Burning Desire

Excerpt Burning Desire, Part I

Yelling as I was thrown across the interrogation room, I hit the wall opposite the door in a painful collision. I did not know where Greg or anyone else was. After ten minutes of fighting this damn thing and still having not found a spell to kill it, I was half hoping for Greg to come bursting through that door like a fucking Terminator to the rescue.

Suddenly two massive claws gripped my shoulders and I was stood up with my back pushed against the concrete wall. He thrust me back several times, my head colliding each time with the cold hardness, before I watched with blurry vision as he raised his right claw for the kill strike.

I wasn’t quite sure what happened next. I remembered seeing the integration room door burst open. I realized later that, in my weakening strength, my barrier spell must have deteriorated enough for the others to get through. But it wasn’t a bullet that had halted the lizard’s attack on me.

It was a fireball.

I was dropped instantly to the floor, my legs collapsing beneath me. Through a series of deep breathes, I opened my eyes to see the lizard’s back as he stood facing away from me. His cries of pain were what made me look for a source, but the doorway was blocked by wall of fire. I could see the shadows of the men on the other side trying to break through.

Movement caught my attention and my eyes landed on the most beautiful creature in all dimensions.

She stood maybe five feet tall, flaming hair with the palest of skin. Covering her body, rather than clothes, were thin sheets of fire over her perky breasts and another guarding the apex of her legs. She wore no shoes, no jewelry, and no makeup, but she didn’t need any of that.

She was perfection—and also the explanation to the smoke smell in the precinct.

When the lizard advanced on her, she put her hands up in defense but my body was instantly in motion. It didn’t matter that I was injured and incoherent. It didn’t matter that I was only a half-fae facing, yet again, a full-blooded ruthless creature. It didn’t matter that my coworkers who thought me human were just outside that open door, blocked only by a layer of fire.

All that mattered was the small fire-pixie standing in the center of the room, the danger presented to her, and the single word that ran through my brain when our eyes met around the lizard’s giant body: mate.

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I leapt onto the lizard’s back, ignoring the scales that dug into my skin. He tried to shake me off, but I refused to let go. My mother had been telling me for years that my stubbornness was going to be my downfall; I wouldn’t be surprised if I proved her right today.

One of the lizard’s claws tried to swipe at the fire-pixie before him, which she easily dodged, but it only made my determination stronger. I locked my hands on both sides of his head, where his ears should be but I wasn’t all that familiar with reptilian anatomy to know why they were absent. With every ounce of power I had left inside of me, I shrank his brain down and down and down…until it was no more.

I knew when the spell had worked because the body beneath me slumped down and lay dead on the floor. I barely had enough energy to stand up but there was no way I was going to lay down on the body of a dead giant lizard.

A hand steadied me, and it brought me back to the fire-pixie standing in the room with me. No words passed between us as she guided me over to the solid wall to the right of the door where the men were still trying to enter. Each time they poured water or fire extinguisher fluid on the pixie’s fire barrier, though it hissed and steamed, the fire remained.

I wanted to call them fools, because they wouldn’t be able to put out that fire unless the pixie’s power was immobilized or she was dead. Every part of my body, though, screamed in agony at the mere thought of her being incapacitated or a corpse.

She was mine. I would protect her with everything I had.

Tomorrow, my brain added as I started to lose consciousness. I would protect her with everything I had tomorrow.

As I started to fade away, I heard the sweetest of sounds. A light giggle was all it was, but to me it was equivalent to Chopin.

“Sleep now, my prince. I’ll find you again.”

I wanted to tell her to stay, but I didn’t have the voice or the energy. Heat touched my lips, and I knew it was her kiss.

Mate, my mind sleepily pondered. What the hell am I supposed to do with a mate?