23. Chapter 23
Standing in the library as her spirit, Izzy ran her hand over the book titles again. Did I put that novel back? She leaned away from the shelf. The red book she’d been looking for sat cockeyed on the table. Damnit. She couldn’t concentrate.
Her back tingled, remembering Daxton’s heated touch as he’d connected them through the link again yesterday. She ran her hand over her hair—spirit fingers nearly numb to the touch. I’m not even in my body, and he’s still affecting me. She lurched back to the large table.
After last night, it felt as if her human side had broken free from its cage. All night she had tried to push her feelings toward him aside, but the intimate moment kept replaying in her mind.
The thoughts didn’t stop with the kiss. What would it be like for his lips to touch other parts of her body? What if she had explored his body?
She shoved her hormones in another compartment. If she didn’t, Daxton would have her entangled before she could stop it. And she needed to keep a clear head if they were going to search for clues at the fisherman’s cabin.
“La-ish-arum-dese-rub,” a voice whispered in her mind, tugging at her spirit. Someone was thinking of her Angelic name. The smoky shadow of anxiety grabbed Izzy’s throat in a suffocating grip. Gasping, she grabbed at her neck. That darkness swept her into another memory.
Blood splattered into the dish and onto the mosaic stone floor. An attentive Fotios stood over a boy, one of his pupils, lying flat on the table. The boy’s slit wrists dangled on either side of the table, and his head lulled from one side to the other.
Izzy’s heart hammered, and she crossed her shaking arms.
“Are you to be a ritualist now?” she shouted from the entryway.
Fotios glanced at her, wavy brown hair rustling around his stoic face. “This is research.”
The boy’s head fell limp, his chest ceasing to move.
Izzy stepped into the room. “You’ll kill him.”
Fotios raised his hand, stopping her. “There’s your weak compassion again.”
“What right do you think—”
“You’d stop my work?” he asked, an unfamiliar annoyance crisping his words as he tended to the cuts on the boy’s wrists.
“I fear what you’ll become if you don’t.”
Something patted Izzy’s back, startling her into the present.
“What’s wrong? You look like you’ve seen a ghost,” Serephina asked, standing stock still beside her.
“I don’t know.” She rubbed her neck, heart hammering all the way to her throat. Her psyche was weakening, and she didn’t know what to think about the man in her memory. That hadn’t been the Fotios she remembered.
“La-ish-arum-dese-rub,” the voice whispered once more.
“Someone’s thinking my Angelic name,” Izzy said. “The one that can Summon me.” The name only one living being knew—Simon.
“Summon you?” Serephina asked.
“My spirit. Like how someone can Summon demons. If he’s whispering it…he must be in trouble.” As the words left her lips, Serephina’s phone chimed.
“It’s Daxton.”
Dizzy with the need to find out what was wrong, but stuck without a heading, she waited for Serephina to answer the phone.
“Raz informed me there was an explosion at Izzy’s estate,” Daxton said over speakerphone. “Simon was there.”
The news spurred her into action. Spirit vibrating, she focused on sending herself to her house.
Daxton yanked the link with protective instincts to keep her there, but she blasted him with the panic clawing up her throat.
He released her, but a heated weight pressed on the link.
His soothing presence calmed her even amidst the turmoil.
She pictured the house in her mind and raced toward Tennessee at a speed close to light.
At her home, hidden away in the timber, she gave her form enough power for anyone to see or touch.
Black smoke billowed into the evening sky.
She gasped. In a gray haze overcasting the last red hues of the setting sunlight, her house was burning from the bottom floor up, flames licking out the windows. Simon.
Wings dimmed to hide them, she focused on appearing as herself in her elderly form. Someone Simon would recognize. She hoped her appearance would fool the Archfiends if they planned an ambush.
She clambered to a firefighter battling the blaze. “The owner…” She pointed to the house, voice too raw to speak.
“Ambulance on the road,” he yelled back.
She shot down the mountain as fast as she could.
At the bottom, a collection of emergency vehicles dominated the asphalt.
An ambulance truck sat farther away from the other vehicles.
A man, sporting a leather jacket and brown hair, stood at the rear, auburn eyes scanning the area as he held a phone to his ear.
His dragon spirit imprint gave him away. Raz. The Rogue dragon helping Daxton. Izzy couldn’t make out the huddled form sitting behind Raz, but she strode forward, hoping it was Simon.
“Hold it.” Raz held up his palm when Izzy stood three feet from him. Izzy had to look up to meet his gaze.
“Izzy,” Simon called out.
Izzy’s reserved shell cracked under the hoarse voice.
She darted around Raz as Simon rose from the truck.
A gray blanket slipped from his shoulders as he placed a dusty, scratched laptop in the ambulance behind him.
The sight of him—an oxygen mask covering his face and bandages wrapped from his hand to his shoulder—caused her breath to hitch.
The numbing shock melted away. She shook with the urge to hug him. I almost lost him.
“But you didn’t,” Fotios whispered in her mind. “And he caused you unjust fear that most likely led you into a trap. Stop caring, or it’s going to get you hurt.”
Izzy tightened her arms around herself. Fotios was right, but…Simon’s impossible to replace—she shook her head—a Coheart was hard to replace.
“Why did you come back here?” she asked.
He winced. “I needed the data and the samples.” He nudged toward Raz, hinting at what he referred to. “I wanted to run the GRS one more time. The analysis had just finished when something exploded in the tower. This darling pulled me from the wreckage.”
“Even while he was passing out, the idiot wouldn’t let me take him without the damn laptop,” huffed Raz.
Simon had the same drive as she did to solve impossible questions—the urgency to figure out the truth burned like an addict’s desire for their next big hit.
Daxton’s blood had been an anomaly Izzy wanted to compare against her own using their homemade gamma ray spectrometer, especially after the clues from her research.
Izzy rubbed her hand against her forehead as a headache bloomed. “That’s no excuse, Simon. You knew the danger.”
“But it was worth it. The results yielded a spectrum similar to your spirit blood. I don’t understand. Is he like a Fallen?”
She blinked, fingers shaking with excitement.
Could that really be my solution? Her human blood didn’t carry the same radioactive fingerprint as her spirit blood.
But Daxton’s human blood did—meaning he and the dragon were fused.
If her hypothesis was correct, it meant a dragon’s spirit energy could be what kept them from aging.
So, to have immortality, she’d need to fuse her body and spirit in the same manner, but how could she—
“Tune in, Izzy. What’s going on?” Simon asked, waving his unwrapped hand in her face.
“I’ll tell you later.”
“Fine. I won’t tell you what else I found, then.”
She stared back, unyielding. “It’s not my truth to tell.”
He sighed. “I thought I might have other results to share about your blood, but I think it’s just cross-contamination. I would have been able to determine more if the lab hadn’t well…”
“Keep me updated on that.” She leaned back and took in the gash on his temple, closed with a butterfly strip. A weight settled in her stomach, and she tried to ignore that guilt. “How are you feeling?”
He removed the mask and let it hang around his neck. “I just wanted to taste the oxygen, gaffer. Really, I’m good. I would have called as soon as Raz pulled me free, but I wanted to make sure it wouldn’t be too dangerous for you to arrive here.”
“Where are the paramedics?”
“This is our vehicle,” Raz said. “Our Healer is off finding an inconspicuous vehicle while the others scout the area.”
Simon shook his head. “Your books seem to be the best accelerant up there.”
Izzy suppressed the urge to roll her eyes by glancing back at the smoke rising over the trees. He was trying to make light of the situation, but the facts lay bleakly on the table.
“Did the security cameras pick up anything suspicious?” she asked.
“Disabled,” Simon said. “I checked the camera feeds and motion detectors on my laptop. Someone tampered with them.”
To know the estate had such equipment was one thing, but to disarm it without setting off alarms required a specific skill set. They were dealing with a professional. Someone more than likely under the Archfiend’s Influence.
Blinding anger consumed Izzy. Closing her eyes briefly, she took a breath, acutely aware of Simon sitting beside her. His smile didn’t hide his wince of pain, nor the heaviness in his stressed gaze. His appearance hurt as if she’d placed the bomb next to him herself.
Movement caught Izzy’s eye—Raz stepped forward. A man walked purposefully toward them, staring at Simon.
“Can I help you?” Raz asked.
The man’s attire looked professional, but his tie sat askew across his stained white shirt. His hair lay flat on one side as if he’d woken recently. Izzy scrutinized his dilated brown eyes and the sweat beading on his face. She surmised he was drunk.
He gave Raz a chilling glance, a flash of teeth, and a quick display of his badge. “Special Agent Matt Yuller. I need to speak with the homeowner.”
“I’m Special Agent Raz Malone. A family friend,” Raz said. “This wasn’t a federal crime, so what are you doing here?”
Simon stiffened as if recognizing him. “How can I help you?”
Yuller’s cold smile sent shivers down Izzy’s spine.
“You really should have been less chatty at the cafes you visited.” Yuller lifted his arm. A gun’s barrel glinted toward Simon.
A muffled shot rang through the air.