Page 43 of Too Guarded to Love

“Nic.” His name swirled into the otherworldly dimension he was caught in. Or maybe created himself. The fire lapped closer, tendril by tendril, as the rush of water created a chasm down the middle. She tracked beads of sweat dripping down his neck, one by one and into his shirt. The material clung to his body and accented every chiseled muscle in his wide back. She stared, her fingers stanching the flow of blood from Parker’s potentially deadly, horrific wound, her attention transfixed on Nic as she screamed for him to get back.

To get the baby, her future sister-in-law, and the others out.

To run into the street and out of the fire.

“Kane, Chris, Linc, anyone.” Where the hell was the rest of the VIPER team? She shouted for help again, for Nic to back away from the flames, but he didn’t listen. Instead, he raised his right arm, oblivious to her cries and the fire closing in.

“Nic, please.”

She didn’t know what she was begging for any longer, but she kept screaming. Smoke choked her cries. She rasped something encouraging to Parker, caught between saving him from certain death and pulling Nic from the flames.

Parker shuddered beneath her hands.

She glanced at the wound. Firelight glittered off the sharp edge of the thick chunk of glass. “Try to stay still.”

Her own legs didn’t listen to her cries. She tensed her muscles so hard they burned. If she crumpled, so would he. She glanced at the other guard on the floor and prayed his pulse still beat a steady rhythm. It had before she’d thrust her hands around the projectile in Parker’s neck, but that had been five minutes ago. Ten? She had no idea, but knew it was too long.

Movement at the garage entrance caught her eye. The cavalry materialized through the dissipating smoke.

“Thank God.”

Kane rushed toward her as Chris and Linc ran to the opposite side of the car and faced Nic. Both raised fire extinguishers and attacked the flames.

She tried to yell at Kane to get Nic to safety, but only a painful groan sounded from her ravaged throat. She swallowed and tried again. “Get Nic out of there.”

Kane ignored her and jumped over the demolished guard booth. Gripping Parker under the arms, he held him upright. “You okay?”

Her shoulder burned from supporting Parker’s weight, but she ignored the pain. “Help Nic.”

And why was Kane helping her instead of running to save his fiancée?

Instead, Chris and Linc just stood there as Nic pointed his arm toward the top of the car. She squinted again. Was that fresh smoke? She knew that sounded ludicrous. Smoke wasn’t fresh, but this thin stream of black soot was different. She squeezed her watery eyes shut. When she opened them, the haze in the garage cleared enough to paint an image of Nic standing in front of the fire like a warrior about to take on an army, but this new smoke seemed to be coming from the doorframe.

She barely felt Kane move her hand away from Parker’s neck as she stared at what had to be a mirage. The smoke at the top of the door crept toward the right. The metal and rubber of the doorframe glowed a mixture of orange and red. The black paint melted off particle by particle as the heat traveled slow and steady around the curve of the door and down to the tire.

“Kane. Do something.” Flames no longer lapped at the vehicle, but visions of five charred bodies, one tiny, burned in her brain. She stepped forward. Her toe hit the fallen beam as Kane placed a hand on her arm. “Please help them.”

Kane watched his teammates, his lips moving in a silent conversation he seemed to be having with himself. “They’ve got this.”

“Got what? Burning to death? Beth is in there, for fuck’s sake.”

“Trust us.”

She swung her head and leaned toward the rescue she didn’t understand. Arm outstretched, Nic stood as stiff as the concrete pillar he’d told her to stay by as he traced the path of the mysterious heat around the doorframe with his finger. The orange-red glow traveled toward the back of the sedan. Not a muscle moved in his body except the slow, slight motion of his arm, as if the heat held him in a hypnotic state.

On the other side of the SUV, Linc fought the flames with a fire extinguisher as Chris outstretched his steel arm, a transfixed expression on his face. The same dark smoke rose from the top of the doorframe as his lips barely moved. She jerked her gaze back to Kane. His lips were moving, too, like he and Chris were having a telepathic conversation.

Sirens blared beyond the door. So did shouts to stay back from the gaping hole where the garage door used to be.

“Steady.” Kane placed his hand on her shoulder, his voice barely audible over the flames. “Almost there.”

“Almost where?” Why wasn’t anyone busting into that car with their bionic limbs? Adrenaline buzzed through her like the deadliest opioid. The toxic high paralyzed her breath. Somehow, the unstable combination cleared her head.

“Wait, are they…”

The smoke and mystifying glow completed its path around the doorframe. Nic dropped his arm as if he were a snake and the smoke was the charmer who’d released him from the spell.

Chris dropped his arm and nodded at Nic as paramedics rushed into the garage.

“Fuck yeah,” Kane murmured.

As the doorframe fell at Nic’s feet, she realized Nic hadn’t been a snake under a charmer’s spell. He’d been the charmer, and the car had been the snake he’d burned wide open.