Blaze of Secrets (Asylums for Magical Threats) Read online

  Three steps away from Jaxton, Kiarra whooped as she jumped up and down in place. “I did it!”

  Jaxton rubbed the sting on his neck and shook his head at her actions. “Lingering around, celebrating, defeats the purpose of temporarily disabling an opponent.”

  Kiarra beamed. “Somehow I think I’ll walk away from this one unscathed.”

  A second later Jaxton had her back pressed against his front, with one arm around her waist and the other around her shoulders. Kiarra was tense, her breathing ragged.

  He’d scared her, just as he intended.

  Jaxton leaned close to her ear and said, “Until you can trust someone with your life, keep your guard up at all times. I’m not joking about this, Kiarra.”

  She shivered, and Jaxton released her. He spun her around and took her chin in his fingers. “Do you understand me?”

  Kiarra nodded, still obviously shaken by the encounter. Maybe someone had tried to restrain her in a similar manner sometime in her past. Somewhere in the course of their training session, he’d forgotten that she was a recently rescued first-born.

  He released her chin. “Darius will be up shortly to draw your blood. After that, you’re free till tomorrow morning.” As she turned to leave, he said, “Good job today, Kiarra.”

  She peered over her shoulder and nodded. But as she walked off, she straightened her spine and carried herself with more confidence than she’d displayed since arriving. The thought of her confidence being stripped away again, if she were captured and tossed back inside the AMT, made Jaxton want to protect her all the more.

  And that scared him a little.

  Kiarra turned the lock on her door and headed for the small bathroom suite attached to her room. Her arms and legs were borderline numb from her training, but she managed to shed her clothes and turn on the shower. As she stood under the hot spray of water, Kiarra closed her eyes and enjoyed how the warmth relaxed her muscles.

  She’d enjoyed tackling new self-defense techniques and now had a better understanding of what the guards had used against her and the other prisoners inside the AMT. Unfortunately, Jaxton’s stunt at the end of her training session, when he’d hauled her up against him, had driven home the point that she still had a lot of work to do.

  As she massaged her scalp with shampoo, Kiarra remembered the spark of heat she’d felt every time Jaxton had touched her. It wasn’t quite the same feeling as when she’d been able to gather elemental fire, but there was something familiar about the process. At least with Jaxton overseeing her training, she could see if the same thing happened tomorrow. It might just be a strange response to touch after so many years without.

  She’d also caught Jaxton watching her. Part of her dismissed it as nothing more than a trainer observing his student, but another part of her remembered the last time a man had watched her so closely.

  She finished her shower and dried off, but before she got dressed, Kiarra reached around and felt the raised surfaces of her scars. There were no mirrors in the AMT, except for the two-ways in the exam rooms, and she’d put off taking a look at her body, afraid of what she’d see.

  After taking a deep breath, Kiarra decided she needed to conquer this small fear if she wanted to tackle her larger ones. She wiped the steam off the mirror and looked at herself.

  Her breasts were high, her waist narrow. Even though her hipbones poked out a little more than she liked, her front looked like any other woman, soft and rounded where it mattered. Then Kiarra turned and peeked over her shoulders to look at her back.

  The scars were ugly, crisscrossed in a random pattern over the top half of her back. She reached a hand behind and touched the raised surface, her deadened nerves barely registering the movements of her fingers. Jaxton had only seen a fraction of the damage to her back. She wondered how he would react to the full spread; a web of scars was hardly attractive.

  Not that his opinion should matter. More importantly, she wouldn’t let it matter.

  Jaxton might be helping her, and was probably the closest thing she had to an ally, but she needed to keep her distance and learn how to control her emotions. What he’d said at the end, about never letting down your guard until you could trust someone with your life, rang true. The only person Kiarra could trust at the moment was herself.

  A knock at the door startled her. She threw on some pajama bottoms and an oversized t-shirt before crossing the floor to the door. “Who is it?”

  “Darius. I’m here to draw some blood.”

  Taking a deep breath, Kiarra opened the door to find a tall, smiling man with dark chocolate skin. She liked that he didn’t try to push his way into her room. Kiarra stood back and opened the door. “Let’s get it over with.”

  Darius went to the oversized chair in the corner and gestured for Kiarra to take a seat. As she made her way across the room, she decided that this was a prime opportunity to work on her uneasiness around strangers. She knew nothing but the man’s name and that he worked with Jaxton, but at least his smile had been sincere when she’d opened the door.

  After she settled in the chair, Darius held the tourniquet in front of Kiarra and raised an eyebrow. “Ready for the heavy-duty rubber band?”

  Kiarra nodded, unused to people asking for her permission.

  As she stared at Darius’s profile, a memory from her rescue flashed inside her mind. Right before she’d passed out from the tranquilizer, this man and two others had positioned their hands toward various compass directions. There was only one way to find out if the memory was true or from a dream. Kiarra shifted in her seat and asked, “You’re a first-born, aren’t you?”

  Darius’s eyes darted up, but quickly focused back on tying the tourniquet tight and searching for her vein. “Yes.” He took the blood-collection needle out of his kit and held it up. “Ready for the pinch?”

  Kiarra nodded absently, wanting to know why Darius, despite being a first-born, was outside the AMT. Would he get mad at her personal question?

  The needle secure, Darius took out the collection tubes and secured the first one. As her blood filled the tube, she looked away. The sight only reminded her of what had been taken away.

  “Shortly after my mother discovered she was pregnant,” Darius said, “my parents hightailed it to the mountains of Virginia. They went off the grid to conceal my identity and saved me from having to go into the AMT system.”

  Kiarra swung her gaze around, watching Darius closely, but he was focused on his task. This time, she would ask what was on her mind. “Then how did you learn to use your elemental magic?”

  Darius swapped the full tube for an empty one. “You could search the Appalachian Mountains for the rest of your life, but you might never find the person you’re looking for. The rogue Feiru Masters knew that. My parents convinced an acquaintance to set up a meeting, and one of the rogue first-born Masters took me on.”

  Part of her wanted to ask to see his abilities, but another part of her resented the fact Darius still had them. She knew it was silly, but she was jealous of his parents’ actions to protect him.

  She had no idea who or what was a Feiru Master, but before she got the chance to ask, Darius pressed a cotton ball to the needle’s entry point, eased the needle out, and taped the cotton ball to her arm. He looked up and patted her arm. “If there’s a way to bring back your elemental fire, rest assured that DEFEND will find it.”

  “How did you…”

  Darius smiled. “There are eyes and ears everywhere in this house. Remember that.”

  And then he was gone before she could ask another question; that seemed to be a pattern with the men in this house.

  Kiarra was skeptical that Darius’s words would come true, about bringing back her elemental fire, but secretly she longed for it. Every time she’d been allowed to use her fire during supervised observations inside the AMT, the flames had felt like old friends, caressing her skin and comforting her in a way nothing else could.

  But she longed for the return o
f her fire for a much more important reason than simple nostalgia; with elemental fire, she wouldn’t have to rely on Jaxton or his men for protection. At the end of her three-month trial, she could leave and defend herself against the AMT enforcers.

  Chapter Ten

  After thirty minutes of searching her room, Kiarra was convinced Jaxton or one of his men had stolen the rules and regulation book Neena had given her, and she wanted it back.

  She stood at her door, trying to work up the courage to open it. Having met Marco and Darius, Kiarra wasn’t afraid of bumping into one of Jaxton’s men. Each time she met them, she was able to strengthen her tolerance of interacting with people again.

  So what was keeping her standing like an idiot in front of the door? The clothes Neena had brought for her to wear.

  The tight jeans, long-sleeved purple t-shirt, and knee-high boots felt like an advertisement that screamed: Stare at my boobs and ass, you can’t miss them. After spending her entire adult life trying not to catch the eye of the AMT guards, drawing attention to herself was counterintuitive.

  But as she darted a glance toward the window, Kiarra remembered that she wasn’t inside the AMT any longer. Jaxton and his men might stare, but they most likely wouldn’t touch her without consent.

  This was another step in her training. She could do this.

  Kiarra took a deep breath before opening the door and heading down the stairs, toward the front room. She remembered seeing a bookshelf when she’d talked with Neena yesterday—maybe she’d get lucky and find the DEFEND book there. She needed to start learning the rules. Not only because she wanted to become less reliant on Jaxton, but also in case she decided to stay and work for DEFEND past her three-month trial period.

  Careful not to make a sound, Kiarra peeked into the front room and breathed a sigh of relief when she saw it was empty. Late afternoon sunshine streamed through the windows, allowing her to scan the bookshelf without flicking on the lights.

  Most of the books were nonfiction. The topics ranging from geology to history to psychology, with a few fiction titles tucked away on the bottom shelf. But she didn’t see Neena’s book or anything about DEFEND or its rules and regulations. She would’ve loved to find a book on the history of the AMT compounds or Feiru legends, but again, she came up empty-handed.

  So much for trying to become less reliant on Jaxton. She’d just have to confront him about it the next time she saw him.

  Kiarra bent over and scanned the fiction titles on the bottom shelf. Reading had been one of her sanity-sustaining techniques inside the AMT, but all of the titles had come from a pre-approved list to ensure that the inmates wouldn’t get any ideas about escape or revolt. The thought of reading something that might not be on the approved AMT reading list made Kiarra a little giddy.

  She finally plucked one with “Highlander” in the title and started to read the back cover when a voice behind her said, “The steamy ones are tucked away in the back.”

  Jaxton had been planning to read more about post-traumatic stress disorder on his tablet when he’d stepped into the front room and seen Kiarra bent over, her lovely, heart-shaped ass on display.

  Jaxton leaned against the doorframe and watched her. He knew what Kiarra was looking for, but to give her the book outright would be too easy. Instead, he would use this opportunity to work on the emotional side of Kiarra’s training. If she was to be effective in the field, she needed the ability to control all of her emotions, and Jaxton had the perfect plan to test it.

  After making a comment about his sister Millie’s sexy romance stash on the bottom shelf, Kiarra jumped up and turned around to face him. He waited to see if he’d be dealing with the hesitant AMT inmate or the woman from his training session.

  Kiarra’s brows drew together. “You shouldn’t sneak up on people. It’s not very nice.”

  Excellent, he had the woman from the training session. “I wasn’t sneaking, you just weren’t paying attention. Another rule for self-defense is—”

  “To pay attention. Yes, I get it.”

  At least she wasn’t hesitating at everything he said or did, which was progress. He walked over to the bookcase. “What’re you looking for, pet?”

  She looked at him askance for a second before she said, “Neena gave me a book to read, but it’s not in my room.”

  He plucked a book from the topmost shelf and held it up. “This one?” Kiarra reached for it, but he held it up out of her reach. “Everyone who works for DEFEND knows the rumors about Neena’s personal copy of the rules and regulations book. Supposedly it gives clues about her overall plan for the organization. My question is, why she would give it to you?”

  “Does it matter? She gave it to me, therefore it’s mine.”

  Jaxton raised an eyebrow. “You’re turning into a greedy one, aren’t you?”

  “If wanting to keep the first present I’ve received in my adult life is greedy, then so be it.” She put out her palm and waited.

  When she put it like that, it made him feel like a bit of a bastard. “You can have it back if”—he stooped down and fished out Millie’s favorite book—“you take this one too.”

  Kiarra took both books. After reading the title and taking a look at the cover image of the romance book, her cheeks turned red.

  Jaxton stood up and tapped the cover of The Dark Warrior’s Secret. “My sister has read this at least four times, so I reckon it’s good smut.”

  Her cheeks turned a brighter shade of red. “Smut?”

  He was enjoying her discomfiture and couldn’t seem to stop himself. “A book full of sex and the like. She swears it has a good story, but I bet she only reads it for the sex scenes.”

  She stared at the cover, unwilling to meet his eye. “Normally I’d thank you for the book, but I’m not sure you deserve it.”

  Jaxton snorted. “Spot on, pet.”

  She looked up. “Spot on,” she mimicked in a horrible British accent. “Who talks like that?”

  “The people who speak English properly.”

  “You are less than helpful.”

  Jaxton fought a smile. “Maybe if you didn’t make fun of my accent, I would be more helpful.”

  She hugged the books to her chest. “I didn’t know you were so sensitive.”

  “I’m not the one who goes red at the sight of two people going at it on a book cover.”

  She peeked at the cover again, but this time, her expression remained neutral. “See, I can do it.”

  He leaned in. “That is what you should’ve done the first time. A second of hesitation when someone attacks and it’s game over, pet.”

  As they stared at each other, Jaxton was overly aware of Kiarra’s breath on his cheek, the sweet scent of her skin. She leaned in a fraction, only to take three steps back. “If the lesson is over, Mr.—”

  “Ward.”

  “Mr. Ward, then I have some studying to do.”

  While she was trying to be distant, her actions were amusing. Jaxton motioned to the couch. “You can read here, I’ve things to do.”

  “I prefer to read in my room, really—”

  “Enjoy the sunshine. You need it more than I.” He turned and left the room, not quite sure if he’d been as successful with Kiarra as he’d planned. Men, women, teenagers, he’d trained them all over the years, but never before had he had the urge to kiss one of them. If he wasn’t careful, Kiarra might ruin his reputation.

  With Jaxton gone, Kiarra plopped onto the couch and punched of the pillows. Why did the man insist on making everything into a training lesson? He purposely antagonized her, only to lecture her about it afterward.

  Her three months of training couldn’t be over soon enough.

  Kiarra stared at the two books in her lap. She needed a distraction, and while the cover with “two people going at it” would be more entertaining, the book about DEFEND was more important for her future. After getting comfortable on the couch, she opened Neena’s book.

  The title page was cove
red in random handwritten words, such as Cantabria, Edinburgh, and Victoria Falls. Hearts adorned all the i’s on the page, and there were several words written in a language she couldn’t understand. Curious to see what made Neena’s copy of the book so famous, she flipped to the first page of text and started reading:

  DEFEND is a volunteer organization whose aim is to promote equality for all Feiru, regardless of birth order or unusual abilities. By reading this guide of rules and regulations, you agree to keep this information secret and away from those who would wish to harm our organization. Violation of your silence will result in consequences put forth in Section Three.

  In the side margin there was a note in the same handwriting as the title page, and it said: And they’ll have to deal with me.

  That comment fit with what she knew of Neena’s personality, but it wasn’t the least bit helpful in revealing more about DEFEND.

  Kiarra flipped a few pages and stopped when she came to one filled with scribbles in the margins. She read the handwritten part first:

  A shifter will be needed to set things in motion. Coercion may be necessary.

  Unsure of what a shifter was, Kiarra frowned and looked at the title printed at the top of the page: Latent Roles and Uses.

  Latent what? Maybe if she read from page one, all of this would start to make more sense. Kiarra flipped back to the beginning, determined to find out how DEFEND functioned and figure out why Neena expected her to skirt the rules.

  Chapter Eleven

  Hours later, when the sun began to set, Kiarra decided to tuck away her books and find something to eat. Neena’s handwritten comments were giving her a headache; the woman had no lack of confidence, to the point of being haughty.

  The book mostly detailed the hierarchy, departments, and restrictions on outside communication. DEFEND seemed like a good organization on paper, but then most Feiru probably thought the AMT compounds sounded good too. In other words, she wasn’t ready to make a decision just yet.