He didn’t think Snap’s disappearance was a crisis? Maybe I should try setting his shirt on fire again. But as much as my emotions were churning inside me, it wasn’t the sort of distress that got my heart thumping. I glared at the shifter and then the paper, but no heat stirred beneath the gloomy funk that had come over me.
“What does this even matter?” I demanded. “We should be out there looking for Snap too—covering as much ground as we can.”
“It appears he’s been gone all night. He’s got too great a head start if we head out on foot, and we only have one vehicle I feel comfortable sending back into the city to simply meander around, thanks to this friend of yours and his loose lips.”
That provoked a flare, but of my temper rather than any voodoo. “He’s not my friend. He’s fucking nothing to me.” Which was exactly what had pissed Leland off. How had I ever been attracted to anything about him?
He’d seemed normal. Safe, as long as there were no strings attached. Look how wrong I’d proven to be about that.
“Nonetheless, my point stands.” Omen jerked his head toward the field. “Let’s at least get your pulse going, then, and see if that’s enough to jump-start your inner fire. Sprint between the goal posts a few times.”
To my irritation, my feet started to move automatically. I caught myself and planted them on the pavement. “No.”
The ice in Omen’s gaze hardened. “No?”
“You heard me, Luce. N. O. You ran me ragged at the fairgrounds, and that got us diddly squat. The only thing you’ve actually tried that worked was dragging me around on your motorcycle, which you’ve already sent off with someone else—oh, and getting all houndish up in my face, if you want to see if I’ll light you up again.”
He sneered. “I’d like to see you try. Is that what you need—for me to get in your face? Rain a little hellfire down on you and see what catches?”
He stalked toward me, all controlled aggression, everything from his stance to his predatory expression setting off a clang of warning bells in my head. Maybe I should have taken the sprint while I had the chance.
Fuck that regret to Fiji and back. I wasn’t letting him terrorize me, no matter what kind of deadly beast he was.
I backed up, but slowly, my hands rising as they clenched. “What do you think you’re going to do to me, huh? Take a few swipes with those puppy-dog claws? Gnash your great big fangs? Somehow I’m not shaking in my boots yet.”
“You should be,” he snapped with a hint of a snarl that chilled my blood. Then he socked me right in the shoulder.
His fist wasn’t chilly—it slammed into my body with a blast of otherworldly heat. Apparently he could blaze just fine even in human form.
I stumbled, clamping my teeth against a gasp as the impact radiated through the still-healing cut across my abdomen. Then I lunged right at him.
I wasn’t totally sure what I was hoping to accomplish. I just wanted to pummel something or someone, and Omen was there acting like such a dick it was hard not to see him as an ideal target. I lashed out with my own fist, skimming his jaw as he dodged to the side. He gave me a shove—not too hard, just enough to send me staggering backward.
“Come on then, little mortal,” he taunted. “Where’s your fire now? Am I going to have to thrash it out of you?”
I didn’t think so. As I circled him, my heart was thudding like the rhythmic pumping of bellows raising flames from a furnace’s embers. My inner fire burned through my gut and trickled through my veins, turning me molten.
“Such a fantastic teacher,” I shot back at him. “Five minutes in, and you’re beating up on your only student.”
“If it’s the only lesson that’ll work…” He feinted and snatched at me. His fingers bruised my arm as he yanked me toward him and spun me around. I barely wrenched myself out of the way of the kick he aimed at my ass. “Seems like you need a little more toughening up, anyway.”
I swung at him, and he caught my knuckles. With a chuckle and a heave, he sent me stumbling sideways. “Nice try. Is that the best you can do?”
“You haven’t seen anything yet. Let me remind you that I’ve done more for your people in the last few years than you’ve managed so far.”
That blow landed even if the physical ones hadn’t. An orange light flashed in his eyes, but his voice stayed tight. “If you think that, then why are you so afraid of giving this battle your all? Let that fire out, Disaster. Show me what you’ve got.”
He came at me then like a hound unleashed, no sign that he intended to stop until I forced him to. His first smack across my cheek whipped my head to the side. The next sent a lance of prickling pain through my collarbone.
I did my best to block him, to dodge him, but I’d never fought anyone like this. My self defense classes had focused on a few quick moves to disable your attacker so you could run for the hills, and I couldn’t land a single one of those against the onslaught of this shadowkind.
He must have been able to tell he was overwhelming me, but he didn’t let up. A fist to my jaw. A heel to my toes. Fresh jolts of pain marked my body with every huff of breath he released.
The flames inside me flared hotter on the combined fuel of frustration and panic. I slashed my hand at him, and his sleeve caught fire. He slapped it out and pushed me toward the school building. “Not enough. Let’s see more of that. I want to see everything.”
The welling sense of power was starting to sear right through me from the inside out. Why couldn’t he lay off me for one fucking second?
Why did Leland have to be such a vengeful asshole? Why hadn’t I steered clear of him to begin with?
How could I not have realized Snap needed more from me last night?
Such a fucking mess. Burn it down. Burn it all down.
The urge rolled over me in a wave so visceral it brought a jab of terror with it. The certainty gripped me that if I gave Omen what I was asking for, if I let loose everything that was raging inside me, I could burn even this man with all his powers to a crisp.
A flare of heat slipped out—a flame shot up from a tuft of his hair that had risen from the slicked-back strands. He shook it away and punched my other shoulder. “Still not seeing what makes you so great.”
“I don’t think you want to. I don’t think you’d survive it.”
“Oh, ho, big talk from the mortal.” He swiped at my temple, hitting me hard enough to send my thoughts reeling. “Try me, then.”
The heat scorched my throat. I couldn’t swallow it down. My rising terror flickered higher alongside those flames. “No, Omen, I really don’t think—”
“Come on, Disaster! Why can’t you do this one thing? Or were all those grand rescues before, letting out the collectors’ prizes, only about the glory of pulling the capers off? Don’t you care whether you can help any more shadowkind? Or whether we ever see Snap again?”
“Don’t you?” I burst out. “All I see is a fucking bully who doesn’t have a clue what he’s doing if he can’t badger everyone around him into falling into line. As far as I can tell, you’re the problem here, not the solution.”
A growl escaped him, and suddenly he was really on me, hurling me into the wall with a slam that spiked pain all through my back. He pinned me there, the thrust of his hands nearly shattering my wrists, his eyes burning and his teeth bared. His hot breath spilled over my face.