Blissful sleep never seems to last long enough.

The tug of wakefulness yanks me to the surface, even though it’s the last thing I want. With a loud groan I drag the covers higher, burying myself within the bed’s confines, determined to push back against my own mind. Carver was finally home and all I wanted was to cuddle in each other’s arms for the next forty-eight hours.

But, something was off.

Something felt . . . wrong.

My brow twists as I open my eyes and slowly nudged the blanket down. Pushing my face into the open air of my bedroom, nothing sees amiss. Carver sprawls lazily beside me, the heat of his closeness drawing warmth over the bare parts of my skin. God, it’s good to have him home. He looks peaceful and sexy, and I want to stare at him for hours, but I notice his brow scrunches every so often. He’s beyond tired, but he senses something too.

Smoke. I smell smoke.

Holy fuck.

I bolt upright, “Carver!” I shove at his shoulder as I fling my legs off the side of the bed. He slowly stirs as I race across the room, barely dressed and thudding in each barefooted step.

I fling the door open, and immediately I’m hit with a terrible wave of oppressive heat. Open flames lick up the walls, gathering in a swirl of fire along the ceiling . . . and, it’s spreading.

“Shit! Carver, get up!” I scream with a backwards spin that brings me face to face with him.

His eyes are wide but lack the same intense fear I feel. He surveys the situation for only a few seconds and then he moves into action. “Go get Reina. I’ll try to save the house.”

I nod, yet somehow I’m still frozen in fear.

“Aura, go!”

The snap of his voice sends me running with a hand lifted to shield my face from the painful heat. I crouched down low, hurrying along as fast as I can as the burning smoke assaults my lungs in a jab of pins and needles.

“Reina!” I shout, my voice already hoarse and strained.

Her room isn’t far, or, it hadn’t seemed all that far in the light of day. Now, with flames blocking my path in a spread of wildfire, panic sets in so thick I fear that Reina’s already dead.

No. Pull it the fuck together, Aura. I’d go up in flames myself before I let her die.

Another near impenetrable barrier of fire stands in front of me, setting the rug and picture frames to ash. There is no getting through, not if I want to make it out on the other side in one piece.

Knowing time is running out, I turn around and race back to my room in a low, awkward crouch. Carver is gone, and all I can do is hope he’s somehow found his way out already. I rip the comforter off the bed, and with it bunched in my arms, I race back out and toward the very flames I should’ve been running from.

I wrap the blanket over my head, hopeful the semi-thin material will shield me enough to make it through. And, that the flames haven’t reached the end of the hall. From where I stand, it’s hard to tell.

I race forward.

Excruciating heat batters my skin and singes at my bare feet. As hard as I try to remain strong and quiet, groans of torment slip from my lips in an almost guttural cry.

I can’t tell whether I’ve caught fire, or if it’s safe to remove the blanket, but I don’t have time to wait. Even as a Kresova, the fire affected me, but much less than it would a human. Every second left Reina at further risk. Completely blind to my hasty escape, I run forward until a quick glance down shows me that no flames batter the floor I stand on. I throw off the blanket in a hurried thrash of my arms. Barely any of the fabric remains intact, and much of it’s fused to my thin pajamas and bits of my skin.

I ache, as if someone has dragged knives across my skin and rubbed salt into the wounds but I don’t stop moving. Reina needs me.

I finally reach her door and grasp the knob only to find it locked. “Reina!” I scream again with a frenzied knock of the door, before I realized I could fix this. I could solve this. Backing up slightly, I hurl my foot in a heavy kick, cracking wood and sending splinters flying through the air as the door flings open.

In an instant I’m inside, flooded with fear and an immense wash of relief upon finding Reina darting up in her bed.

“What the hell are you doing?” She shoves her hand up through her mussed hair. “It’s the mid-”

“Fire,” I bark out with a grasp of her hand, “there’s a fire, we need to get out. Now.”

“What?” She leaps off the bed.

“Let’s go!” I snap with a tug of her hand that yanks her shaky legs into a run. We’d been through too much shit for something like a damn house fire to take us out now.

“How?” She questions behind blurred sleepy eyes. “Where?”

I tug her along until we reach the hallway. “Holy shit.” She says.

Holy shit was right.

The flames engulf most of the second floor, leaving me with a hard lump in the center of my throat.

“Carver!” I scream out hoping he hears me.

“Aurora!” He calls back and I lean forward, the flames practically licking my skin, but I need to see him. It takes me a few seconds, but the figure of him downstairs and through the flames becomes clear. “Ma, belle!” He calls out and starts forward. He steps onto the bottom stair, but the wood breaks through and a beam cracks.

“Carver, no! Don’t come up here!”

He hesitates a few moments as if he may ignore me and do it anyway before he looks back up. “You need to head for the back of the house!” He points, “I’ll meet you out there. The flames haven’t reached it yet!”

Reina’s coughs violently behind me. I debate trying to jump through the fire with her in my arms, but the flames are moving too fast and if they don’t kill her, the smoke will.

I curl Reina’s hand tightly into my grip. “Come on, we need to go out a window and jump.”

“But, it’s the second floor!” She tugs my hand back, “Human remember?”

“I’m aware, bitch!” I drag her back toward the far end of the house and into the guest bathroom, never once relenting my grip on her hand. I’m worried if I somehow let go she’ll fall into the flames never to return. “I just came through that fire to get to you. There is no other way.” Not to mention it’s likely spread and who knows whether the stairs are engulfed as well.

Reina runs into the small antique washroom and wraps her fingers around the window’s old wooden frame, tugging hard against the layers of paint that have long since sealed it shut. “Dammit!” she yells. “Why did we never get this fucking thing fixed?”

“Move!” I shout, prompting her brow to furrow as she spins back and sees me standing there, ready to strike the window. I’ve never punched through glass so I can only hope it doesn’t hurt too bad.

I pull my fist back and then swing my hand forward in a collision of brass and glass. Reina ducks her head covering her face to sealing out the shattered glass.

Fuck. Too many shards still remain around the edges. She’ll be sliced wide open if we try to climb through. Reina picks up the plunger and slams it at the residual glass as I race back toward the linen closet and gather up every bit of sheets and pillows I can find.

I have no idea if it would work, but I’d see on TV plenty of times prior people making rope of old sheets. I only hoped my knots would hold until we got out and I could jump with her.

“The pillows!” I shout at her as I tie off the last knot, “shove them in the window and then move out of the way!”

She does as I commanded without question, padding down the window frame in one last shield from the shards of glass that would certainly have remained. The moment she moves out of the way, I brace my bare feet against the wall.

“What are you –Oh,” Reina utters as she watches me drop the leg of the clawfoot tub to tie off the makeshift rope. It grinds against the floor as I check the stability.

“I’ll climb out first and then you need to follow right behind.” I tell her as I bundle the length of the bedsheets around my waist and arm. I’ll need that to hang from the side and take hold of her before we jump.

“Go,” she urges me with a worried glance back at the door and the smoke that’s billowing through the gap beneath. Weakly, she smiles, “You better catch my ass if I fall.”

I give her hand one last squeeze before shoving myself through the window’s narrow opening. The moment my weight gathers on the makeshift rope the tub scrapes and slams into the wall, jolting me in a tightened, hanging hold.

“Are you okay?” Reina shouts from above.

“Yes! Now come on, get down here!”

I see her lips moving in what I imagine are grumbled curses beneath her breath as she climbs out the narrow window after me. She takes hold of the sheet rope and awkwardly crawls onto my back in a monkey pose, her arms vice like around my neck.

“Bitch, you are choking me.”

“I’m sorry,” she says slightly releasing her grip, but only by a fraction. Reina loves thrills so seeing her scared has me thoroughly freaked. I am by far the worst hero, becauase I can only imagine how we look, the two of us hanging from the roof.

“Aura!” Carver calls out to me from below. “Let Reina go and I’ll catch her.”

Reina tightens her arms, “Are you fucking crazy? No!” she peers at me from over my shoulder, “Aura, just climb down.”

It takes me a moment to realize why Carver is pushing for me to drop Reina. The rop is tearing, I can hear it and the flames are getting closer.

“Reina?”

“Yeah?” She says.

“I’m sorry!” I use my free hand and unravel her arms as she drops backward flinging toward the ground like a doll. I watch for a second before I let go over the rope myself and hope that my instincts will save me ass.

Carver catches Reina in his arms and I land a few feet away on my feet, before losing my balance and rolling onto my back.

“Oh my God, are you okay?” Reina asks as I groan onto my side against the grass.

“Yeah, yeah I’m okay.” I stand up and wipe myself down.

Concern wrought Carver’s gaze as he looked me and my haphazard state over. “You’re both okay?”

“Yeah, we’re fine,” I exhale, though my muscles still cry out every step of the way. “But, what the hell started that fire?”

Carver’s voice snaps our attention toward the house’s front and we see a multitude of fire trucks racing toward us. Already much of the house is wracked in flames, and though the hoses are being unreeled and dousing it with heaps of water, nothing would save it now.

“I don’t think it was an accident,” Carver utters as the three of us stand shoulder to shoulder, watching the devastation. “The smoke is making it difficult to tell, but there’s a scent beneath it I don’t recognize. I can’t know for certain, but I don’t think it’s Kresova. It’s something else.”

“Something else?”

“Oui, ma belle. Something not vampire.”

“That’s fucking great,” I murmur in my own quiet daze. Just when things seem to be on an upturn, they all collapse again.

“What are we going to do now? Find a hotel or something?” Reina asks as she coughs a few times.

God, I hope she is going to be okay.

Carver’s shoulder shrugs against mine. “You ladies will stay with me.”

“Wait, what?” I spin toward him with a look of outright confusion. “You have a place? When did that happen?”

Even in the midst of upset and danger, he offers me a coy smile. “A while back. Come on, let’s go. I’ll have someone look at Reina and we could all probably use some more rest.”

“But—”

“No arguments, Ma belle. For tonight, no arguments.”