Ignite (Midnight Fire #1)

Chapter Seven

Kira stared out at the churning waves, barely registering the body heat coming from Luke’s arm around her shoulder. He had held her while she cried and after a long time of sobbing, he had brought her to the Folly Beach Pier to let the rhythm of the water calm her.

They hadn’t spoken more than five words to each other since he carried her from the auditorium, because Kira simply didn’t know what to say. How could she ask if vampires were real and if what seemed like live fire just shot from her hands? How could she admit that she clearly wasn’t human let alone ask someone else to believe it? Most of all, how could she confess that she had started falling for the one guy her best friend told her not to and that everything he feared had come true?

It wasn’t easy to admit how naïve she had been and to admit she was wrong about everything. It wasn’t easy for her to think of Tristan, his eyes in pleasure at the taste of her blood or his eyes in pain as her power slowly started killing him. It was worse still to think of herself and what she was. Kira couldn’t ignore it, but how in the world could she face it?

How do you face it? she thought, and then answered herself. You just do.

"Luke?" She turned to him. Luke didn’t move. He just watched and waited to see what she would say. It was like he knew her perfectly, knew what was coming but also knew that Kira needed to hear herself say it before it could be true. "Luke…what am I?"

"A girl," he replied, half-jokingly and half-reassuringly. She nudged him with her shoulder.

"Seriously, no jokes," she said.

He lifted his eyebrows in response as if to say "who, me?" but then realized even his jokes wouldn’t adjust Kira’s frown. Kira could tell the instant his mood changed from protector to informer. She knew from the furrow of his brows that the jokes meant to cheer her would be exchanged for serious talk that she wasn’t used to from him. Kira's mood dropped further when he lifted his arm from around her back and turned toward her on the bench to see her face. He knew everything, and it was his duty to tell her.

"First, do you know what Tristan and the others are?" She nodded yes. "Tell me, Kira."

She breathed deeply, knowing the minute she said it out loud the scene haunting her thoughts would come true. The supernatural strength and speed. The blood and the teeth. It would all be real.

"Vampires," she whispered, words almost stolen by the wind, but Luke heard her.

"Good. Can you guess what we are?"

Kira looked at him, thankful he had told her what she had already guessed—that they were the same, that she wasn’t alone. But still, she had no idea what that was and looked at him with blank eyes.

"Kira, we’re something called conduits, protectors if you will. We’re the only living things that can hunt vampires, and I say living because we mostly believe that vampires are dead, but they frequently kill each other." She thought back to when Tristan had mentioned conduits—maybe he had been sending her a message, trying to help her.

The entire thing sounded crazy. She was some sort of vampire slayer? But it was the only explanation she had for what had just happened.

"So, we’re…conduits." Kira forced the words through her lips. Luke smiled, as though happy she had accepted the name without a fight. "To be a conduit of something, you have to like channel something, right? That was the light I’m guessing, but I just don’t understand."

He took her hands and flipped her palms up, so she could see the pale red burn marks they now held. "We channel the sun, and I know it sounds crazy, but that was the light you sent through your arms. It hurts at first, but it’ll get better."