Wild Fire (Book II)

Something Wicked This Way Comes

     Somewhere beyond the reaching arms of the Cumberland Forest a single flicker of flame pinched and burst into life, scorching the end of a smoke held between thin determined lips. The shadow there brushed back its dark hair, adjusting the thick leather eyepatch on its scarred face. In his hand it held a picture.

     The girl there looked up with soft searching blue eyes, angel hair of white gold haloing her pretty cheeks. The man's thick thumb rubbed over the image, seeming to imprint it into his hand. In the darkness the jagged mouth turned a galvanized frown. A sculpted arm reached and pulled a second picture from beneath its layered clothing.

     The cold eyes of Micha Bell stared up at the dark stranger. HIS eyes. Lingering gray orbs that matched the cold rotting spheres of their dead father. The girl, Lilah Preston had killed him. The angel's friend. And what better way to seek revenge than to take away the one precious friend the girl had on this Earth. Emma Wild.

     Amos held the golden-haired beauty closer to his face and blew a river of smoke across her pale features. His angry expression chiseled into a grimace. He detested his brother while living, but he was nonetheless a Bell by blood. And a Bell, as their father had taught them so long ago, did not fall easily. His brother was a scab on humanity, but a scab only Amos had the right to peel back from its sickening stretch of torn skin. Not a whore from a saloon.

     He had already decided to let Lilah live, if for nothing else but to watch as he tore the life out of the little flaxen-haired nymph whose face he circled under his forefinger. But she would know, oh yes, she would, she would fucking remember Micha Bell. Amos Bell would make sure that she did. She would see his face in her friend's dying screams.