A Spark of Trouble (Winter Bliss)
Prologue
Iggy
Eight years ago.
I snap my fingers and a fireball shoots through the air. It streaks across the empty amusement park toward the already partially charred remains of a carousel. One of the ponies lights up as it’s engulfed by the angry, dense sphere. The vengeful flame . That’s the name of the impressive, highly advanced spell.
Next to me, the sexy but otherwise underwhelming demon from my intro to marketing class groans lustily as the paint first bubbles then runs, exposing the aluminum body of the pony, which melts like a candle. He’s in tight jeans and an even tighter black T-shirt. A quick glance south, and I catch the bulge twitching in his pants.
“Light that one up next,” he says, voice thick and rough as he points to the bear figure next to the melted pony. We’re hardly the first demons to visit this abandoned amusement park. There are scorch marks and charred remains of rides everywhere. But whoever came before us, their firemarks have all been erased. Demons know better than to leave behind their distinctive pattern.
I snap again, and this time a bluish white arc screams through the air, but the figure it strikes doesn’t melt, it explodes. Debris, dirt, and glowing sparks gust toward us.
“Holy fuck!” My date throws his arms up to protect his face, but from behind them, he grins at me. It’s another highly advanced spell, entirely uncalled for in this situation unless one was showing off or getting impatient. I glare over my shoulder at a figure hiding in the shadows, but when I turn back, my date’s eyes are wide and wild with lust. “How do you do that? It’s so fucking sexy,” he growls, and a moment later his hands are sliding over me, his mouth on mine. He palms my ass as he asks, “Can we get out of here now? My dorm is ten minutes away. I’ll strap you to my horns and lick you the whole way there if you’ll let me.”
Ooh, that's such a nice offer my thighs clench together. I wish I could say yes, but reluctantly, I push him away.
“Not so fast. It’s your turn. Show me what you’ve got.” I gesture to the carousel.
He throws flames well enough, or at least he has good aim. He hits his marks, but his fire is very ordinary, no swirls, arcs, variation of color, and no staying power. Not all demons are practitioners. Most are satisfied with their natural ability to produce fire and never dabble in anything more. He’s clearly one of those. He manages to burn the surface and cause some damage, about the same as a blow torch. I can tell by the beads of sweat on his brow, and the way he keeps glancing my way for my reaction, that he’s trying his hardest, so I make some impressed noises.
We kiss good night, and again his hands are everywhere, gripping me close as he presses his hips into me. He suggests his place again, and even though this is our third date, and I’d very much like to ride his face, his horns, and his cock, I decline.
“You’re something special, Iggy, a full package demoness. When can I see you again?” he asks, breathing heavily and making no attempt to hide the boner straining against the seam of his pants. He presses it against me, grinding ever so slightly.
“Tomorrow?” I suggest as I inwardly preen under the complement of his arousal. He leans in for another kiss, but I turn and walk away, leaving him wanting more.
“I’ll find something better for you to burn!” he calls after me. “And then maybe you’ll unleash yourself on me!”
When I get to my car, a beat up, hand-me-down hatchback, my little sister is in the passenger seat. She’s my junior by two years, but we look so much alike, we could be twins. We both have jet-black hair, though I wear mine short; and a double set of horns, a trait that runs in the family.
The black sapote caramels I bribed her with are long gone and the wrappers litter both seats and the floor. If she weren’t here, I would be riding his horns across campus right now.
“Did I hear you tell him tomorrow?” she asks as soon as I slide into the driver’s seat. She arches an eyebrow at me and crosses her arms, clearly pissed. “I’m not spending my entire weekend helping you impress this douchebag.” She hates every guy I date.
“He’s not a douchebag!” I insist, but she ignores me.
“First off, do you know how hard it is to throw some of those fire spells accurately, much less from a distance? And second, I’ve got my own life to live, Iggy! So unless you’re planning to go it alone tomorrow, you better call it off.”
I grumble under my breath as I try to think of some way to convince her to come along. “Just one hour. Help me burn a couple of things, and I’ll tell him I have fire fatigue, and you can go home.” And then I’ll hop into his bed and ride him the rest of the night.
“No!”
I growl at her. It’s such an unbearable drag that my dating life has come to this. I can only make it so many dates on my own before something happens to raise suspicions.
They always get suspicious.
It’s usually something small and stupid like I’ll refuse to light a candle, or I’ll turn down someone asking for a light, but that’s all it takes. I'll see the question in their eyes and know that if there’s a next date, I’ll be dragging my sister along.
“What about next weekend?” A compromise.
“I can’t.” She shakes her head. “I’ve got the Junior Warlock Semi-finals . This is my last year to compete. I’m sorry, Iggy, but this has to be the last time. I can’t keep it up, and you shouldn’t either. What kind of relationship is this anyway? How long can it last?”
“What do you expect me to do? Should I start telling every guy I go out with that I can’t make fire? Go loud and proud as the poster child for the iddies ?” I hiss the last word from behind clenched teeth, hating it to my core. It’s slang, just another way of saying I’m fire blocked, but somehow it feels like a slur.
My sister shudders. “Sweet Mother Below, could you imagine? You’d straight up kill mom, and you’d mortify dad into early retirement. He’d close shop on Arcanous Gifts so fast, and he’d never show his face at another Blaze Craft Convention again.” And he lives for those events. His life obsession is inventing new fire magic tricks and products worthy of a big reveal on the convention main stage.
We sit in silence for a moment as we both imagine it. “Maybe you could just focus on school for now and save dating for after college?” She gives me a half shoulder shrug. “I mean look at that guy,” she gestures out the window but my date is long gone. “Would you really be missing anything?”
“Sorry we can’t all lock down a first-born son of the Pyrian family dynasty,” I snort. Her boyfriend’s family is famous in the demon world and absolute giants when it comes to the business of fire magic. They’ve been dating since they were fourteen. Gross. Who would even want to be that sickeningly sweet?
“You can do better than him ,” she says, crossing her arms.
No, I can’t. He’s just dumb enough not to notice fire arcs coming from the wrong direction. Anyone smarter is way out of my league.
I don’t know why I’m like this. I could make fire when I was a kid, but somewhere along the way, as the private lessons got more intense and my parent’s expectations soared along with my sister’s obvious natural talent, I developed a bad case of the iddies . The harder I tried, the worse it got, until sparks and wisps of smoke were all I could make.
“What about you?” I ask, staring at my hands. “Would you be mortified into early retirement too?”
“Are you kidding? With all the other reasons I have to be embarrassed of you, the iddies don't even break the top five.” She grins at me, and I know she’s joking.
“Twat.” I stick out my tongue at her as I start the car. She cackles, showing off her perfectly sharp teeth. Ugh, everything about her is perfect, inside and out. It's disgusting. I love her, but I hate her a little bit too, especially when she's right.
I never had a boyfriend in high school. Teenage demons are all about fire, just a bunch of gossipy show-offs. My entire time in school, I only had two friends, and they were sworn to secrecy, because if anyone outside of them had found out, it would have been all over school in a heartbeat, and then my parents would have had to move us to Siberia.
“I’ll take a frozen wasteland and nipple frostbite over humiliation any day of the week.” My father was fond of saying with a wink and a big grin. “I’m only joking!” It was equally hilarious every time.
I thought college would be different, but it’s not. It’s exactly the same.
“I'll dump him and stick to one night stands from now on,” I say with a defeated sigh, trying not to think about the long, lonely future that implies.
“Not from now on, Iggy! Just until…” She trails off, pulling at the sleeve of her hoodie and looking away. She doesn’t dare say until I get my fire back. We both know that’s never going to happen. But now an unspoken question hangs in the air.
Until when?