J e n n i f e r E s t e p

to wear Siren down. Her lightning bolts grew weaker, shorter, and slower, and she started backing away from me. I crouched down, ready to pounce on her, when something smacked into me.

“Oof!” I hit the ground so hard my flame-shaped mask left an impression in the smoldering grass. It took me a second to realize Johnny Bulluci had fallen on top of me. Intelligal must have shaken him off her chair. Johnny didn’t look like it, but the guy weighed a ton. I knew. That’s what I bench-pressed.

“Move, move, move!” I roared.

Johnny rolled off me, onto his feet, and pulled me up in one smooth motion. I shoved him aside and raced toward the ubervillains. Too little, too late. Siren hopped back onto Intelligal’s chair. A helicopter rotor sprang up from somewhere inside the device and started to whine and whir. Good grief, how many gadgets did the woman have on that thing? The two of them motored up, up, and away. I tossed a couple of fireballs in the air, but Intelligal easily steered clear of them. Seconds later, the ubervillains disappeared from sight. Damn. Just when I was getting warmed up.

“Fiera! Fiera!” someone shouted.

I turned. Chief Newman pointed at the lines of fire still burning on the lawn and threatening to scorch the gardens. I concentrated, pulling the heat back into my own body, and the flames snuffed out. The chief and the others started forward to see if I was injured. I waved them off and marched over to Johnny, who was staring into the sky as if he could see where the ubervillains had gone. Bella and Bobby Bulluci stood next to him, alternating their gazes between Johnny and the wild blue yonder.

“What the hell did you think you were doing? You almost got yourself killed,” I snapped. H o t M a m a

39

“I was trying to take back what was mine and everybody else’s,” Johnny growled, not the least bit intimidated by the orange red flames surrounding my body.

I leaned forward and focused my anger—and heat—on him. “That’s not your job, your responsibility. That’s what I’m here for. And I didn’t just go a couple of rounds with some ubervillains so you could try to play hero and die a horrible, static-charged death.”

“As you can see, I’m fine.” His green eyes narrowed.

“And if I want to ‘play hero,’ as you put it, it’s no business of yours. Just because you’re a superhero doesn’t mean you can tell the rest of us what to do.”

That’s exactly what it meant, at least to me. Putting life and limb on the line for the fine citizens of Bigtime entitled me to a few perks. Bossing people around was one of them. Johnny continued to glare at me. My hair sparked and cracked with fire. Arrogant man. First, he tried to seduce me, and now he thought he knew how to do my job better than I did. Johnny Bulluci didn’t know how close he was to getting strangled. I also had the oddest desire to singe his clothes off, yank him toward me, and kiss him until his eyeballs melted. Well, I’d stop before the eyeball-melting part. That could get a little icky.