips against his.

For God knew how long, they were locked into bliss, neither daring to let their hands stray to explore, knowing it would take them too far along a road better not taken then and there.

When the fire dragon inside her flapped its wings so fast and hard that she feared it might fly right out of her body, she withdrew. It was painful to break the contact with his lips. She had never understood the crazy desire that some protagonists in books felt for each other, and that made them behave totally out of character, but now she knew how close to the truth even the most incredible stories were.

Lowering her head, she shielded herself behind the veil of her hair, still faintly glimmering like embers reluctant to turn to ashes. He stepped back, one, two, three reluctant paces. There was no sound coming from him. No skidding heartbeat, no ragged breathing. Three steps away and yet at the other end of the world, he was as rigid and silent as a statue while collecting himself, whereas inside her it was all sizzling and growling and twitching disappointment. If kissing unsettled her balance—and pleased her dragon—so much, would they ever be able to progress? One more reason to listen to his constant advice and take control of the whole thing. Wasn't she otherwise standing in the way of her own happiness?

As soon as she thought she had calmed down enough, she asked, "Honestly, why are you here?"

When she looked up at him, he was rubbing his temples in a tight circular movement as if battling a sudden onset of headache.

"I want another lesson. A practical one."

"Here? Now?"

She raised her eyebrows skeptically. Surely he couldn't mean it? He nodded, walked over to a corner bookshelf and had the cheek to sit down cross-legged right there on the carpet, leaning against the shelf.

"I want you to tame your little dragon. Last night's escapade shouldn't be repeated."

How could he sound so calm while talking such nonsense? She was near to freaking out now.

"Are you mad? Here, in the middle of all the books, at my workplace? Where any minute, somebody could walk in and discover us?"

The hint of a grin tugged at one corner of his mouth.

"A moment ago, you weren't all that panicky at the thought of being discovered, even though you did something forbidden."

She had to fight not to scream.

"That was totally different."

"No, it wasn't. Both is about control. Everything is about control."

The rising panic made her flop down next to him, also crossing her legs, her eyes darting around as if she expected her boss or a customer to jump out at any moment.

"You are mad. What if a mistake like last night happens? What if I burn the bloody library down?"

As usual, his veneer of calm was unperturbed. He leaned forward, his voice a precise half-whisper which made her realize that with all her shouting, she was contra productive to her wish of not being discovered.

"Maybe I am mad. But I can't think of any better way to handle this. Apparently, you aren't prepared to accept how serious this all is and how right I am to drill you on control. So, we're doing this the hard way. Keep in mind: You could be discovered, you could cause the books to burn, and you could lose your job. That should be enough to have a firm grip on yourself and reign your fire in. With so much at stake, I hope you won't let the fascination and yearning take over again. If this isn't enough motivation to keep the upper hand, I don't know what is."

She swallowed. Damn the man and his irrefutable, twisted logic! He was correct, of course. There was nothing better to make her stay alert and focused than the fear she was feeling.

"What do you want me to do, Master?" she bit out, seething inwardly, although her mind recognized the genius of the idea.

She earned a chuckle.

"Good girl."

He took a deep breath, put both his palms flat on his thighs and looked right into her eyes.

"You don't know your dragon well enough yet. Go inside yourself and familiarize yourself with it. The more you know about it, the better you'll be able to control it."

Miraculously, her mind wanted to concentrate on the task at hand, eager to experiment despite the lingering fear dangling over her head like the Sword of Damocles.

"What do you mean? How I am supposed to do that?"

He frowned.

"I don't know. Have you tried silently talking to it?"

A nervous giggle escaped.

"Are you asking me to talk to myself? Am I not crazy enough as it is?"

He grinned, reached out unexpectedly and brushed a lock of hair behind her ear.

"Crazy as a coot."

This easing of tension felt fantastic. And yet, she wanted to go ahead. Once again, the talking and theory bored her much too fast.

"Yes, I guess I am indeed asking you to talk to the other side of yourself, to your alter ego. Find out who it is, what it wants, what it likes, how it responds to what."

She bit her lip, once more realizing how much sense he made if she were honest.

"And what are you going to do?"

With an undefinable emotion sparkling in his icy eyes, he replied, "I'll sit here and watch you. It's my favorite pastime." As an afterthought, he added, "And I'll be double alert. Remember that no matter how intriguing and empowering it will feel to delve deeper into the fire core inside you, you cannot let it out of your grasp."

Now it was her turn to take a deep breath and lay her palms on her legs. She was so not ready for this... but she wanted this.

Closing her eyes, she turned her attention onto the dragon inside her. Its tiny ears were pointing up as though it had been listening with interest. For the first time, she wondered whether it was like a sentient, intelligent...being...that could hear and understand. She knew it had feelings and enjoyed and wanted certain things, maybe not unlike an embryo connected intimately to its mother but locked inside the womb which prevented it from belonging to reality. It looked bigger than last night, more like a dragon, more beautiful. With its nearly solid body shimmering in yellow and orange and red like a mass of flames coalesced into a predestined shape, it was in fact the most beautiful thing she had ever seen.

Now how the hell was she supposed to talk to it? It had no name. It couldn't speak, could it? How were they supposed to communicate?

Out of the blue, a thought formed inside her head as if somebody had reached in and planted it there.

I am here. Always.

A gasp escaped her when she understood and looked at the fire dragon in a new light. It was wrong to treat it like a thing or a mere animal. This was a female dragon, like she was a woman. It could convey a message and exist not only with her but also apart from her.

As soon as she was conscious of the thought, the fire dragon glower brighter. It rose to its feet and stretched its limbs languidly, looking as gangly and yet as confident as a teenage girl. Gone was the naïve baby from the night. This was a beauty in the making, an ugly duckling preparing to transform itself into a stunning swan.

Had it placed the thought into her head, tired of being a mere "it"?

So, that meant she didn't have to speak. It was enough to think, and have it answer silently inside her mind.

What do you want?

She let the question resonate inside her, half frightened at what the answer would be.

The dragon flapped its wings and craned its neck and stretched on its toes, straining upward, toward her—or toward escaping her body. There was an image flickering through her head of last night when the fire had flown free.

"No!"

She hadn't been aware of speaking out loud, but she must have, because a cold hand rested on top of her trembling fingers.

"Felicia?"

Blinking, she stared at Joshua with wide eyes, the pulse in her throat hammering.

"It wants out."

She felt his body tense the way it always did when he was on his guard or experiencing a negative emotion.

"Let it out. But first make as sure as you can that the dragon knows it can't give in to its fiery nature. Let it feel your fear, and use it to keep it on a sort of leash. I had my power under close to perfect control when I was so afraid after the...incident...with the boy."

He spoke urgently, as if this were a matter of life and death she had to understand. And perhaps it was.

But wasn't this wrong, to let her fear shine through? Shouldn't she instead take a powerful stance to be in control? God, it was confusing. And she was scared.

After another deep gulp of air, she closed her eyes again and focused on the dragon. Its flames were dancing around its body in anticipation. Oh yes, it sure wanted out. Instinctively, she sought to use images and emotions to get her message across. She imagined being caught by her boss and losing her job and not finding another one to be able to support her living. There was no hint that the dragon understood her. Its wing flapping merely grew more impatient and stoked the flames dancing inside her.

She imagined a customer entering the room and seeing a small dragon formed of fire fluttering around. She pictured the shocked reaction, the screaming and the automatic fear and hatred of the red-haired, mad woman or witch who was causing the forbidden spectacle. The dragon shifted its weight, blowing some smoke tendrils out through its nostrils. Was it becoming wary?

As a last straw, she focused on what caused the most fear inside her, which strangely wasn't how people would react to her, but causing an actual fire. She shivered when she imagined the innumerable books catch fire, sensing that part of the irrational fear was the secret knowledge she would enjoy feasting on the fire, but at the same time feel guilty for destroying something valuable. Interesting, wasn't it, that people's opinion or being jobless and penniless didn't instil as much fear inside her as the thought of getting a taste of her own power? How warped.

The dragon's enthusiastic flapping of wings and readying of claws had subsided somewhat. Clearly, it did feel her fear and was unsettled by it. Silently, putting force behind it, she thought to herself: I will let you out, but you have to listen to me. We cannot let these things happen. There's so much to be afraid of.

Before she was sure whether her message had been delivered, the dragon shook itself and leapt. There was a moment of near unconsciousness, before her eyes were wide open and staring at the fiery shape that had wound its way out of her body.

After a gasp, she followed the dragon with her gaze when it propelled itself high up until it barely touched the ceiling. From there, it stared down at them, stationary in the air like a grotesque hummingbird glowing with flames whose heat radiated.

Part of her was so terrified of the possibilities that it screamed at her to take her eyes off the dragon and scan their surroundings, or to ask Joshua to intervene in some way or other.

Another part of her didn't care one bit. It was filled with exhilaration, as if she were the dragon that reveled in its short-lived freedom and wanted to soar and spit flames.

The dragon—was she imagining things or was it growing by the second?—flew around the room, keeping close to the ceiling. It sidled to the middle and inspected the chandelier, obviously fascinated with the way its flames were reflected in the glass. The longer the dragon was out and enjoying itself, the less did Felicia feel the fear she was supposed to hang on to. When the dragon glided to a bookshelf and let its glowing eyes wander over the many colorful spines, an image flickered inside her head. Burning books, a bright yellow blaze emanating comfortable heat.

"No!"

She was on her feet, one hand stretched out toward the dragon across the room.

Focus, focus! She had to welcome the fear back and make it understand that this appealing image was exactly what they didn't want, what they had to prevent at all cost.

Ah, but the fire. It was so enticing, it promised joy and an increase of power.

No, she couldn't. She mustn't!

With who knew what strength and determination, she called out wordlessly to the dragon, summoning it back into herself, trembling with terror. For an infinitely stretching second, the fiery shape's eyes fought a staring match with hers. Finally, when she was so afraid that she was sure she'd start shouting any moment, the dragon huffed and sped in her direction with missile speed. Before she knew it, her body convulsed, her vision went dim momentarily, and she could feel the fire core back inside her.

Safe.

Her feet collapsed under her, and she would have landed heavily on her butt and probably hit her head against the shelf if two hard, cold, strong arms hadn't shot out to catch her. She was pulled into a hug that stifled the heat and tremors of fear and sighs of disappointment inside her with an icy blanket of calm. One of his hands tucked her head under his chin and against his wintry chest while the other rubbed up and down her spine like the night before, in a soothing gesture.

Felicia was drained of energy and will and logical thought. While she was gradually coming to, dull pain erupted behind her forehead. Why did this little giving in, these minutes of fire bliss and letting what was inside her out, cause her such fatigue? It wasn't fair. And she clearly wasn't in control yet, though somehow she had been able to avoid another fire.

Movement shook her awake to the fact that he was getting up with his arms still wrapped around her, a mantle of cold spread over them. It was unnerving and calming at the same time.

"Let's get you to your desk so you can drink some water. It'll be fine. You'll be fine. You did well, I'm impressed."

She suppressed a groan. He had no idea about the battle she had fought and nearly lost. The dragon inside her was sulking, and right now, she didn't know whether she was glad she had prevented the fire. Something told her that if she had given in to the urge, she have might have felt...more satisfied and more herself than now.

Although it was the hardest thing to do at the time, she pried herself loose from his embrace and straightened up, ignoring the throbbing in her temples and walking toward the front room, once again scared they might be caught. She poured herself a cup of coffee from the flask that she always kept inside her bag, relishing every hot and bitter gulp of it. Who needed water if you had a miracle weapon like coffee at hand?

Only after she had finished her cup did she turn around to face Joshua, who was standing nearby with an ever watchful glance and a slight frown as though he was trying to figure out a mysterious problem.

"Well, are you happy with your little experiment?"

She bit her tongue. Where did the hateful tone and accusation come from?

His frown intensified, although the next moment, his face was completely blank and hard and cold again.

"Maybe."

He strode to a nearby shelf, randomly picked two books and laid them on her desk. When he spoke, his voice was devoid of emotion, which hurt her more than it should have.

"I'll borrow these. Register them and I'll be on my way and leave you to your life."

Mechanically, she did her job while she tried to wrap her head around the sudden change in his demeanor... and in hers.

After he had stuffed the books into his bag and slung it over his shoulder, he glanced into her eyes and averted his gaze.

"I want to let you know I'll be off again. I'm probably coming back in two days."

Despite herself, she blurted out, "But, why?"

He half grinned at her, but his voice was cool.

"I do have a job. You keep forgetting that."

She bristled. She would not let him know that her heart ached and her mind panicked at the knowledge of being without him.

"Sure, James Bond. Have fun with your adventures and saving the world. Wouldn't want to keep those damsels in distress waiting too long."

In a flash, he was in her face, bending down and leaning so close that his icy peppermint breath fluffed up a curl on her forehead.

"You are my only damsel in distress," he said, his tone intense and filled with an emotion she couldn't place. He pressed a quick, hard kiss to her lips and stormed off, leaving her staring after his retreating back.

She didn't know much at the moment, with the state she was in, but she did know one thing: She was going to miss him. Dammit!

Chapter 12

Something was about to happen.

Felicia had woken up with the distinct feeling that today wasn't just another day, and it had intensified from hour to hour.

Having worked half-day, she had tackled a routine check-up at the gynecologist and was now on her way home. On an impulse, she had got off the bus early. Never one for long bus rides, today she found it unnerving. Walking was so much more preferable. Coming to think of it, she should give in to the urge she had been detecting at the back of her mind for a while, and go on a hike the way she had some ten years ago.

Maybe Joshua would enjoy it too? Somehow, he struck her as someone who would like being outdoors, walking and walking until exhaustion turned into a trance-like state of bliss where you felt one with your surroundings, and your legs moved on their own will. Could that be one of the—probably few—things they had in common?

Listen.

The voice, coming from out of nowhere and resonating inside her, brought her to a halt so abruptly that a woman behind her walked right into her. After an exchange of muttered curses and excuses, Felicia's feet carried her on, but the feeling that something would happen at any moment was stronger than ever.

Listen.

There it was again, a silent command stopping her in her tracks. Instinctively, she knew it had to be the fire dragon. Casting a furtive glance left, right, front and back, and detecting a restaurant with rickety, uncomfortable-looking, green-painted wooden chairs crowded around the entrance, she walked over. She sat down gingerly on the edge of one of the chairs resembling nothing more than a stool with a hard-as-stone backrest, before she took an unsteady breath and looked into herself.

While the dragon spent most days slumbering or preening itself like a giant, featherless bird to keep its scales shiny, it was clearly agitated at the moment. It had risen and was stretching its neck up toward her chest and head, the thorny spikes on its ridged back pointing upward like a cat's fur raised in alarm. The fiery shape was listening to a distant sound tugging at its attention and making it restless. Was this what had sparked the feeling of foreboding in the morning that was currently so intense she could feel her stomach churning?

Caring little for how it might look to passers-by, she closed her eyes, furrowed her brow and tried to listen with her inner as well as her outer ears for whatever it was that unsettled her dragon. A cacophony of voices, footsteps, vehicles, clattering dishes and doors endlessly opening and closing invaded her. Apart from that, no matter how hard she strained, there was nothing special, nothing worth worrying about.

With a sigh of irritation and frustration, she opened her eyes and prepared to get up.

An image flashed across her vision, overlaying reality for a split second, hardly visibly, but etching itself into her mind.

A bland two-story house surrounded by houses looking like its carbon copies and by a neat garden which could have been anywhere in the town of Fairview, anywhere in the world. The first image was immediately overridden by a second one in stark contrast to it.

The same house, the same non-descript setting. But this time, the building was ablaze with hungry flames painting a picture of horror yet also of invitation.

She swallowed and swayed slightly.

Where was this place? From where did she catch these images? What did they mean?

The dragon inside her flapped its wings impatiently and opened its mouth wide to reveal startlingly sharp, long teeth. It wanted out. It wanted to be where the picture was. Now.

She balled her hands into fists, noticing how hot they had become and how high her body temperature had climbed within this short span of time. Before she could react and attempt to reign the dragon's desire in, a waitress walked out of the restaurant toward her. With a hint of guilt, she got up, turned and hurried off in the same direction as moments ago. This was not the time to order a spicy snack or a hot drink. This was not the time to be out among unsuspecting people and still so far from home.

The dragon's need to be out had grown so strong that her body was vibrating with it. Her nails were digging into the palms of her hands in an effort to keep it in, and to avoid any reaction to either the image's powerful attraction or the still growing sense of something being awfully wrong. She continued walking, her stride so fast and each step so determined to contain the strength hidden in her being that she was sure she looked like somebody gone mad.

It took her a second to realize she was going in the wrong direction. This was not the road she usually took to wind her way home from the doctor's appointment. In fact, this was nowhere she had ever been before. With mounting anxiety, she stared around wildly.

How had she come here?

Why had she come here?

And why was the dragon flaring its nostrils and stomping its feet and whining soundless to be let out?

As though pushed by an invisible hand, she moved forward, her fists shaking and her senses humming with anticipation. She had to prepare herself for God knew what awaited her. It was useless to fight what escaped her control and understanding.

When she rounded a bend, it was as if she had smacked her head against a brick wall. What she saw halted her steps and sent her heart thumping as though it wanted to join the dragon and flee her body.

She was in a street filled with orderly rows of two-storied houses with three steps leading to the door, a minimum-sized, well-tended pocket of garden at the front, and a garage tucked away beside the entrance. House after house after house of the same sort. The mirror image of the building she had seen flashing in her head.

By now, she felt so hot she was afraid she might be glowing. Strangely enough, not a soul was in sight, as if she had not rounded the bend of a well-travelled road with afternoon traffic, but stepped into a different dimension. Some parallel world where all people looked the same and all houses looked the same—and where something terrible was about to happen.

As she stood there gaping and shaking, fighting the dragon in a battle of wills, there was a whooshing sound that brought a gust of air with it. For an instant, the atmosphere around her changed, a subtle shift in pressure or a ripple through the tightly meshed net of molecules. The whoosh was followed by a crack like a giant branch snapping or lightning searing across the sky on a dry, energy-filled summer evening.

A light so bright she had to shield her eyes appeared not far away from her. When she stared at the spot, blinking rapidly, she saw nothing out of the ordinary.

But she heard something distinctly.

Sizzling flames, their beckoning whisper growing louder with every breath she was taking.

Was this what the dragon had urged her to listen to? But didn't the flames sound as though a fire had been kindled a moment ago and they were now busy eating their way to more size and more heat and more terror?

While her feet carried her unerringly toward the pull of the flames calling in her head, her eyes waited for the first sign of a fire. Sure enough, the building that stood where a bright spot had nearly blinded her seconds ago sported tongues of flames dancing out of an open window on the ground floor. They looked like banners waving in the wind to lead a guest to a party, like arms waving to catch her attention.

Something tugged at her heart, and the dragon leapt free of its confines and soared ahead to join the flames. Before giving in to the inevitable and following it, she cast a frantic look around. There was nobody in sight. It was deadly quiet but for the hiss of the fire probably only audible to her. The shrill sound of glass bursting rang out, and flames licked their way out of a second, now damaged, window.

She was running, her feet in sneakers thumping on the pavement and her curls flying in the wind, a glowing replica of the fire's snake-like arms.

Finally, she stood right in front of the burning house, from which smoke was rising in tendrils and wisps and from which the fire's invitation sounded loud and clear in her ears.

How to get inside? And should she do this? In broad daylight, where she could be caught?

While she hesitated, her pulse racing and the dragon out of sight where it had magically melted into the body of flames biting their way through the building, fate decided for her.

A high-pitched scream pierced her trance and the fire's song.

"Help! Help me!"

Somebody was shouting, and the sound, so eloquent of a terror she couldn't feel in the presence of fire, came from inside the burning house.

It turned into a wailing that cut at her and brought her to her senses despite tingling to forget the world and become one with the fire.

Felicia couldn't think anymore, but at the same time, she acted more rationally than she would have if she had been in command of her thoughts and actions.

Before she knew it, she was yanking at the knob of the front door. Of course it was locked. She stepped back and threw herself against the hard, hot door with all her might. Her body ached with the impact of flesh and bone against unyielding wood—and the ache of not being interlocked in a frenzied dance with the flames—but the door wouldn't budge. Wheeling around, she ran toward the window which had been open from the start. She stared at the flames fanning out from it. With a whoop of joy or maybe determination, she pulled herself upward with a firm grip on the smoldering window ledge, and hefted one leg over. Nearly falling into the room awash with flames, she felt no pain, only ecstasy and a surge of energy.

The continuous wailing and screaming and crying, sounding like a child afraid for its dear life, kept her from succumbing to the overpowering wish of standing amid the fire and feeling it press in on her, possess her, please her. Reluctantly, she waded through the knee-high flames as if through water, ploughing her way out of the room and deeper into the house. The sounds of distress came from upstairs, so she raced up the stairs that were riddled with flames and barely supported her weight.

As the screams grew more frantic and her desire to purge herself in the fire grew so strong she could barely put a foot after the other to reach the sound, a door in front of her was blown out and into blazing smithereens. She stumbled toward it and into a children's room with ravenous flames yapping at her heels, but not taking the place over. A huddled shape pressed into the farthest corner, wailing and wailing, caught her eye. Without thinking, she sprinted to the child, scooped it up in her arms and turned to leave the way she had come.

There was a wall of fire blocking her exit.

She knew she could escape it unharmed, but what about the child clinging to her, coughing and crying, choking and trembling so hard her own body shook along with the movement?

Felicia turned to the window, biting her lip.

To jump or not to jump?

By now, the air was filled with dense, coiling smoke and unrelenting heat melting the wallpaper. The child's screams had stopped, leaving behind a frightening silence, cloaking the fire's rage and for the first time making her afraid.

What happened next was a blur, a succession of movement that seemed to involve somebody else and not her.

Shielding the child, a lifeless lump with its weight doubled, she faced the flames. All of a sudden, she knew what to do.

Raising herself to her full height and thinking of her dragon, she stared into the fire and whispered a fierce command.

"Let me through."

For a moment, there was no reaction, and she bit her lip again, so hard that the salty, metallic taste of blood mingled with the smoke. She squared her shoulders, exerted pressure to radiate her own wild heat, drew a deep breath and shouted, "Let me through!"

The impossible happened.

The flames withdrew on themselves ever so slightly, parting with obvious reluctance to create a small opening in the curtain of fire. Within moments, she had hurled herself through and along the passage, nearly tripping while navigating the half-burned-away staircase. To her right and left, flames touched her arms and legs, but no other wall of fire blocked her way. She shot out of the gaping, fire-filled hole that had once been a solid, locked front door, like a bullet from the mouth of a (more than) smoking gun.

Her legs carried her farther and farther, and then no more.

Everything went blissfully blank.

* * *

Felicia wasn't sure how many hours had passed.

What had happened after breaking into the burning house and saving the child was half hidden behind a gauzy veil, lurking, but not reaching her. She remembered waking up to noise too loud and varied that had terrified her more than anything today. Firemen swarming the place. A shrieking ambulance siren. People coughing their lungs out. A child crying. Adults shouting, alternating between shock and authority.

How she had longed not to be a part of it! How she had hated that they extinguished the fire, and she had missed her chance to enjoy it!

Now, standing on the steps leading her out of the police station, a headache threatened, and she felt the echo of the previous tremors rocking her insides.

The care of the paramedics—which she hadn't needed—the ride in the police car to the station, the endless questions, the mix of awe and praise and worry and suspicion wafting toward her... she couldn't handle it anymore. Remembering the barrage of questions made her temples throb and her temper rise. It jarred her to the bone to be so closely examined when all she had done was to act on instinct and save a life. Where was their gratitude? Where was her happiness? And what had she answered? Already, the events were fading deeper into the haze behind the veil caused by shock.

The policemen had drilled her until she had slumped forward in her chair nearly unconscious, only then acknowledging that she had been through an ordeal, and that she wasn't yet the suspect of an investigation. They had given her a glass of water—thankfully accepted and gulped down in record speed—and a granola bar—ungraciously rejected first, but pocketed on second thought—and wanted to know whom to notify to pick her up.

It had broken the daze momentarily. Her mind had jumped to Cindy and away. It had latched onto Joshua, and quivered with need. She had told them there was no one. They had ordered her a taxi for which she was now waiting in front of the police station. It was a towering, dark, weather-beaten, time-worn structure out of grimy bricks that was enough to strike terror in even an innocent citizen's heart. And she wasn't exactly innocent, was she?

When her gaze roamed the road in search for the taxi whose arrival meant salvation, movement to her left distracted her. She squinted at a black-and-white shape moving rapidly away from her into the throng of traffic. It looked like a tall, thin man with startlingly blond hair, but the person had vanished so fast she wasn't sure whether her eyes had tricked her. An uneasy feeling lingered, like an unpleasant aftertaste. Something about the sight struck a familiar chord.

Felicia shook her head. This must be the shock kicking in; she was imagining things.

A breeze ruffled her hair and evoked the smell of smoke, burned clothes, and fear. She was wrapped in a gruff, brown blanket with various faded stains on it, provided by the police. Beneath it, her clothes were in singed tatters, and her feet were bare. Although her skin had once again been completely unaffected by the fire, her clothes hadn't. For a moment, she wondered what the medics and the policemen would make of that, and it sent a spark of fear through her. The taxi drew up, and she walked toward it as if it were the Holy Grail.

Minutes later, she was standing under the shower, hot water gushing over her body and molding her curls to her scalp and shoulders.

For once, water had a cleansing feel to her and was welcome. She wasn't keen on washing the fire's traces from her body, but on washing away the memories. When she closed her eyes under the onslaught of scalding, hard drops, she saw the burning house, the cowering child and its lifeless, insignificantly small yet significant body being strapped onto a gurney. The police hadn't told her much about anything, but they had at least revealed to her that the little girl would survive. It was severely depraved of oxygen and had suffered minor burns as well as a major shock, but it would live.

And that was what mattered, wasn't it?

She wrapped herself in a towel, grabbed the hairdryer, frowned at it, dropped it and experimented with the heat within her. Miraculously, it was right there at the tip of her fingers. Within moments, her hair was dry, and the towel was a mere cover in lieu of clothes. A small smile crossed her lips. Ah, to control fire at the snap of a finger.

When she walked to her wardrobe and paused to examine herself in the mirror, her smile grew brighter.

Nobody would have been able to say she had escaped a raging fire and been the heroine of the day. In fact, she looked better than she did on most days. Glowing from within, radiating satisfaction and a calm sense of pride which was unlike her. There was a sublime sparkle of fiery yellow-orange-red to her brown eyes, entrancing her.

Her smile wavered.

How could this be?

What had happened?

Mechanically fishing for underwear, leggings and a loose T-shirt to wear, and getting into them, she let her thoughts linger on the way she felt and the picture she presented. Magically gone were the headache, the angst and the restriction that had dominated roughly an hour ago. And why wasn't she exhausted from letting the dragon out and going through such a trauma? Where in the past a minor effort to control her inner flames had left her tired, now she felt...invigorated of sorts. Powerful.

Something had changed.

She sat down on her bed, although the desk with the computer beckoned from the other side of the room. Combing her hands through her long, red hair, she thought and thought, seeking to put her finger on the one reason for her present state. When she timidly sent her searching gaze into herself, half expecting the fire dragon to be missing, she gasped.

The dragon looked more beautiful than ever. It was huge, its wings having grown to twice their size, and its tail so long that it was wound around its body. From huge, snake-like, fire-glowing eyes, it stared back at her, its head tilted to one side, its mouth curved in what could have been a smile. Did dragons smile?

Why was it so big? And why was it as satisfied as she felt when she had thought it would be angry at the missed chance or frightened by the police?

An image manifested inside her mind.

A woman with fire-glowing hair around her head like a halo with a myriad tiny arms of flames, standing tall and pressing something against her body that quivered with energy and was bathed in a glowing aura.

Another gasp escaped her when she realized she was looking at herself and not at some fierce fire goddess or legendary warrior.

Another image popped up and made it clear this was indeed her, at the moment when she had commanded the flames to make way. The fire wall in front of her parted. The image was laced with meaning. A mix of pride and power on the one hand and... humility at the other hand.

Understanding dawned. Was the dragon accepting her as its mistress? Had they both grown in the decisive moment when she had taken the upper hand, when fire had bent to her will and not the other way round?

Was she the wielder of a special power, the witch of her own magic, after this 'baptism of fire'?

Chapter 13

Thunk-thunk, thunk-thunk. The steady slapping sound of her sneaker-clad shoes hitting the pavement punctuated the early-morning air. A slight film of dawn mist clung to her. Felicia wound her way through different areas of the park, nearly lifeless and eerily inviting for someone who hated crowds as much as she did.

The children's playground, the neatly mowed lawns and the supple slopes of hills, such desired spots for sunbathing, picnicking, sports and lazing around during daytime, were hallowed grounds of silence and undisturbed nature. The damp grass was breathing in deeply to soak up some energy before all the trampling. Here and there, specks of color, slightly blurred, dotted the moist grey-green, indicating the few early risers who like her used the emptiness to jog.

Felicia broke the steady rhythm of the past few minutes to launch herself into a sprint, giving it her all as if there was a race to win. After several exhilarating minutes where she pushed her body's limits and felt like flying, radiating heat all around her in palpable waves, she slowed down. Falling back into a comfortable, yet anything but slow jog, she fought to steady her breathing.

A sudden sense of something being wrong made her lose her rhythm before her feet automatically took over.

Whatever could be the matter?

She glanced to the left, right and ahead, and saw nothing and nobody who could be the source of her alarm. The dragon inside her raised its head questioningly, snorting smoke out of its nostrils as if mimicking her clouds of ragged breath.

Then she heard it.

The dull thudding of feet falling into line somewhere behind her.

For a moment, they were as clear as shots in the stillness penetrating the park. An instant later, she thought they were gone. It took her some time to realize that the stranger hadn't left, but was jogging at exactly the same pace and rhythm as she was, their shoe soles hitting the winding asphalt path in unison.

Neither was the other jogger getting any closer, nor was he or she falling behind. Their rhythms continued to match for minute after minute, and it freaked her out more than an open threat or outright running after her would have.

Who was it?

What did they want?

The fire dragon lifted itself to its feet and shook its wings out, preparing. Preparing for what? A fight? Flight?

She took a deep breath, and made a decision. Without further ado, she stopped in her tracks. A millisecond afterward, the second pair of jogging feet halted. The silence rang loudly, and the sun chose this exact moment to pierce the gloom with its first rays.

Her pulse thumping in her throat, Felicia scolded herself for being so nervous. She turned around deliberately.

Her eyes fell on the figure of a man several feet away, closer than she had thought, facing her. He was exceptionally tall, and held himself as upright and still as a statue. As he was dressed in loose, grey track pants and a matching jumper with the hood pulled over his head, no face was visible. For a moment, her mind went crazy, coming up with those concocted horror stories on TV about criminals and supernatural creatures roaming the earth on their hunt for victims. Well, she wouldn't make an easy victim. She had her magic to protect her, however unskilled she might be at using it.

The man lifted his hands and drew the hood back, revealing a pale, lean face and just as pale hair that glinted in the tentative sunlight.

"Joshua," she whispered.

What was he doing here?

He broke into a short spurt of speed and was right in front of her before she had breathed out after her surprised intake of air.

Instead of a greeting, he reached out and brushed an errant tendril of hair back behind her ear, leaving a trail of goose bumps that had nothing to do with the cool morning air.

Having him so near after days of absence and longing was almost too much to handle.

"What are you doing here?"

She sounded more accusing than confused, which was exactly what she had intended.

"Jogging?"

He phrased it like a question.

She snorted.

"More like stalking a helpless, lone woman in the wee hours of the morning."

He chuckled, and the sound did funny things to the flames leaping inside her belly and engulfing the dragon.

"Stalking is part of my job, but I certainly wouldn't call you helpless."

The fire dragon preened itself proudly, and she cherished the idea that he found her strong or confident or at least capable of handling what was thrown at her. She swallowed down her irritation at his behavior, and decided to enjoy his company while it lasted.

"You admit you're a stalker?"

"Call me whatever you want, I don't get offended easily," he said.

Grinning at her, he started walking, hands stuffed into the pockets of his hoodie.

She fell into step next to him, keenly aware of his closeness and the place between their bodies where heat met cold and caused an electric sizzle.

"Is there really nothing that offends you?"

Curiosity leapt high inside her. She wanted so much to learn more about him, to discover what made him special, and to find a reason why she felt inescapably drawn to him. Extracting personal information from him was frustratingly difficult. She imagined it must be like this when archeologists chanced upon an ancient, hidden treasure buried beneath the sands of time, full of excitement but needing to reign it in and use the tiniest brushes and gentlest strokes to coax it free without damaging it. One wrong gesture, and the artefact was spoiled, never to be recovered.

"I didn't say that. There are a lot of things that annoy me, but I don't take actual offense at them because they're not worth it."

"Such as?" she prodded.

He shot her a studying glance from the side and quickened his pace, his long legs striding effortlessly ahead.

"Impatience."

Felicia stopped herself from flinching, settling for a grimace instead. Damn the man and his superiority that made him think he could dish out snide side-remarks at her! But she was for once too determined to get more out of him; she wouldn't let him rile her up. Staying silent took effort, but it brought her victory, for he elaborated his answer.

"I don't like hot weather, it makes me feel on edge all the time, and it taps into my energy reserve. I don't like rules, although I respect them because I have to. Crowds are not my thing. Neither is socializing. And I'm annoyed by the small necessities of life, all those things you have to routinely do if you want to blend in and survive. Mundane stuff can be very boring."

She used a pause to say, "And yet I don't see you doing extraordinary things to relieve the boredom."

Again, he shot her a sharp glance. She wondered what was going on inside him. Was he scared of being figured out? Did he fear it would mean attachment?

"Are you telling me that working as a private investigator, rescuing ladies out of burning buildings, and trying to curb a rampant fire witch's magic are ordinary?"

"Granted, those are all special, but don't tell me you do such stuff all the time."

"I don't. And still, I wouldn't say I lead a normal life. You aren't in a position to judge me because you know hardly anything about me and don't share my days."

"Which is exactly why I'm doing this awkward Q&A session with you at the moment."

They dueled in a staring match, fire and ice testing the limits and searching for loopholes. When the tension got too much for her to handle, she tossed her head, and poised herself on her tip-toes, one finger pointing ahead.

"Seeing how reluctant you are, I'm changing my tactics."

He raised his nearly white eyebrows, his eyes glittering dangerously, yet enticingly.

She braced herself.

"Come on, I'll race you to that bench by the fountain a couple of hundred feet away. The loser has to spill the beans on his or her life, likes and dislikes and routine and future plans and all that."

He threw his head back and laughed, making her stomach do a somersault of excitement.

"Okay, let's race each other."

Positioning himself so close that their shoulders touched, he counted down to three. Both of them shot off like bullets from the barrel of a gun, slicing through the mix of morning light and night mist.

Felicia ran as fast as her feet would carry her, remembering those small moments of glory during her school days when she inevitably came first whenever there was a race. She felt the air rush by her and play with her hair, tossing it over her shoulders like crimson banners. Intent on winning, she blocked all sounds and sights out, fixing her concentration on the white bench beside the fountain with the stone fish spilling water from its gaping mouth.

Her outstretched hand touched the wooden backrest a second later than his.

She threw herself down onto the bench and heaved for breath, battling more with her annoyance at having lost than with physical exhaustion. Suppressing a frustrated huff, she shrugged out of her red hoodie, and ran her fingers through her unruly curls. Dammit, she'd been too sure of herself! Of course he'd be faster than her, he had mile-long legs and he was a man—and he was much more in tune with his special gift than her.

When she looked up to acknowledge defeat, she caught him staring at her long, sprawled out legs, her red running shorts barely reaching mid-thigh and revealing lightly tanned skin that glowed subtly. His gaze raked over her like tiny needles of icy, sending a shiver of desire down her spine. He slowly lifted it back up to her face, dragging his stare in a coveting caress across all the bare skin her white tank top didn't cover.

She blinked when their gazes locked, and forgot what she had wanted to say.

Joshua broke the magic by giving his head the slightest shake, unclenching his fists, and making himself comfortable on the bench close to her, sitting down on the backrest with his feet on the slatted seat and his hands once more safely lost in the depths of his jumper pockets.

"I won."

He sounded a tiniest bit gloating about it, and she swallowed a hurtful remark down after an internal battle. Wasn't it surprising how often she controlled her temper now because she wanted to enjoy her time with him?

When she didn't reply, he half turned his head to her.

"Do I get to torture you with nosy questions now?"

Her naughty mind flitted away to all kinds of ways in which he could inflict sweet torture on her, and she was glad her face was already flushed from the race because she was sure she was blushing.

"Actually, I'm still saying I have more right to drill you. After all, you're the private investigator, and you have probably already figured out all there is to know about me."

Did she imagine that, or was he tensing and cooling down the air beside her?

"Is that your way of going back on your promise? It was your idea to race and decide."

She sighed. "I don't go back on my word. I'm a fiercely honest and loyal person, just so you know."

Now she had his full attention, his crystal blue eyes studying hers in a piercing gaze. The hint of a smile curved his lips, and his posture relaxed ever so slightly.

"If it's true—and I do believe you—then it speaks for you, and makes you different from about 99 % of the people I have had to deal with in my life so far."

She raised a skeptical eyebrow, telling herself she shouldn't be so happy that he held her in such high esteem.

"You're painting a pretty black picture of the world. Nine out of ten people you meet would be liars and cheaters in that case."

"Precisely." He nodded and stared off into the distance, and yet again she wished she were inside his head.

"What a negative attitude," she said. "I wouldn't have thought you're a pessimist."

A tiny part of her registered with glee that they were dealing with facts about him, although he had won the race. Maybe she'd learn a lot by keeping up teasing and challenging him without annoying him?

"I'm not. I'm a realist, much as I think you are. Besides, you know about my past. Is it so surprising that I have a bad opinion about humanity? I might be better off now, but certainly not thanks to anybody but myself."

Felicia frowned.

"Granted, you had a hard life, but why do you allow it to make you bitter? What about the positive things? The people who took all those orphans to England? Your foster parents who brought you up as their own, and sent you off to America? The people who surely helped you settle down in the States?"

He shrugged, his face a cold, solemn mask.

"They all had an ulterior motive, something to benefit from. Ultimately, they only cared about their own life, and they far from had a clean record. When it boils down to it, everyone lies and cheats and seeks the easy way out."

"I'm not like that," she insisted.

His searching gaze, seemingly penetrating her brain, hit her again.

"You're right. But perhaps it's only because you haven't had the chance to do so. Given the opportunity, wouldn't you value yourself more than others, wouldn't you want to save your skin, instead of sacrificing yourself for somebody else or for the greater good?"

How had they come from racing each other to discussing the way the world worked? Felicia felt his negativity press in on her despite the welcome rays of sun that her skin soaked up. As happened so often, his words made her think and question herself. She opened her mouth to voice her doubts when he continued, "And anyway, you're living a lie, whether you are aware of it or not. You have been hiding your ability from yourself and others for all your life, and you're still not revealing it."

"That's different! My fire magic isn't something to flaunt. Just because I don't wear my heart on my sleeve, doesn't mean I'm a liar."

He stayed silent, and her fury took over. How unjust of him!

"For heck's sake, do you want me to hang up a banner over my house or give it a shout-out on social media? I'd end up in a lunatic asylum at best, or I'd be questioned and would have to prove it, and that'd make me a criminal and get me into prison. Is that what you expect?"

She realized she was shouting, so she shut her mouth with a snap, quietly boiling beside his still and icy body.

Stony silence settled on them, and she was beginning to regret her outburst when he said in a softer and less detached voice, "I get your point. I don't mean that you should boast about it or use it the wrong way. But you need to fully accept who you are. If you're as loyal as you said, then show loyalty to yourself. Be true to yourself."

Felicia sighed. She didn't want this tension, she wanted to get closer to him. Swallowing down the pride and hurt that would get her nowhere, she turned to face him again. Laying a hand on his knee, she said in a composed tone, "That's exactly what I'm doing now, isn't it? You have opened my eyes to how special I am, how special I can be. Yes, I lived a lie for more than 20 years of my life, but that is the past and can't be changed. I'm trying so hard not to look back, but to plan ahead for the future, and to live in the here and now. You're the reason for that, but it looks like you let the past influence you much more than even I do."

He stared at her hand, then into her eyes, his face frozen into an unreadable mask, and his eyes more grey than blue while he was lost in thought.

While her stomach churned nervously, his expression thawed. He placed his hand on hers and gave it a short squeeze before lifting his arm and running his fingers through his hair.

"I still believe that people are innately selfish and bad. And yes, my past is a shadow I can't leave behind. But you know what, maybe it's time not only for you to change and move forward, but also for me to do the same."

She was still wondering whether she had heard correctly when he went on, his voice philosophical and strangely pleased.

"You and I are more similar than I thought."

"We are? I thought we're all about opposites attracting?"

He grinned for a second, only to grow serious again.

"Yes and no. On the surface, we're as contrary as can be, but deep down, we have many things in common. Our dark past, long phases of self-denial, the wish to be different, the hunger for power. They are the same, they just manifest differently. And I'm sure there are more similarities. Take physical activity, for example."

"Yeah, you can definitely run fast in those mile-long spider legs of yours," she joked, hoping to lighten the mood.

Her mind was a jumble of thoughts racing hither and thither. Could he be correct? How tempting it sounded.

He looked utterly lost in his own world. All this theory and thinking ate up too much energy, much more than jogging or sprinting or teasing him. She was growing tired of the stillness and deepness of the situation. How to shake him awake?

"Hey, you still haven't given me an answer I'm dying to know."

Joshua blinked, returned to reality, and jumped down from the bench to dip a hand into the bubbling fountain.

"And what's that?"

"What do you do that makes your life so abnormal?"

His dry chuckle mixed with the gurgling of water.

"Things like this."

He jerked his head at the fountain, lifted his arms and whispered a command. The water froze within seconds, leaving the ugly stone fish with a stiff stream of vomit, ice drops and rivulets glittering around the area where the water jets had been hitting the surface of the pool.

Leaning forward, he plucked an icicle out, and handed it over to her with a silly ceremonial bow. She stifled a giggle, and turned the thick splinter of ice over in her hands. On a whim, she increased her heat and exerted pressure. The icicle was glowing from the inside as if suffused with fire. After a moment, it started melting and turned into a small puddle of warm water in her palms. With a goofy grin, she looked at Joshua, who grinned back. He waved a casual hand at the fountain, unfreezing the water.

"Knowing that I'm special makes this life bearable. I couldn't face day after day after day of the same without my magic. I have learned not to overdo it, and sometimes I think it'd be better if I didn't revel in it so much whenever I'm unobserved, but I can't help it."

"Why do you think you shouldn't indulge in it?"

He walked over.

"It tempts me to do more. To be more."

He didn't go on, but she knew what he meant. With all his power, it must be a hell of a temptation to turn from normal human to superhero or supernatural freak. Was that why he didn't live in a country full of snow and ice and lonely emptiness?

As if he had read her thoughts, he said, "I tried. I gave in to the pull and wonder of my gift once, not long after I had come to America and left my family ties and reliable job behind. I moved to Canada for a few months, locking myself away in a log cabin in the Rocky Mountains. It was wonderful, it was heaven. So many possibilities and invitations, and no limits in sight."

"What happened?"

She had lowered her voice to a whisper, sitting on the literal edge of her seat, sensing the distress he always hid so masterly.

"The power nearly got the better of me. It turned me into a...a monster, something not human anymore. Some male ice queen of sorts that wanted to bring terror to the world, and cause eternal winter, and bury all the humans under snow. I could have been a picture-perfect villain."

His gaze flickered to her face and away, sparkling with nearly white blue.

When he didn't go on, she asked timidly, "What pulled you out of it?"

After a long moment of silence that stretched and stretched, he replied, "Animals. They, as a part of nature, shunned me, suspected me. Some fled, others attacked, but all of them showed me I was something not meant to be, not part of the circle of life. Somehow, I found the strength to resist, to rediscover myself within the magic. It's what you might also have to face one day. Remember not to lose yourself, whatever happens."

She got up and turned to him, magically drawn in by his words and voice and the power he radiated.

"I have you to teach me now, don't I? Nothing will go wrong."

Wow, had she heard herself say that some weeks ago, she'd have been mortified. To place so much trust in someone—someone who probably didn't trust a single person in the world, let alone her—and to be willing to be taught, was a new experience.

He looked about to protest, but after some time, he relented visibly.

"I don't make promises, so I'm not saying nothing will ever go wrong. But you and I will give it the best shot we can."

She pressed her hot hands against his chest and lifted herself a little higher until her lips were a hair's breadth away from his.

"Let's seal the deal."

With a soft groan, he gave in and pressed his mouth to hers in a searing kiss that traveled to the roots of every nerve and into every tiny flame living inside her. Their lips caressed and flirted, their tongues delved and demanded, their teeth nipped and teased. His hands pulled her closer, one of them snaking under the hem of her tank top to paint a trail of goose bumps up and down her spine.

She couldn't shake the feeling that they had grown closer during the course of this morning than during the past few days. Even the kiss felt different. Was it because both of them were giving more of themselves?

When they surfaced from lover's heaven to catch their breath, Felicia was suffused in a glowing light, sparks of fire flying from the tips of her hair. She could sense Joshua's cold and see it glitter on the taut skin of his face, but it didn't cut through to her.

"What's today's lesson?" she asked, fighting to come down from cloud number nine, wanting more than passionate kisses and fidgets of knowledge and inklings of trust.

As if nothing had happened, he bent toward the bench, picked up her hoodie, and handed it to her.

"There's no time for a lesson. I just came back today, and there's a load of work to catch up with. And you need to go home and get ready for your day at the library."

She sighed. He was back to practical and unshakable. Two things she didn't want to be at all at the moment.

They walked side by side for some time, the park warming to life around them while she wracked her brain for a way not to fall back into boredom and normalcy.

"What do you do to break out of routine when you don't use your magic?" she wanted to know.

"I enjoy some action and switch off my mind. Sometimes it's running or hiking or riding a motorbike. Sometimes it's something more adventurous like climbing a mountain or taking part in a car race."

She turned those sentences over and over in her head, and finally had her solution.

"I'm not going to work today," she announced, making him stop and stare.

"Why not?"

"I want to enjoy some action too. I really need it at this time. You should teach me a lesson about that, it'll be very useful for the future."

For a moment, she was sure he'd refuse, admonish her, and crawl back into his shell. Today carried another surprise, though, because he didn't.

"So, the teacher is encouraging the student to fake illness and skip responsibility?" he joked.

"Exactly."

"Why not."

When he saw her face stretch in a happy smile, he smiled too.

"And I have just the right idea what we can do today to make it worth the trouble." With that, he marched purposefully on. "Do you know the amusement park Wild As Can Be?" he asked.

She frowned. "The one at the border of Fairview that is more popular with adults than with kids?"

He nodded. "Can you meet me there in...say, two hours from now? I want to be present at opening time because it's less crowded. If you get there before me, stay outside, and don't buy a ticket. Wear clothes that are more or less tight-fitting and sturdy, and that you feel comfortable in."

Wondering what on earth he had planned, she agreed, butterflies of excitement—or rather, a dragon flicking its wings in anticipation—dancing in her stomach.

* * *

Roughly two hours later, Felicia stepped off the bus and walked toward the towering, eight-storied, hexagonal building that announced itself as the Wild As Can Be Amusement Park in flashing, neon-lighted, looping letters. There was only one family to be seen, making their way through the wide-open door into the spacious atrium with endless lines of ticket booths.

She craned her neck to stare at the imposing, if not intimidating, façade, then scanned the many-armed signboard next to the arched entrance that advertised—among other spectacles—an indoor swimming pool with an artificial waterfall, a Kiddies Corner, the Wild West Saloon with shooting competitions, rodeo and stage performances, and a hall for rock climbing.

Joshua's tall figure unglued itself from the wall and met her in front of the entrance. He was dressed in sneakers, black jeans and a plain, purple T-shirt molded to his fit torso. She had opted for camouflage khakis and a canary-yellow V-neck T-shirt, equally molded to her body, and accompanied by a yellow hairband to tame her curly mane.

They smiled at each other, happiness at doing something together and daring something new bubbling inside them. She could hardly contain her excitement, not feeling the least bit guilty for having called her boss at the library with the pretense of having an upset stomach and needing to stay in bed.

How would her first—sort of—date with Joshua go? Would she be able to control her fire during whatever adventure he had planned?

Instead of accompanying her through the entrance, he led her around the building to the back. In the shade of the stately façade, there was a wide, open ground, fenced in by electric wire and sporting its own entrance with three ticket booths. One boasted a signboard saying "Dog Park", the other called for people to enjoy a round of paintball, and the third one had only two huge words screaming for attention: Bungee Jumping. It was to this last one that Joshua strode. She gasped, and her feet drew her to a sudden stop as if they wanted to root her to safe ground.

"You're not seriously thinking I'll try bungee jumping?"

She hated that her voice was a high squeak of terror, because truth be told, two side were warring inside her. One was terrified and wanted to run away, the other was bouncing up and down like a child before it was allowed to open its birthday presents, excitement making her lightheaded and causing the fire dragon to stomp its clawed feet.

He turned to her, a grin on his handsome face, and a taunting look in his sky-blue eyes, one eyebrow raised cockily.

"You're not seriously thinking of chickening out of the challenge?"

His tone was playful, but he grew serious when she didn't answer.

"It's awesome, believe me. There's hardly a more exhilarating and liberating feeling than the one you get while bungee jumping. I should know, I've done it uncountable times and I still love it. I've tried out 15 of the 17 highest bungee jumps in the US. They've all been a blast and an experience I'll never forget—from Mount Hood Adventure Park in Oregon and the Sierra Nevada Mountains Bridge in California over the Rio Grande Bridge in New Mexico and the High Steel Bridge in Washington to my favorite, the Jump from the Redwood Forest Trees. Of course there are also the tamer ones from lower heights, even smack in the middle of cities, which are enough for a good-sized adrenaline rush lasting at least a day."

Felicia hung on his lips, soaking up every word to let his enthusiasm infect her. More than what he said, his facial expression mesmerized her. He looked almost as animated as when talking about his magic, and happier, younger and more relaxed than usual. It was almost as if he had lost his cares and the responsibilities he had loaded upon his shoulders, as if he was willing to be a bit less in control. If bungee jumping did that to this man of ice, what on earth would it do to the woman of fire?

A slight tremble seized her body, and she couldn't say whether it was from being nervous or from anticipation.

"Let's do it!" she croaked, her voice no more than a whisper, her throat dry as a desert.

He walked two steps closer and took her face into his icy hands, the gesture so startlingly tender that her heart was thudding irregularly in her chest. Tilting her face up, he leaned close and stared deep into her eyes.

"This is your chance to experience a thrill without fire magic. Your chance to learn a lesson about keeping your gift locked inside while living life to the fullest. Completely switch off your mind, and let the situation take over. Enjoy every single second of it, and store the energy and joy and power for whenever you might need it."

He emphasized the importance of it with a hard kiss tinged with feeling.

"Don't be afraid. You're such a strong person, so full of temperament and spirit and hunger for more. You'll love it. And so will your dragon. Your fire will remain safely locked inside you, and it will double the fun."

She could only nod. It was all too much, but suddenly she wanted nothing more than to go through with it and experience what he had evoked so convincingly. It was time to trust him and herself, wasn't it?

Ten minutes and more than 40$ each later, they stood at the top of the crane-like, metal-grid tower constructed for the jumps. From about 75 feet up, the world looked small. She had a stunning view of the seemingly far-away city to one side, while the ground and the amusement park building were reassuringly close on the other side.

Her pulse was hammering in her throat, and she kept swallowing convulsively, but oh, how she wanted this to happen!

Several feet to her right, Joshua was in position, harnessed in and radiating excitement. He'd jump first. Her instructor was tightening her harness and double-checking the bungee cord, all the while informing her of what she'd have to do, and stressing how safe everything was. At the entrance, they had filled and signed a health questionnaire form, as well as removed all jewelry and pocket contents to be stored in a locker. After stepping on a scale and having their weight written down in red pen on the back of their hands, they had climbed up the tower with their instructors, who had calculated the length of their bungee ropes. The staff in their blue uniforms and with their reassuring, calm and professional attitude had tied their feet together and wrapped them tightly in towel-like padding, before securing elastic bands to them, which were connected to the bungee cords. They had helped them into the safety gear, and prepped them on what would happen next.

By the time Joshua's countdown was on, Felicia felt the adrenaline pump through her veins alongside liquid fire, hoping fiercely that she wouldn't start glowing or giving off so much heat that it could hinder her jump or threaten her safety. She remembered his advice, and she switched off her thoughts. It was astonishingly easy; she just had to concentrate on him, and to repeat silently to herself that she was next, and would make the most of it.

With a whoop of delight that echoed around them, Joshua launched himself off the jumping platform, the rope lengthening and tightening, his body bouncing and hanging head-down for what felt like eternities, until the crew lowered him down, and the ground staff swarmed in to untie his feet and remove his gear.

"It's your turn now," her instructor said. The young girl patted her shoulder, asked whether she was ready or had any last questions, informed her co-workers, and started the countdown. Her voice sounded muffled in Felicia's ears. She could hear her ragged breath and pounding pulse more clearly. With one last glance at the ground where Joshua was waiting for her, she clenched her fists—and jumped.

She was falling through the air, falling and falling.

Gusts of wind whooshed by, and there was a long, high-pitched scream of terror mixed with thrill piercing her bubble of excitement. Was that her screaming? She didn't know, she only knew that this was like nothing she had ever done or felt.

There was the slightest of jerks when her rope had played out fully, but the fall felt surprisingly smooth and long. The band stretched and slackened, and she bounced and swung a little from side to side like a puppet on a string, too caught up in the moment to take in the view.

Before she knew it, she wasn't screaming, but laughing breathlessly.

The long drop and sudden stop had cranked up the adrenaline, almost like the fire magic did, but without any effort or any loss of energy or the need to exercise control.

In slow motion, she felt them extend the rope and lower her onto the grass where her legs gave way, and the world felt oddly upside down.

She barely realized what was happening around her, her breath escaping in a gasp when Joshua ran to her and engulfed her in a tight hug, lifting her feet off the ground to spin her around.

And in that moment, laughing again and feeling deliciously dizzy, she realized one thing.

She loved him.

Chapter 14

Two days later, woman and dragon alike felt like purring with satisfaction when the library door opened sharp at 1.30 pm and Joshua strolled in, his casual pose contrasted by the hungry look glimmering in his eyes when he stared straight at her.

Don't jump up. Don't jump up. Don't show him how happy you are, and don't let him think you missed him.

She repeated the mantra inside her head until he had reached her desk, still wordless and still with that stare full of need.

Oh, to hell with it.

Before he could say a word, she was out of her chair and had thrown herself at him. Her lips found his in a searing kiss that went to the root of every single hair on her body, and caused a rush of heat which was matched by the cold emanating from him. The icy fingers of one hand pressed against the small of her back and drew her closer while his other hand clasped the back of her neck.

For a moment, nothing else mattered.

When they stepped back at the same time, short of breath, he chuckled. "I missed you too, even though the memories are vivid."

It took her a second to recover from the impact of the kiss and the way his voice sent the flames into a near frenzy. Had he told her he had missed her? Wow!

Scanning the room for any unwelcome onlookers, Felicia tugged a lock back behind an ear, the rest of her curly mane tied up in a ponytail to match her conservative outfit of pressed cream-colored cotton trousers and a white lace top. A quick glance from under her lashes told her that once again, he had opted for black. At least the leather trousers—which she would have hated on any other man but which gave him a vampire-cum-rocker-cum-biker look that was way too sexy—were black. The T-shirt was a startling contrast of bottle green, hugging his lean, fit frame.

Focus, focus.

"Why do you always wear black?"

Great first sentence, and in no way connected to his statement that the dragon was still happily glowing about.

He had missed her!

With a grin, he perched on the edge of her desk, clearly unworried that her boss or a customer might find him like this and take offense. She gave herself a mental nudge and returned to her chair to shut down the computer for her lunch break.

"I've found it balances my ice best. If I wear white or the cool blue shades with a high content of white in them, it strengthens my powers and makes it more uncomfortable to reign them in. If I chose warm colors, on the other hand, I feel irritated because they clash with my cold side. Black is the ideal choice. It combines power and confidence with a sense of things locked up and a serious attitude."

She frowned and digested the information. That did make sense. And it was probably why she loved red clothes but had always felt too hyped up by them without realizing it. She wondered what effect warm colors would have on her now that she was in control, and how annoying cold colors might feel. The words tumbling out of her mouth spoke of a different speculation, though.

"If warm colors are enough to irritate you, how come you can stand to be within an inch of me?"

His frown mirrored hers. He was thinking about this instead of spitting out whatever might have been on the tip of his tongue.

"That's a valid question. I've been asking myself the same and can't figure out an answer. There has always been an irresistible pull toward you since that night. And it's getting stronger and stronger."

They stared into each other's eyes, the air around them filled with meaning. He pulled away first, rising and holding out a hand.

"Shall we have lunch?"

She pushed back her wanted feelings and unwanted thoughts, and wrapped her fingers around his, relishing the sizzle of current sparked by their touch.

Around 40 minutes later, they were walking back from a pizzeria, silent but content. Joshua was holding a water bottle in one hand that miraculously never lost its hazy film of miniscule water droplets speaking of its coldness, occasionally taking a swig out of it. His other hand was holding hers, and she felt disproportionately happy about it. Never before during her failed attempts at a relationship had she wished to hold hands, let alone tried it. At the moment, it was the right thing to do, and she never wanted to stop again.

Felicia had spent the better part of her lunch break talking, although she had wolfed down a spicy seafood pizza with extra pepperoni while he had indulged in an enormous bowl of salad and an extra helping of ice-cream. She had filled him in on her progress with the dragon and with controlling her fire power.

Ever the attentive listener, he had asked the right questions, not missing a single detail, but not making any comments. His coolness had wavered only once, when she had described rescuing the girl from the burning house and facing an interrogation by the police. Now, remembering the look that had crossed his face and lingered for a long time in his eyes, she automatically pressed his fingers tighter. Something about the unreadable expression didn't sit well with her, but as usual, she was unable to define why. Not for a moment had she thought of asking him about his days, assuming his work was top-secret, and knowing she'd end up giving herself away with a jealous remark or inquisitive prying like a love-sick teenager.

Walking side by side and imagining him and her on a hike, though, she was filled to the brim with things she wanted to ask. With a forced casual tone, she forayed ahead.

"The next time you go away, prepare yourself for a zillion SMS onslaughts because this time I'm not going to fake shyness and will ask you for your number."

Her grin was lopsided because deep down she wasn't as confident as she wished. Strange that although she was much surer of herself now, he still made her insecure. Hadn't she read about it in some magazine or other, that women always valued themselves less because they tried so hard to fulfil their partner's expectations?

His answer stopped her in her tracks. "That's going to be difficult because I don't have a mobile phone."

"What?" She rounded on him, fully expecting a joke, but his face was serious and a tad sheepish.

"Well, I do, but it's strictly for work and nobody knows my number apart from a handful of colleagues and my superior."

She shook her head, eyes still wide.

"Are you living in the Middle Ages or are you a total technic fool, or why else have you decided against a mobile phone, or better yet, a useful smartphone?"

He made a dismissive sound as though thumbing his nose at the remark.

"The technical wonders of today are nothing when you know how to handle them."

His aloofness was back, and she itched to break through it. Interest in his explanation made her keep quiet, though. Sure enough, it followed.

"I don't need a mobile. There's nobody I'd like to keep in touch with. No family. No friends. Nothing to follow on the internet and no games to get addicted to."

He said it quietly, but did she sense some hurt lurking behind the statement? Or was that her own hurt shining through because her situation was exactly the same? No family and no friends who'd need a mobile number to stay in touch. She might carry around her phone and be proud of its fiery red case and many features, but truth be told, it wasn't needed. Off and on, Cindy would send her an SMS. Her boss had her number, of course. So did her parents and her sister. Neither of them ever called. Her perpetually silent mobile was mocking her at times, and here she was looking down on somebody whose decision made much more sense.

Only then did it register that there was no way to contact him the many times when he'd vanish on a job task or the other. Why couldn't they be psychic as well as gifted and exchange thoughts? However, having him be able to read her thoughts wasn't desirable, as close to him as she wanted to get and as much as she believed she loved him. He valued his privacy. Hers was dear to her too, because she had been lonely for so long she preferred being on her own. Besides, she had her dragon now, didn't she?

For an instant, an absurd idea shot through her head that she might send a message through her dragon if she wanted to get through to him, but she almost laughed out aloud at the foolishness of it. Her companion was no carrier pigeon—and a bond like the one between her and Joshua didn't need mobile phones, did it?

His voice shook her awake to reality, where the grip of his hand had tightened.

"What about you? You don't strike me as a social butterfly or a compulsive gamer or someone who's constantly glued to their phone."

He knew her well. She was none of the three, of course, and that was just as well.

"Uh, I guess you could say my phone is an accessory, a need-have and want-have, but not a must-have."

"At least it keeps you in touch with your family, doesn't it?"

Her throat went dry, and the dragon inside her twitched its ears and snorted. Discomfort? Suspicion? Neither? Both?

"How would you know? Maybe they live around the corner, and I see them regularly?"

He snorted derisively, and his voice was icy when he replied.

"Don't underestimate me. How many more times do I need to tell you that I'm an investigator, and that I excel at my job? I have done my homework regarding you."

Her cheeks stung as if he had slapped her.

Why did it nettle her that he had researched her background? Or was she angry because he had kept silent about that so far? Then again, they hadn't talked about these personal things before, had they?

Trying hard to keep the flames at bay and stick to rational thoughts instead of unbidden emotions which wouldn't lead her anywhere, she said as calmly as she could, "Then your question wasn't necessary or your research wasn't thorough enough. Because I don't use my phone to keep in touch with them, nor do I use any other methods."

She hadn't realized it, but they had arrived at the library and were standing in front of its big, ornately carved double door, loitering as if she didn't have to return to work inside the historical building in a few minutes.

A familiar bitterness filled her. Thinking of her family, so much better than her and so much better off without her, dampened her spirits. This time, however, the feeling was slightly muted. A bitter aftertaste in her mouth, as if the pill had long been swallowed and should have been forgotten by now. Was she less upset about her lack of familial bonds because the man standing beside her and the dragon living inside her made her aware she did belong to someone and had some sort of kin? Could it be that for the first time in her life, she didn't pretend she was all right with being alienated from her family, but actually felt okay with it?

His thumb was drawing slow circles on her wrist against the hammering pulse.

"You aren't close to them."

"No."

She sounded...not as sad or frustrated as she could have been.

"They are not like me, and I am not like them. I've never had a sense of belonging," she added.

For a second, the hypnotizing movement of his thumb stopped before it began its tight, cold circles again, swirls of tiny flames throbbing in response underneath her skin.

"Do you look like your parents?"

This made her think, which in turn made her forget after an instant that his voice sounded strange somehow.

"Funny you should ask. I don't. Not at all, in fact. My sister looks like our father, but she has our mother's voice and smile. I remember how everyone went on and on about my red hair because even generations back, neither side had ever been blessed—or cursed—with a redhead. There's my unusual eye color, of course, which is only logical to me, as I know about my inner fire."

Somewhere deep down, a chain reaction had been set in motion by his innocent question. As if a domino had been tipped over and was now in turn making the pieces after it fall down one by one toward an inevitable, invisible end.

The stroking had stopped. She felt his fingers tightening their hold on her hand again, and when she looked up into his face, her breath hitched. There was something about it that set her on edge.

"Felicia... Has it ever occurred to you that you might be adopted?"

The breath she had held escaped in a rush. Inside her, the fire dragon was as alert as a guard dog after a suspicious sound.

With his remark, the last domino piece fell with a hollow thunk.

Of course. Why hadn't she thought of it before? No physical resemblance, no instinctive connection, and no real effort on her parents' side to win back the daughter lost to them. Her sister always being preferred. Her own unwillingness to become a part of the family. It added up to exactly what he was hinting at, didn't it?

She swallowed and looked away from his piercing gaze, staring unseeingly into the distance while a movie of scenes from her past flickered past her inner eye. It was entirely plausible. But why had she never been told?

There was so much to say, so much to think about, but what slipped out of her mouth was curiously the most important thing.

"So, you mean you and me are both orphans?"

This time, her gaze was searching his, and he was looking away.

"Yes," he said, and in the one word lived a whole world of possibilities.

She had to make an effort not to sound too enthusiastic.

"Do you think... do you think it is a key to our secret talents? That we are some special species' offspring given away to live among normal mortals?"

Her remark had his gaze shoot right back to her face, a mix of expressions flittering across his taut, pale, handsome face.

He raised his eyebrows.

"Steady, steady, where are those horses cantering off to? I was saying it might be possible, and here you are, stumbling over your own thoughts to jump to some kind of mysterious conclusion."

He chuckled, which infuriated her so much she pulled her hand away, instantly regretting the loss of spark-loaded connection.

"Haha, funny. And why the hell shouldn't I? You keep sitting on your high horse, to use your metaphor, and try to teach me, but I'm still waiting for you to come up with any kind of explanation. Do you never feel the need to find out whether there are more of our kind? Where we come from? Where we can go? Why we are special? What our destiny is?"

She was quivering with her passion for the subject, the one thing that drove her so hard toward finding out more about herself and toward mastering her power.

"What if we're meant to have a fate like those mutants in X-Men? Shouldn't we try to develop and use our gifts to the benefit of others, or associate with those who are similar and form a family of our own? Heck, maybe if people like us exist, there are parallel worlds and magical realms and what-not to be discovered while we keep ourselves meek prisoners in a boring life just for the sake of fitting in?"

At least he wasn't laughing at her anymore. She wasn't sure she liked the stern, worried look on his face any better than the mocking, though. Spilling her heart to him hadn't been the plan. Truth be told, she hadn't known she felt about this so strongly until she had let it out.

With a frown on his face, he placed both hands firmly on her shoulders, and spoke with a hurtful precision and conviction.

"I can see how important this is to you, but let me tell you one thing. I don't have the answers to this, and I'm not looking for them either. I don't believe in an army of mutants or a clan of mythical, half-human creatures or a second reality. I know who and what I am, and it's enough for me. I'm no superhero. I don't want to be one. And if you ask me, I don't think you should either. Why do you need that knowledge? What would you do with it? Would it help you if there was some master plan or some powerful origin?"

She trembled from the force of his words which clashed with the force of her burning desires. Goddamn his logical approach and his eternal coolness! With a couple of calming breaths, she fought for control.

"I don't know," she answered at last. "I want to know. And I want a different life from the one I'm leading."

Pain slashed across his features. Lightning-fast, his lips pressed down on hers in a hard, needy kiss before he stepped back, his hands lingering on her shoulders with their cold, reassuring pressure.

"You and I are together now. Isn't that special enough? In the end, it doesn't matter whether these two people are your parents or not, whether there are a hundred others as different as us or whether we could influence the way of life. Concentrate on yourself, on your happiness. Concentrate on your life and not the others. None of the superheroes in the comics and movies are ever happy. They're weirdoes who are always in danger of being caught and hauled off for experiments, risking their life for I don't know whose sake. I don't want that."

Clearly, he was baring his soul as much as she had bared her own. And it didn't matter that they thought and felt differently. What mattered was that he spoke of them and their happy life together. Wasn't he right?

Licking the lips carrying his minty taste, and wanting more, she forced down the retorts crowded up in her throat. Quick to light up and burn, she ran out of air to fuel the flames equally fast.

Her mind was whirring with his words, and she had no idea what she wanted at the moment. She only knew she needed him, needed to be together with him.

"If you don't want that, what do you want?" she asked, her voice shaky.

His eyes were a bright, deep, sparkling whitish blue, like a glacier lake with hidden depth and coolness which could pull you under.

"I want you. Is that not enough? Am I not enough for you?"

Her heart sang, her dragon wanted to soar high, and yet somewhere at the back, the flames were ever hungry for more.

"What about me? Am I enough for you?" she wanted to know, dreading his answer.

Looking her straight in the eyes, he nodded. Once. Twice.

She'd settle for that as a declaration of love.

A satisfied smile formed on her lips, cut off by her bridging the short distance and kissing him with as much force as he had kissed her moments ago.

"I guess I'll have to settle for being your heroine, won't I?"

She wondered at the flirty tone of her voice and the way she craved to have more than this kiss. How could he hold such power over her when she should be busy latching onto the half-hatched plans and unfulfilled wishes inside her instead? Was this was love meant, to make compromises, and to know what was enough and to be content with it?

He mirrored her grin and pulled her tightly against him before letting her go abruptly and falling back into his mask of distant, cool behavior. With a hint of humor in his silky voice and a glint in his eyes that were turning a shade of grey with blue highlights, he said, "And you'll get a chance soon, I bet. Expect me at your house tomorrow morning, dragon mistress."

He turned and strode away briskly, hands in his pockets, back ramrod straight, taking a piece of her with him. She shook her head and grinned ruefully, biting down on her lips before she could call after him. What on earth had he planned for tomorrow? Simmering with steady-burning curiosity was what she'd need to carry her through the rest of the working day and keep her from focusing on the deeper matters that were better off in a corner of her mind where they wouldn't disturb her.

Wasn't it tell-tale that it had taken a man like him to look forward to waking up the next day when she had never done so for more than two decades? And wasn't it lamentable that despite her special fire magic, she needed a man like him to feel whole?

Chapter 15

It was ridiculous how nervous she was. Ridiculous! She wasn't a pimply teenager on the evening of her first day to the disco, for heck's sake. She was in her late twenties, could control fire, and had lived through things others wouldn't dream of. Why was her pulse fluttering unsteadily, why was the dragon snorting nervous smoke tendrils inside her, and why hadn't she eaten more than half of her breakfast?

The reason why rang the doorbell when Felicia thought she'd explode with impatience.

She took a calming breath, thanked God that Cindy was still sound asleep as always on a Saturday morning, and strode to the door in measured, forcedly slow steps so as not to bely her anticipation.

Joshua stood in the doorway, looking like the catch of the day in black jeans and a turquoise shirt with its sleeves rolled up to his elbows and more buttons open than was safe for her rising heat levels.

"Hey," he said, bestowing her with a knowing grin and with an intense gaze raking over her body hiding behind a girly, canary-yellow pajama with shorter-than-short shorts.

"Hey," she answered, pleased with how normal she sounded in spite of the inner need to throw herself at him, or better yet, drag him into her room.

"How's the dragon mistress doing today?"

She loved the way his voice grew rough and tender and intimate despite his joking demeanor.

"The dragon mistress and her dragon are inclined to gift you with their attention and valuable time today, if you're inclined to reveal your plans."

She mirrored his grin. Oh, how delicious to goof around with someone who was like her and not like her at the same time.

He chuckled and reached out to twirl one of her untamed curls around his index finger, the gesture enough to make their auras of ice and fire flare and their eyes blaze with desire.

"I think I like keeping you in the dark, so to speak. Get dressed in smart yet casual clothes, and grab your handbag. I want to take you out on a date."

The dragon inside her stretched languidly and fluidly, and the flames turned up their hunger while she felt a blush creep out across her cheeks.

A date.

Well, their previous meetings hadn't exactly been dates, had they? And wasn't it meaningful that he used this word? Wasn't it an admittance to commitment, to a relationship, to acting like two people in love?

While part of her was disappointed that he wouldn't come in and was watching her in his cool Norse god way, leaning against the doorframe, most of her wanted to dance with joy and rush to wherever he wanted to take her. Blowing him a playful kiss over her shoulder that had his body tense and his eyes sparkle like frost flowers on a windowpane hit with sudden sunlight, she ran to her room.

Several minutes later, they had got off a bus and were walking hand in hand through Fairview's art district. She had spent frustrating five minutes in front of her wardrobe fretting over what to wear and how much make up to put on, before going with her instincts. Dressed in figure-hugging black jeans to mirror his and a silky halter-neck top matching the ombre-ocher-auburn-reddish-orange color of her hair, she was filled to the brim with a strange mix of confidence, happiness and awareness of herself as well as him and the feelings they shared.

Somehow, Joshua saying the word "date" out loud cemented their status, although there had still not been any talk of love. The way he kept shooting sideway glances at her, the way he held her hand and exuded such pride made her feel appreciated and beautiful. She had settled for tying part of her fiery curls back with a black hairclip, choosing no jewelry apart from Indian-style earrings complimenting her top and emphasizing that she was showing a lot, but not too much, skin. Skin which tingled with yearning for his touch, glowing ever so slightly so as not to be noticed by anyone but him.

She could feel the iciness radiated by him in reaction to her, an almost imperceptible shimmer of cold mist which clung to his alabaster body and rippled with his contained movements hinting at such casual, potentially dangerous power.

Joshua led her to an exhibition of modern artists specializing in fantasy. Works by Nene Thomas, Selina Fenech, Anne Stokes, Michael Whelan, Frank Frazetta, Amy Brown, Elena Dudina and many more were displayed in their magical splendor. Dragons, fairies, elves, mermaids, werewolves, vampires, unicorns, witches, spirit animals, miraculously detailed, dark scenes full of haunting beauty and forbidding pleasures, more dragons... It was perfect.

He had chosen one of the probably few things they had in common, instinctively knowing that neither of them would be able to resist the pull of these mysterious beings and their powers that to them were more real than fictional. They wandered spell-bound from painting to painting, sometimes staring silently for long moments like two statuesque aliens in trance, sometimes whispering heated discussions about the images. They laughed or whistled at the cosplay showed off by various, and they poured over the various gift items and memorabilia, fingers entwined and their special aura soaking up the energy at the venue.

What a pair they made, among throngs of visitors who were also in their element and maybe bigger art fans than them. On some primal level, everyone around them sensed that this pair was different, giving them more space than the others whose feet got trampled on and who were elbowed away when they crowded in front of the paintings or browsed the stands of artefacts without buying anything.

Fire and ice, on the prowl.

The first half of the day went by in a blur of colorful memories she vowed to treasure for the rest of her life. After lunch at a Thai restaurant where Felicia gobbled up spicy, sweet-and-sour food and watched with a fond smile how he ordered everything cool and bland on the menu, Joshua asked her to suggest an activity for the rest of the day. She spontaneously decided they should go on a hike. As she had suspected, he loved the idea of leaving the city's confines behind them.

After shooting a glance at their clothes and laughing, she dragged him off to the nearest clothes store where they outfitted themselves in comfortable hiking clothes and sturdy shoes, complete with a hat and sunglasses for him—she refused because the sun was never any trouble for her fire-powered body to handle—as well as a bag they filled with water and snacks on their way.

Hours later, they were walking and walking and walking... and loving it.

She was faster than him, picking her way up and down hills with small, darting, sure steps, buoyed by endless energy. He remained a step behind, although he could have kept pace without any trouble, his strides long, measured and easy as if hiking didn't tap into his energy supply. They talked about their past, sharing moments of magic and describing their dire struggle with a normal life. Mostly, she was doing the talking and he was listening, the cold, distant mask on his face slipping more and more, as though her fire melted his ice.

Radiating coolness, he made sure neither of them sweated. Off and on, discarding the sunglasses which made him look too dashing to be true, he whispered a command and a wispy hand of frost sidled out of his body to dance across the tree tops, slither along the ground and caress her ankles or swirl around him. She found it hard to continue walking whenever he did so because she wanted to concentrate on his magic and watch him. Somehow, when his inner ice was let out, he looked even more handsome and special and powerful, shining like a sculpture carved out of ice. Hard, confident, different from the rest.

It made her want to kiss him and never stop. It also made her want to throw caution to the wind and be herself.

"Joshua?"

"Mmhm."

He sounded deep in thought, as was so often the case. He must have infected her, because she was thinking much more than she ever had, looking into herself, and wondering about him... about them.

"What would your ideal life be like?"

He cocked an eyebrow at her.

"Where did that question come from?"

She shrugged, half wishing she hadn't mentioned it. Whatever made her so curious?

"You're doing it again, answering a question of mine with one of yours."

Grinning, he took her hand and led her on. After a minute in silence, he answered.

"I don't know. I can see myself somewhere away from all these people, maybe in a European country in a forest or up in the mountains, living on my own without the responsibility of a job and the strain of seeming normal."

"You mean, going back to the log cabin time?"

The pressure of his grip increased before he had himself under control.

"No, certainly not. I won't make the same mistake again. I'd be prepared, I'd keep myself grounded, I'd do research, and I'd keep a connection to the rest of the world. But it sounds like paradise to let go like that. There, now don't I sound as though I'm not living what I'm preaching to you?"

The rueful grin was back, but she sensed something else too.

"What keeps you from living that dream?" she demanded.

"You have no obligations, no family, no job that somebody else couldn't do. Why do you limit yourself?"

He frowned and stared at her.

"Don't be so impulsive. There's got to be a reason to all this. People can't just leave normal life behind and do what the hell they please."

"But so many already do, be they artists or hermits or religious fanatics. And they're happy, and they don't care what the others might think about them. You don't either, so what really keeps you from it?"

Stony silence. Then he ground out between his teeth, "My own free will, I guess."

She suppressed a satisfied smile, filled with eagerness and with pride at having him see the truth. Now she was closer to her wish—or was it already a plan?—to make him realize this life wasn't for them, and to convince him to escape with her and turn from hiding freak into potential superhero.

"I don't think so. Your will is a mighty force, as far as I can tell. Seriously, who or what keeps you here, locked in this life of secrecy without letting your magic out?"

His aura of ice flared and shimmered, stirring up a cool breeze.

"You," he whispered.

The fire dragon inside her glowed with satisfaction. Feeling her heat respond, she gave his hand a squeeze, and fought the urge to laugh giddily or scream with delight, or to throw herself at him and make love to him right then and there.

She stopped him with a hand on his arm, and pulled him close. Tiny flames danced over her skin.

"What if I came with you? I'm sick and tired of it all. And I could develop so much better if we were on our own in the wild."

He pulled her even closer until she was pressed against his body, their auras and magic intermingling and sizzling with current.

"Don't tempt me like this."

"Why? Because you might give in to temptation?"

She was so sure of her victory.

"Maybe."

His whispered answer was barely audible. He leaned down and kissed that magical spot at her throat where her pulse was hammering in excitement.

All rational thought was erased. She reveled in the sensations his lips on her sensitive skin caused, her hands itching to slip under his clothes and explore.

When would he finally take the physical aspect of their relationship further and make her his? Should she wait and practice patience, a virtue she didn't master?

Joshua skimmed his mouth across her clavicle, parted his lips and let his teeth graze over her skin ever so softly. Suppressing a needy moan, she pulled his head up and kissed him. Their lips and tongues danced until he broke the kiss. He took two steps back, a soft reluctant groan escaping him.

"We should keep walking and find a spot for the night," he said, his voice husky, his breathing hitched.

A spot for the night? Oh yes, that sounded promising.

* * *

It was evening, and the sun had set in a spectacle of colors when they found their resting place where they would camp overnight. Bringing a tent had seemed ridiculous. Neither of them was scared of anything, they could see well in the dark, and they were too busy enjoying themselves to think of such banalities.

Their resting place was on a plateau on one of the tallest hills—more a mountain, although they had walked and not climbed to the top—with a breathtaking view. Beneath them lay a small village, the silhouettes of the many houses barely visible if not for the blinking, twinkling lights in the windows and along the roads, specks and garlands of yellow in the bluish dark.

Felicia looked down at them with an unsettling sense of foreboding, her arms wrapped around her body although the felt not the least bit cool. She reckoned they could reach the village in an hour's walk although it looked further away, tucked down below in the valley in a cozy way.

Something about it didn't feel right—which was ridiculous, of course, because this was another clutter of homes and people going about their lives, and they had nothing to do with her and Joshua. Still, she wished they had turned left instead of right some time back, and camped in the forest. Out on the hilltop with the village below, she felt vulnerable of sorts, open to prying eyes, although there were none apart from those of harmless creatures rustling about their nightly life in the grass and leaves.

"What is it?"

From behind, his arms snaked around her waist and pressed her back against his hard frame, the contact sparking through them with delicious sharpness.

"I don't know. I feel...uncomfortable."

He turned her around in his strong arms and tilted her chin up with a finger to search her eyes and face with his cold yet oh so intimate gaze.

"Why? What's the matter?"

Did she hear worry in his silky voice?

She shook herself and delighted in the way it caused friction between their bodies, a mingling of fire and ice that sent tingles of awareness through each and every cell inside her.

"Nothing. I'm just being stupid. For a moment there, I felt the sense of foreboding that had gripped me before the incident with the burning house and the child I saved. I guess that's me feeling guilty for enjoying a day full of happiness and the freedom of being myself."

His probing gaze was relentless, but apparently he couldn't find anything, because he merely nodded, before dipping his head to kiss her lingeringly. After an eternity in which she thought she'd melt from the heat and desire inside her, his lips inched away and he stepped back to let her go.

"Maybe you're right. Today was a new experience for me too."

He wanted to add more, stopped himself short, drew a deep breath, and continued, "Being here, being with you, sharing my life with you like this... it's the most special thing I've ever done. I never want to stop."

Why did he sound so serious? Why was she so delirious with happiness at his words?

Bridging the short gap, she laid one hand flat on his chest, ignoring the shock of cold current shooting through her and being met by flames.

"I don't want to stop either," she whispered.

For a long moment, they stared into each other's eyes. She was overwhelmed with so many feelings she couldn't settle on one, couldn't find the right words. Her heart was racing inside her chest, and the dragon was a tightly curled ball of eagerness inside her belly.

Could she tell him that she loved him?

After spilling words like a fountain during their hike, she was oddly at a loss for how to say what mattered.

She let her tongue dart out to moisten her lips. His searing gaze followed her movement, and she felt him grow rigid with self-control, his hands balled into fists at his sides.

Did he want her as much as she wanted him?

Did he love her?

On an impulse, she decided to let her body speak in a way her voice wouldn't. One hand wandered up from his chest and back to clasp his neck. Her other hand hooked itself into the belt of his trousers, and she stepped so close that not a wisp of air fitted in between their bodies. A hiss escaped him as his hands grabbed her hips, and his eyes fluttered shut for a moment. Forgetting everything else, Felicia leaned in and pressed her mouth hard against his in a demanding kiss. When she dug her teeth into his lower lip, only too aware of the icy cold that seeped from his fingers into her skin and caused goose bumps to rise, a tortured, muted groan escaped him. Coherent thought became impossible when he opened up to her while painting an icy trail of frost over her hips, the small of her back and her spine. Pressed close against each other, they lost themselves in a kiss that said it all, and went on endlessly.

Somewhere at the back of her mind, she noticed the dragon soar out of her body and high into the night sky. She didn't care.

There was no time to be afraid or to try and be in control.

When he tore himself away from her to pull her T-shirt off, she shook her head and took some more steps back. She shrugged out of the T-shirt and dropped it on the ground carelessly, her eyes feasting on the hungry, enchanted look on his face. With a deep breath, she concentrated on the flames inside her—until they shot out and licked at her skin instead of simply making her glow. A sizzling film of heat coated her body, its light touch adding to her desire, making her skin more sensitive.

There was a tiny smile playing on his lips that made him look more dangerous and tempting than ever, matched only by the bluish-white sparkles in his deep, grey eyes. He stripped out of his T-shirt, revealing ice-white skin, a hairless chest and fine muscles taut with wound-up want. When he breathed out, cold mist shivered around his body, mimicking her fire. For an instant, he looked unreal and unreachable, and she wondered what picture she presented. The next instant, wondering was beyond her, because with a jerk of one shoulder he threw off his mist coat hovering in the air, glistening, while he strode toward her and crushed her to him in a bone-breaking embrace.

With a satisfied sigh, she offered her lips to his kiss, her aura of flames reduced to a shimmer while the heat inside her rose and rose as if to eat her up alive. His mouth left a trail of tortuously delicious wintry sensations down her throat and lower, making them both moan and discard whatever last inhibitions were left.

They fell upon each other, all delving tongues and digging teeth, searching mouths and claiming hands. Joshua touched her body in places that had never struck her as erogenous zones, stoking the fire. He made her feel helpless and powerful at once. She writhing under his mouth and touch, raking her nails across his back, biting the hard ridges of his abdomen, clinging on for dear life.

They let their bodies speak.

A dance of fire and ice.

When the two opposites became one, snowflakes drifted down around their entangled limbs, falling softly on earth which had been scorched clean by a ring of fire. Holding them in, keeping the world out.

* * *

Felicia started awake, a word echoing inside her as if somebody had spoken right into her ear.

Come.

Frowning, she rubbed her eyes with her fists and looked around her. An arm's length away, Joshua lay asleep, as motionless as a marble sculpture, his bare chest hardly rising with his even breathing. For a while, she let her eyes linger on his fine features, on the angular, white planes only marred by a tiny scratch she had left behind on his flat stomach in the throes of passion.

He was hers.

She felt her heart beat speed up and the heat creep through her veins like liquid fire.

She wanted more. More magic. More love.

When she tore her gaze away from his chest and let it wander over the rest of his body, his hair like shiny moss growing on the dark ground, she saw a single snowflake glisten in his open palm. No bigger than a coin, it was exquisitely formed with a myriad of intricate details, stubbornly refusing to thaw although the night was barely cooler than the day had been. It brought a smile to her face. She was about to nudge it with a finger when the silent call rang in her ears again, deafening and powerful, yanking her to her feet.

Mechanically, she pulled her T-shirt back on, noticing the scorch marks on the ground where they had been sleeping. She searched inside her and found no dragon, which added to the mounting alarm. When she cast a last glance at his sleeping form, the hint of a frown etched itself into his forehead, but his pose was as rigid and at the same time relaxed as before. Was this what vampires looked like when they slept in their coffins to stay safe from the sun?

Come.

Somehow, she knew the voice wasn't a real one, but she still turned a slow circle and used her night vision to scan their surroundings with glowing eyes. For all she could see, they were alone on the hilltop, if you discounted an owl choosing this exact moment to hoot and shoot away into the night, leaving her spooked. She lifted her eyes to the moon, so cold and far away and uncaring and mysterious. Preferring the sun, she had hated the moon and moonlight for the better part of her life. Now, it reminded her of Joshua, so how could she hate it although it made her feel uncomfortable?

Instinctively, she moved forward until she stood at the end of the plateau, her senses sharpened, longing for the presence of her dragon. She remembered it exploding out of her body when she had become one with Joshua, huger than ever and blindingly spectacular when it propelled itself higher and farther away with a single flap of its fiery wings.

Was it her dragon calling out to her? Where was she supposed to go? Why was her mind telling her that disaster was lurking and could swoop upon her with outstretched claws any instant?

With folded arms, her heat level up and her whole body taut as if prepared to spring into action, she stared at the village slumbering below, hardly more than a huddled mass of shadows punctuated by a couple of lights.

She felt more uncomfortable by the second. She wasn't merely standing on the edge in a literal sense, but also on edge in the figurative sense, without knowing why. The air was heavy with foreboding, and it reminded her of the afternoon where a silent command had led her to the burning house with a child trapped inside. She closed her eyes, willing the present anxiety away by focusing on the memories. The moment when she had won the battle with the flames and bent them to do her bidding. She soaked it up like a sponge, her demeanor more confident the longer she feasted her inner eyes on the memory.

Power. She wanted power. She wanted this magical power.

Something had happened.

Her eyes flew open, glowing fiercely, her hands tingling with sensation as though her inner flames wanted to escape through the tips of her fingers.

There was only eerie silence.

And then there was fire.

A flame leapt into existence down in the village, tiny from where she stood, but surely enough to devour a house. Enough to entice her. While part of her brain wondered why she was always near when a sudden fire broke out, the rest of her was fighting a losing battle against the urge to be one with the flames. If she ran, would she reach the village in time to soak up the fiery energy or to experiment with her new powers? Without giving it a second thought, she whirled around to race her way downhill—only to hit a rock-solid obstacle that sent an icy shock through her.

"What's going on? What are you doing?"

Joshua had woken up, and he sounded as alarmed as she was eager.

"Nothing," she mumbled and stepped away, wishing she were alone and could run as fast as her dragon could fly.

A gasp told her he had spotted the distant fire. His arms were around her in the same instant that she had almost passed him by, holding on like restricting ropes bound too tight.

"What the hell have you done?"

Why did he sound so furious? And why was there fear in his eyes when she stared at him to demand that he let her go?

"What do you mean? I haven't done anything. Now get your hands off me and let me go. I'm wanted down there. It's calling me... I have to go!"

She was shouting, pummeling his cold stone wall of a chest with her fists to free herself. Precious seconds were wasted. She had to go. It was important to become one with the flames.

He held her to him effortlessly, like a kicking child throwing a tantrum.

"Felicia. Stay calm. Listen to me. You can't go. You mustn't. Felicia!"

In her desperation to break free, she unleashed her fire power, reaching within, finding a core of boiling flames like a volcano about to erupt. With a grunt of effort, she radiated the heat from her limbs, wiggling and shoving her hands at him. When she pushed both hands roughly at his chest, summoning fire to assistance, she was rewarded with a hiss of pain and sudden freedom.

Unable to form any coherent thought or care for anything but the need to unite with the flames, she fought for balance without the hold of his strong arms, shooting past and away.

"Don't go! Stay! Stay with me!"

What was it about this man? Why did he hold such power over her?

Her feet ground to a stop.

He hadn't sent an icy assault of hail or a cloud of whirling snow storm after her. And yet... His choice of words and a nuance in his voice that spoke of a deep connection—love?—was enough to penetrate the haze and make her hesitate. Once again waging war against what had taken control of her, she whirled around. Maybe making him understand how important this was would give her the freedom to leave?

Her mouth opened, but no words came out. The sight before her made it impossible to speak.

He shone as white as snow in the night, but what shone brighter were two handprints on his chest, as if he had been branded. She stared and stared at the ten perfectly visible fingers that had burned themselves into his skin, stared at her hands rippling with flames, and stared back at the man she loved.

More than anything else, more than his call, it shook her out of her delirium and brought her back to her senses with a sharp pain which made her head throb.

Gone were the beckoning calls of the distant fire in the village, gone the need to dance in the flames. Shivers ran down her spine. Putting one foot after the other with herculean effort, she walked up to him, magically drawn by the handprints gradually fading in intensity.

She had done this.

She had hurt the one person who least deserved it.

If he didn't have his ice as protection, would she have burned him alive? Had she marked and marred him for life?

The fire shield surrounding her had died away, like her will, and her ability to speak. She raised her gaze to his eyes. They were opener and deeper than she had ever seen them, two icy pools of deep water, swimming with... with what? Hurt? Was he in physical pain?

Trembling, she fought for the right thing to say, her mind full of worries about how easily she could lose the control she so prided herself on having, the control he was so relentlessly asking her to maintain.

"I'm sorry."

Her words were no more than a whisper, and her voice was as brittle and rough and exhausted as she had hoped it would never again sound.

While his eyes were bleeding with feeling—anger, worry, hurt and so much more that she couldn't define—his body remained frozen. He inhaled slowly and deeply. When he breathed out, cold mist seeped out through his lips, wandered in caressing hands over his body and settled on the blistering wounds on his chest. His teeth digging into his lower lip, his hands balled into white-knuckled fists, trembling with the effort, he was concentrating on working his magic. Soothing cold poured over the handprints, dipped into the shallow imprints, curled itself like healing smoke around the edges stitched into his skin. While she watched spellbound, mimicking his body language in a silent, futile effort to help, to hope, the wounds began to look less threatening.

Was Joshua in pain? Would he get better?

The questions vibrated through her being, and her headache increased.

Could her power be blessing and curse wrapped into one uncontrollable mix?

After a long time that stretched like a rubber band about to snap, he shook himself, gingerly ran a palm over one imprint, winced and stretched his limbs.

In a gesture infused with more meaning and more forgiveness than she deserved, he held out his hand. Automatically, Felicia took it and let him pull her toward their sleeping place. With slightly strained movements, he let go of her fingers, bent and threw his T-shirt on. He sank to the ground with less strength than she had ever seen him with, and looked up at her. A battle of emotions played out on his face. It was more emotional than she'd have thought it possible.

When she thought she couldn't bear his silence anymore, he spoke the one sentence that lovers around the world dread.

"We need to talk."

Chapter 16

Hadn't it been enough turmoil? Now this. He wanted to talk. Was this it? The end to a relationship which had barely started but meant the world to her? Was the one person who meant almost as much to her as fire going to give up on her?

Joshua had the right to do so, no doubt about it.

Felicia sank down on the ground, the headache and the load of negative feelings pressing down so hard it was impossible to stand any longer. Hugging herself and registering with barely an inkling of wonder that her dragon had come from nowhere to join her, she waited for the hammer to fall, for the punch to be delivered.

There was only silence. When she looked up, she met his gaze roaming her face. It was strangely searching, and his face more distant than a minute ago. He looked like a man weighing his words carefully, and it added to her mounting anxiety.

"Tell me exactly what happened. What woke you up, and what made you lose control?"

Cold, commanding, cutting at her like a knife.

She hated it when his voice was like this, making her feel like a thing, as if they were back to their odd teacher-and-student start. It grated on her nerves to be treated from up above and far away like this, but for once, she thought it justified. As calmly as she could, hating the way her voice shook, she described what couldn't be described.

By the time she was finished, he mirrored an ice sculpture. His gaze slid off her face and into nothingness, and she could sense his mind whirring and buzzing with activity, cogs and springs and wheels click-clacking while he processed whatever big issue was at stake here.

His sigh caught her by surprise. It sounded so...resigned. And were his shoulder slumping ever so slightly?

"I've been meaning to have this conversation earlier. I shouldn't have waited so long, as though I needed another confirmation. It might have spared me impressive burn marks if I hadn't chickened out on confronting you."

He lifted one corner of his mouth in a mirthless grin, and ran a hand back through his hair in a gesture that belonged to a man more normal and less self-assured than him. Her stomach tied itself into knots, the dragon hissing in discomfort and staring with eyes as big as hers must be.

Preparing himself with a deep breath, he went on, his gaze returning to her, closed-off and cold.

"I don't know whether I was fearing your reaction or my own. I don't know why I was and am behaving this way. But now the time has come to tell you something that might change your life. Again."

"Oh, spit it out, for Christ's sake!"

She lost her nerve, and wished she could have swallowed the words back down.

He narrowed his eyes and stared her down, an art he had mastered to perfection. With another sigh, he went on, the words running together in a stream of information. They hit her like the proverbial avalanche, and buried her beneath suffocating layers of doom.

"You have never asked me about my job, but it's time to fill you in on some details. Yes, I work as a private investigator. I have specialized in travelling the country and helping out in cases where the police is stumped or where they can't enter into the grey areas because of the law. My clients are usually well-paying, and on the right side of the law. I hardly work for attorneys in civil cases, though. I was ordered here on a mission. One that quickly turned from professional into personal. Do you have an idea what it was—and is—about?"

Felicia frowned, suspicion rising like bile in her tight throat, but she kept her mouth shut.

"I was hired to find an arsonist with a scary reputation in the area, without any face or information to connect with," Joshua said. "You should know that arson cases are a criminal offense which is rarely prosecuted and even more rarely solved. The police can achieve clearance in less than 10% of the cases. In other words, about 99% of arsonists never get caught and carry on with their often deadly, always costly crimes. Hardly any crime causes such high financial losses, is so hard to solve and so relatively easy to commit. Most arsonists hatch clever plans and think long before they act, only to vanish back into their dark corner and live a normal life. You hardly get eyewitnesses or more than circumstantial evidence to get a grip on the criminal. If you take damaging fires in general, roughly 50% of them are not caused by technical fault or negligence or accidents, but by an arsonist on the prowl."

He let that sink in, watching her closely for any signs, but she kept her expression neutral and her feelings at bay.

"More often than not," he continued, "the arsonist is somebody who either takes joy in fire and wreaking havoc or somebody who hopes to profit from an insurance claim by setting fire to his own house or property. Of course there are those lunatics who burn their family to cinders or turn an enemy into a living torch. These get caught easily. What is so difficult to figure out are the cases where empty buildings or buildings in use go up in flames and smoke. These take place in the bigger cities, usually in the business district or in areas where rich people are found. In most instances, there is some kind of profit in it for the person deliberately starting the fires."

Joshua stared at her even harder.

"In my particular case, however, the police were flummoxed because buildings burned here and there and everywhere, but there was never anything to profit from. The houses were empty, they were in the same city, and the fires happened at night. For a long time, nobody suspected a case of arson because if you have so many houses, it's nothing out of the ordinary that there's a fire now and then. There wasn't more than one incident a month, but recently, a house would catch fire once a week or more often. When the numbers increased rapidly and a central investigation was started, one big shot of Fairview's—and the country's—most successful insurance company saw a thread connecting the cases, and he contacted my superior to hire my service."

Running a hand through his hair, Joshua took a moment to collect his thoughts. Felicia resisted the urge to swallow, her own spit tasting bitter with foreboding.

Joshua spoke again, "In none of the incidents were the police able to find a natural explanation or the usual traces of arson that give the criminal away. No leaking gas pipeline, no oven left on, no overheated electric item. No petrol or kerosene, no carelessly thrown away match or cigarette or lighter. Nobody had seen or heard anything out of the unusual. It was as though the building itself decided the time was right to spontaneously erupt into flames. Each case was examined and re-examined to no avail—until a bus driver returning from his night shift said he spotted a person walking away from the area where a fire had broken out, leaving in a strangely calm way, not alerting anybody to the danger or appearing in any way fazed by it. A women with startlingly red, long, curly hair whom he insisted he hadn't seen in his district before. This was the one lead they had when they called my boss—I work as a freelancer but under an agency—and he dispatched me. To find a woman with beautiful flame-colored hair who might or might not be involved in the biggest case of arson this city, if not the whole province, had ever seen."

The silence rang loudly in her ears, punctuated by the rapid thudding of her heart against her ribs, and the dull rush of blood inside her head.

Oh, God. Oh, no.

He pushed himself to his feet and walked away a few paces, staring into the night where a glowing dot and a hint of siren sound provided a perfect background to his story. When he turned around to face her again, pain marred his features before he close them off. Bridging the endless distance to squat down close to where she sat rigidly, nails digging into her arms, he fixed her with his inescapable gaze.

With his voice as monotonous and low and deliberately calm as before, he continued, "There have been mysterious and horrific arson cases before that still shock the world, although some of them happened decades ago. If you search the web, you'll find the Himatangi Murders in New Zealand, or the New Orleans Fire destroying the UpStairs Lounge frequented by gay people, or blaze in the Our Lady of the Angels School in Chicago that wiped nearly 100 people off the earth, among them nuns and students. Knowing that, and having only a tit-bit of a clue to work with, I saw this assignment as a waste of time. Still, I threw myself into research, I dutifully stared at portraits of red-haired women to memorize their features, and I marked places on the city map where the arsonist might strike because there was an empty, old building to be found."

By now, her heart was pounding so hard she could barely hear him.

"I don't think I would have come far—but I hadn't so much as settled down a day or two in this place when strange things started to happen," Joshua said. "I felt this odd...connection, of somebody moving around in Fairview, waiting for me. As if the person and I were connected by an invisible string attached to a hook deep inside the heart, so that a tug in this or that direction would pull the other one along. I knew something special was going to happen, and I had an idea what."

He sought eye contact, but she refused, hanging on by a thin thread.

"You've told me you suspect there are others like us," Joshua said. "Mutants. Freaks. People with special gifts and mysterious talents. I know for a fact that they exist. I know it because some years ago, this connection was established, and I ended up following the invisible magnetic draw to find a woman who claimed to be a pharaoh's concubine, re-awakened by a grave robber and walking the earth like a creature of flesh and blood. Throughout the years, this was repeated a few times. I've watched a vampire from afar who was revered as a genius painter. I found out there are real mermaids hiding away in a sunken Atlantis ocean-city of sorts. And I've met a shape shifter who was raised among wolves and is probably the role model for many a werewolf tale."

He sighed, though she didn't know why exactly. His ability sounded fascinating. If she weren't in such a state, she'd be envious.

"I feel a magical pull," he continued. "I give in to it, I encounter somebody astonishing... and I move on. But this time, it was different. This time, I was led to you. The fateful night when I pulled you out of the burning house, I had no idea who you were and what made you special. I couldn't resist, I played my detective game, because never had the pull been stronger and never had I been so affected by an encounter. One step led to another, and soon I realized that by following the connection, I was also doing my duty. I had found the infamous arsonist. You."

It looked like many more words wanted to hurl themselves out of his mouth to attack her, but he pressed his lips firmly shut and stared at her a moment longer before averting his eyes because whatever he read in hers must have shocked him.

Reeling with the impact of what he had revealed, she fought the urge to shout—anything—and run. Instead, she drew her knees up in an instinctively protective gesture, hiding behind them as though it could make her forget. As though it could make her think a clear thought.

She had never known, never suspected a damn thing.

Her mind grappled with the stones he had thrown, frantically trying to get a hold on at least one and maybe hurl it back.

Fires. Too many buildings in Fairview burning, and they—he—thought it was her fault. She, an arsonist? A criminal? It couldn't be! They had it wrong, of course.

Felicia was about to uncurl herself and launch into an offensive defense speech when an onslaught of doubt made her choke on the unspoken words.

Hadn't she found herself in front of burning houses increasingly in the past? Always close by shortly before it happened or after the flames had been lit, never remembering how or why she was there.

What if it was true?

What if she wasn't the spectator but the cause, what if the flames didn't beckon to her, but she to them?

Her worst fears came crashing down on her. The reasons why she had shied away from being different in the first place. Fear was at the root of it. Plain, old, ugly, smelly fear. So, it turned out that being in control was only an illusion. She was the kindling, the torch, not the fire itself or at least the active torch bearer.

She hadn't cried for ages, couldn't remember the last time. But right now, right here, crying was the best thing to do.

She was nothing more than a twisted arsonist to the world. And what was she to him? A job assignment gone wrong yet miraculously right too?

She had trusted one person, and this one person had betrayed her.

The thought made her head shoot up.

She would not be the victim.

Hell, if he thought she was a criminal, why not go ahead and give it to him? She might not have a spotless vest, but neither did he.

Hardening herself and forcing the sobs back down, she ground out, "Congratulations, James Bond—or should I say, Sherlock Holmes?—on solving the unsolvable case. Looks like I'm the 1% among the arsonists that does get caught. I'm sure you'll get a badge to wear with which you can impress any other outlandish mortal who might cross your way in the future."

Rage had taken a hold of her, making her tremble as much as the held-back hurt, making it possible to keep her chin up, although she felt like disintegrating in a heap of disillusion.

Joshua drew back as if she had slapped him hard, rage mirroring her own visible on his stony face for an instant. Before she knew it, his hands gripped her arms, so tightly that the dragon and fire inside her soared dangerously high.

For the first time in minutes, emotion crept into his voice when he bit out each of his words. "I don't want a bloody badge, I don't want a solved case, and I don't want to meet any more special people. I want you!"

She laughed mirthlessly. The cheek of the man! "Yeah, you've made that perfectly clear. Listing my crimes and assessing things like a doctor reads out a cancer diagnosis to a patient he doesn't give a damn about. Pity you kept me from running down to the village. You could have shot some in flagrante photos and earned yourself a promotion or the front page of the newspaper."

Felicia yanked herself free of his grasp and jumped to her feet, feeling as if she might explode at any moment. "You know what? I'd rather be exposed as an arsonist and admit it than lead a life like you that is built on lies and more lies piled up."

She spat the last words at him before turning away to rail herself in, the look on his face hurting her despite being deeply disappointed by his behavior.

Knowing she had been nothing more than his duty, albeit a fascinating and challenging one, cut her to the quick. And yet... she couldn't deny that somewhere deep down, she wanted this to have an explanation, she wanted them to find a solution and stay together because they were meant to be.

How pathetic that she couldn't imagine a life without him, when he had proven how little she mattered in his life.

Before she could lose steam and wallow in self-pity, he was right by her side, again grabbing her arms. He pressed her close, and she felt the magical sparks fly which contact between them inevitably caused.

"Listen to me."

When she opened her mouth for another insult, he sealed it with a kiss, completely disregarding that she struggled in his hold before instinct took over and her mouth danced with his. It was a kiss of fury and dueling wills and hurt, rough and needy, leaving her lips sore and swollen and her mind and heart in tatters.

Drawing back hardly more than inch, he stared into her eyes, his cold seeping into her pores, her flames subdued for the time being.

With a groan of frustration, he gave her a shake as if to drum some sense into her.

"Listen. I didn't do this well. I was... I should have told you everything. This is only one side of the coin. The other side is that I saw it as a job assignment in the beginning. The more I found out about you, however, and the closer we got, the more personal it became. It wasn't about finding and catching an arsonist, it was about you, about you and me."

Joshua shook, but held himself in check.

"I found a dozen reasons to convince myself that it wasn't you who caused the fires. When the evidence against you grew, I told myself you didn't know what you were doing, and that with my coaching and you getting in touch with your gift, things wouldn't get out of hand anymore. I was never away those times when I seemingly left you alone. I stayed hidden to watch you, but not to collect evidence. I wanted to make sure it wasn't you and that if it was you, we'd find a way to control it. I wanted to protect you, protect our future together. I told myself, what the hell if she does burn houses to the ground, there's never any person harmed. I killed somebody with my oh-so special talent while you merely turned lifeless things into truly dead things."

Felicia opened her mouth to say something but snapped it shut, letting him continue.

"I stopped reporting the truth to my superiors shortly after we... became friends and more. I fed them a spoonful of half-truths off and on, and told them I hadn't found a single trail. But you and me both lost control over the situation when the house with the little girl inside caught fire. Sure, you saved it, but that's exactly the problem."

Again she meant to barge in, again something held her back.

"You turned the spotlights onto yourself, and played into the insurance company's and police's hands. They might have treated you like another victim or witness that day, but to them, the fish has swallowed the bait. They have the net ready and they'll catch you any time soon. They haven't told me because they suspect something is amiss. They don't trust me anymore, and I don't want to fake cooperation, so we're fighting a losing battle now. If I could have laid a false trail, I would have."

His grip on her arms had softened, and his thumbs were stroking over her skin as if he wanted to let the truth flow from his body into hers.

"I'm on your side. Believe me when I say that. I've never acted like this. I was always the sensible loner, distant from everything and everyone. Before you came along, I didn't have a real life. I had my power and I was so proud of it, but that was all. Like you, I led a useless life until we met. But I can't ignore the facts that are becoming clearer and clearer. You're anything but an arsonist in the official sense, but I can't doubt you're responsible for the fires. Give me a chance to hear me out, give the truth a chance to be heard, even if you don't want to. And give us a chance, because I certainly won't give you over to the police."

His words burned himself into her, as though he were the one wielding fire power. Like her hands had marked his skin before, his words branded her, bound her to him. She wanted to resist his powers, she wanted to resist the temptation that he was telling the truth and they could find a way out of this mess.

But could she? Should she?

When Felicia remained silent, wide-eyed and almost-crying, he pressed her to himself in a desperate embrace. Stepping back and letting go, he gave her room and composed himself, but his eyes remained open and readable, which must have been hard for someone who prided himself on his detachment from the world.

"Give yourself and me a chance, because I love you, and you love me too."

This was the last stroke. With a hiccupping sob, she sank to her knees and cried. She couldn't help it. As much as she hated becoming a blubbering fool, there was nothing else for her to do right now. Shock after shock, the greatest of them being not the accusations and the explanations, but this confession of his love, had been her undoing.

While she cried like she never had before, her mind went blank. She dimly registered that he crouched down by her side and enfolded her in a strong embrace.

Felicia didn't know how much time went by, but eventually there were no more tears to cry. And with it came clarity.

She was being prosecuted by the police for crimes she might or might not have committed. She had destroyed several buildings, caused trouble in who knew how many people's lives, been responsible for hurting—though also saving—a child, and was capable of causing greater damage. But she was not alone. And she was not normal. There had to be a way for them... for love.

She lifted her head and allowed him to wipe away her tears, not before he had turned the remaining drops into ice crystals that shone like diamonds and reflected the hint of feeling lurking in his eyes, filling her with hope.

Squaring her jaw, she sought for the last vestiges of confidence left inside her, settled on the fire dragon which hadn't lost its beauty, clung to love, and asked, "What shall we do?"

Chapter 17

What was it about her these days that she was always haunted by a sense of foreboding? For the third time within a few days, it was overshadowing whatever she thought and did.

Felicia had woken up today with determination, last night's trials and tribulations clear on her mind, but a stimulant rather than an obstacle. Once again, the time was ripe to make changes, and what better motivation was there than knowing that if she went through with her plan, a happy—or at least happier—life was awaiting her and Joshua?

The sense of foreboding grew while she wandered around the house, picking out items to pile on the bed to pack them into her hefty, old suitcase and her new sport's bag. She wasn't one to make lists or go about things methodically, which meant frequent trips across various rooms, sudden light-bulb moments and bouts of thinking ahead.

She and Joshua had spent the rest of the night talking quietly but with feverish intensity, heads close together but never touching each other. They would move away from Fairview, quietly go MIA and use his not-so-legal connections from his private investigator career to forge papers to leave the country. They'd start anew, learn and grow together, and love each other.

Inside her, the dragon was eager to travel and savor new experiences. However, she couldn't shake off the dark veil obscuring her future. It had been clinging to her since this morning, or maybe since last night.

She was staring at a notepad and pen in her hand, making up her mind what to include in her message to Cindy, when the doorbell rang and startled her into dropping both.

The sound was shrill and sharp and alarming. With a frown, she walked to the door, feeling sure that whatever had been lurking was now launching its attack.

In front of the door stood three policemen, uniforms immaculate, faces serious. She remembered the tall, stout man at the front with the bushy eyebrows and the clear, intelligent eyes. Lieutenant Harold had been in charge of her interrogation after she had saved the girl from the burning house. Looking at him brought unpleasant memories back, some of them connected to last night. As if Joshua had poured liquid ice into her veins, she went cold. For a moment, it was impossible to breathe. She forced herself to take a step back, breathe and remain as calm as she could, although inside she knew her game was over.

"Officers."

She nodded slightly and hoped an acknowledgement like this—and keeping her mouth shut, as well as her temperament reined in—would help to avoid more trouble.

"Miss Felicia Wolverton?"

Why did he ask when he already knew? Struggling with her inner heat, she resorted to another nod, folding her arms protectively across her chest and praying she wouldn't lose it then and there, and make a fiery mess of life.

"So we meet again."

It wasn't a question, and she didn't answer. Her mind flitted back to several hours ago when Joshua had warned her about the police having connected the dots and being in pursuit. But hadn't the same Joshua assured her that he hadn't fed them true information for a long time?

It sunk in with sudden heaviness.

She had been betrayed.

Joshua had betrayed her.

There was no way out.

The detective in charge cleared his throat, stared hard at her and dipped his chin in a minimal movement for the officer to his right to step forward.

"Miss Wolverton, I have come to arrest you on suspicion of at least four cases of arson. Follow me to the station, please."

God, how would she ever get out of this?

Felicia stood rigid as a statue, her face an unreadable mask, copying what she had observed so often from the one man who was her life and might now be her end too.

It hardly registered that her arms were pulled back and her wrists handcuffed, and that the Lieutenant's voice droned on about her right to remain silent because anything she said could and would be used against her in a court of law. She heard him mention the right to a lawyer and almost laughed out loud. What good would a lawyer do a freak like her, who was probably as guilty as could be? She'd keep her mouth sealed shut and held on to her secret inner strength.

There was only one thought on her mind when they escorted her to the car. One all-important question.

Was she in this alone?

* * *

So much time to think. So little time to act.

Felicia stared at the wall opposite her, which was closer than she would have liked it, too close for comfort. She could recognize it had once been painted a stark, clinical white, although what it resembled most now was a myriad shades of grey and beige decorated liberally with streaks in a dozen sickly colors, as well as the occasional scratches and holes. She hated facing the wall like this, from morning until evening. She wanted to add her own personal impression by burning this place and adding soot-black to the schizophrenic mix on the wall of the prison cell.

There was nowhere else to look. Staring at her own hands made her restless because they weren't meant to lie lifelessly in her lap but to work with fire, to caress icy skin, or to at least do something remotely useful.

There was a narrow strip of a window with black iron bars that provided an illusion of light and air. The cell itself was probably no more than eight by six feet big, enough to wander in tight circles until your head spun and you wanted to scream until your ears bled or your eyes popped out.

She suspected that after the trial and her conviction—she wasn't harboring any illusions she'd wiggle free of this—her cell might resemble a room more closely, with probably a desk and chair or a television added to the bare necessities of bunk bed, toilet and sink.

Gazing at the door, frighteningly solid and equipped with a tiny opening for observation and handing over food trays, was an open invitation for claustrophobia to rule the day. The ceiling, astonishingly white and bright in contrast to the walls, as if someone had cut out the old one and installed a brand-new replacement, sported a single energy-saving light bulb and its plain, round lampshade, a fixed point to concentrate on whenever her head did spin and life slipped out of her still hands although they were curled into fists most of the time.

So much time.

If she wanted to end it all after several weeks—she hadn't counted the days and there was no calendar in the cell—how would she ever last for years and years?

Felicia wouldn't have to last so long. She'd find a way to escape a fate that would surely kill her in a slow and dreadful way... even if it meant choosing death in a faster and equally dreadful way. Her mind was made up, and the flames were sizzling underneath a veneer of brittle calm stretched to breaking point. She'd give it one try. She had to succeed. If she with her special talents couldn't make it out, who could?

Was she guilty? If you measured things by their standards—the normal ones, the ones that counted—she was.

There was no more doubt on her mind that she had caused at least part of the fires she remembered being involved in, though none of the cases had been premeditated and executed with a clear mind. In her heart of hearts, she pleaded for not guilty. Couldn't she be compared to a sleepwalker who woke up only after the crime was committed? Perhaps she could. Perhaps not, because wasn't she claiming to herself and Joshua that she was the one in control? If she was, it meant she would have to take responsibility for everything connected to her and her fire, not only to selected moments and incidents she remembered.

Felicia might hate having so much time on her hands, but today she was willing to admit that it also had a positive side to it. How else would she have been able to think, question and understand? To plan and fear and hope?

First, she had been in shock. Mute, trembling inside, caught between "I should have known" and "this is so unfair" and a deep sense of betrayal.

On the first day in prison, her thoughts had revolved around Joshua. Had he told her a partial lie? Had he informed the police all along, although he claimed to have stopped so some time ago? She tried to wrap her head around the fact that he had vanished many times on purpose, to test her out or maybe let things run their normal cause or to incriminate her further.

An image swam in front of her inner eye, blurry yet shockingly clear, ignored and now impossible to ignore: the day she had stood in front of the police station, waiting for a taxi, spotting a tall, fair, slim person leaving the scene rapidly yet stealthily, hair more white than blond. Joshua? She wondered whether he had been there, watched her being drawn by the fire—or conjuring it without being aware of it—and throw herself into the burning house only to stumble out with the saved child in her arms. She asked herself why he hadn't helped her, and reasoned that he had no way of helping, and she wouldn't have needed or wanted any help anyway.

On the second and third day in prison, he had again been foremost on her mind while she forced down bland food, refused to speak to her lawyer or utter a word at the first appearance at court, and fell asleep only to be woken up by a nightmare full of car-sized spiders bouncing toward her on a million hairy legs while she fought to entangle herself from a giant, sticky, smelly web.

Felicia remembered their many moments of happiness, getting closer and having a first date. The fatal night where they had become one, only to be torn apart by his confession, and afterward take a timid step closer to each other again. Every moment had burned itself into her brain. Passion and bliss. Anger and fear. Confusion and understanding. Had he slept with her to draw out a confession? Had she been right to believe and trust him and make timid plans for a future together, far away from here where neither of them was safe?

On the fourth day in prison, she had woken up with unexpected clearness of mind, and decided not to count the days anymore, and not to waste her energy on the past.

She knew three things. First, she couldn't stand to live out a sentence in prison. Second, she loved Joshua, although her feelings were buried beneath suspicion, and she wasn't yet ready to scratch the surface and dig deeper. Third, she was and would always be fire, and she wasn't and would never be normal.

There was only one thing to do, and she didn't care whether it was right or wrong because it was the light in the dark, the flame that defied what might ruin her.

* * *

Felicia straightened up and tore her eyes away from the wall. She glanced down at her hands, the palms full of tiny welts and indents where her nails had dug in over the past days. After being led into her cell, she hadn't once awakened her fire power, afraid that as soon as she acknowledged it, she wouldn't be able to channel it and use it to get out. Without looking inside, she knew her dragon was suffering. As was she, silently and stoically, preparing to draw strength from the pain.

Today was the day.

Yesterday, her lawyer—more patient than she deserved it, though less dedicated than would benefit her case—had announced her court hearing was due. He had pleaded with her not to remain silent as she did whenever anybody tried to extricate information. She had nodded, bestowed him with her politest smile, and made up her mind.

Now all she wanted was for the last hours and minutes to pass by as fast as possible. Would she see Joshua at the court hearing? He hadn't come to visit her, though she didn't know whether he could or should, given his dangerous double role in the twisted story. Had he visited, what would she have said or done? In the end, it was better this way.

Nothing mattered.

Everything mattered.

She mattered.

Fire mattered.

Love mattered... or did it?

Boot soles on polished concrete floor. Jangling keys, muttering voices, a series of clicks, and the protest of metal not oiled in a long time. Her heart beating in her throat, Felicia turned to the door and composed her face into what she hoped was an innocent yet determined mask of calm. For a second, her thoughts strayed to Joshua, who had mastered the skill of presenting a façade instead of reality to perfection. With a deep breath, she asked her thoughts to stop straying, her pulse to stop hammering, and her dragon to stop stomping its clawed feet and snorting smoke.

Her time had come.

Things happened in a blur. The handcuffs whose icy coolness of steel bit into her skin in a way cold, hard hands had never felt. The guarded walk along endless corridors hardly broad enough for three people strutting side by side in grim silence. The ride to court, taking forever, but leaving no impression on her whatsoever.

As suddenly as it had snuck in, the blurriness sped off. Felicia came to her senses on the sidewalk, half-way between the vehicle and the court, a towering mass of sandstone, columns and Latin inscriptions, a bigger threat than the squat rectangle of the sealed-away prison had felt.

Now.

Whose voice was whispering inside her? It didn't matter.

She collected her strength and focused. Gritting her teeth, she let her heat spring to life and blossom out from under her skin. A hiss and sudden movement, and two hands resting on her arms were lifted off as if the policemen had burned themselves. The tiny satisfaction derived from this urged her on.

Within a split second, she had concentrated the heat where it was needed most, dimly aware of shocked screams and worried whispers when her body lit up with her inner light and her hair glowed like a cluster of flames. Barely suppressing a groan of effort, she increased the heat until the policemen surrounding her backed off warily, guns at the ready and eyes so wide they were close to falling out of their heads. With a hissing sound, the handcuffs melted away, leaving behind nothing but sticky, shiny goo which she itched to rub off.

"Now!"

This time, she was shouting.

The dragon soared out and up.

All hell broke loose.

Surrounded by a cacophony of sharp, threatening sounds and movement that was at once incredibly fast but played out before her eyes in film-like slow motion, Felicia bolted.

While her feet pounded along the pavement, she was aware of the people following her being attacked by her dragon spitting flames in all directions. She heard screams of shock and pain, but she fought to separate herself from what happened to others, however innocent they might be.

This was about her.

She didn't know where to run, only that running was the right thing to do. Shielding herself behind heat and flames trickling across her skin and licking at whatever and whoever came close, she ran blindly as fast as her legs would carry her, away from the mayhem. Above her head, circling like a furious beast about to strike and tear somebody's head off, her dragon shot along, bigger and bolder and more beautiful than she could have imagined it.

There was a snapping sound followed by a series of staccato bursts of heat that made her tremble while running.

Gun shots.

Felicia tried hard to focus, her mind awash with the challenge of escaping. Silently commanding her dragon, she raced along the street to wherever it would lead her, sensing that vehicles had been kicked into life to catch up with the dangerous fugitive.

Her dragon wheeled around in mid-air and released a great whoosh of flames which leapt out and away to attack whoever wanted them caught. No time to fret whether people would be injured. No time to think.

No time.

Just when she wanted to whoop with power and relief because it was exhilarating to have come this far and still be running toward freedom, pain hit her with such force that she couldn't even cry out.

She had been shot.

Her legs carried her along on their own broken will while her left hand jerked up to cradle the hole of searing pain, burning brighter in her side than any fire could.

Agony. With a sound between a wail and a sob, she fell to her knees, clutching her bleeding wound, words tumbling through her head.

Wounded. Bullet. Blood. Kidney. Stomach. Liver. Lung. Pain. Death. Capture.

It was a nightmare.

The pain was the only thing she could feel now. She was out of control, didn't know where she was, where her dragon was, where her followers were. The pain influenced her in a way she couldn't explain, warring with the fire inside her.

Would it win? Would they win?

Everything became blurry, sound, sight, feeling—everything apart from the pain. The pain grew and grew until it exploded, in the literal sense, in a mushrooming cloud of fire as if she were a human bomb.

Chapter 18

Was she dead?

Surely there couldn't be so much pain after death?

Was she dying, spiraling into an abyss of indescribable pain toward the end of the tunnel where not a light but the fires of hell awaited the one who so proudly thought she was in charge of fire?

She wasn't a bad person compared to the criminals and lunatics who stalked the world with their sinister presences and saw life as a game of win and lose. She didn't deserve burning in hell.

But she was burning indeed. She, the one who had set buildings on fire and walked through—no, danced with—flames without so much as having a hair singed.

The pain that came with blackness and unbearable heat climbed up a notch and another until incoherent thoughts were impossible and she would have resorted to prayers if she had been able to. When she was sure she'd die any instant, because no human could be allowed to go through such immense suffering without being offered some kind of salvation, she felt another explosion.

With it came the sensation of flying, of being weightless and bodiless and floating free like a bird.

Through eyes she didn't know she had, she looked down.

On the ground, in the middle of the road, was a blazing tangle of fire, the flames leaping so high that they surpassed the two- and three-storied buildings rising to the right and left. Through the fire and smoke, she saw a huddled form encapsulated inside the raging flames. A person, judging from the wild, long, red curls, a woman. Curled into a human ball within the fire ball, mouth open grotesquely wide in a dirt-and-tear-streaked face with luminous orbs for eyes. Obviously, the woman was screaming in agony, consumed alive by the blaze around her which kept the world out. She would die.

Come.

With difficulty, she—Who was she? Who was the dying woman down there?—tore her gaze from the horror below to where she thought she had heard a silent but powerful call.

Before her was the impressive form of a fire dragon, majestic in its lethal beauty, with a glimmer of kindness in its snake-like eyes that contrasted shockingly with its huge wingspan and the gleaming, streamlined body with a thousand flickering flames mirrored in the polished scales.

There was a sense of recognizing, of belonging.

Yes, she would go wherever this dragon meant to lead her.

Without a conscious decision, she was moving, only a wingspan behind the dragon sailing effortlessly on and on over rooftops and roads, gardens and vehicles. She followed, silently, unthinkingly.

Was she flying? Did she have wings? She was not to know.

More than once, she felt a strong tug inside her, as though she were connected to something she was leaving behind which tried to pull her back with brutal force. The memory of pain fit for hell kept her going without looking back, the essence of her striving at its hardest to keep up with the fire dragon and escape.

For the moment, gliding through the air like this, not tied to anything or anyone, a spirit on the move, some purpose or other waiting, was pure bliss.

She never wanted it to end.

* * *

Pain.

She greeted it like a familiar fiend, an enemy she got more and more practiced at fighting, although never winning the upper hand.

For how long had she been in pain? For too long.

Sometimes it felt like needles pricking into her skin over her body, or like voracious ants chewing away at her with their tiny, surprisingly sharp teeth. At other times, she was sure somebody was skinning her alive, tearing her skin from her flesh and her flesh from her bone piece by piece with merciless persistence, like a butcher with a carcass of meat. Sometimes she thought she was exploding from the inside out because her skin couldn't hold the pain in. Or was it called imploding, collapsing in on herself because her organs had been liquefied or pulverized, and there was gaping nothingness where life—blood, breath—had been? At other times, she must have been a glob of clay in the hands of a giant, punched flat, rolled out to stretch this way and that, modelled into a figure with heavy limbs of lead, left out to bake in heat and become stronger.

Pain.

So much pain.

And still no sense of who she was and who she would become. Was she herself anymore?

Where was the fire dragon and where had it led her? Had it been a messenger sent from hell, the underworld's equivalent to angels bringing the dead to the gates of heaven?

* * *

For the first time, there was a coming to, a feeling of being somebody, of having a body and a life.

Blackness vanished when she lifted heavy lids, the infinitesimal movement enough to lure the pain back. Gradually, there was vision, limited to a blur of washed-out, distant colors at first, blues and greens and blacks and browns like so many dollops of paint on a canvas. She braced the pain and blinked until her sight became clearer.

Felicia was lying on grass, though it felt more like a bed of nails and glass shards against her irritated skin. Above her was a bluish-greyish sky, cloudless and so far away that she couldn't imagine she had ever flown up there. If she stared straight forward and focused hard, there was a soothingly solid structure, walls made of stone or bricks, or was it blackened concrete and wood?

With better vision came the sense of smell. It made her want to retch, but only dry heaving and excruciatingly painful breaths were possible, her newly discovered mouth gaping to fight for oxygen and to vomit a stream of screams, soundless and not lessening the pain. Around her, the stench of flesh and bones and skin and hair and nails and intestines, boiled and burned, charred but not yet ashes, permeated the air.

She had to get away from here, or she would die—if she hadn't already died and this was her purgatory of an afterlife.

All of her protested and the pain reached a record height that she hoped bitterly was its climax, but she did make a move to get away. Movement brought more awareness and more terror. Before she knew it, she had propped herself up from a lying position—as uncomfortable and awkward as if she had been hurled down from a great height or fallen from the sky right onto the ground, sprawled out spread-eagled at unhealthy angles—into a crouch. Keeping herself half-steady with one hand on the ground, fingers digging into the soil for a hold on life itself, she lifted the other hand closer to her tearful eyes.

A scream so huge it should have torn her apart broke loose, and this time she was sure it was audible because her whole being vibrated with its tremors.

What had once been her hand was no more than brittle sticks attached to a string of sinew or two, off-white bone poking through the remnants of black parched skin and oozing reddish slime. She was... not human. A monster. A bog mummy. Meat roasted over a bonfire and forgotten, so that it burned beyond crisp to remnants barely there.

How could she still feel like herself? How could any soul or spirit or mind or living energy or matter reside in an absurdity this horrible? It was impossible. She was dead. She had to be. She wanted to be.

So, she closed her eyes and sank to the ground, for once welcoming the onslaught of pain because it might push her over the edge and closer to death.

* * *

The next time Felicia came to her senses, her first reaction was to take a gulp of air like somebody saved from drowning, and she realized it didn't reek and taste of burned human but astonishingly clean.

Her first thought: I'm still alive.

Tentatively opening her eyes, she discovered her setting hadn't changed. If at all, her vision was less clear now. It took her a moment to realize that she was lying on her back, and that darkness was creeping in, the sky displaying its last vestiges of sunset and misting over with dusk. The neither distant nor close walls, surely belonging to a building in ruins, were no more than dark shapes, but they didn't terrify her.

There was pain, but it was remarkably less than before, and it felt different. It was more like a tingling all over her, as though not a foot or arm had grown numb, but her whole body. The tingling grew worse with each breath, and pain began to ebb and flow in a constant motion which lulled her into half-sleep.

She didn't dare to look at herself again or to think—or, God forbid, to hope. For all she knew, death could still be around, hiding behind a corner to pounce on her as soon as she had succumbed to a false sense of calm. Or maybe she was going through several stages of dying?

After a while, she opened her eyes again, and around her it was dark. Her eyes were staring up into an endless void of blackness, a blanket onto which somebody had painstakingly stitched tiny sequins and pearls and specks of gold glitter stars. Swirls of shadow obscured the artful needlework above. Clouds. Once a big one had glided past in a stately manner, cool light bathed her and her surroundings, so much more welcome than the sun—though hadn't that been different in the past? A stunning full moon hung in the night sky, regal and intimidating, yet at the same time reassuring and nothing if not a sign of the timid hope thrumming and humming inside her chest, increasing with each inhalation and exhalation.

The tingling had subsided, dulled down to a curiously sensual, only slightly painful sensation as though somebody were raking his fingernails across her skin or teasing her with tickles everywhere at the same time. She felt strangely raw, and weak as could be, but her will was stronger, and the memory of torturous pain lost part of its hold on her the longer she stared at the luminous moon.

After some more time spent recovering from what may or may not have been her death, Felicia moved gingerly until she was sitting, each motion uncoordinated and an effort that brought an inkling of the pain back. When she looked down at herself, she gasped, stared and stared, and stared some more.

Gone were the more-dead-than-alive, burned-out limbs of a monstrosity. She possessed healthy-looking arms and legs and fingers which were a miracle of wholeness. Never mind that she was naked and that she shouldn't fully trust the moonlight. Her body was covered in soft, nearly translucent skin, thin and new and rosy-white like a baby's.

Had she shed her skin like a snake? Crawled out of a chrysalis by turning like a freak of nature from a moth flown into the fire into a caterpillar and a butterfly? Had she... had she been reborn?

An image rose in her mind, startling and nearer to the truth than anything she had thought and felt before.

A red-haired, screaming woman trapped in a colossal fire and burning. A phoenix rising from the ashes, a splendid spirit straining up and ahead to join a fire dragon on its quest for escape.

Could it be true?

More scenes flashed across, like the highlights of a movie collected in one trailer, a minute-long clip of love and loss, fear and power, and above of all, of hope.

The longer she sat and stared, alternately at the bright, distant, enticing moon and at her bright, unfamiliar, recuperating body, the more she felt a sense of self creep in. She knew who she was, simply knew. Not just a name and general description as though she were viewing herself like somebody from the outside; rather, she was aware of her essence inside this skin. Something shone through, a part of her old life that she had carried with her through death or almost-death. The less pain and tingling invaded her thoughts, the more they wandered back for her to relive and remember, forever.

After minutes or maybe hours, Felicia summoned her new-found, as yet untested strength and pushed herself up into a standing position. Gingerly, she turned and surveyed her surroundings. Recognition dawned and she gasped.

This was the building which had burned on the night when she and Joshua had met for the first time.

Joshua.

For a moment, she wanted to fall down, crumble in a heap again and forget. Bizarrely, a moment later it was exactly the thought of him, his face, his voice, his taste and feel, that made her stronger.

She had more than one reason to live. She had battled death and won. She was still herself and sure that she'd discover her fire core and her dragon soon. And there was Joshua.

For some minutes, her mind was a chaos of thoughts, mostly of questions zigzagging, racing and overtaking each other, banging against the walls of her brain, bouncing off each other, and skidding round in dizzying circles.

Was it a sign that she had survived? Had somebody from above, some higher power or God Himself, interfered and given her this unique chance for a new start? If yes, why had she deserved it? What was expected of her? Would she have to pay dearly for making it through?

Felicia wondered why the bullet wound had affected her so strongly and strangely when surely it wouldn't have been fatal to a normal mortal. Did pain trigger some secret self-preservation mechanism that made the fire inside her take over? Was it fear that had acted as a trigger rather than the physical agony?

One of the questions bullied its way to the front and nearly knocked the breath out of her.

Was she immortal?

Or had she passed death by in the last possible moment, escaping by a hair's breadth and reassembling herself rather than being reincarnated or reborn?

Another question demanded her attention, and made a tremble rock through her weak form.

Could this happen again?

Oh God, she would never survive all the horrors again! If she were given the choice, she'd prefer to die. Then again, she hadn't been given any choice this time around, so how could she hope it would be different if there ever was a next time?

She stifled a scream, pressing a white-knuckled fist against her mouth until her teeth dug into the raw skin, and jolting herself out of the craze by the pain it caused her.

If she let her mind take over now, she'd be lost forever, reduced to a blubbering fool. Madness was lurking in the background, sharpening its claws and grinning knowingly.

No, she would not give in.

She had not gone through living hell to go raving mad.

Glancing down at her naked body, ghost-like and shivering in the moonlit night, she squared her shoulders, and lifted her head, although it was by far easy. With a last longing glance at the moon, she turned and painstakingly picked her way deeper into the ruins of the burned-out house.

For now, there was nothing to do but wait. She crouched down in a corner surrounded by stones and collapsed beams, folding in on herself, as if it was important to keep herself in and accept the resting place this new body—resembling her old one, as far as she could judge—was offering.

Something or someone whispered into her ear.

The time is not right.

She listened, and she understood on some deep down level in her subconscious mind.

Her time would come.

Chapter 19

Sounds broke the silence, making Felicia crouch deeper into the shadows.

Minutes before sound had come awareness. Nothing specific that she could put her finger on, just the knowledge that something was going to happen. Not foreboding that oppressed with its darkness as it had led to disaster so many times before, but a tugging inside her. It made her think of the connection Joshua had mentioned, the one which had led him on the trail of several specially gifted people, and had brought the two of them together.

Truth be told, everything made her think of Joshua. He wasn't the only thing on her mind, but thoughts about him held the greatest power over her. Every time she had felt like giving up during the past two days, she had focused on the memories of him, and pulled herself through and on, although she had no idea to where or why.

* * *

Two nights ago, she had fallen asleep only to wake up during noon as if from a coma.

There was heat around her, the blackened walls of the ruin baking in the sunshine and radiating their warmth, the earth beneath her dry and hard yet comforting. She had woken not to panic or the dreaded pain, but to determination mixed with a tinge of wonder.

Her skin looked perfect in the harsh daylight, missing the tiny scars and lines and indents and bumps collected by hands and feet over the course of a life. Her hair fell way beyond her shoulders, longer and more luscious with their orange-red-golden curly tresses than she remembered them. She felt vulnerable without clothes, yet at the same time, she couldn't care less. Part of her knew that without clothes, she wouldn't be able to leave her hiding place. Part of her was convinced that it was better anyway to stay hidden, and that she would eventually find a solution. What were clothes to her now that she had reawakened to this uncanny glory, this miracle that should and shouldn't be shared?

Felicia felt neither hunger nor thirst, only an urge to be safe and to reconnect with what was her: fire. After straining her ears and eyes to find out whether anybody was near enough to post a danger to her, she moved around stealthily to collect fallen debris and build a wall of sorts in her hide-out corner. The sun on her skin felt glorious. She was soaking up the heat, basking in it like an iguana on a rock. As inviting and comforting the moonlight might have been a short while ago, the sun and the heat were still her elements. Sitting down square-legged behind her self-built barrier, she closed her eyes, and turned her attention inward. Before she could suppress it, a whoop of delight burst from her mouth. She clamped it shut and waited with baited breath for any reaction, but there was none.

How lucky that she had ended up here, for the house stood at the outskirts of town, bordering a hill leading into the forest. This area was sparsely filled with old, traditional homes, once grand and the center of attention, now reserved for the elderly and those with a meager budget and a foible for traditional housing.

Impatiently, she focused on herself again and was greeted with the sight that had filled her with such joy. Inside her body, her dragon stared back up at her, magnificent as always, unharmed by what she had gone through. She drew strength from its glowing eyes and gleaming body, curled up among so many beautiful flames quietly burning away, waiting for her to command them.

Yes, she was still herself.

Although she was literally itching and trembling to experiment and test out her boundaries, as well as wield her special power and feel whole again, she kept her wish in check. Instead, she stretched herself out among what the fire had left behind, content to be caressed by sunbeams, and to let her thoughts wander.

They wandered straight to one man.

Joshua.

Where was he? What was he doing? Did he know what had happened to her?

How strange and telling that it mattered more to her to find this out than to find a way out of the mess she was in. She might still wanted for arson, and policemen could be crawling over the city like ants to sniff her out. And let's not forget it was partly or wholly his doing that had brought her to their attention. Reason told her she was better off on her own. Her heart, beating as furiously and at the same time steadily as if it had to prove a point, told her that her new life held no meaning if she didn't get to spend it with the one she loved. Without him, she might as well be dead.

When Felicia caught herself thinking that, she sat bolt upright, fists clenched and teeth grinding together.

No, death was not an option. She wanted life. She was meant to live, or she wouldn't have survived and gone through such a bizarre resurrection process. The useless energy she had carried around with her for 27 years of a mostly wasted life had increased during her reincarnation, and she was filled with a will to live, even if it meant fighting or a life filled with difficulties. The fire inside wouldn't accept defeat for an answer, and neither would she.

With a firmly set jaw, she lay back down and kept her eyes open to stare at the sun, defying its glare and triumphing in her ability to do so without needing sunglasses.

She was fire.

She would never give up.

Before her thoughts could stray back to their favorite topic, Felicia steered them to more pressing matters, and spent hours planning her next steps. Life wasn't going to find her here, although death might. She'd have to leave her safe haven, and find her place in the world. It was useless to question what had happened, and to allow the past with its drama to cling to her like shackles.

By the time the sun had set, her mind was made up. She inched out of her hiding place, and made her way across the backyard step by careful step, hunching behind whatever provided cover, acutely aware of her skin—now lightly tanned again—and her fiery hair standing out like a red road sign in the dark. Without a backward glance, she covered the last, ghastly open stretch in a sprint headed for the forest. Within minutes, she was running through the trees and shrubs, her bare feet carrying her on and on. Her dragon soared above her but below the trees' crowns, leading the way to the one place that mattered to her. She had chosen it as the start of her journey.

The clearing by the river where they had met so many times.

* * *

Felicia had spent a day at what to her was simply "our place", getting reacquainted with her body, and experimenting with fire. She had lit branches like torches, she had boiled the river water until steam rose, she had spent minutes on end watching her dragon, and she had bathed herself in flames and danced around because it felt so ecstatic she never wanted to stop. Maybe it was an illusion, but she felt her power had intensified. Perhaps she was better at using it, or perhaps she was more herself now. Her mind was filled with things she wanted to try, things she thought it important to achieve. It was filled to the brim with plans and possibilities.

And her mind was inevitable also filled with him, with the ice magician and his mysterious ways. She had used the time on her hands to ask herself why she loved him, and come up with surprisingly many small and big things. She loved his intelligence, his hunger for knowledge. She loved the way he was always in control and filled with such confidence, and it didn't matter that it bordered on arrogance sometimes and drove her up the walls. She loved that he knew and appreciated the real her, was special, and had high expectations.

Moments and snippets of conversation drifted into her conscience, ebbed and flowed like waves licking at the shore. Inevitably, her thoughts strayed to their last hours together, after the shocking revelation.

She would never forget that night, and how it changed everything between them. The secret out in the open, with its bitter aftertaste of betrayal, masked by the sweetness of having been told the truth, late but not never. His declaration of love, twisted and true, echoed by the emotions running amok inside her. The loaded air around them, keeping them close, but not allowing them to touch, held back by the confines of who they were. Felicia could hear inside her head the way his voice was drenched in meaning and rough as sandpaper when he whispered, "You are the most important part in my life." She didn't care that he hadn't said "You are my life", for honesty weighed more than romance, real feeling more than false promises. And she would have chosen the same words if she had made the statement.

He wasn't her life, but he was what made her life worth living.

When she recalled how he had warned her that he was not used to company and commitment, and that he didn't want to lull her with the fake sense of security of promising he'd never leave her, pain had mixed with pleasure, as it so often did when they were together. So what if he might grow sick and tired of her or scared of his own emotions and bolt, so what if they were so different they'd drift apart over time, so what if fire and ice couldn't exist without trouble and danger and perpetual tug-o-war? She had been ready to take what she could and to make the most of it. And ready to accept the challenge of keeping him from running. If need be, she could be passionate for two, seeing how he was sensible for two.

Felicia had been willing to risk it all—and she was still willing.

She was in love with the one man who deserved it, and who she was almost sure loved her back.

The man who chose exactly this moment to walk to the river.

Her heart skipped a beat only to kick into a sprint as if racing toward an invisible finishing line. Uncharacteristically hesitant steps brought Joshua closer to the river's edge where he stopped to stare blankly ahead. He wasn't more than a few feet away from where she was hiding, wedged between a shrub and a tree trunk, most of her body covered by her flowing red locks. If he looked her way, his sharp eyes would have no problem of detecting her, blazing against the dark, solid shapes around her.

He didn't look her way, though. He didn't look anywhere, just lowered his head and let his gaze droop into the water below, rushing and rushing in mindless madness.

It was the first sign to tell her something was amiss.

Being anything but alert and energetic was so completely unlike the man she knew that her stomach tied itself into knots of worry. She was ready to bust her cover and run into his arms... arms hanging lifelessly by his sides.

She narrowed her glowing eyes and tilted her head, and fought hard to suppress a gasp when she found more signs that this scene was wrong.

Within a span of a couple of weeks, he had gone from slim to downright skinny. In fact, his tight black T-shirt outlined skin and bones more than flesh and muscle. His sand-colored jeans, which would normally have hugged a body honed to perfection, were sagging. His whitish hair looked disheveled, and his posture spoke of listlessness. When a bird flapped over their heads, the movement startled Joshua into lifting his head, and this time, the gasp couldn't be suppressed.

His face was a mask of anything but listlessness. It was an artist's study on suffering. His eyes whose icy blue should have shone in the night were lifeless and red-veined. His gaunt face looked sunken, with hollow cheeks and a mouth pressed into such a thin line it was hardly visible.

Had he been crying? Was he in pain?

She ached to reach out and smooth out the lines etched into his marble forehead as if a sculptor had taken hammer and chisel to it.

Half of her felt like crying because seeing him suffer meant she was suffering too. Another part of her thrilled in the fact that he was mourning her absence and probably yearning to be with her as much as she did. She shifted her weight onto her toes and was about to push herself up into a standing position when the air around her grew cold so unexpectedly it made her freeze. Before she could snap awake and turn her heat up, goose bumps had risen over her exposed skin. The air had grown so shockingly chilly in an instant that she could have been inside a freezer instead of in a forest during summer.

Motionless, her senses on edge and the dragon inside her shaking itself all over from the uncomfortable onslaught of wintry cold, she watched a bizarre spectacle unfold before her.

His body had switched from limp and beaten by suffering to rigid as a statue and tense as if ready to spring into action. Did she imagine it, or did he whisper a single word full of meaning and despair?

Goodbye.

He inhaled deeply and slowly, raising his arms, as she had watched him do it the magical night after their first encounter. When he breathed out, cold mist crawled out of his mouth and nostrils and ears, and seeped along until it had enveloped his body. Frozen in place like a deer caught in the headlights of a speeding truck, she looked on as the coating of mist tightened until it was a layer of snow, only to harden and glisten like ice. It formed a hard shell around his contours, followed in rapid succession by a second and third layer of ice glistening like a forbidden invitation in the moonlight.

What was he doing?

While the temperature dropped and dropped, and the ground around him got covered in what reminded her of hoarfrost on winter mornings, the eerie mist never stopped pouring out of him. A fourth layer of ice got joined by a fifth one, and she found it increasingly difficult to make out his features underneath the solid, sparkling shield.

She felt panic rising, her heart beat on overdrive, and flames bursting forth from her hands without her command.

Was he going to turn himself into a giant, grotesque ice-version of an insect trapped in amber? Was it his life essence escaping in misty wisps of cold? Was he... was he dying? Killing himself?

With an incoherent shout, she launched herself out of her hiding place and bridged the short distance in a run, crashing into him. It was like running against a brick wall. With a thunk and a muffled yelp of pain, she fell back and rubbed her chest and chin.

Was there still something living and breathing behind the ever-growing layers of ice? In front of her stood a statue, rock-solid, unmovable, the barest hint of face and body shining through.

Oh God, no!

"No, no, no! You can't do this to me! You can't leave me! Joshua!"

She screamed and screamed, drumming her fists against the impenetrable shield that wouldn't crack but made the skin on her knuckles and palms split.

Her dragon left her body with such force she was thrown to the ground a second time. Stumbling to her feet, tears streaming down her face and evaporating in the mix of dry heat and cold air around them, she watched as her dragon stilled itself in mid-air, inches away from the ice sculpture's expressionless face. It opened its mouth wide, revealing razor-sharp teeth and a tongue of flame. With a whooshing sound, it breathed a stream of fire against the icy head.

This was it! She was so stupid, had let her emotions get the better of her. Wasn't it logical to fight ice with fire, cold with heat? Hadn't she impacted him before? With the image of her palms burned into the alabaster of his chest as motivation, she summoned every ounce of strength, and followed her dragon's suit.

While it circled the figure's head, continuously spitting flames from as close as it dared to get to the cold, she sent fire flying out from her hands until tongues of flames licked their hungry way across the iceman's body. It was hard work, and she was vibrating with the effort of bracing the cold that tried to use her weakness to invade her. Flame after flame left her body and was flung at his immobile form, and after what felt like infinite minutes, no new ice layers were formed.

Gradually, the double onslaught of heat and fire made the surface melt. Soon, rivulets and veritable rivers of water were running down the figure. The frost on the ground had retreated, and she would have found it easier to breathe if she hadn't been so absorbed in sending as much fire power his way as she dared, aiming for intense enough to melt, but not so fierce it would turn him from mummy in an ice block to living—or not so living—torch.

When there was only a dangerously thin layer of protection left, she sent a silent prayer for self-control upward, called all the flames back, and shot her dragon a thankful glance. It stared back at her, and its quiet, slanted, golden eyes with red irises spoke of strength and support. She swallowed hard and fixed her gaze on the man before her who was now clearly visible beneath a veneer of ice. His eyes were closed, and his face was a calm mask of rigidness, with polished cheekbones, as white as snow.

Swallowing again and taking a steadying breath, she lifted her hands and laid them cautiously against his chest. From inside, there was a tug of reaction. Was it because she had left her imprints on his skin and the little part of her connected to her essence, or was it his heart wanting to beat with hers?

Felicia bit her lip in concentration, and exerted pressure, increasing the heat inside her veins. Her hands, warm but not yet hot, trembled slightly on his icy chest. She kept them there, willing the warmth to do the work and break the last boundary, her eyes never leaving his face, her ears straining to pick up the thudding of a heart or the rush of breath. Neither sound reached her, nor did he open his eyes, but underneath her touch, ice turned to sleet, and ran down his body until her hands touched a wet T-shirt and met cold, not so hard resistance.

Was a heartbeat fluttering under her fingers, or were her fingers shaking with hope?

When nothing happened, she let her impulses take over, stood on tiptoes, and pressed a kiss onto the fine, taut line of his stony lips. Nothing yielded under her touch at first, not even after she parted her lips to breathe warm air onto his mouth. An instant later, two icy, hard arms snaked up and pressed her to his body in a vice-like grip. For a moment, he yielded to the kiss, but when she wanted to rejoice, he stepped back abruptly, and she felt desolate and bereft.

Wide eyes stared back at her lifelessly, opening with painful slowness to an expression of... of what? Suspicion mixed with tentative happiness? Hope mixed with despair?

When he spoke in a rough, dry, quiet voice, it tore at her heart strings, yet was the most beautiful thing she had heard in a long time.

"At least in death you and I are united. Though I am not sure I deserve such mercy."

She felt tears pricking at the back of her eyes, and willed them back, her body shivering with the effort to control herself. His gaze was fixed on her in a stare as hungry as a starving man's.

Her voice was more emotional than she would have liked it when she spoke to him, forcing each word out clearly to leave an impression.

"Joshua. Listen to me. You are not dead. Neither am I. You are alive, although you wanted to kill yourself. I was there. I saw you, and I saved you because I can't and don't want to live without you."

Pain crossed his face, hitting her like a fist in the gut.

"No, this cannot be true. Why am I being lied to and enticed by this mirage in my afterlife? I guess I deserve it."

With these disillusioned words, he sank to the ground and groaned before burying his head in his hands and heaving dry sobs like a small, forlorn boy. What had looked unbreakable had been broken. The ice magician was weeping, the last trace of detachment gone.

By the time Felicia had reached his side to embrace him, she was crying too, copious tears evaporating in her heat.

"Please, please listen to me. You didn't die. I didn't die either. Look at me, I'm alive. We're in our place in the forest. Over there is my fire dragon. Don't you feel human and alive? Don't you feel me? Can't you feel my love?"

She let her fingers slide into his hair and pulled his head up, her other hand lying over his beating heart. He looked at her, but she wasn't sure that he could see her, or that he believed what he saw. Tears ran down his cheeks, hardening into glittering diamonds. She leant forward as if in trance, and licked them away, tiny drops of ice which melted instantly and tasted of clean, fresh water with a hint of mint, like she remembered his taste on her tongue.

A shiver went through her body, echoed by his. When she claimed his mouth in a searing kiss, trying to inject her message of truth into it, he responded with a moan. Their lips pressed and urged, their teeth nipped and dug until they drew blood, their tongues delved deep, both of them desperate to get beneath skin and beyond invisible boundaries to the other's core. Her heat flared and made her glow until it grew so much that he broke the kiss and jerked away.

They stared at each other, breathing ragged, pulse racing, minds in a jumble.

"Is... is this real? Are you real?" he asked in a voice filled with wonder and not yet hope.

"Yes."

She fought not let his nearness impact her, not to squirm under his gaze raking over her naked, shimmering body. For a moment, light filled his eyes, but the next moment it was gone, and another groan of suffering escaped him.

"But I saw you die. I was there three days ago in front of the court, hidden but ready to do something, anything. I had to watch you try to escape and being shot and bursting into flames in an explosion that would have been enough to destroy a row of buildings. My help came too late, because I was too foolish to cast aside my own preaching and go against the rules, too much of a damn coward to use my magic and risk discovery. I sent my ice to freeze the action, but you had already been struck by one of the bullets. Oh, how I regret that I couldn't save you! I heard you scream, and I saw you burn. You... she... Felicia is dead. You are a dream come alive, a ghost sent to haunt me for the rest of my life."

Joshua drew a shuddering breath and straightened somewhat, as if accepting his fate.

"What a much better punishment than dying, having to live with this unbearable pain."

What could she do to make him understand? Why was he so ready to accept punishment? Because he had indeed betrayed her and regretted it? Because he thought he should have told her earlier, and given them a chance to leave it behind?

It wasn't important. What was important now was to make him believe the truth, and to become one with him again. She was a survivor. She was a fire witch. She could do this.

Taking his hands, Felicia turned them palms up, leaned toward them and breathed out with full concentration, as if she were a dragon. A small ball of fire hovered an inch from his hands, and when she blew at it softly, it shaped itself into a heart, pulsing with heat and energy, growing by the second until it was casting its ruddy glow over them like a miniature sun.

"Do you think a ghost could do this?" she asked.

He stared at the fire heart and at her, a glimmer of hope flickering in his eyes, ready to die again any moment.

Nothing was able to convince him.

She wracked her brain what to do, and grabbed at a solution that would be her last straw.

Looking him straight in the eyes, she told him what had happened after he had witnessed her go down in a flaming inferno.

Sailing over the scene and following the dragon. Pain worse than what anybody should ever have to go through. Coming to and fainting again and again, while she turned from spirit to a monstrosity with the singed remnants of a body to an adult-sized fetus covered by new skin. She shared her tale of being reborn.

When she was finished, her body was shaking uncontrollably with the memories of agony and anguish and horror, and with her struggle not to let it overcome her.

If she ever had to relive her terrifying metamorphosis again, she'd break into pieces.

It was too much.

She got up and stumbled several paces away on legs hardly supporting her. Leaning against a tree with her back to him, hands balled into fists, nails digging into her flesh, she fought for control. How on earth had she survived such pain when the mere memory of it was enough to make her go crazy?

A cold hand touched her shoulder gingerly, then pressed down hard until its grip was painful.

"Felicia."

It wasn't more than a choked-out whisper, but it carried the world's meaning inside it.

Before she knew it, he had spun her around and enfolded her in a powerful hug, nearly squishing the breath out of her. They held each other, clinging like drowning people to their lifebuoy, feeling more alive in this one moment than they had ever felt before.

"It's you. You have come back to me."

He held her away at arm's length, the first sparks of blue visible in his icy eyes, the first hint at his strength and confidence audible in his voice.

She nodded, and couldn't help a foolish grin of pure happiness from stretching her lips.

"I've walked through hell to get to you, and now beware if you ever let me go."

"I won't," he promised fiercely, his hold on her tightening.

"God, what you have been through... I don't want to imagine it. Yet I know I'd have done the same if possible, if it had meant living to spend my time on earth with you."

Her grin grew wider. She couldn't fight it, she was just so overjoyed.

"I guess the saying 'a baptism by fire' has taken on a whole new meaning."

A giggle was threatening to slip out.

His mouth mirrored hers in a grin bordering on madness more than on humor.

"Yeah. I guess that's what happens if you are prone to playing with fire."

Unexpectedly, they were both laughing, long and hard and with madness seeping in, until they were wheezing and close to crying. The next instant, he had her pinned against the tree while he ravaged her mouth with aggressive, needy kisses, pressing himself against her as if he wanted to make her his, and never be separated from her again.

God knew how they managed to get a grip on themselves, but eventually they did. They sat down at the foot of the tree, facing each other and holding hands, afraid they'd be torn apart again any moment. After long silence and another bout of longing kisses that made her acutely aware of her nakedness, Joshua—as she had fully expected him to—took the reins into his hands.

"What shall we do now? Fairview is a lunatic asylum these days. After the fire had burned itself out, which took hours because no attempt at extinguishing it worked, all hell broke loose once more because they couldn't find your body. There was no evidence that somebody had been eaten up by the flames, no clothes, no ashes, no bone shards, nothing. Only a trail of blood leading to the area, scorched by heat so intense that the road's tar had melted."

He swallowed, keeping the memories at bay, probably like her anything but keen to put her finger into a wound that hadn't yet healed.

"I ran away before anybody could catch a hold of me, hoping you'd escaped from the fire by some kind of magic. Never going back to my place, I wandered the streets at night and hid during daytime, waiting against reason for you to show up, heck, maybe riding your dragon to safety."

Heaving a sigh and looking thoroughly forlorn, Joshua went on, "Some days later, the last hope had died. I tapped into several of my investigation resources to find out more. Everybody thought and thinks you're dead, that some mysterious chemical you used to orchestrate your escape must have caused you to disintegrate in the blaze. The media is awash with sensational stories and ripe with rumors, and the arson case will be closed now because they see your escape as an admission to guilt. I hardly took these things in. I was a mess, functioning in auto mode, barely living."

He swallowed hard again, his Adam's apple bobbing up and down in his throat and enticing her to press her lips, tongue and teeth against it.

"I had died with you, so I came here to end it."

Joshua stopped and took a minute to collect himself, his face and voice reminding her more and more of the old Joshua before the tragedy, although he appeared more...human...to her.

"This is such a mad mess."

Felicia nodded and leaned in for another kiss, as she couldn't get enough of him and of the knowledge that they had won.

"What now?"

This was new, him asking her for advice and handing over some power. She liked it. It would be interesting to see what other changes their suffering had caused.

"Well, for starters, I'm tired of walking around without clothes. You with your experience at being a snooping, sneaky private investigator shouldn't find it too hard to get me something to wear... and I haven't eaten anything for days, although I don't feel the need to yet."

Her attempt at keeping things light was rewarded with one of his sexy half-grins that made the flames flutter in her belly. His gaze roved over her curves, and turned the flutter into a veritable blaze.

"I haven't tired of seeing you in your splendor yet. The clothes can wait."

His silky voice sent a delicious shiver down her spine.

"So, what now?" she mimicked his question, eyes sparkling and skin glowing radiantly.

"I guess you have a plan?" he asked, and cocked an eyebrow at her while one of his cold hands painted a trail of goose bumps onto her thigh.

Again, Felicia nodded, filled with quiet pride. Despite everything that had happened, she had taken the time to think, and was filled with determination.

"You need to throw your weight around without arising suspicion, and organize a trip out of town and out country. We'll need fake passports and travelling documents."

Pride was visible on his face too.

"And where does my fire witch think we should travel?"

Smiling her brightest smile at him, she stilled his hand before she'd lose her ability to concentrate.

"Iceland."

His second brow joined the first.

"Are you serious? Why all the cold, vastness and desolate darkness?"

"It's full of nature and mysteries and volcanos and endless nights and polar lights. I'll have room to experiment with my powers. The fire slumbering beneath the earth sounds like a fascinating challenge. Nobody will give a damn about us, and you will enjoy the never-ending winters. It's associated with legends and dragons and mystery, as is all of Scandinavia, and I want to research those things. Besides, it isn't called the 'Land of Fire and Ice' for nothing."

Joshua squeezed her thigh, and planted another toe-curling kiss on her mouth.

"Iceland it will be, my immortal fire witch."

While eager fingers danced and explored and rediscovered, hot smoke and cold mist rose into the night, and two voices whispered of hope.

Eternal flames and perpetual ice.

Nothing and no one would be able to stop them.

THE END

Book 2 and Book 3 will be published next month. You can find teasers on my website and Facebook page.

Read on for the first chapters of "Dancing with Fire".

Dancing with Fire

FIRE Trilogy, Book 2

by

Devika Fernando

Copyright © 2015 Devika Fernando

All rights reserved

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us.

Marianne Williamson, A Return to Love

Chapter 1

Joshua froze, becoming so still that it was as if he had stopped existing. In that instant, he looked more like a marble statue than a human being.

Something was wrong.

He had been lying on the rock for quite some time, alone, lost in thoughts, calmly content. Far enough from the town to be safe, he had let his ice magic loose. Cold, white mist was swirling around him, partly obscuring his body. The iciness he was radiating had formed frost flowers on the rock's smooth surface, intricate little patterns that he had been tracing with his fingertips absentmindedly.

But something had jolted him into alertness and made him sit up.

He could sense a presence close by, instinctively knowing it was no human. With a whispered command, he made the mist dissipate to clear his vision. He scanned his surroundings.

There was nobody to be seen. Only endless fields of yellow-green, high, dry grass interspersed with a few hills and one wind-bent tree cowering beside the rock he was sitting on. The silver-blue snake of the river wound its way through the vast emptiness. To his far left, an impossibly high mountain range was jutting into the cloudy sky, hulking and looming in ominous grandeur with volcanoes sleeping fitfully beneath glaciers. To his right, a couple of miles off, was a range of hills. Behind those lay the suburb where he lived with Felicia.

Joshua sent his ice magic outward in the form he preferred, as a giant hand of icy coldness, its frosty fingers brushing across the terrain. Nobody. Nothing. Not even an animal.

He must have imagined the unsettling sudden presence. It had been a feeling not so much of being watched but rather of intruding on someone or stumbling upon a secret not meant for him to discover.

"Nonsense," he muttered, shaking his head.

Felicia was right, he was being paranoid. They'd been living in Iceland for four months now, and of course nobody had suspected anything. So why was he still on edge, ever the watchful and suspicious spoilsport?

Joshua lay back down on the rock. He stared at the swirling masses of grey clouds up in the sky, chased along by heavy winds that were no more than a breeze down on earth. With a sigh, he closed his eyes and sunk back into the state of meditation he so loved to lose himself in, shrouded once more in a cold, private mist.

Shock zinged through him when he felt the presence more strongly. Not one being, but two, as different as they could be. He froze again and held his breath, and the feeling intensified. He grew strangely dizzy, as if he had lost his balance although he was lying down on firm, hard rock. His eyelids grew too heavy to lift, and tiny flashes of light zigzagged through the darkness behind them.

But do you really think the time is right?

Out of nowhere, a voice reverberated in his head, as if his skull were a mountain cave catching a voice and throwing back its echoes.

The voice sounded almost human. There was something androgynous about the tone, although it sounded more female than male, and harsh with frustration.

Joshua felt a stab of cold lash out at him. It was a bigger shock than anything before because he never felt cold. He was an ice wizard, how could anyone or anything make him feel the painful jab of coldness?

Before he could process the whole thing, another voice made itself known, this one decidedly male and fierce. It brought a wave of intense heat with it that burned right through Joshua's protective mist and was a hundred times more unsettling than the onslaught of iciness.

Time, time. Of what importance is time to us? Don't we rule over it? When we say it is right, then it is right.

The cold from before made itself known again, like someone elbowing his way back into a conversation. We are not in this alone, the female voice said accusingly.

It grew hotter and hotter in reaction to that. I do not care about the others. Neither should you. This was the male voice, grating on his nerves with its inner heat and brutal enunciation. It spoke again, yet more vehemently. Can't you feel it? This decision isn't ours to make anymore. We have to react. Now!

The coldness bracing itself against the force of the heat wavered slightly, but stood its ground. Yes, I can feel it. Was there less reluctance in the tone now? The cold gained a little strength. But we must not hurry, the risk is too high, the female voice spoke again.

There was an explosion of heat that had Joshua wince in pain, nearly blacking out from all the strange sensations enveloping him. To hell with your patience! The male voice roared deafeningly, and for a second Joshua thought his head would explode from the vibrations and the sound and the heat.

He gasped and opened his eyes wide, suddenly able to move again and break the spell. Sitting up, his head spinning, he braced himself against the ground and blinked. It took him a moment to realize that the roaring sound was still in his ears. But was it really inside his head? He blinked and tried to focus. It was as if...as if the sound came from beneath him, from inside the earth. Like the growl of a menacing beast or the rumbling of a giant's stomach, the sound traveled through the ground.

Was he shaking, or was the ground shaking?

Joshua's gaze fell on the tree beside the rock, and he saw it shiver and bend a little as if a strong gust of wind was tearing at it. He pressed his hands flat against the rock and felt the earth move.

The next moment, everything had righted itself. There was no roaring sound and no eerie sense of the ground being pulled away from under his feet like a carpet.

Earthquake. He had witnessed a short and probably small earthquake. His brain slowly processed the facts and calmed him down somewhat.

Joshua got to his feet and stared around, half expecting things to have been changed, himself to have changed. Everything looked perfectly normal again.

But what about those voices?

Chapter 2

Felicia's dragon was puffing out smoke through its nostrils and twitching its tail, right in the middle of another dull day at the reception desk.

Luckily nobody had any idea, for although her fire dragon had grown substantially during the past few months, it—or rather, she—was still content to keep within the confines of Felicia's body. As long as its host let it out in the evenings and acknowledged its magic, it stayed relatively quiet inside her and remained spirit more than matter, fire energy more than a real fire.

So why had it been showing signs of excitement since this morning, although it had been another day of boring routine for Felicia?

With a frown that she hid by brushing a tendril of red hair out of her face, Felicia reflected on her current situation.

* * *

She had come to Iceland with Joshua exactly four months ago. They had spent the first month touring the country while also lying as low as possible, afraid that American authorities in search of them might have alarmed their European counterparts. But of course nobody had come after them. As far as people back home were concerned, Felicia was dead, and Joshua had gone missing somewhere along the Canadian border. Besides, no suspected arsonist was worth being tracked by Interpol, even if she had staged a spectacular escape on her way to the first court hearing.

So after weeks of constantly being on the road, they had finally opted to settle down. Easier said than done if you were terribly short on money, and certainly no normal human on the inside. Neither of them wanted to live in the busy capital, Reykjavík. After all, they had come to Iceland because they wanted to be close to its breathtaking nature and its mostly empty rural areas where they would be left in peace.

Compromising between a village where they'd certainly find no work and a big city with no freedom, Felicia and Joshua had settled in Arborg. It was around 37 miles away from the capital and belonged to the south of the island nation. The town of Selfoss was their new home, and there they spent another month getting by on scraps and depending on the surprising hospitality of the Icelandic people.

Both had started looking for a job, but neither of them spoke more than a handful of hastily acquired words of Icelandic. So much for running away from something instead of running to something...

As luck would have it, the town's main tourist abode, the Hotel Selfoss, was attracting quite a load of foreign tourists. Felicia made up her mind. She simply walked into the building and asked to speak to the Human Resources Manager. Impressing him with her English and the rudimentary bit of Spanish she remembered from her college days, and flaunting her new-found confidence that radiated like her fiery heat, she persuaded the manager into hiring her as the new receptionist.

Joshua had no such luck. He was still looking for a job a month later, while Felicia had settled into hers and took on many a weekend shift to cover their expenses. It was barely enough to pay the rent for the small annex on the outskirts of town and keep them clothed and fed.

* * *

How ironic that they had come here to escape the dullness of normal life, only to realize that this was easier said than done. What use was her fire magic and Joshua's ice magic if it couldn't provide them with a roof over the head or food on the table?

Felicia sighed. She had come to hate her job as a librarian back in America because it meant keeping up a calm pretense all the time and never having anything happen. How she had dreamt of not having to depend on a job or of doing something adventurous! And here she was, standing behind the 4-star hotel's front desk in her neat slate-grey uniform, her curly red mane tamed into a braid, her face a constantly smiling mask. Speak of falling from the frying pan into the fire.

Fire.

For a moment, Felicia's smile reached her eyes. No, she shouldn't mope about having come here. The fire inside her certainly appreciated the move, although the moments of joy and magic were few and far between.

While her days were spent handling the phone, checking the bookings and fawning over their international guests, and her lunch break consisted of learning the Icelandic language, her nights were a different matter altogether. When she wasn't making love to Joshua, they were out and about, roaming the wildly beautiful landscape and living their paranormal side.

She still had so much to learn, but she was much more comfortable with her fire magic now. Gone were the times when she had been scared of her own power, and exhausted whenever she used it consciously.

Felicia was torn out of her thoughts by her fire dragon raising itself inside her with astonishing agility, its gleaming, fiery eyes wide, its nostrils flaring.

What on earth was the matter with her alter ego today?

There was no way she would be able to communicate, silently or not, for work was calling her. A tourist chose this very moment to enter the hotel.

But was he a tourist? Felicia eyed the newcomer with interest. The young man sauntered across the lobby in a swagger that oozed confidence. He carried no luggage. Dressed in khakis and a red polo shirt, his hands stuffed into his pockets, his head held high, he scanned his surroundings. What he lacked a little in height, he made up for hundredfold in build. The fire dragon inside her purred at the way his shirt stretched over his muscled arms, broad chest and clearly outlined pectorals and washboard abs.

Felicia frowned at her dragon's reaction and remembered at the last moment to plaster her welcome smile on her face when the man—he must have been her age—walked straight toward her.

When their eyes met, time stood still for a moment before it stuttered back to life like an engine with a miss.

His eyes were the color of amber, unsettlingly close to the fiery glow hers took on whenever she let her wild side out. In his face, it made for an interesting contrast, because his unruly mop of dark brown hair and his bronzed, tanned skin tone highlighted the startling lightness of his irises.

Even if she had wanted to look away, she couldn't have, for the man held her gaze in a dead lock. Did she imagine it, or were his irises widening and glowing more? And why could she feel the fire inside her turn from soft little candle flames to ever higher-shooting flames?

When Felicia finally blinked and broke the connection, she could sense that her body temperature had gone up, and it worried her. She shouldn't lose control of her heat as it had happened months ago before Joshua had saved her. She knew full well that things could get out of hand in an instant if she didn't remain alert and in control at all times.

Automatically, Felicia widened her smile and chimed in when her two colleagues greeted the new guest with "Velkomin, welcome".

The stranger walked closer and beamed at them, but his gaze only flickered at the two women flanking her before returning to her face and burning into her again. Standing in front of the desk, he took his hands out of his pockets to cross his arms and make the muscles bulge.

Why was it so hot inside the usually cool lobby with its simplistic wood furniture and glass-fronted walls? Surely all that heat didn't come from her alone?

"Góðan dag, good afternoon," the stranger said, and his voice was like rough, gravelly stone and velvet rolled into one.

"Ég...erm..." He seemed to be searching for the right words in Icelandic. "Oh shoot it..." he muttered, tossing his head back a little and staring right at her once more. "Talarðu esnku? Do you speak English?" He sported the hint of an American accent, less than her but definitely noticeable.

"Yes, of course. How may I help you? Do you wish to book a room at the Selfoss Hotel?" Felicia replied in her politest tone, keeping her irritation to herself.

The man's cocky grin returned and he threw up his arms in mock joy.

"Oh thank heavens, someone who'll understand me! You're just the one I've been looking for. I can't seem to get the knack of this language. Too many Germanic touches, not nearly enough Latinate influence for an English speaker."

Felicia looked at him blankly, not sure whether a comment from her was expected. She knew it was sometimes a little difficult to understand the Icelandic people when they spoke English, but at least most of them knew how to communicate. He sounded as if she were a gift from God because she knew English well. She stayed silent, seeing from the corner of her eye that her two colleagues were disappointed the handsome tourist wasn't theirs to drool over. She wondered what kept them from doing a job they were better equipped to do than her. Maybe he confused them as much as her?

"Are you from America?" he asked. "You sound like it."

She frowned at him. Why was he getting personal? Knowing full well that the guest was king, she kept her annoyance out of her voice.

"Yes, I am."

"I'm from Canada," he announced, and she reacted with a minimal nod of acknowledgement.

He smiled at her, leaning against the desk. It was definitely getting hotter and hotter in here. Felicia was dimly aware of her dragon hanging onto each word the newcomer said. But why?

"So, can I get you a room or maybe the lovely and luxurious suite?" she asked. "We have some free rooms with a stunning view of the river and the suspension bridge."

The man straightened up and grew serious.

"Actually, I haven't come here to book a room. I'm not looking for accommodation." He leaned closer and peered into her eyes, lowering his voice a little. "I'm looking for a job."

Felicia gaped at him for a moment before collecting herself. What the hell? Did she have a note pinned to her forehead that said 'job agent' or something? Luckily all those years of working at the library had made her an expert in how to deal with all kinds of people.

Politeness in person, she said, "I'm afraid you've come to the wrong place. We only offer accommodation, and of course meals in our Riverside Restaurant."

He made a dismissive gesture. "Sure, sure, I know that. The thing is, I really need a job right now, and with my rudimentary Icelandic, my chances are next to zero. So I came here."

She had a dismissive reply on the tip of her tongue, but swallowed it down. A voice in the back of her head whispered that she had been in exactly the same situation a few weeks ago. Hadn't she singled the hotel out and taken the initiative too, and hadn't it landed her a job? For a brief moment, she wondered whether she had come across as full of herself as the man.

A nudge from the colleague to her left made her remember that she was supposed to react. Before she could answer, Ada said in halting but correct English, "I'm sorry, we can't help you. Try putting up an advertisement in the newspaper. Or find a job in Reikjavík."

He shook his head, determination in his eyes and the way he squared his shoulders and his jaw. "I can't," he said to Felicia instead of Ada. "I need to stay right here."

Felicia shrugged. Well, that was his problem, not hers. He wasn't a guest of the hotel, so this was none of her business. Why couldn't he leave without wasting her time—and without exciting her dragon?

Instead of doing what would be logical, he surprised her again by thrusting one of his big hands at her. "I'm Kyle. Kyle Brown."

Automatically she shook his hand, and a jolt of heat coursed through her like a flash of lightning. What was that? She tried to pull her hand back, but his strong, tanned fingers gripped it firmly. Her body temperature soared, and the dragon inside her preened itself.

Felicia blinked at the stranger in confusion. What was he doing to her?

Ada broke the spell, probably determined not to be ignored again. The short, slim, blonde-haired woman was roughly ten years older than Felicia, but looked younger than her age. She offered the man a simpering smile and her hand. He let go of Felicia's hand with obvious reluctance and shook Ada's hand briefly, flashing his signature predator grin.

"Gaman að kynnast þér. Pleased to meet you," he said, and her colleague smiled even wider.

The third receptionist had her hand shaken too, after which the stranger leaned against the counter, propped one arm on it and rested his chin on his hand in an oddly personal and relaxed gesture.

"So, any idea whether I could work here? Have mercy on a vagabond like me. As a Canadian, I'm practically your neighbor."

Felicia narrowly kept herself from shaking her head, and swallowed down another acerbic remark. The cheek of the man!

"This is a hotel. We can't just hire someone walking through this door, knowing nothing about him and..."

He interrupted her with another grin. "Oh, I'll tell you anything about me you'd like to know!"

She gritted her teeth.

"Really, Mr. Brown, you purposely misunderstand me. I am sorry, but we cannot help you. All the best with finding a job," she said, keeping her voice barely civil.

He sobered up and stood straight, but a glimmer of humor stayed in his amber eyes.

"Oh, don't call me Mr. Brown, please, that makes me feel like my own father or grandfather."

When she didn't react and her colleagues continued to stare at them curiously, he acknowledged the strangeness and seriousness of the situation. While she fought to keep her heat level down, she saw him pull a paper out of his back pocket and unfold it. He laid it on the desk and straightened it out before pushing it closer to her. It was a printed A4 sheet with the bold heading Curriculum Vitae.

"Actually, I brought some information along. I'm not all unprepared, you see—and not unexperienced either."

She narrowed her eyes at him, unwilling to study his CV because there was no sense in it.

"I have worked in hotels before, all around the world. Among other things, I was a waiter and a bartender. Heck, I was part of the band playing for the guests' entertainment once when I was in Spain," he said.

Felicia raised her eyebrows at him. This man was full of surprises. And he was getting on her nerves, although she had to admit his persistence was admirable.

He pushed the sheet of paper closer and gave her a mock begging look that would have put a puppy dog to shame.

"Come on, I'm putting my whole life in your hands here. Give me a chance. Showing this to your HR manager won't hurt, will it? As far as I know, this hotel has just been renovated and modernized, so maybe he won't mind hiring some new staff. I could try myself, but I'm afraid I never seem to leave the impression I want."

His self-deprecating grin and tone melted her defenses a little. The voice inside her that insisted his situation was similar to hers and she should thus help him grew louder. With an exasperated sigh she took the CV and scanned it. Looked like he had spent the past six years traveling all over the world and working in various hotels. If this was true, he might indeed have a slight chance of being hired

"I'll see what I can do," she said, though not really graciously. "But I can't make any promises, and you should really try somewhere else too."

He beamed at her, and the heat around them climbed up another notch.

"Thanks so much! Takk fyrir! Wouldn't know what to do without you."

Stuffing his hands back into his pockets, he stepped back from the desk.

"I'll drop in again tomorrow. If you manage to get me a job here, I'll be forever indebted to you."

Before she could protest because he was still treating her so personally, he gave her a parting smile and strolled away and out, his gait as cocky as his behavior.

He took most of the heat with him. But that couldn't be. He couldn't radiate heat the way she did it. She was different, she was special.

Felicia shook herself a little before facing her colleagues' curious questions in their halting but charming English with a thick Nordic accent. She felt oddly out of balance, and it made her angry, at the stranger and at herself.

Chapter 3

Felicia exhaled and whispered a command. Her fire dragon whooshed out of her body and soared high into the sky, turning joyful cartwheels. Although made of fire and energy, it looked nearly as solid as a real dragon, gleaming and shining. She had made it understand that it couldn't draw too much attention to it, so it shrunk itself to the size of a big bird. Sailing as high as it could, it would look like a shooting star or a plane's light to anyone who would glance at the nightly sky.

After watching her dragon fondly for a while, Felicia breathed another sigh of relief. She relished every minute of these nightly walks with Joshua during which she could let her true self come to the fore.

Although the night was decidedly chilly and anyone in their right mind would have worn a jacket and maybe a hat, Felicia was dressed only in a knee-length denim skirt and an orange top. She carried enough heat within her to keep warm at all times, and she'd never been one to like being bundled up in and restricted by too many layers of clothes. Joshua, walking beside her and holding her hand, was more suitably dressed, in a black turtleneck sweater and light grey jeans. He felt the cold and enjoyed it, but was as usual the more sensible and careful of them.

Felicia squeezed his hand before letting go. She removed her hairband and threaded her fingers through her fire-engine red hair, unbraiding it. She shook it loose, letting the wild curls bounce and caress her skin, falling down to mid-back. Maybe she'd really grow them longer, down to her waist. She liked how much they reflected her fiery personality.

With a spontaneous laugh and a small whoop of joy, she started dancing to an unheard tune, stomping her feet and twirling on the spot and shaking her head to make her hair fly around her like banners glowing in the night. She invited the fire inside her to come alive, and it lit her skin up from inside. A human-sized firefly.

Joshua's laughter rang out not far behind her, and she turned to wiggle her hips at him enticingly. He didn't laugh often, her serious ice king, but when he did, she felt like bursting with the love she felt for him.

Felicia held her arms out to him.

"Come on, dance with me," she called, sashaying her hips and flashing her legs, increasing the heat inside her so sparks zinged along her hair.

He grinned indulgently and shook his head. "You're crazy," he teased, but he walked closer and took her hands.

She felt that delicious shock of electricity that always shot through them when ice met fire. He shook himself slightly and his icy energy crawled across his skin like mist. Felicia pulled him closer and flung her arms around his neck. They danced for a while, with no music to be heard but the beating of their hearts and their slightly ragged breath.

She reveled in the feel of his tall, slim, hard body against hers, basked in the feeling of safety he always radiated. Gone were the times when she had found him too detached and emotionless, although he was still a loner at heart. With his ice-blue, greyish eyes and his white-blond hair, his finely chiseled face and his air of quiet, regal confidence, she had compared him to a Norse god many times. How fitting that he was now in Iceland, a country not unlike the Scandinavian territories once ruled and ravaged by ancient gods and fierce Viking warriors.

And still...she couldn't shake the feeling that she was happier here than him.

His cold lips against the pulse throbbing at her neck made her snap back to reality and stop dancing. She shivered when he trailed a line of kisses up her neck until softly biting her earlobe.

"You're so sexy when you're wild and crazy like this," he whispered, and the flames of desire inside her shot higher.

She turned her head slightly and sought out his lips. They kissed with abandon, their mouths dancing and dueling, their tongues delving deep to explore.

Passion was always present when they were together, lurking in the background, simmering and sizzling beneath their skin. Although they were polar opposites, fire and ice, they were made for each other. The contrast between his cold and her heat never failed to thrill her and fuel her need for him. When they came together, it was more than two bodies becoming one, it was also two spirits battling before uniting, fighting but also loving.

Felicia let one hand glide lower and lower, slipping under his sweater to brush over his wintry, stone-like chest. Her heat left behind a singing trail on the thin layer of ice covering his skin but didn't succeed in melting it. She felt his hands slip underneath her top, his icy fingers brushing over every dip and ridge of her spine and raising goose bumps in their wake. They trailed higher and he broke the kiss to chuckle softly.

"Naughty witch," he growled deep in his chest because he had found out she wasn't wearing a bra.

Grinning, she licked his skin before biting down at the juncture of neck and shoulder and feeling him become harder and colder against her.

"Make love to me," she demanded more than begged.

Joshua tensed, the way he always did when she brought him close to losing control. She felt the power of his emotions and his magic ripple through him and make her tremble with want. Taking one step back, she pulled the top over her head and shivered with excitement when she read the unmistakable desire in his icy eyes.

They came together in the middle of the nightly emptiness on the border of town, their passion so intense that the magic inside them broke loose and marked the ground. Glowing fire and a misty haze of frost surrounded them in a circle, scorching and freezing at the same time.

It had taken them a few shocks and bad experiences—including damaged hotel rooms and destroyed clothes—to learn that they couldn't afford losing control like this when inside and among people. They seemed to affect the atmosphere and their surroundings, leaving destruction in their wake. So the only way to make love was out in the open where everything was as wild as they were.

What felt a small eternity later, Felicia and Joshua embarked on the long walk back home. They were lucky that their special gift not only enabled them to see well in the dark and to handle different temperatures, but also to make do with only a few hours of sleep. Every night after Felicia returned from the shift at the hotel, they wolfed down a quick dinner and ventured out into the wild. Sometimes they took their sandwiches out with them, wandering across the hills and through the grass or following the Ölfusá River on whose banks the town of Selfoss was situated.

Joshua took her hand, and Felicia half turned to smile at him. She was suffused in soft golden light radiating from within her, giving the term afterglow a whole new meaning. He gave her fingers a squeeze but didn't smile or look at her. Instead, his gaze was fixed ahead, and she could see that his face was a mask of thoughtfulness.

"Why so serious?" she asked.

He didn't answer straight away, but she was used to that. Joshua wasn't one for spontaneous outbursts like her. He thought over things before putting them into words. In fact, he thought all the time, and rather too much for her liking.

"Something is worrying me," he finally said.

A jolt of apprehension coursed through Felicia, but when he felt it he gave her hand another squeeze.

"What's the matter?"

He shrugged, which was an uncommon gesture for him.

"I can't put my finger on it. I only know that something is amiss. Maybe that something is going to happen."

Felicia frowned and brushed some hair strands out of her face to get a better look at him.

"How do you know? Is it connected to us?"

He lifted his head to glance at the comet-like form of her fire dragon high up in the cloudy night sky.

"Yes, I think it's connected to us. Connected to you."

That stopped her in her tracks, and the tug at his hand stopped him to and made him turn to look at her. His grey eyes were unfathomable, but she sensed hidden distress under his protective layer of ice and detachment.

"Stop beating about the bush and tell me what the matter is!" she demanded.

He scowled. "I would if I knew, but as I told you it's only a vague notion, a sense of foreboding."

Felicia suppressed an exasperated sigh and plonked herself down on the ground unceremoniously.

"I'm not going to move from this spot until you spit out the details. If you want me to go to work tomorrow without a wink of sleep, stay quiet. Otherwise let me know what's worrying you."

She knew he cared too much for her to torture her, and she was right. Although he looked none too pleased with her behavior, he settled down next to her, graciously folding down from his height to cross his long legs.

"Remember what I told you some months ago on the hill when I talked about my job as a private investigator and how I had found out about you?"

Drawing her legs closer to her body, Felicia wrapped her arms around them, her frown intensifying. If there was one moment in life that she didn't want to relive, it was that damned night that seemed a lifetime ago now.

She shivered when she remembered it all. They had gone hiking and spent their first night together, only to have her react to the pull of a fire form a burning building in a village nearby. Joshua had tried with all means to keep her from running there, and she had burned him badly in the process. Her fiery hands had left burn marks on his chest, but with his ice magic and ability to heal, he had overcome the injuries. Nothing more remained apart from two fainter than faint scars in the shape of her two hands—and a stronger bond between them. He had confessed that night that they hadn't met on coincidence. The city's police had hired him to investigate a serious of unexplained fires, and he was suspecting her of arson. Another shiver went through Felicia when she remembered that she had indeed been at each and every site of burning buildings. She was still not sure whether she had unconsciously caused those fires because of her wanton magic or whether the fires had attracted her.

"What do you mean? You told me many things that night."

She thought of how betrayed she had felt, but then she drew strength from the fact that he had also pledged his support and confessed his love. Looking back now, she knew that he had done all he could to protect her, guide her and prevent further damage to anything or anyone. It hadn't been his fault that the authorities had investigated the investigator and ended up at her doorstep to have her arrested for arson.

Joshua's voice pulled her back from the past into the present.

"Remember that I told you I've always had this strange stirring inside me whenever I am close to...to supernatural beings like us, to humans who are not normal, and to those who are not human?"

She nodded, and her brows rose. In a mix of alarm and anticipation, she said, "What, do you feel it again? Do you mean to tell me we're not the only freaks hiding here?"

He glared at her before slipping into his serious but neutral expression again that fit his ice personality so well.

"I wish you would stop calling us freaks."

"But we are," she interrupted, always eager to get her point across. "We're as far from normal as could be, and we should be proud of it. Until I know who has made us or what we really are or what our place and purpose in life is, I'll stick to my mutant theory and wild speculations and call us freaks. Freaks of nature or freaks of someone, maybe some god or ancient species or aliens."

Joshua chuckled mirthlessly and shook his head. As usual, he was the one to give in and smoothen out the mood.

"Anyway, the answer is yes. I have been getting that eerie feeling, that inexplicable pull again. It started last week and it's been getting stronger ever since...as if said someone was travelling toward us."

They stared at each other for a moment, letting that sink in. Felicia's eyes grew wide. A paranormal or supernatural being on their way to them? Would it be a man or a woman? Was it one of the vampires Joshua insisted lived all over the world? Someone with elemental powers like the two of them? Someone like those heroes and villains from Marvel comics and blockbuster movies that she admired and envied so? It took some time for another piece of information to register.

"That's terrifying...or maybe terrific, I'm not sure." Before he could react, she ploughed on, "But why do you say it's connected to me? I sure as hell haven't put up a Facebook post calling all freaks to come and find me."

She grinned half-heartedly, but Joshua stayed silent and solemn. After some time, he said reluctantly, "Because whoever or whatever it is, it's coming for you and not for me."

While a part of her brain shrank at the use of the words "coming for" instead of "coming to"—as if she'd been singled out and hunted down to be punished—another part was thrilled. Was she finally getting closer to finding out why she had fire magic, and how she could use it on a greater scale?

She pushed the tempting thoughts aside, partly because she knew Joshua had never understood her eagerness to learn more and her readiness to openly be the freak she claimed to be.

"How do you know?" she asked instead, a bit of worry creeping into her voice after all.

"I didn't know it before, but I am sure since this morning. It caught me completely by surprise. I was just scanning the area, had half convinced myself not to worry because it's too much of a coincidence that someone...special...apart from us seeks out this place. But when I zoned in on the feeling today, I suddenly knew that he or she was right in this city."

Felicia's eyes widened even more. Confrontation time? Was she really ready? She had no chance to think about it some more, because Joshua went on, staring straight into her eyes with the strangest expression on his face.

"The...being...was with you, or near you at least."

She gasped and frowned. "How can you be sure if you just sense the presence? Can you locate it so precisely that you know its exact place?"

Saying "it" seemed wrong, for wasn't she an "it" too then?

Joshua shook his head. "You're not thinking logically. If..."

"No, I'm not," she interrupted, bristling at the reproach. He still hadn't gotten over the patronizing teacher role he used to play when they had met. "In case you haven't noticed, you're the thinker of this relationship."

Narrowing his eyes at her, Joshua retorted, "Oh believe me, I notice it all the time. I only wish you fire witch would at least sometimes use that red-haired head of yours."

They glared at each other, but the moment passed and righted itself quickly. They grinned at each other ruefully, recognizing that they kept falling back into this form of not so harmless banter. They were opposites after all. And although opposites did attract, it didn't make them a perfect match made in heaven.

After mumbling sorry at the same time as her, Joshua sobered up and explained, "If I can sense some other preternatural being, it's only logical that I can sense you too."

She stared at him as if he had dropped a bomb. But of course. Why hadn't it occurred to her? It was how he had found her in the first place, although he hadn't known that the mysterious, gifted being and his suspect were one and the same. It was kind of creepy and fascinating at the same time that he could 'see' her like that, knew her special presence as if she were a blip on his radar.

"I can actually feel you much stronger ever since we...bonded. And it's a different feeling," Joshua went on. "Something familiar and welcome. But that other presence now, it seems even more unfamiliar and unwelcome because of that."

He was frowning again, and she wondered why he was so worried. Was he hiding something from her?

"Felicia, haven't you sensed anything today? Didn't anything out of the ordinary happen?"

She shook her head, her curls flying. Setting her jaw, she made to rise, but Joshua reached for her hand and tugged her back down. He looked straight into her eyes, in that probing way he had that made her feel as transparent as glass.

"Are you sure? Nothing out of the ordinary?"

"No. Don't you think I would tell you if something had happened?"

He stared at her a moment longer before nodding once, but she could feel the tenseness inside him.

"Darling?" he asked.

It was her turn to stare. He wasn't one for using endearments, so what had brought this one on? Was he really so worried although nothing had happened yet? On impulse, she leaned forward and pressed a quick, reassuring kiss to his icy lips, letting her warmth linger.

"Yes?"

He licked his lips unconsciously before locking gazes with her again.

"Promise me you'll be careful. I...I have a very bad feeling about whoever or whatever is headed our way."

She liked it that he said "our way" although he had implied it was all about her. And oh how she liked it that he cared so much. He, the loner of so many years, the detached observer, the ice king. She must have really melted some of his reserve with her fire...or maybe with her love.

Squeezing his hand, she nodded. "Promised. Now stop being such a worrywart. Let's go home and share a glass of that quaint Icelandic Single Malt whisky we discovered last week."

He let her pull him to his feet and all but drag him across the field and to the main road leading past farmland to the outskirts of Selfoss.

"Whatever is meant to happen will happen," she said, feeling uncharacteristically philosophic and making him smile lopsidedly for a second.

She called out to her dragon to reign it in. The moment it slithered back inside her and transformed into a core of fire energy inside her belly, a realization hit her.

Hadn't her dragon been unduly excited today? And hadn't that been connected to the cocky stranger showing up at the hotel?

But no, that was just a weird quirk of life and a man too full of himself, nothing like a supernatural presence looming close and setting Joshua on edge. Felicia put it out of her mind and asked Joshua how his day spent at the city library had gone.

Chapter 4

Somebody was following her.

Felicia was sure she was not alone on her walk from the city center to the outskirts of Selfoss where they lived. What had started as a prickling feeling at the back of her neck, like the itch after a mosquito bite, had turned into the strange, piercing knowledge that someone was following her. She had turned several times to look over her shoulder, had stood in front of a shop window and searched the reflection, but to no avail. There were a few locals out, mostly mothers with their children in tow, but everyone seemed to mind their own business.

A shiver of fear slithered across her spine like a cold, scaly-skinned snake.

Was it the being Joshua had sensed on his radar? Had it come for her? And more importantly, was it hostile?

Although she felt slightly threatened by the certainty that she was being followed, she couldn't bring herself to be fully alarmed. Somehow, there was nothing malicious associated with the presence she could feel hovering nearby. And on top of that, her dragon looked more alert and excited than scared.

Felicia straightened her shoulders and back, deliberately inserting some confidence into her posture and gait. She let her heels click loudly on the pavement. She lifted her chin a little, tossing her braided red hair over her shoulder to hang down her back and thump against the dark grey blazer of her uniform.

Let it be known to whoever was watching and waiting that she wasn't afraid.

She had half a mind to allow a little of her fire magic to shine through so as to make the stalking worth it, but she tsked at her daredevil thoughts and decided against it. Not on a semi-crowded evening street filled with calm, smiling, self-contained people who were intrinsically hospitable and harmless.

Felicia rounded two corners and crossed the ring-road of the city's heart to turn onto a lane and leave the bustle behind. All around her, lights winked on in the neat, if a little bland, houses closed off against the cold. She liked walking home at this time of the day, when dusk turned into night and she had the street mostly to herself.

Soon enough, she was the only one walking—or so she thought until the hovering presence turned into an actual sign of someone following her. A second set of footsteps thudded through the almost-silence with its reassuringly normal backdrop of far-off car engines.

The steps sounded as surely and boldly as hers, as if her stalker had given up all pretense now, thrown caution to the wind because he wanted her to know he was near.

When had the "it", the nameless, faceless being, become a "he"? But she was sure as could be that it had to be a man. Curiosity became too much after some more minutes of being followed without the footsteps coming closer. She stopped and squatted down, pretending to retie her shoe laces. Cursing softly that she wore her hair in a braid and couldn't use it as a veil to hide behind, she bent her head and scanned the street behind her from the corner of her eye.

About 100 feet back, someone had stopped, a still figure dressed in a knee-length black coat and faded blue jeans. A man indeed, with shortish brown hair, his face too far away and too dimly lit to be recognizable.

A surge of excitement grabbed a hold of her, and she felt the blood pump through her veins. The dragon inside her rose and stretched, flapping its wings as if preparing to be let out and challenge—or welcome?—the stranger. Still, there was no fear. For a brief instant, she remembered Joshua's plea to be careful, three days ago on their midnight walk through the wilderness. She had given her promise not to take any risks.

Well, this isn't really a risk, she reasoned silently. She could certainly defend herself with her fire magic. A single man, gifted or not, shouldn't be a threat to someone who had escaped a high-security area swarming with armed policemen.

She was tired of waiting. And she wouldn't put up with any more following and being toyed with. If this was a game, she'd make the first move. She had spent more than 20 years of her life idling and fearing, and look what it had brought her, only misery.

Felicia straightened up, folding her arms across her chest. Holding her head high, she turned and walked toward the immobile figure instead of continuing on her way home.

The man didn't budge from his place. He lifted his arms and folded them across his broad chest to mirror her gesture, and something about the way he did it struck a familiar chord inside her.

When she took several more steps closer, vibrating with tension and thrill, she knew why it had looked familiar.

Raising her eyebrows, she walked even closer and asked, "You?"

Here she had been expecting someone with preternatural abilities, someone menacing or at least impressive—and all she got was the cocky tourist who had come to the hotel looking for a job. She could taste disappointment on her tongue, but she swallowed it back and scowled at the man. He grinned at her, slowly and oddly intimately.

"Yes, me."

Her scowl intensified.

"What do you want? I thought the HR manager called you to let you know he doesn't have a job for you?"

Instead of reacting to her question, the man—what was his name, Kyle?—gave her a none too discrete once-over before saying, "You're a courageous woman."

She snorted dismissively.

"There's no use buttering up to me, I can't provide you with a job."

He tutted and waved her words aside, and she realized how big his hands were. It made her remember his firm, almost too firm grip, and the heat he had radiated. Inside her, the dragon was still as excited and attentive as before, even though she had lost interest and was on the verge of being annoyed.

"I found a job, but thanks for caring." Before she could protest that she didn't care at all, he went on, "I didn't want to meet you because of that."

She squared her jaw. "Then why are you stalking me? It doesn't exactly make you look normal, you know."

He chuckled and said in that rough-soft steel-velvet voice of his. "That's good, because I'm certainly not normal."

Felicia raised her eyebrows skeptically, although he had caught her attention somewhere deep down. He was so freaking full of himself, he set her on edge, but on a different level she enjoyed the verbal banter.

"Fascinating. Is that your pick-up line?" She feigned a bored yawn. "So what next? Will you tell me you're hiding a second head under that coat?" She let sarcasm drip from her tone.

He guffawed, and in that instant he looked so young he could have been mistaken for a teenager. It was an uncanny contrast to his stature, which was clearly that of a well-muscled, powerful man with an animalistic appeal.

Her mouth curled in a responding grin, but she didn't have much patience left. Before he could get a word in, she said seriously, "Look, I have no idea why you're running after me, but let me tell you it's useless. I'm not interested, normal or not."

The man grew serious again too. Peering into her eyes, he said, "I bet you will be if you give me a second and hear me out."

She sighed. "Sorry, I'm not into betting." With that, she turned and made to go, angry at herself for having expected so much and mistaken him for the ominous being with supernatural powers.

He shot out a hand to stop her, and heat exploded in her, making her jerk away and stare at him. How could he be hotter than her? He used her moment of surprise to finally get his point across.

"I know who you are," he said, and the soft words rang loudly in her ears.

For a second her breath hitched, but she shrugged the feeling of worry off. He couldn't mean what she had thought he meant.

"So what?" she said as nonchalantly as possible, "Even if you have wheedled out information from Ada or someone else in the hotel, it won't make me more interested in you. It just proves that you are interested in me."

His gaze penetrated and traveled right through her the way only Joshua's icy glare usually did.

"I don't need to speak to any hotel staff to find out more about you. I know."

The worry was back, gnawing away at her mind while the heat inside her stepped up a notch to match the high temperature he was giving off in palpable waves.

"What do you know?" she asked, sounding not half as uninterested as she wanted to sound.

What he said next completely caught her by surprise and made her gasp.

"The fire in me recognizes the fire in you."

Did he...did he really know? Something in his eyes, so much like a golden fire, gave her the answer. Without leaving her more time to react, he took one step closer. Lifting his arm, he presented his outstretched palm. She watched in fascination as a small ball of fire formed on it, tiny flames curling in on themselves and shining extra bright in the dark of the deserted side street.

Her eyes widened, taking in the little fire ball that grew with every breath he took until it was as big as a tennis ball and produced heat as much as light. Her dragon chose the very moment to burst out of her, vibrating with excitement.

It was his turn to gasp when the fiery dragon shape hovered close to his hand, mesmerized by the pulsating fire ball shimmering in the air over his palm.

"That's a beauty," he breathed, genuine admiration for once making him sound less cocky.

Hearing his voice broke the magic. Felicia looked from the ball of fire to his face and back, her dragon flapping its wings quickly like a glowing hummingbird and wondering whether to zoom closer. After what felt like endlessly stretching moments of silence, she found her tongue.

"You...you're a fire wizard!"

So he was the supernatural being after all! Joshua had been right all along, he had been near her—or rather—with her that day too. Thinking of Joshua helped clear her mind, although her thoughts were still running helter-skelter inside her head.

"I sure am," came the confident answer.

He grinned at her and breathed on his fire ball. It erupted in a miniature explosion, shooting the tiniest flames everywhere and making her fire dragon spit a flame of its own in the direction of his hand.

This was...plain surreal. Of all the powers he could have had, of all the beings she had secretly hoped for, it had to be someone who shared her gift. For a moment, she didn't know whether to be happy that she had someone who'd understand her perfectly or whether to be disappointed that she wasn't the only one who could control fire.

His voice intruded on her introspection. "So now that we've introduced each other properly, will you tell me your name?"

She blinked at him. He sure had a strange way of revealing himself...strange, but admittedly also efficient. "Felicia," she replied automatically.

He executed a mock salute and stood at attention. "Pleased to meet you, Felicia the Fire Witch."

She snorted again. "You're Kyle, right?"

Nodding, he bestowed her with another of his grins. It was actually quite adorable, boyish and such an interesting contrast to his hard, broad, strong features and body. And it always highlighted the glow of his unsettlingly light eye color.

This meeting was downright awkward. How high were the chances that two specially gifted people with the element fire—who were from neighboring countries miles and miles across the globe—stumbled upon each other in this godforsaken country? It boggled her mind, made her thoughts fuzzy and her reactions unpredictable.

Felicia had a million questions inside her, and she was all too ready to forgive him the stalking act. After all, he couldn't very well have stepped up to her at the reception desk and said, "Hey, how d'ya do, I'm a fire wizard and I know you can do fire magic too. Let's hook up some time, eh?"

She almost giggled at her thoughts, but something registered with her and she let one pressing question slip out. "How did you know?"

Yes, how come he had been sure when she hadn't had a clue? How come everyone—well, Joshua and Kyle—knew and she was the only dumb one?

He shrugged his impossibly broad shoulders, and despite the coat she could see the muscles in his torso ripple when he ran his now empty hand back through his shoulder-length hair.

"I didn't. Well, okay, I sort of did... I had this freaky dream that I'd find someone like me in Iceland, quite some time ago actually. And once I came to the country, I felt this inexplicable pull that brought me to Selfoss. And voila, I just had to follow the heat that seemed to radiate from somewhere or someone, an irresistible invitation. And here I am."

Although his tone was casual and half humorous, he wasn't grinning. In fact, she could sense it was his way of dealing with some insecurity, and that he wasn't entirely comfortable with how it had happened.

She frowned. "Freaky indeed," she muttered half to herself. It dawned on her that her dragon had probably known long before her. It would explain why it had been so excited that day, and why she had never felt any fear but a sense of longing.

"Were you really looking for a job or was that your way of checking me out?"

"Both." The grin was back, reminding her oddly of the proverbial Cheshire cat.

She could see his gaze dart from her face to her dragon, hovering on the sidelines and clearly more fascinated with him than Felicia was. He followed her gaze.

"I wish I had a dragon too. It's so cool."

Her dragon preened itself, drawing itself to its full—currently diminutive—height.

"It's a she," she corrected automatically, and Kyle's eyebrows rose so high they vanished beneath the hair falling into his forehead.

"Are you now?" he asked softly, in a seductive, purring tone, addressing the fire dragon instead of her. Her dragon glowed brighter and brighter, lapping up the attention that it never got from anyone, least of all from Joshua.

Joshua!

He'd know about this meeting, wouldn't he? He'd sense that the being—how ridiculous that term seemed now in the face of this young man who was outwardly so normal—was near or with her again. And he'd worry his head off, of course.

Felicia snapped back to reality.

"What now?" she asked, of herself as much as of him.

He peered at her, one brow raised.

"Why, now we catch up on the fascinating stories of our lives, and then we unite to rock and rule the world, of course."

When he saw the look on her face, he laughed again, throwing his head back, and she wondered whether to him everything was a joke. She didn't laugh with him, so he sobered up quickly.

"No, seriously," she insisted, and he nodded.

"Yes, seriously. I mean it. C'mon, let's go somewhere and chat."

He didn't mention the 'rule the world' part again, but she couldn't help wondering whether he had been—at least partly—serious about that too. And about the uniting part... She needed to get something off her chest first, although talking with him seemed a great idea indeed.

"Erm...don't get me wrong, Kyle... It's complicated... I'm not in this alone."

Narrowing his eyes at her, he grew more serious than she had ever seen him before.

"Which means what exactly?"

"I'm not the only...gifted one."

His eyes were as big as saucers now.

"You've gotta be kidding me! Don't tell me there's another one of us hidden away here somewhere!"

Did he sound eager or alarmed? Impossible to say because he reacted so strongly and openly to everything.

"Not the way you probably think. But yes, there are three of us in this city. You, me, and my boyfriend Joshua. He's an ice wizard."

Silence. For a moment, Kyle looked completely dumbfounded.

"Fire and ice? Together?"

He collected himself before she could say something else, although she didn't miss the dark look that had crossed his perpetually cheerful face.

"Sounds intriguing. Another reason why we have to talk. Ice boyfriend or not, I've been waiting all my life to find someone like me, I'm not going to back down now."

He had been waiting all his life? Did that mean he'd known forever how special he was? Bitterness rose inside Felicia, as it had so often in the past. Looked like she was doomed to be the blundering fool. All the more reason to take things into her own hands now.

"Let's go and celebrate that fire and fire have found each other!" she blurted out. A moment later she wanted to bite her tongue because it sounded more significant than she had intended it.

Beaming, Kyle looped an arm around her shoulders and pulled her to the left. Felicia ducked out from under his touch, disconcerted by how amazing heat against heat felt, and by how much her dragon—once more inside her—enjoyed it.

They walked in silence, and her jumbled thoughts were so loud inside her head that she wondered whether he could hear them too.

Chapter 5

Felicia's hand went to her pocket to take out her phone for the third time in the past half hour. And for the third time, she stopped herself short. She really wanted to call Joshua and let him know about her discovery—if you could call it that—but something held her back.

With new determination, she resolved to tell him in person tonight, but she knew he'd be waiting for her and worrying about the delay. She crossed her legs and folded her hands in her lap, trying not to let on how much curiosity was burning away inside her.

She tried to calm down by watching her surroundings. Kyle had taken her to a restaurant and bar that was warming to life. Nobody was sitting at the tables out front yet, and the waiter was still busy laying the tables and whistling a tune. The bar at the back where they were sitting in a secluded corner surrounded by potted plants was far from crowded too. One lone early drinker sat at the bar counter, staring into his half-filled glass as if it held the answers to all riddles in life.

Kyle was standing not far from him, waiting for the bartender to deliver their order. His presence seemed to fill the whole place. She realized with curiosity that both the bartender and the man perched on the stool looked uncomfortable in his presence. There was a certain abruptness to the bartender's movements as if he wanted to get the order done with as soon as possible. The drinker inched a little away from the muscled, coated man and hunched lower on his stool.

Were they...scared of Kyle? But why? He hadn't struck her as a frightening presence, although with his build and heat he sure left a lasting, somewhat intimidating, impression.

Holding a tall beer glass and a Gin & Tonic in his hands, Kyle walked to their snug corner boot and gave her one of his flashy grins.

"There you go."

He sat down and raised his glass in a mock toast. "Here's to two fire freaks and their future!"

She clinked glasses with him, her face stretching in a matching grin.

"Fire freaks? Did you really just say that?"

He shrugged and nodded. "Yeah. Why, do you prefer the term witch and wizard? I can't associate with that, always makes me think of Hogwarts and broomsticks and hooded cloaks and smelly cauldrons."

Felicia burst out laughing and had to set her glass down.

"I agree. I love calling myself a freak too."

Kyle beamed at her. "Great minds think alike."

He downed most of his beer before leaning forward with his elbows on the small table. As he had shrugged out of his coat, his biceps bulged invitingly beneath the faded orange sweatshirt he was wearing. Felicia's dragon appreciated the sight...a little too much, actually, for she could feel herself being drawn to it too.

Mentally shaking her head at her volatile emotions and reactions, she took another sip of her G & T, enjoying the spicy, herbal burn running down her throat. Joshua had introduced her to the drink that had at first struck her as a better choice for an ice king than a fire queen. But she had fallen in love with it as she had fallen for the man who was in so many ways her opposite.

Still, getting to know someone who should be a lot like her was as thrilling as hardly anything had been during the past few months. In fact, she couldn't recall whether Iceland's spectacular landscapes had had such an impact on her.

"So..." both of them said in unison, grinning yet again.

"Ladies first." Kyle gestured invitingly at her before he started playing with the coaster featuring a vividly colored painting of an erupting volcano.

Felicia sifted through her thoughts to find a question she really wanted answered.

"I know it's terribly forward and personal, but I really want to know more about how you discovered your gift and how you developed it."

"I like women who are forward and personal. Nothing terrible about that," he joked.

For a moment the irritation and insecurity she had initially felt around him returned. He was a little too direct for her liking, although she wasn't half as polite and cautious as Joshua was.

Kyle traced the volcano's outline with his large finger, and she saw for the first time that his nails looked chapped and broken and were finely rimmed with dirt under them. She had never bothered much with men's hands—but that had changed when she had met Joshua. He had the most beautiful hands imaginable, with long and slender, straight fingers that were always cold and whose nails were sometimes as translucent as ice. They looked manicured, though they weren't. This man's hands were the exact opposite, reminding her faintly of a car mechanic or maybe a farmer's hands. She wondered what kind of job he had found, but was too intent on learning more about him to dwell on the thought.

"C'mon, ask me whatever you want to know, I won't bite."

She smiled at Kyle gratefully. "When did you realize...you know, that you have a fire gift slumbering inside you?"

He chuckled. "When my homework went up in flames and nearly burned the whole damn desk down."

Felicia stared at him. "What?"

Shaking his head with a rueful grin, he explained, "I must have been about ten or so. All I remember is that I was brooding over especially difficult sums and hating it and cursing the teacher. The next thing I knew the exercise book caught fire. I was so fascinated by it that I didn't do anything to stop the fire, and the flames ate up most of what was on my desk before I came to my senses and threw my jacket over them."

Now she was grinning too. "What did you tell the teacher, that the dog ate your homework?"

"Nah, though that would've been a good idea. I said I fell into the river carrying my bag. It explained why I was missing most of my school stuff that had been on the desk."

"What did you tell your parents, surely the fire left behind some traces?"

He sobered up. "My parents were long dead by then."

Felicia swallowed and cringed. "I'm so sorry, I had no idea."

Waving her chagrin aside, he said, "No prob, of course you didn't know. I lost my parents when I was about two years old. A boating accident on their wedding anniversary."

She could feel the heat intensify around them, and saw his hands ball into fists, the air around them shimmering a little with his fire energy.

"I'm so sorry," she said again, the words getting stuck in her tight throat.

How horrible to lose your parents in such a tragic way! Then again, she'd lived through the—totally different but just as painful—horrors of having parents who didn't love her and of feeling completely out of place in an otherwise picture-perfect family.

"I guess I would've missed them more if I had been older at the time. As it is, I have no real memories of them..."

He stared off into the distance, and the heat level climbed some more before she could sense a slight shift in the atmosphere.

"Anyway, I had my grandmother. Gran brought me up. She was a fabulous woman, and she never made me lack anything in life."

Felicia smiled tentatively. She had never been in touch with her grandparents, although she remembered them fawning and doting over her elder sister, who was as normal as could be.

"Was?" she asked, and Kyle tensed up again. This time, the heat radiating from his lightly trembling, tense body would have made any other person break out in a sweat. It felt hot to her too, but in a way that stoked her own fire and unsettled her dragon.

"Gran's dead too. I lost her seven years ago."

He didn't elaborate how she had died, and somehow Felicia sensed that he was far more hurt by her loss than by that of parents he hadn't really known.

She felt like reaching out and squeezing one of the subtly glowing fists that looked as if they would burst forth flames at any moment. Instead, she said gently, "Tell me more about your gift and what you did with it."

Kyle collected himself, slipping easily back into his cheerful, confident self.

"What I did with it? A lot of mischief, that's what. I ended up setting fire to quite a few things and landing myself in detention or having Gran send me to my room without dinner after boxing my ears."

He didn't sound upset about it, and for a moment she could picture him vividly in her mind, a wild boy with an already strong body, running rampant and scaring himself and others with his untrained fire magic. Was that envy she was feeling boiling away inside her? Was she envious because her first discovery had led her to fear and denial while his had led him to living his magic without any regrets?

His voice drew her out of her dark thoughts. "I loved being different. It made me strong and gave me courage. I didn't mind being the poor, parentless brat anymore. I didn't make a fool out of myself to become someone's friend anymore. I didn't mind sucking at studies anymore. I was good at something damn special, and I was fast becoming more and more of a freak."

A far-away look crept into his eyes, shining golden in the dim bar light, and looking liquid like the beer in his glass.

How different their past had been! And yet, here they were, both of them comfortable with their weirdness and eager to connect under the common mantle of fire magic.

She sipped on her drink, and the movement snapped him out of his memories. Kyle downed the rest of his beer and started playing with the coaster again. He flipped it around and twirled it absentmindedly while continuing with his story, and there was something oddly irritating about it. The picture of the erupting volcano, never standing still in his hands, nearly freaked her out for some unexplainable reason. Felicia focused on his face again, realizing that women must find him utterly irresistible. While she listened to some more escapades from his reckless youth and he kept his gaze on the coaster, she studied his features.

With his broad forehead, his Greek nose and his wide, strong chin with the tiniest of clefts in between, he was a sight for sore eyes. His almost bronze skin and the faint shadow of a brown beard, his bushy eyebrows and the lock of hair falling into his forehead made him look very masculine and like an adventurer. Not only his face, his whole body was brimming with raw sex appeal that probably worked wonders with women. It drew her in too, and that disconcerted her. What screwed up taste in men did she have if she could feel so attracted by Joshua and Kyle when the two couldn't have looked more different?

Thinking of Joshua sent a jab of guilt through her, which made her feel angry with herself. There was nothing to feel guilty about. She was only sitting in the plain open with someone, sharing a drink the way for example co-workers would do it. It's not like she was throwing herself at this infuriating yet interesting stranger—and anyway, surely Joshua would never mind that she was connecting with someone who shared her magic.

"Am I boring you out of your nice little suit?"

His voice discarded her thoughts, and it took her a moment to stop frowning.

"No, not at all. Quite the contrary, you sound like your life was one big adventure. I guess I'm feeling miffed that mine was so boring compared to it."

He looked deep into her eyes, for once no humor showing in his face or voice.

"I'd never call you boring. I might not know anything about your life yet, but I can definitely sense that you are as special as it can get. There's so much passion hidden inside you, and such confidence lurking around you. I can't wait to get over with my story and hear yours."

Felicia felt a blush creep across her skin, and she hated it. Damn flatterer, he was probably a womanizer to boot.

As if on cue, a waitress stepped over to them, young and pretty in an ordinary way. In halting English she asked whether they wanted to order a meal with their drink, as if they were part of the restaurant that was slowly filling with diners. The waitress stood much too close to Kyle and looked only at him, batting her lashes. Felicia found it so obvious and ridiculous she wanted to snort into her almost empty glass, but she held back. Kyle looked at her.

"Fancy something to eat?"

She decided on the spot. "To be honest, what I fancy now is to walk some more. I don't think this bar is the perfect place to discuss our lives."

She could practically feel enthusiasm oozing out of his pores when he smiled at her and nodded. He waved the waitress away, not before bedazzling her with his irresistible roguish smile and touching her arm lightly, nearly making her swoon.

They paid for their drinks and walked amicably side by side through the mostly quiet streets toward the outskirts of town.

"What did you do after you dropped out of school?" she asked, somehow knowing he could never have chosen a bland job the way she had done it.

He rubbed his neck in a rare moment of sheepishness or insecurity.

"Don't laugh at me. I wanted a job that would allow my fire side to come to the fore...so I enrolled in a circus."

"You what?" She stopped and stared at him.

With a self-deprecating grin, he nodded. "Yeah. I became quite a famous circus player, in fact."

She shook her head, laughing incredulously when he told her about how he had become an acrobat juggling fire balls and winning over the crowd with many more dangerous acts. It made a lot of sense, of course, but she still found it a little crazy—and admirable.

"And then?" she asked.

"Then I grew bored. Happens way too easily. There wasn't enough risk and thrill to it, having to hide stuff and pretend it's all just tricks. And there was no...no greater good to it or no real benefit."

He stuffed his hands in his pockets and stared up at the sky for a moment, lost in thoughts.

"That's when I decided to travel, and to stop sticking around others who'd pull me down."

At least they had one thing in common. They were both essentially loners. As was Joshua...

"I trekked all around the globe, searching for challenges, and growing my gift. Got myself into trouble every time."

He grinned that wolfish grin of his again, and she realized that normal people were able to catch the dangerous side to him without knowing why. Did she emanate a silent, undefinable threat too? She didn't think so, for her colleagues at the hotel were friendly enough. She was the one blocking their advances.

"Where did you travel?"

"Everywhere, really. I started with Mexico, Argentina and Chile, and afterwards I went to Australia. But Down Under was too damn hot for me, in the wrong way. New Zealand was awesome, but I thought it was too much like Canada. Japan was next, followed by the Philippines. Made my way to Africa after that, to Tanzania and Kenya. I hopped across the continent to Europe, traveling to Greece and Italy. I loved both, but I felt this inexplicable pull to go north. Iceland had always been on my bucket list, and here I am."

Wow, so many countries. Felicia caught herself wanting to know all the details, and wishing she had accompanied him. Her steps faltered for a second when the thought registered. Hell, where had that come from? To distract herself, she asked, "Why those countries?"

He shot her a sideway glance. "Can't think of anything linking them together? Something found in all of them, and not in many other countries apart from some of their lesser known neighbors?"

She scrunched up her forehead, thinking hard, but came up blank and shook her head.

"Volcanoes," he said smugly.

Her eyes widened. But of course! She with her fire magic and with volcanoes being one of the reasons for choosing Iceland as their refuge should have known.

"They're the most fascinating thing in the world, don't you think?" Kyle said. "There's something so terrifying and mystifying about them. They make you realize how powerless normal humans are, and how easily the whole world could be changed or destroyed by their common force."

Felicia nodded, remembering a conversation—correction, a quarrel—she had had with Joshua not long ago. She had voiced her wish to visit at least some of the volcanoes in Iceland.

There was a startling total of over 120 of them in the country that wasn't much bigger than one American state, although not all of them active or big. Only about 20 had erupted since the time humans had settled on Iceland. But those that had were still a threat to be reckoned with.

What about the Eyjafjallajökull and the Katla so temptingly close to where they lived in Arborg? Both had erupted a couple of years ago and were unsettlingly—or thrillingly—active. Or what about the Bárðarbunga that had erupted recently in 2015 and boasted a very high elevation of over 6,500 feet?

She'd settle for only one of them, maybe the Krafla in the north, the Askja in the heart of the island or the intriguing Loki-Fögrufjöll whose name reminded her of her favourite villain from the Marvel universe, Loki of Asgard. If she could visit even one of the volcanoes, she'd be a happier person. But no, Joshua would have none of it. Leave it to him to spoil the fun. He was too scared what might happen when she with her still rampant fire magic got so close to the source. Never mind that she had brought them here because of the volcanoes, never mind that she trusted herself not to lose control, never mind that she would happily let him near any glacier he might wish to see...

Before frustration could take her over, she said, "So you've visited all of them? Tell me about it!"

Kyle was giving off palpable waves of satisfaction, and her fire dragon was all attention and held-back desire.

"I haven't seen half of the volcanoes on earth yet, but I sure as hell will visit them all before I die. It's...incomparable, being near them, getting as close as I can."

He gazed at her deeply, his voice enraptured and almost reverent. "You can't believe how magical they are. They're not just freakishly deep craters from eons ago that are filled to bursting with destructive and regenerative energy. They're...alive."

He breathed the last word in an admiring whisper, and she stopped to stare at him.

"Alive?"

Nodding resolutely, he explained in that same fervent and hushed tone, "I can feel them, like a being, like a living essence. They have a will of their own, a memory dating back centuries and centuries, and such strength that it wrings respect even from me."

They stared at each other, connected by the spell of the volcanoes. He added, "They speak to me."

Felicia realized her mouth was hanging wide open, so she closed it with a snap and swallowed. Was he pulling her leg? But the rapt expression on his face, and the glow that suffused his eyes and crawled through his veins underneath his tanned skin told her he must be speaking the truth.

"You look like you've seen a ghost," Kyle quipped, and it lightened the mood.

She smiled weakly and shook her head. "I don't think a ghost would have shocked me that much."

"But it's the truth," he said vehemently, growing serious again from one second to the other. "The first time it happened I nearly fell over and into the boiling lava hundreds of feet below."

He rubbed the back of his head at the memory, cringing a little, and Felicia suppressed a gasp.

"To be honest, I thought I had gone nuts, once and for all. But it happened again. And the voice couldn't have been in my imagination. Not with how it sounded and what it said..."

Felicia remembered to breathe, excitement making the flames inside her rise and rise. Her dragon propelled itself out of her body as if to listen better or to beg for more information, hovering over her shoulder and staring hypnotized at Kyle.

Gazing deep into her eyes again, he said, "The volcanoes...their living essence...they recognized me for what I was. They knew I carried fire inside me, and they were infinitely thrilled by it."

Now her brows rose so high she thought they might fall out of her face.

"You've got to be kidding me. The mighty volcanoes or fire gods or whatever they are were thrilled by you, and not the other way round?"

He made a face. "Yeah, I know, sounds impossible, but I swear I'm telling you the truth. It freaked me out, but they seemed...happy that I had sought them out, as if I were fulfilling one of their expectations or something."

Averting his face, he stared into the distance blankly, and she could feel he was back in those magical moments. The air around him was vibrating, almost humming, with his energy, and the glow inside him automatically made her magic come to the fore too. They must be looking like two frigging light bulbs on legs.

"And you know what?" he said, immediately having all her attention again. "The voices have never been stronger than here in Iceland."

He let that sit for a moment, and it did make her think.

"I visited only one of the volcanoes so far, the Snæfellsjökull. And it was as if the volcano had been waiting for me. As if he had known that I'd come, and who I am. As if he..." He lowered his voice, leaning so close that she felt singed by the primal, intense heat he emanated. "As if he had a mission for me, and as if all of my journeys had been meant to prepare me and lead me here."

Wide red-brown eyes stared into shiny golden ones. Time stood still. The moment dragged on, and Felicia's mind was racing. Could it be true? And if so, where did she fit in? Why was she so excited by this, as if sharing the same kind of magic automatically meant she'd be needed for whatever secret mission and bigger picture too?

Kyle pulled her out of her trance by grabbing her chin in one big, rough thumb and index finger and nudging it up to close her gaping mouth. The heat of his touch was pleasure and pain rolled into one, and it made her jerk back. He grinned and stepped back, but the grin didn't quite reach his eyes. Had he felt it too? What was he thinking? Why was he sharing all this?

"Sorry, didn't mean to spook you. And that on our first date..."

Before she could tell him in no uncertain terms that this hadn't been a date, he barreled ahead. "I tend to freak people out like that if I ever get a little closer to them...which is hardly ever, I'll admit it. Anyway, sorry for all the heavy stuff. Let me lighten the mood. Oops, pardon the pun."

Effortlessly slipping back into his playful and persuasive ways, he made a mock dramatic gesture with his left hand. Then he snapped his fingers and one bright flame shot out of his fingertips as if his hand were a torch.

He pointed his right hand at a nearby lamp post, tall and old-fashioned with ornate fittings and a round bulb. She could see some form of energy shoot out of his hand. Not fire, more something like a thread of heat, like a laser beam but less visible and sharp. The energy ray hit the light bulb and burst it, tiny glass splinters raining down onto the deserted pavement.

Kyle lifted his left arm and waved his hand and the flame shot from his fingers to fly toward the dark street lamp. She couldn't understand his whispered command, but the fire knew what he wanted. It settled itself inside the lampshade, replacing the artificial light of the now broken bulb with natural illumination that flickered enticingly in the breeze.

Felicia looked on in utter fascination while her dragon pumped itself to a slightly bigger size like a bird fluffing up its feathers, and sailed over to inspect the altered street lamp.

"What the hell do you think you're doing?" a voice thundered through the breathless silence, startling Felicia into a surprised squeak.

You have reached the end of the free sample of Book 2 of the FIRE Trilogy, "Dancing with Fire". To buy the book, click here.

Thank you for buying this book! If you enjoyed it, please leave a review.

More Books by this Author

Dancing with Fire & Living with Fire

(FIRE Trilogy, Book 2 & Book 3) – Available now!

Fire witch Felicia and ice wizard Joshua came to Iceland to flee from the law and build a new life. But they get no chance to enjoy their new-found freedom. Something seems to be wrong with Joshua, who is closing himself off from her. Felicia finds herself inexplicably drawn to Kyle, another outsider who's hoping for a new start in the remote wilderness. And while the three battle with their wilful emotions, Iceland is on the brink of a natural disaster that is unparalleled in history.

Can Felicia use her magic to save them all from doom? Torn between love and attraction, which man will she choose?

http://www.devikafernando.com/fire-trilogy.html

***

When I See Your Face – A FREE download!

Cathy has had enough. Having run away from her abusive husband, she tries to pick up the broken pieces of her life in a remote village, focusing on her dream to start her own cake business. Finding true love is the last thing on her mind. When she comes face to face with a man who looks exactly like the one she is struggling to forget, life throws the biggest challenge yet at her: Should she give in to his charm and care or is history going to repeat itself?

http://www.devikafernando.com/when-i-see-your-face.html

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Kaleidoscope of Hopes

High hopes mean big disappointments. Nadia has learned that lesson the hard way. Single, struggling to make ends meet, and hurt by the past, the last thing she needs is another complication. When her new boss – a handsome, secretive widower with a child – moves in next door, their worlds collide. Sweet hopes bloom again, but both of them are burdened by tragic secrets. Should she give love a second chance?

http://www.devikafernando.com/kaleidoscope-of-hopes.html

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Saved in Sri Lanka

Some people are destined to meet.  
It sure feels that way when Sri Lankan tour guide Sepalika meets Daniel. The mysterious tourist from Ireland steals his way into her heart and makes her question everything her life is built upon. Instant attraction turns to love – but does he feel the same? And what about the secret she's hiding from him?  
Follow the two on their quest for a happy ending amid the beauty and wonders of the tropical island paradise of Sri Lanka.

http://www.devikafernando.com/saved-in-sri-lanka.html

***

Coming Soon

In Deep Water (WATER Trilogy, Book 1)

What if all the legends about mermaids and the lost city of Atlantis carry a nugget of truth inside them?

When Wendy is hired by a dubious multi-million-dollar corporation to investigate the corals covering a ship wreck off the island of Serendipity, her world gets turned upside down. She discovers a lost city under the ocean – and falls in love with Calder, the partner she has been assigned. The shocking truth about the hidden underwater world leads Wendy to self-discovery.

Should she give in to Calder's persuasive charm? Can they use their magic to prevent a tragic disaster?

***

You can check out the author's website for updates, teasers and free stories at

http://www.devikafernando.com

About the Author

Almost as soon as Devika Fernando could write, she imagined stories and poems. After finishing her education in Germany and returning to her roots in Sri Lanka, she got a chance to turn her passion into her profession. Having lived in Germany and in Sri Lanka with her husband has made her experience the best (and the worst) of two totally different worlds – something that influences her writing. Her trademark is writing sweet, yet deeply emotional romance stories where the characters actually fall in love instead of merely falling in lust. What she loves most about being an author is the chance to create new worlds and send her protagonists on a journey full of ups and downs that will leave them changed. She draws inspiration from everyone and everything in life. Besides being a romance novel author, she works as a self-employed German web content writer, as a translator, and as a faithful servant to all the cats, dogs, fish and birds in her home. When she's not writing, she's reading or thinking about writing.

To find out more, check out the following links:

http://www.devikafernando.com

https://twitter.com/Author_Devika

https://www.facebook.com/devikafernandoauthor

