Claiming His Fire Read Online Free Page A

frowned. “What? No, stay. I said I’d dance with you.”
    I shook my head, my stomach turning as the past overlapped my present.
    “The decision has been made. Pack your belongings.”
    “I can’t.” The dance floor spun and the lights blazed against my skin. Burning me. Burning everything. My magick setting me on fire from the inside out. I closed my eyes for a moment, blocking the stimuli of the club before taking a deep breath and giving Doug my best fake smile. “I need to leave. I’m not feeling well.”
    Doug didn’t look convinced. “You sure you don’t want another drink or something?”
    I put one hand up and sidestepped him. “No, I’m good.”
    “Scarlett” —he grabbed my elbow, spinning me around to face him— “I get it, you want to go. Let me take you home. I promise to leave you safe and sound at the door.”
    Tired of arguing and fighting back a horrible wave of nausea, I let him lead me through the bar and outside. The storm in my mind blew strong and loud, too much to allow me time to look around. To notice if anyone was wearing the leather coats I’d been so worried about earlier. My biggest fear reduced to barely a whisper of thought as my past set off a firestorm in my mind.
    The wind blew in from the west as we stepped outside, but otherwise the night was quiet and comfortable. Late spring in Detroit was a good time of year. Warm but not yet humid. A time for rebirth and sowing seeds of future promises, for sex and love and a fresh outlook on life. But not for me, especially not tonight.
    A tense and awkward car ride later, Doug dropped me at my door. Our goodbye consisted of little more than a kiss to my forehead and a declaration that he’d call. Not that I expected him to or that I’d be too excited if he did. The night had been a ridiculous disaster. I saw no reason to try for a second date.
    Once inside the house I shared with my sister, I hurried up the stairs to the bathroom. The place was nice if not a little small, situated in an old neighborhood right on the Detroit River. Very…suburban and family-friendly. I’d liked living downtown in Beast’s townhouse, but that hadn’t worked out. My sister, Amber, the future-teller of our crazy clan, had seen a vision of him kicking her out, so she’d packed up and left. I’d followed her because, while this town may have been a bit too Cleaver Family for me, living here kept my family together. I’d walked away from my coven to support one sister; I clung to them both now. Amber and I were missing our sister Zuri to complete the Weaver triplets, but she lived just two towns over. Across the bridge on a little island town south of Detroit. An almost perfect spot for a water witch like her.
    But too far away to keep our tiny coven together, thus making our inner magick fade, our powers too much to handle alone.
    Witches by blood, we had left our hometown behind to follow Zuri and her red thread to Detroit. Phoenix, my soon-to-be brother-in-law, called Zuri his mate, but I guessed that’s what you got when the Fates declared your soul mate was an animal. Well, part of the time. Wolf shifters rarely seemed to stay in their doggy form for long. They tended to go human, the ones we knew donning leather vests and jackets and riding motorcycles around town as if they didn’t shift into an animal at will. As if they were normal…not that I knew exactly what normal was.
    I was washing my face when Amber slipped in, arms crossed and wearing one hell of a frown.
    “Don’t bother.” I grabbed my toothbrush and toothpaste. “I don’t need your lecture.”
    “You know it’s going to happen.”
    “Screw you,” I said around a mouthful of toothpaste foam. “It’s not going to happen if I don’t want it to. And I don’t.”
    “Really? Okay, keep telling yourself that. But remember, I’m the one with the power of precognition, and I say there’s no way around it.”
    I spit, turning on the faucet to wash down the blue