Page 12 of Watch Me Burn (Sanctuary #1)

CHAPTER 11

CONALL

B y the time the tingles start, followed by the shiver coursing up and down my spine, my sixth-sense that there’s someone behind me is too late.

It’s not a someone. It’s a some thing .

It’s a wolf!

Fuck. That’s a monstrous-looking wolf. I know Alaska has them, but that fucker is huge . With thick white-and-grey fur, a sleek muzzle pulled away to show off its bared teeth, its ears arrowed back as it races toward me, it’s closer to a horse than a dog.

Oh, hell no.

Life or death. Fight or flight. An adrenaline spike is more than enough to get my palms a-blazing, and I only just remember to drop the paper map to the snow-covered ground before it incinerates in my gip before my entire hand is encased in flickering flames.

Folding my fingers together, using my pointer fingers together to aim, I let the fire fly.

The wolf sees it streaming right toward it and, mid-stride, twists its body as though desperate to avoid the fire catching its fur. One second, it’s coming at me. The next? It’s retreating.

Or it tries to.

Once I see that the wolf is trying to get away, I instinctively stop pouring all of my panic and fright into my magic. The force of the fire dies almost instantly, though it was still strong enough to ignite the wolf’s tail.

My fire doesn’t hurt me. As soon as it catches fire on the tip of the beast’s tail, it yelps, turning in a quick circle as though, if it can get the tail between its jaws, it can get rid of the fire.

I can’t stop it. I almost feel like I should be able to. Like, that’s my fire, and if I could shoot it at the wolf, it should be as simple to call it back. I can’t, though, and I watch with a guilty pit in my stomach as the wolf stops running and drops back on its haunches, smacking the fiery tail against the snow to tamp out the flames.

It’s distracted. This is my chance.

Can I outrun an injured wolf? Doubt it, but I’m going to try anyway.

At least, that was the plan. It all goes to hell in a handbasket when the wolf pushes up off of the earth, almost like it’s trying to stand. A blink of an eye later, he is standing—and it’s a he because what was a wolf a split second ago is a man.

He whirls around on me, and now I ’m distracted.

Conall. The wolf is Conall .

His gold-colored eyes blaze as vividly as my flames as he stalks toward me. “Did you just light my tail on fire?”

It’s the tone. The accusatory tone, coupled with the fury etched in every line of his rugged face as he bears down on me. My back immediately goes up, and instead of being shocked that Conall was a wolf, I give him a quick up and down to show him that I’m not impressed with him at this very moment.

Mistake number two. I don’t know how I didn’t notice it straight off, but as he crosses the distance between us, I realize something I wondered about shifters, though I never had a chance to ask.

As their beasts, shifters are naked, right? You don’t see Mayor Lou as a skunk wearing his normal uniform of a jacket and khakis, though I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a tiny version of his air freshener to wear when he waddles around Dyea in his animal form.

That wolf was all fur. And now, directly after his shift back to human, Conall is all skin.

“Naked,” I yip. “You’re naked. You’re a guy, and you’re naked.”

And he’s annoyingly gorgeous .

Why couldn’t he have a hairy belly and a mushroom for a cock? Oh, no. Despite being a shifter, he doesn’t have any hair anywhere but near his junk, and considering it’s a good six inches soft, I’d hate to see what monster he’s packing when he’s hard.

And, oh, am I lying.

Conall doesn’t seem to give a shit that he’s completely nude—or that I’m definitely noticing that the Alaska cold doesn’t affect him at all, either.

“I’m not a guy. I’m a shifter whose ass has a burn on it because some human just lit my Alpha damn tail on fire,” he growls. He turns sideways, dick flopping as he moves. “Look at it.”

Don’t look, Bridge, don’t look ?—

“Your ass looks fine to me.” There’s a tiny pink patch, almost ironically in the shape of a heart, that might, might be a burn mark. If that. Who knows? Maybe he was born with it. “I doubt you’ll even scar.”

His expression becomes a dare even as he says, “I’m a shifter. We heal quick.”

“So why the hell are you giving me shit, Mr. Grump?”

“Because you lit my tail on fire!”

That again.

“You were running at me. As a wolf . Sorry, but if a wolf comes after me, I’m not going to stand there and let it eat me.”

A muscle tics in his jaw. “I wasn’t doing anything like that. I was following behind you to make sure you didn’t get into any trouble. It’s not safe for humans to leave the safety of the sanctuary.” His chest heaves, and it takes everything in me not to lower my gaze any further than that. “But you’re not a human, are you?”

What was his first clue?

“Well, neither are you.”

“Yes, but everyone in Dyea knows that I’m a wolf shifter. I don’t hide it. Can’t say the same about you, can I? A fire witch in Dyea. I knew there was something… I could sense it. I just never thought you were a witch. Does anyone else know?”

Translation: who else has been keeping this intel from him?

Though I don’t see how it’s his business, if I want him to keep my secret, I have to at least try not to piss him off any further. I’m probably shit out of luck already due to the whole ‘lighting his tail on fire’ thing, but I try anyway.

“Elise,” I admit. “Just Elise. And she’s really a vampire?—”

He snorts. “Oh. Trust me. I know .”

“Yeah. She needed sanctuary. I needed sanctuary. So I came here, pretending she needed me to be her human donor. But I’m not, okay? You got me. I’m a witch.”

“So she doesn’t bite you? You don’t feed her?”

I don’t know why he would care, and deciding that tiny sip shouldn’t count since I burned her tongue, I say, “No.”

He nods. “I can only imagine why a vampire needs sanctuary. But what about you, Red? Why are you in Dyea?”

I could tell him it’s not his business. I’m sure he’ll just scoff and tell me—in detail—how wrong I am. Since all of this is just wasting time… and, damn it, he’s having this conversation with his dick hanging out in the breeze… I figure I might as well get it over with.

“Okay. So I’m a witch. Obviously. I might’ve had a run-in with a witch hunter before I came here, but that was before I even knew I was a witch.” At his look of disbelief, I add, “Really. I only just figured it out, like, a week ago. But that’s the problem. I don’t know anything about supes. They tell me witch hunters hunt in pairs. That I’m in danger. That I can go with Elise… who, I’ll point out, I discovered was a vampire the sane tie I found out I was a witch… to Alaska and hide out. So here I am, and here you are, and unless you’re a wolf shifter who’s somehow also a witch hunter, I’d really, really appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone else the real reason I’m here.”

Is batting my eyelashes too much? I want Conall to understand I’m being completely honest with him right now, but the way his face went blank the longer I talked, the more I’m beginning to think that he might be the first non-human witch hunter out there.

Then he shows me his teeth, and they’re as impressive as his wolf’s fangs. “You should’ve told me. I might be a lone wolf, but that just means I don’t have a wolf pack to call my own. I’m still an alpha wolf who will do anything to protect what’s his.”

That took a weird turn.

I raise my eyebrows. “And I’m yours?”

He chokes, then glares at me some more. “Everyone who accepts sanctuary is mine .”

That’s what he thinks.

Me? I don’t know who he thinks he is, but?—

“Wait a sec… you weren’t just peeing outside ‘cause you couldn’t hold it, were you?” When he doesn’t deny that he’s responsible for the yellow snow outside of my house, I fist my hands on my hips. “And now you’re stalking me as a wolf. What the hell? ‘Cause I’ll tell you something. I didn’t know you were a wolf shifter.”

“You’re changing the subject, Red. Turning it on me.” He breathes in deep. “I still scent my singed fur.”

He deserved it. “You were following me,” I remind him. “And my name’s not ‘Red’. It’s Bridget.”

The way he looks down his nose tells me that he certainly knows what my name is, and that if he wants to call me ‘Red’, I’m ‘Red’ regardless.

“That’s my job. I patrol the sanctuary. I keep it safe. For humans, and for reactive fire witches.”

I ignore that part.

“And the pissing?”

I’m not about to forget the pissing.

He tilts his chin up. “Wolf shifters mark their territory.”

“Their territory,” I sputter. “That house is mine!”

“I thought it was the vampire’s,” Conall rumbles. “Just like I thought you were supposed to be a human. But you’re not. I knew there was something about you. I couldn’t put my claw on it, but there was something ? — ”

I snort. “Is that why you’ve been such a grumpy ass since I arrived in Alaska?”

“Hate to disappoint, Red, but that’s just who I am. Comes with being a lone wolf.”

Whatever. “Now you know what I am. I really hope we can keep this between us, but I understand if you can’t. Just know I’m trying to stop from having… incidents?—”

“Burning my ass.”

“Incidents,” I repeat with a little more emphasis, “so, if all goes to plan, I won’t be a”—what did he call me?—“a ‘reactive fire witch’ that much longer.”

I’ll give Conall credit. He puts two and two together, getting four pretty quickly.

“Where were you going?”

Crap. Good one, Bridge. I’m trying to get rid of my magic, right? That’s what I said? And now I left the sanctuary… it doesn’t take a genius to realize that those two things go together.

Just in case, though, I try to put an end to the conversation—and what’s surely to be a continued interrogation while he’s freaking naked . “For a walk.”

“You’re lying.”

That’s not technically a lie. I am walking… to the caves. “No, I’m not.”

“You are,” he insists. His nostrils flare. “You stink of it.”

“Are you telling me you can smell it when I’m being dishonest?”

“It took me a minute. But you have a certain scent when you’re being honest. Like now, when you admitted to being a witch. It changed when you got defensive and shut me down by saying you just went for a walk. One compared to the other… you weren’t being honest.”

He’s not wrong. But since I don’t want to admit that—or be dishonest again—I deflect and change the subject. “My scent? What do I smell like?”

Conall’s brows draw together. I get the sense he knows what I’m doing, but he’s going to allow it.

Gee. Thanks.

He sucks in a breath, exhaling after a long moment. “You smell like heat. Like coals burning. I’ve never come across anything like that before, and I barely get a whiff of it… but I scented it leaving the village right before I tracked you out of it.”

He moves into me, and it takes everything I have not to lower my gaze again as the naked shifter prowls even closer.

“Your friend is a corpse. She smells like rotten meat. That’s not a knock, either,” he adds when I start to argue indignantly on behalf of Elise. “She’s a vampire. They all smell like ice and meat to my wolf. You’re always around her. She overpowered your scent so I could only get teasers of it. If she didn’t, Mayor Lou’s stink did. But it was enough.”

“Enough?” I echo. “Enough for what?”

His golden eyes flash. “To catch my attention.”

“Well,” I say sweetly, “keep it. I don’t want it.”

Conall grits his teeth. “Too late.”

I tilt my chin up, matching his dare. “That’s what you think.”

His gaze roves over my face. His lips part.

Uh.

Is Conall about to kiss me?

Okay. I know all about opposites attract. Hate sex? It can be a ton of fun. But just because he’s naked and I’m overheated—because of my fire, damn it—that doesn’t mean that he can make a statement like that and kiss me.

Though, now that I’m thinking about it…

His eyes dart to the left. Moving too fast for me to do anything but clamp my own jaw shut, Conall lunges down, grabbing something from the snow.

He holds it up, looking at it.

Shit. The map!