Igniting the Spark Read online

  Table of Contents

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  EPILOGUE

  COPYRIGHT

  Copyright © 2018 by Michelle Irwin writing as Fleur Smith

  Second Edition December 2018

  Published in Australia

  Cover Artist: Desiree De’Orto

  Cover content used for illustrative purposes only, and any person depicted is a model.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to an actual person, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental. The following story is set in the USA and therefore has been written in US English. The spelling and usage reflect that.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without the written permission of the Publisher, except where permitted by law. To request permission and for all other inquiries, contact:

  Michelle Irwin P O Box 671 MORAYFIELD QLD 4506 AUSTRALIA

  www.michelle-irwin.com

  [email protected]

  CONTENTS

  COPYRIGHT

  CONTENTS

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER ONE

  THE SICKLY YELLOW lights reflected off the metal tables in the sterile room. Where there should have been noise, there was only silence for me.

  Silence and the sight of my own bloodied, dead body.

  My red-gold hair shimmered in the light of the fire surrounding me. Clay, the man I loved, clasped my body as his tears overtook him. He refused to let go even as his brother, Ethan, tried to pull him away from the flames. Blood from the wounds in my chest and back was smeared over his face and arms, and smudged into his nearly black hair.

  The sight confirmed I’d committed the ultimate betrayal: I’d left him.

  I wanted to comfort him, but without my voice it was impossible. There was so much I needed to tell him before I left. That I loved him. That despite everything we’d been through, he’d brought happiness to my life I’d never expected. I wanted to explain there was something more important than him and me—my daughter.

  The child who would rise from the ashes after the flames consumed my body.

  The image fell away as the fire raged hotter.

  Darkness took hold, gripping me and squeezing tight. The sunbird pleaded with me to let go. To be free. To join with my mother, with my ancestors, and pass the baton on to the next generation. My child would be safe with Clay, and I was ready move on.

  Peace filled me.

  A pinprick of light broke through the inky dark that I’d sunk into. The sunbird urged me to ignore it. To focus on the certainty that my time had come. Only, the light wouldn’t be refused. When I shifted my attention to it, a flash filled the darkness around me, flooding my vision with a bright apple-green.

  With the darkness gone, a new sensation overtook me. Pain. Panic. Confusion.

  Flashes of the moments leading up to my death rushed through me. My drive to keep Louise safe from the harm the Unseelie fae, Caelan, intended to cause. Clay and his father fighting over the gun. The crack of a gunshot.

  I burned again at the memory of the fire in my chest as the bullet tore through my heart. The ache of death ran through me again, and the green light grew in intensity once more.

  Through the pain, there was something new. A soft voice whispered to me, calling me back. Not the sunbird, someone new but familiar all at once. She spoke words I didn’t understand, but they compelled my attention. They overrode the sunbird’s instructions—tried to push her away. They beckoned me backward instead.

  To a wall of red.

  Of fire and pain.

  The sight of the barrier terrified me, but I could do nothing to react. I was separate from everything. Floating. As I moved closer to the wall, agony coursed through me. My chest tightened. A chill raced through me.

  Danger lay that way.

  Come with me, the sunbird whispered. You will be free of the pain; it is your daughter’s time.

  She called for me to abandon the wall, to head into the darkness. I’d been so ready to until the apple-green light. Until the other voice.

  Now . . .

  I reached out with my mind, trying to figure out what was beyond the barrier. Something told me it was important.

  “I . . . I can’t lose her.” My focus snapped to the wall when I heard another voice.

  Clay’s.

  He was on the other side of the barrier. Even though I’d been calm, ready to move on, hearing the heartbreak in his tone made me want to fight my way back to him. If only to reassure him he’d survive this.

  Evelyn, the sunbird called, urging me away from the wall. Away from Clay.

  Once more I had to choose between moving onward into the darkness or turning and fighting through the fire to get to him. Only the fire was too strong, too fierce. The pain too intense.

  The sunbird, who’d convinced me to stay last time, now wanted me to move on.

  It’s time, she called.

  “I am here for you, Evelyn,” the foreign voice—the bringer of the apple-green light—called to me, speaking over the sunbird.

  At the sound, panic rose in me. I couldn’t fight the fire, but I didn’t want to lose Clay. Didn’t want to abandon him to his fate—to a life of heartbreak and secondhand joy.

  “If you trust me, I will help you return to us,” the new voice said, the sound lyrical, lilting, and feminine. Familiar.

  As I focused on her words, and on the light she shared, her name came to me. Mackenzie, Clay’s fae sister.

  In the middle of the wall, a door-shaped opening appeared. A rectangle of green through which I could hear her gentle reassurances.

  “Come back to us, Evelyn. Come back to Clay.”

  The sunbird hissed at the words. Come forward with me. It is time.

  The green doorway shimmered. Faded. Shrank in size. A second passed and it shrank again.

  My time was running out.

  I had to make a choice.

  And I had to make it
now.

  CHAPTER TWO

  MEMORIES OF FIRE and pain smashed against my skull and ripped through me, parching my throat and making me burn. A darkness rolled around my thoughts like molasses. Slowly I struggled to regain consciousness, but I couldn’t grasp hold of any concept like who, where, or why. Every thought was fleeting, flittering away at the last second like fireflies dancing in the night.

  Opening my eyes after what felt like a long slumber, I blinked. Brightness filled my vision, and the deathly silence of the room around me throbbed in my ears.

  When my eyes adjusted to the light, I glanced around. The small room I found myself in was clearly fae. The gossamer material over the ceiling was unlike any other building material on earth. The bed beneath me was soft, so soft I wanted to sink straight back into the oblivion I’d woken from. Only, the thoughts that had been so evasive moments earlier turned, twisting around to dive-bomb at me all at once.

  I sat up to fight the lethargy in my body. As I did, an unfamiliar and uncomfortable sensation tugged on both my back and chest. The pressure of being upright pressed on me, causing me to cough wildly. Each wheeze brought another painful tug along my chest and back.

  Glancing around again, I tried to recall why I was back in the fae court. How had I gotten there? When? The last thing I remembered was . . .

  The memory danced frustratingly close to the surface, but I couldn’t grasp it. A vision of Aiden’s bright-blue eyes swam into my mind. Followed by the image of Clay—his dark-chocolate eyes. The change that had come over his gaze when . . .

  I sighed as the memory eluded me again. I directed my thoughts instead to the more immediate issue—where I was and how I got there.

  Why am I back with the fae?

  Like a dam bursting, my mind was flooded with brief flashes of memories. Sneaking into the Bayview Hotel—the Rain’s New York Headquarters—to rescue Mackenzie. The confrontation in the treatment room with the Rain operatives in charge of the Bayview, including Clay’s father, Troy. Learning that my supernatural shadow, the one who’d stalked me for years and left a trail of blood in his wake, was actually an Unseelie fae who’d once been together with Clay’s mother. Having that fae, Caelan, take Clay’s twin sister hostage.

  The memories flooded through me faster than before.

  The knife at her throat.

  The gun in Troy’s hand.

  Clay wrestling him for it.

  The sound crack of the gunshot.

  Fire ripping through my chest.

  One hand rose to the left side of my chest—to the spot where the bullet had torn through my skin as it exited my body—and landed on a bandage taped beneath the thin tank top I was wearing. A hiss left me, and I winced as the gentle touch renewed the agony of the injury, sending it radiating throughout my entire body until even my teeth hurt.

  The door started to open, and I froze in place, wondering whose face would appear around the wooden obstacle. I sucked down a breath, but it was so painful I couldn’t hold it for more than a few seconds before it rushed from me—tearing a cry of agony from me as it left.

  Mackenzie walked through the door. Her blonde hair rested in soft curls down her back, and the tips of her spring-green wings fluttered lightly as she carried a tray toward me.

  She gave me a flawless smile when she saw I was sitting up.

  “You’re awake,” she said.

  “I’m alive,” I murmured. That simple fact, which should have been the most obvious thing in the world, was really only just beginning to sink in. I was alive, and I shouldn’t have been. There had been a moment where I was certain I was dead. Still, part of me felt dead—I ached and couldn’t even move my fingers enough to curl them into a fist.

  How long had I been out?

  The goodbye with Clay ran on repeat in my mind—my memory tinged with blood and fire. A memory, or dream, of being called back to Clay danced at the edges of my mind, but I couldn’t grasp the details.

  “I noticed that,” she said as she placed the tray down on the bedside table. “How are you feeling?”

  “Sore,” I said, before asking the question that had been burning on my tongue since I had awakened. The one far more important than how I felt. “Where’s Clay?”

  “I convinced him to go spend some time with Mother today. He did not want to leave you, but I knew you would understand given the circumstances. I will, however, let him know you are awake and requesting his presence.”

  I thought about arguing with her, telling her that she could just tell me where he was and I’d find him myself, but wasn’t sure I had the strength to climb from the bed. Plus, after everything we’d been through we could use a few moments of privacy before having to join in with everyone else. Besides, being upright and talking left me breathless. A fresh coughing fit took hold and ensured a brisk walk around the court was out of the question. At least for the moment.

  “Try not to cough too hard or you might pull out your stitches,” she said. “Sit back and try to drink some of the water. It is enchanted so it will help you heal faster.”

  “Thank you,” I said. It was obvious from her words and the way her eyes assessed my movements that she’d had a hand in my recovery.

  “You should thank Clay,” she said. “He is after all the one who saved your life, against the odds.”

  “How?” I asked, confused.

  “That is my brother’s story to tell, so I shall leave him with that courtesy.” She gave me a knowing smile and left the room.

  After taking a few small sips of water, I shifted up the bed and leaned against the headboard. Every second seemed to drag on forever as I waited for Clay. Guilt ate at me that I was dragging him away from his family, but I hoped they would understand why I needed him.

  About five minutes later, the door burst open, practically flying off the hinges, and Clay rushed into the room. His mid-length hair was disheveled, and there were black bags under his eyes that indicated he hadn’t been sleeping well.

  How long have I been asleep?

  “Evie!” he exclaimed as he caught my gaze. “You’re awake!”

  He practically ran to cover the ground to the bed, but slowed himself enough to sit gently at my side, before twisting to face me. Bandages covered his palms, and superficial wounds twisted up the length of his arms and across his throat and face.

  Just as I was about to ask what had happened, he spoke. “Don’t do anything like that again. I couldn’t take it,” he said. “I’ve lost you more times than is fair already.”

  “I’m sorry, but I couldn’t let her die.” The memory of reaching out to try to knock the knife from our attacker’s hand to save the life of Clay’s twin sister, Louise, was firm in my mind as I said the words. It was a choice I would make a hundred times over—of course, I would have preferred not to earn a bullet through the heart for it.

  “There was a time when she would have killed you without a moment’s thought.”

  “I know,” I said, easily able to recall my fear over the years that Louise was hunting me—even though I’d thought it was Clay at the time. “But she deserves a chance to change now that she knows the truth. How is she?”

  “How is she?” Clay repeated. His eyebrows were raised in disbelief, and his voice dripped with incredulity. “I would think you’d be a little more concerned about your own well-being.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  “Of course it’s not. You’ve effectively been in a coma for almost a week, and the first thing you do when you wake is ask how she is.”

  “But I’m not effectively in a coma anymore, am I? I’m awake and talking and clearly okay for the moment, so can you please just answer my question?”

  He sighed when he saw I wasn’t going to relent. “Lou’s fine. She’s still coming to terms with our heritage—especially because the binding spell lifted with Caelan’s death so she’s got a whole lot to learn.” He snorted. “You should see her wings.” The statement was followed by a laugh. “I woul
dn’t count her among your friends just yet, but your miraculous return from the dead isn’t her biggest concern at the moment either. Just like your biggest concern in the first moments after you’ve woken from a healing sleep shouldn’t be about my twin sister.”

  “Well, I know I’m alive, so now all I want is information. What happened? Why did the anti-fae charms work on you? Who exactly was Caelan? How’s Fiona? How’s Ethan? Did Zale escape? And what happened to you?” I asked, clutching his hand softly and inspecting the superficial wounds.

  “You shouldn’t be so concerned with everyone else.” He cast his head down and barely whispered, “You died, Evie.”

  “Obviously I didn’t,” I said, patting my body to prove my point. “See, I’m still here.”

  He caressed my face with his bandaged hands. “You did. You were shot and you—” His voice broke and he stopped. “You died. You lost so much blood, and you couldn’t breathe. You began to burn. I came so close to losing you forever.” His breathing became erratic and tears glistened in his eyes. He drew my face closer to him. “I couldn’t lose you.”

  I gently pulled his hands away from my cheeks and assessed the damage he’d done to himself again. “What happened?”

  “I couldn’t let you burn,” he said quietly.

  Vague memories of my last moments of consciousness crept into my mind.

  The heat.

  The fire of the sunbird.

  If I’d died, the sunbird would have taken control and sacrificed my body to make way for the next generation. I’d experienced the fire the sunbird created often enough to know that the flames would have burst out of me and set the immediate vicinity ablaze. After that point, my skin would no longer create flame, but within minutes the blaze would have consumed me, leaving the ashes from which the next generation would rise.

  Unless . . .

  The reason behind the superficial burns on his arms and face became clear. “You pulled me from the fire?”

  “I couldn’t let you burn,” he repeated, his eyes blazing with an intensity that proved the vehemence behind his words.