Touching Fire (Touch Saga)

Touching Fire

By Airicka Phoenix

©2014 by Airicka Phoenix

All rights reserved.

Published by Anchor Group

PO Box 551 Flushing, MI 48433

Anchorgrouppublishing.com

This book or parts thereof may not be reproduced in any form, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without prior written permission of the copyright owner and/or the publisher of this book, except as provided by United States of America copyright law.

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.

Editor: Kris Atkinson

Beta Readers: Kimberly Schaaf, & Jaime Radalyac

Cover Designer:
© Airicka's Mystical Creations

Interior Design:
© Airicka's Mystical Creations

Also by Airicka Phoenix

Series

Touch Saga

Touching Smoke (Touch Series, Book #1)

Touching Eternity (Touch Series, Book #1.5)

Sons of Judgment Series

Octavian’s Undoing (Sons of Judgment, Book #1)

The Lost Girl Series

Finding Kia (The Lost Girl Series, Book #1)

Revealing Kia (The Lost Girl Series, Book #2)

Standalone

Games of Fire

Betraying Innocence

Anthologies

Whispered Beginnings: A Clever Fiction Anthology

Midnight Surrender Anthology

Snowed In Anthology (
Written under
Morgana Phoenix)

Dedication

My gracious readers.

Thank you for your patience and support.

I am eternally grateful.

Chapter
1

I was going to die in a park surrounded by little kids. There was probably some irony there; I just couldn’t bring myself to focus enough to find it. Truthfully, I probably couldn’t bring myself to find my own nose at that moment. The prospect of dying had that effect on me.

The sun shone
brightly, blanketing the grass in a yellow glow that hurt the eyes. Only in British Columbia could it be winter
and
sunny enough to wear shorts and a t-shirt. It was like the tropics of Canada. As final resting places went, it wasn’t too shabby. It was better than the dank, urine soaked alley we’d nearly died in last week, or the deodorant aisle at
Walmart
the week before that. It seemed like every week we found new and more creative places to meet our demise and frankly, it was getting tedious. There we were, adamant
not
to die while Garrison’s goons were adamant to change our minds, and we were just very stubborn people all around.

We were at a park, in the middle of December, watching a kite flying contest. For someone who had survived some of the worst winters in Canada, only in British Columbia was something like that possible in a sundress without freezing your pants off. But even this boggling climate mystery wasn’t enough to overshadow the fact that it was nearly noon, which meant we were minutes away from meeting someone, a man … my father to be exact
. My
real
father, not Garrison who was the genius behind me being cooked up in a lab like an omelet with animal DNA and who knew what else.

Isaiah sat beside me, his confidence and assurance a toasty blanket. It took a great deal of resistance not to give in and curl up into his side. I knew he wouldn’t push me away. I knew he would draw me in close. It was solely the fact that we were surrounded by screaming children and their watchful parents that kept me at arm’s length. It was just a hunch, but I was almost certain they would not
take too kindly to me jumping Isaiah and doing very non G-rated things to him in front of their offspring. Parents were just weird like that. They didn’t understand that I didn’t have a choice. Granted, even if I had, I would still jump the guy. He was freaking delicious and I was still just a teenage girl with raging hormones and a thirst for blood. You know, average.

There were often times when we were trapped in a motel with nothing but a black and white TV for company and I would find myself watching him, studying the powerful silhouette he made in the dim light. In the last month since our escape from Garrison’s clutches, I had noticed a few interesting things about my companion.

He never slouched. His body was perpetually frozen in an unyielding rigid tension that seemed to never lessen. It was as though his mind and body were continuously in attack mode. The first few nights after our escape, I understood. I was on edge, too. Every little noise had me bolting upright, heart wedged in my throat in panic. It was Isaiah who assured me nothing was out there. The guy had the senses of … well, a wolf. But eventually, I toned it down a notch. Isaiah, on the other hand, was hanging onto that promise he made to Ashton as though it were a brick of gold; he was going to protect me if it killed him. Sweet, right?

Wrong.

If someone could reach into my chest and tear out my heart and turn it into a living, breathing person, Isaiah would be it. He completed me. Most people had to live their whole lives wondering if they would ever find their other half, their soul mate. Well, I didn’t. I shared a soul with mine, literally. But there was nothing remotely romantic about it.

Our love was
genetically engineered to make us the ultimate weapon of mass destruction. So for all I knew, it wasn’t even real. Because being a teenager and worrying about break outs, pit stains and PMS wasn’t bad enough. I had a genuinely good reason to wonder if he really loved me or not. Plus, I perpetually had a guy in my head.

Isaiah knew every one of my secrets
without me ever telling him. He knew what I was thinking
and
feeling before even I did. It was a major pain in the ass. A girl needed her secrets, needed to be able to ogle a guy coming out of the bathroom in nothing but a towel without him getting a full wash of her not so G-rated thoughts. It didn’t help that the guy could elicit dirty thoughts wearing a snowsuit. I may have been biased, but he really was just that sexy, and all mine. As odd as it may sound, I wasn’t all too pleased about the latter.

Guys like Isaiah didn’t pick girls like me in the real world. I knew
, that had we met under normal circumstances, he would never have given me a second glance. He’d no doubt have his arm around some leggy blonde with big … personalities and … ugh! I couldn’t even think about it. The chick didn’t even exist and I wanted to throat punch her. That was how low I had sunk on the spectrum of things.

I blamed Isaiah
for driving myself crazy wondering if he would just go away one day.

No.
Wait. I blamed Terrell Garrison. He was the reason we were in this mess. He was the reason I was on the run. He was also the reason I would die if something happened to Isaiah, not only because I was just that deeply gone over the guy, but because I needed Isaiah’s blood to live. Seventeen years of human food, gone the minute I sunk my teeth into him. So when I say the guy was delicious, I don’t just mean someone better call
Calvin Klein
and let them know their underwear model was missing. The guy was literally delicious. His blood was just euphoric. There were no words for it.

“Okay?” Isaiah took my hand from my lap.

I started to nod, because I sometimes forgot I didn’t need to lie to him, especially not when he already knew my answers. Maybe it was because he knew how uncomfortable it made me when he poked around in my head, but he always asked anyway. It was his way of making an effort to give me a shred of normalcy in our bizarre relationship.

“Nervous.”
I moistened my lips and darted an apprehensive glance over the sea of faces. “It’s kind of … open, here, isn’t it?” There was so much movement. Too many people that could get hurt if Garrison was there amongst them. “How would we know?” I said the last part out loud, already knowing Isaiah had heard the rest without words.

“I would know.” He squeezed my hand. “He’s not here.”

Even while I believed him, I still couldn’t bring myself to relax, because there were bigger things to worry about than just Garrison, although he was reason enough.

“You look beautiful.” He pressed a kiss to my temple
and stilled the restless picking I’d been doing at my clothes.

“What if he doesn’t like me?” I
hated myself for confessing such a vulnerable fear, but I couldn’t help it. “Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea.”

“Fallon
.” He nudged me lightly with his shoulder.

I groaned
, squeezing my eyes closed tight. He was right. I was overthinking it. Whether my dad wanted anything to do with me or not, I’d be fine. I was a survivor. It was the one thing my mom had spent my whole life teaching me. I just had to keep moving. I could do that. Being on the road was second nature to me. I didn’t need approval from a man I’d never met.

“He’s here. Ashton,” he
said quickly when I bolted to my feet, gaze searching wildly for an oncoming attack.

“Oh!”
Except, that was equally as bad. It was just a different sort of attack.

I wiped the sweat off my palms onto my new dress
, hoping he wouldn’t want to shake hands. I’d taken a shower that morning and had lathered on the vanilla scented deodorant, but it didn’t seem to be doing its job; my armpits were sticky with sweat. I also prayed he wouldn’t want to hug. Then, because freaking out was what I did best, I wondered about my makeup. I didn’t usually wear any, but it wasn’t a usual day. What if it was running down my face? Was my dress okay? Isaiah had sworn the soft, lavender sundress with its white knitted sweater brought out the mix of colors in my eyes, but he was a guy, what did he know about women’s clothing?

Still sitting on the bench, Isaiah chuckled. “The sales lady agreed with me.”

“She could have been lying just to make a sale.” I muttered, wringing my hands anxiously at my abdomen. “Will you get out of my head? It’s a mess up there without your prodding.”

I knew it wasn’t his fault. I was the one who had to calm down. My overflow of emotions was what sucked him into my head in the first place. It didn’t help that I was being swept away in a storm of emotions at that moment. There was no real stop
ping it.

He rose to his feet and took my shoulders in his firm grip. “
Then you need to calm down.”

I did take a deep breath, clos
ed my eyes and willed myself to remain as calm as possible. Yet, the second I opened my eyes, I was pulled under by my uncertainties and fears. I didn’t know what I was looking for and that made it worse. I had shared no resemblance with my mother at all. For all I knew, Ashton could be six feet tall, black and a wrestler.

Isaiah snorted a laugh
. “He’s not.” He leaned into me and brushed the side of my head with a kiss. He’d been doing that a lot that morning, soothing me with his touches and kisses. It was his way of reminding me that I wasn’t alone. “You have his eyes and the color of his hair.”

As though for emphasis, he wrapped a strand of my unbound hair around his finger and gave a playful tug that made me laugh. He smiled and I felt my heart stutter in my chest.

The worry took a momentary backseat as I fell into his beautiful eyes, eyes so blue they could have been strips of raw electricity. They were surrounded by lashes that I would have killed for, long, thick and dark. They matched the perfect shade of ebony tumbling over his prominent brow and curling behind his ears. Glossy strands had escaped the band at the base of his skull and fluttered temptingly in the breeze.

I was always so fascinated by his hair. Maybe because he rarely ever took it down from its confinement, but I always had an inexplicable urge to tear the band away and
replace it with my fingers.

I
reached for him and touched the side of his rugged face in a feather light caress from temple to jaw. I caught a strand and nimbly tucked it behind his ear.

“How do you do that?” I murmured, turning my body to his and being rewarded by the feel of his hands going to my waist.

His head bent to the side. “What’s that?”

“Make me feel not so crazy.”

His eyes glittered as his lips pulled into a heart melting smile. “Maybe because you were never crazy to begin with.” He touched his brow to mine and I was drawn into his scent of toothpaste, soap, rain and leather. “Or maybe we’re both crazy.”

I became painfully
of his lips hovering dangerously close to mine and his hands burning through the fabric of my dress. The rest of the world faded as the rush of his blood racing through his veins roared in my ears, calling to me, begging me to do what I swore I wouldn’t. The gums above my canines began to itch deliciously. My fingers tightened in the fabric of his shirt. My lips parted, my breathing ragged even to my own ears.

“Isaiah…”

His gaze sharpened. They became dark slits of hunger I recognized all too well. His fingers gouged ten holes into my side as he tightened his grip on me. In a single yank, I was crushed into the shelter of his chest. His heart tattooed a desperate beat against mine. I trembled. My body ached in places I could do nothing about. I felt his fingers tangle into my hair to cup the base of my skull.

His breath burned the side of my face, coming out gruff when he growled into my ear, “
I told you to feed.”

He had … insistently for a month.

“You know we can’t.” My hands trembled and I was sure I was cutting holes into his shirt with my nails and causing irreparable damage to the fabric, but I couldn’t let him go. “We agreed—”

His eyes narrowed, reflecting his anger and frustration. “I never agreed to anything.”

What we were doing was playing with fire and toying with things that neither of us fully understood. What we did know was that our need for each other, our insatiable hunger was the thing that would burn the world to the ground. The fire between us was as wild and dangerous as it was beautiful. The world may not have wanted to burn in its glorious embrace, but I did. I wanted nothing else. Succumbing to the untamed temptation was vastly more alluring than the alternative, which was the perpetual distance I had to put between us.

“There’s still time,”
he murmured directly into my mind.
“You’ll feel better once you’ve eaten.”

Screw the world, this is what you want!
A very persistent part of me insisted and it wasn’t wrong. I did want this.

It wasn’t fair. Being strong and resisting wasn’t quite as simple when I was being prodded from all sides.

He touched the side of my face, tracing the contours of my cheek with his finger and coaxing me to nuzzle his palm. My eyes closed as I leaned into him.

There were insane moments when I saw no reason to stop, but then commonsense always prevailed and I forced myself to
step back. Lately, those lucid moments were becoming few and far between.