Page 27 of Kiss of Fire

It was slow. He was a dead weight, and she couldn’t see where she was going. She had to keep craning over her shoulder to see the way down the rapidly darkening mountainside.

His head lolled against her chest, bumping and jerking over every uneven bit of ground. She glared at it viciously. More than once she entertained the idea of simply dumping him and heading to the hunter’s lodge herself.

But she didn’t. He thought she was weak. The desire to prove him wrong drove her onwards.

After the first hour, the strain in her arms was almost unbearable and the muscles in her back were screaming. She’d forgotten to retrieve her fur hat and the cold was making her ears itch like crazy. Her gloveless hands locked around Shade’s chest were blue. The fact that she couldn’t feel them was worrying. The jinn wasn’t putting out his normal radiator-like warmth.

She stumbled over a loose stone and fell backwards, landing under his crushing weight. She lay for a moment, lacking the strength to move. Despair tugged at her.

I can’t do this. I’m exhausted..

“Get up,” she muttered out loud. “Get up and move.”

I’m not strong enough. I’m too cold.

She screamed in frustration, her voice bouncing off the trees and disappearing into the void. And suddenly heat flared in her hands.

For a moment she thought the warmth was coming from Shade, that he was regaining his strength. But her cheek was against his face and it was still cold.

She unlocked her hands from around his chest and held them up, trying to see round his head. She caught her breath, unsure whether she was hallucinating.

Orange flames were licking along her fingers. She stared, entranced, turning her hands slowly one way then the other. Her hands weren’t burning. There was no pain, no scorching. But her fingers were definitely on fire.

Unless, of course, she was as nuts as Dr Meadows thought she was and this was all in her head.

Instinctively she shook her wrists, trying to extinguish the flames. They went out, leaving her fingers pink and tingling with warmth. In fact, her whole body felt as if there was a current running through it.

With a sudden spurt of energy, she hauled herself up and resumed dragging Shade down the mountain. It seemed a little easier now, as if she’d found a reserve of strength from somewhere.

It didn’t last long. It was late in the afternoon before the hut finally came into view and by then her legs were shaking with fatigue. She sobbed in relief when she found the door unlocked.

She shouldered her way in, dragging Shade to the middle of the floor. She laid him down, her spine cracking as she straightened up. She stuck her hands under her armpits, stifling a groan as the blood crept painfully back into her fingers.

The lodge consisted of a single room with a dresser, a log-burner, and a narrow truckle bed along one wall. It wasn’t designed to be lived in. It was just somewhere for a trapper to grab a rest or wait out a storm during hunting season.

She wanted nothing more than to lie down and close her eyes for five minutes but she knew if she did, she’d never get up.

She checked on Shade’s injury. It seemed to her the wound looked less red but it was hard to tell. Blood had congealed around it. She smeared on the last of the ointment, hoping it was enough.

As dusk fell she searched the room, hoping to find a torch or a lamp. She discovered candles and a box of matches tucked in a drawer.

“Better than nothing,” she muttered as she struck a match.

In the glow of candlelight, she checked the small pot-bellied stove in the corner. She almost cried when she saw it had already been prepared with a pile of logs.

She prepared to strike another match, then hesitated. Checking that Shade was still out cold, she tentatively held her fingers over the logs and tried to conjure up some fire. She wasn’t the faintest bit surprised when nothing happened.

Chiding herself for her stupidity, she struck a match and touched it to the kindling. The logs roared into flame and she spent a few precious minutes basking in their warmth.

She dragged Shade closer to the stove. There was a bare mattress on the bed but she simply didn’t have the strength to lift him onto it. She laid a hand gingerly on his brow. His skin felt less clammy than before.

“I guess it’s my turn to keepyouwarm. I’m bloody glad you’re asleep for this.”

Raya shrugged off her coat and put it over him, then lay down next to him. She hoped the combination of the fire and her body heat would restore him.

The logs crackled in the stove, and the sound of Shade’s breathing was reassuringly even. Her eyelids drooped as tiredness overcame her.

She raised her forearm and it was wreathed in flame.

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