by Jade Alters
“I’m sorry for your loss,” I hear Luciana says.
I wince inwardly. I need to try and convince her that she was wrong.
“Loss?” I ask, purposely twisting my face into confusion.
She gives me a look of pity. No doubt she believes that I’m just in very strong denial. I can’t blame her. My brother is in front of me, not breathing, and covered in blood.
Suddenly, convincing Luciana that he was still alive seems like an impossible task. I wonder if she did as I asked and kept Dane’s death quiet for now.
“You and Dane saved my life,” Luciana says, leaning forward, sorrow in her eyes. “I’m sorry that it cost him his.”
Shit.
“No,” I say straight away, and pretend I don’t notice the way Luciana sighs. “It’s alright, Dane didn’t die, Luciana, he just needs time to recover.”
“Warwick…” she says uncomfortably.
“Luciana, thank you, but it’s fine,” I say, as gently as possible. I have to convince her to leave. I can feel Dane’s body beginning to warm. She cannot see this, not if we want to keep out secret. “You must have made a mistake while you were looking for his pulse, he has one now. Why don’t you go rest, you look tired.”
My words do the opposite of what I intended. Instantly, Luciana looks offended.
“Dane is gone, Warwick,” she snaps and I jump at the sudden harshness. Beside me, Dane’s skin is starting to rise in temperature very quickly now. “I’m sorry you’re hurting, but this needs to stop. I’m a doctor, I know he didn’t have a pulse. I’ll show you, now.”
She leans in and reaches out, obviously intending to check his pulse yet again. It’s the worst possible thing she could do right now, especially since I know we’re out of time.
“Wait!” I yell. “Don’t!”
She doesn’t get the chance to touch him. Dane’s temperature rockets upward and he bursts into flame. Luciana screams and scrambles back, her eyes wide and shocked as she hits the wall, staring in horror.
“That’s not possible!” she yelps.
“It’s not what you think, I swear,” I say. Crap, we’re going to have to explain it all to her. This is not what I had intended on happening tonight. “Look, just wait, okay? This is normal.”
“This is not normal!” Luciana says, her voice rising in pitch. “What the hell is normal about someone spontaneously combusting?”
I don’t answer. The blaze surrounding Dane has already started to die down until only tiny embers are laying around his body. I lean in, watching as they start to extinguish. When the last flame winks out of existence, Dane draws in a deep breath and opens his eyes, sitting up with a cough.
“Easy, man,” I say, more relieved that I can say. “Cough it up.”
Dane hacks out several harsh coughs for a moment, ash falling from his mouth. Coming back to life is not the most pleasant experience in the world. I had only gone through it once, when I was a teenager, and I’m keen not to repeat the experience.
While Dane tries to expel all the soot that the fire has left behind, I eye the bullet wound. There’s now a tiny scar, and I know that the intense, mystical flame that had engulfed Dane would have completely destroyed the bullet if it was still lodged in him. There’s barely any sign at all that he had died.
Finally, Dane catches his breath and sits up.
“Remind me to not do that again,” he croaks.
“Noted,” I say cheerfully, grinning at him. “Good to see you among the living again, brother.”
Dane snorts.
“I still feel like death,” he coughs. “I’m going to be throwing up ash for weeks.”
“Small price to pay for your life,” I say.
There’s a weak sound in the corner and I abruptly remember Luciana. Dane and I both look over to see Luciana still sitting against the wall, staring at us both in shock.
“What the hell, Warwick?” Dane cries.
“I tried to get her out!” I snap back. “She wouldn’t leave. Apparently, she’s a doctor.”
“Why are we even in her house?” Dane demands.
“The police were on their way,” I say, rolling my eyes. “I didn’t have much of a choice, especially since you were taking your sweet time coming back to life.”
“Well, excuse me for getting shot…!”
“Um…” Dane and I look over to Luciana. “Can someone please explain what the fuck is going on?”
Dane and I look at each other. There’s no getting out of this, we know. Luciana has seen far too much, now. We have no choice but to trust her.
“Let’s go to the living room,” I say with a sigh. “We’ll tell you everything.”
Dane and I pull ourselves to our feet. Luciana stares for a moment and then, oddly, goes deeply red as she slams her eyes closed.
“Um… you might want to cover yourself, Dane,” she chokes.
Dane flushes as well. We’d forgotten, of course, that the flame is only harmless to our bodies. Our clothes never survive it and Dane is now standing, buck naked, in front of us both. I cough to hide my laughter as I pull a blanket from the bed and drape it around my brother.
“He’s decent,” I say, amused, and Luciana cautiously opens her eyes again.
Dane self-consciously adjusts the blanket around him, scowling at both of us, embarrassed and angry by the situation.
“Come on, let’s get this over with,” he huffs, and stalks from the room.
I help Luciana to her feet. A spark runs through my arm, and I fight not to jerk backwards as she stands. I’m suddenly very aware of just how close she actually is, and she looks up at me. There’s heat emanating from her body, and part of me just wants to lean in and…
“Warwick!” Dane calls from the other room, irritated.
I cough awkwardly and step backward. Luciana looks at me, her eyes dark and intense, before she sweeps from the room, leaving me with little choice but to follow her.
Dane sits stiffly on Luciana’s couch, and I feel the same relief that I had felt when he had first opened his eyes. I had known, of course, that he would return to life. It was just what we did. But that didn’t mean I was unaffected by watching him fall as the bullet slammed into him, or by the blood that had covered him and the ground around him.
I mentally shake myself. I can think about all that later. For now, I just need to focus on Luciana and what we need to tell her now.
I join Dane on the couch and Luciana sits in an armchair and stares at us.
“So?” Luciana asks, finally breaking the silence. She gestures to the two of us. “What the hell just happened?”
“We’re phoenixes,” I tell her.
I expect some disbelief or even amazement. Perhaps even humour until she realises that we’re actually telling the truth and not joking around. I’m not prepared for the way her eyes light up in comprehension.
“Human phoenixes?” she asks, awed. “My father said they were incredibly rare and almost extinct.”
“How do you know of phoenixes?” Dane demands.
“My father apparently made it his life’s work to track down and save many different species of mythical creatures,” Luciana says, sitting back. “He once looked after a cat phoenix, which disappeared not long after he brought it into his care.”
Dane and I look at each other, startled. Two years ago, a cat phoenix had suddenly joined us and slotted right in with her own kind. Had she perhaps come from this farm, sensing that there was a place nearby where she would fit in better?
I glance back at Luciana. Suddenly, the presence of the Peryton makes far more sense. She must have several other animals that I didn’t see that day.
“And you inherited everything?” Dane asks, a bite in his words that tells me that he is definitely not sold on trusting Luciana.
“Yes,” Luciana says with a grimace. “Not that I knew anything before I came here. I lived in Brazil before this, though I travelled all across the world with Doctors Without Borders.”
&
nbsp; That explains her accent. And ties in with her claims that she’s a doctor.
“What did you do with them?” I ask, interested.
“I was a toxicologist,” she explains. She shakes her head. “Anyway, why are you guys in Mundaring?”
“Hiding from Supernaturals and Hunters,” I say.
“Warwick!” Dane hisses.
“What?” I demand. “It’s a bit late to keep things hidden, now.”
“What are Supernaturals?” Luciana asks, looking between us.
“Supernaturals are a sort of hunter that captures, tortures and enslaves beings like us,” I say. “Unlike Hunters, who just kill us for pride.”
“But you guys can’t die, right?” Luciana asks, frowning.
“We can, but there’s only two ways to do it,” I say, ignoring the glare Dane is boring into the side of my head. “Through the claws of another phoenix, or from a dagger magically imbued with the poison from a phoenix’s claws.”
Part of me knows that this is stupid. But there is something that has drawn me to Luciana from the moment we first met. I cannot deny this pull, and I find that I don’t want to.
“Poison?” Luciana asks, interested. “Is there an antidote to it?”
“Not as far as we know,” Dane says.
There’s a thoughtful look on Luciana’s face. I’m amazed how well she has taken all this, after her initial shock. Perhaps it just hasn’t completely sunk in yet. If I was Dane, I would be suspicious; I can already see the way his eyes are narrowing at her.
But I can’t bring myself to distrust her. I’m not sure why. But, as I watch her, her mind obviously racing, there is not any part of me that worries about her motives.
It takes me a moment to realise what is happening. My breath catches in my throat and I fight to keep my face straight as my heart pounds while Luciana asks Dane more about the poison, much to his annoyance. One of the first things we learnt, as young phoenixes, were about mates. We all knew that there was only one other in the world who would be able to draw us in, body and soul, and we would know almost instantly.
Luciana, I slowly understand in shock, is my mate.
Dane is going to kill me.
Luciana
It’s only after Warwick and Dane have left that the shock I’ve managed to keep at bay finally swamps me. I slump down into my armchair, staring unseeingly at the unlit fireplace, a beer hanging loosely from my hand.
Phoenixes, poisons and people coming back to life… my mind is spinning with it all. I can hardly believe any of it is real.
But I know it is. I’ve seen the impossible every day since I came to this farm. My neighbours turning out to be human phoenixes probably shouldn’t be so much of a shock. It isn’t like I would have ever known if this hadn’t happened. They’re incredibly good at hiding themselves.
And, from what they told me, they would have had to be. They didn’t say much about their pasts, but it was clear, from the way that their expressions twisted as they spoke of the Supernaturals, that they had had run ins with them in the past. Had they seen someone die by poison?
I don’t know how long I sit there, thinking. But, as the night gets deeper and I know I should think about at least trying to get some sleep, I hear a hard knock on the door.
I glance at the clock, wondering if I had just imagined. It’s after midnight. It’s crazy that everything had changed so much in just a few scant hours. The knock comes again, and I stand warily, putting my empty bottle down with the other two I’ve consumed. Just recently I had had poachers come onto my property to steal my animals, and try to shoot me when I interrupted them. A knock on my door after midnight surely can’t mean anything good.
I almost don’t answer it. But then there’s a third knock, this one sounding more desperate, and I remember what Dane and Warwick said about being hunted. Were they in trouble?
I crack my front door open, tense and ready to grab the fire poker sitting against the umbrella stand, and then throw it open when I see Warwick there.
“Warwick,” I say urgently. “Is everything alright?”
My mind is still geared for fight after the evening that we’ve just suffered through. And Warwick looks wretched, though he tries to smile.
“Sorry,” he says. “I can’t sleep.”
Not in trouble then. I relax and frown. So why was he here and not at home, looking after Dane?
“Is Dane okay?” I ask.
“He’s asleep,” he assures me. “He’s recovered well. Barely a mark on him. It’s the first time he’s gone through that, you know?”
“Have you?” I ask curiously, standing aside almost unconsciously to let him inside.
“A long time ago,” Warwick says quietly. “I was on my own and I fell from a cliff. Dane didn’t know about it until I came home and told him.”
He starts to walk, heading toward the bedrooms, and I pause before following, stepping after him as he ends up in the guest bedroom. Only then does he stop, staring down at the floorboards.
There’s a large, dark mark where Dane had been, the floor scorched by the fire. There’s also a thin trail of blood leading to it from the door, where the man had bled as we dragged him in there.
For the first time, I realise that Warwick, even while knowing his brother would be okay, had had to suffer watching his dead body. I’ve seen death before, and I know how the image of the corpse sears itself into the mind, until it’s all I can see every time I close my eyes. When David went missing, all I could do was imagine every awful scenario in which we might find his body.
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“Yeah,” Warwick says quietly, though we both know it’s a lie.
“Do you want to stay?” I try again. “I have other rooms.”
“Dane will wonder where I am,” Warwick says. “He won’t be happy that I’m here.”
He’s still staring at the scorch mark. I approach him slowly, much in the way that I have done to grieving loved ones in the past. Warwick got his brother back. But that didn’t mean he hadn’t suffered until that moment.
As my arm brushes his, I feel a little spark across my skin. This moment feels strangely intimate as we stand together. Close as I am, I can smell the faint scent of alcohol on his breath; like me, he had also turned to drink to deal with what happened tonight.
Then Warwick turns away abruptly. The message is clear. He wants to be out of here. Wordlessly, I take his arm and lead him into the hall, shutting the door firmly. Then I look up.
He’s standing very close. I remember, suddenly, the moment earlier when he had helped me up from the floor. He had been extremely close then, and I had seen the way his body had slowly moved toward me. Heat had burned within me, almost as fierce as the fire that had burst from Dane, and I hadn’t been able to tell if I was disappointed or not that Dane had interrupted us.
It’s funny how a single night could change things. It was only earlier that I was thinking of how much of an idiot Warwick was, and scoffing at his stupid attempts to help me the other day. Now, everything feels so different.
Warwick leans in. Maybe it’s the warmth of the alcohol that I’ve drunk, dulling the voice in the back of my head that wants to know what I’m doing, but I don’t move away and, when Warwick’s lips touch mine, I wind my arms around him.
I know that this is probably just the left-over emotion of the night. But there’s no room, right now, to think about Dane or David or Supernaturals or mythical creatures. Warwick dives straight in and my lips part as our tongues touch and entangle, something burning deep within my stomach. I want him, I want this, and I press closer to him, feeling the way his body trembles against mine.
My back hits the closed door and my leg winds around his calf. I can already feel his hardness pressing against me, and fire is beginning to fill me as I gasp against his mouth, falling deeply and suddenly into a yawning pit of desire.
Then Warwick breaks the kiss and dips his head, nipping at my jaw, making me groan out lou
d.
“Fuck,” I breath, my head falling back. “Do that again.”
My hands are clutching his shoulders in a death grip, and his hold is tight on my hips. Needing more, needing to bring him closer, I loop my legs around his waist, trusting both him and the door to hold me up, and drag our groins even closer together.
This is spiralling out of my control. But that’s okay. I don’t want to be in control right now. I don’t want to think about anything. Alcohol has numbed my inhibitions and the emotional upheaval of the evening has made us both vulnerable to one another.
“Bed,” I force out as Warwick latches onto my fluttering pulse and sucks on it. “Bed, now, Warwick.”
His skin is blazing hot. Is it because of the heat that’s ramping up between us, or because he is a phoenix? I don’t know. I can’t even care as he stumbles backward, his hands dropping from my hips to under me, supporting me as I lean into him, breathless and overwhelmed.
“Which way?” he groans.
Not bothering with a verbal answer, I kick out at a closed door nearby and Warwick gets the message, fumbling the door open and stumbling inside. My room is cool and dark, the curtains still closed since I hadn’t bothered to open them when I dragged myself out of bed at a ridiculous hour of the morning.
Warwick heads straight for the bed and then I’m falling backwards, landing with a slight bounce on my mattress. I look up at him, splayed out on the bed, watching the fire in his eyes.
“You’re beautiful,” he says, leaning over me and bracing himself on the mattress. “And amazing.”
I don’t have time to think about the compliments before he swoops in again, and then all thoughts are driven away as he captures my lips in a fiery kiss, pushing me down as my hands scrabble at his clothes, wanting them off, now. I tear at the buttons of his shirt, not caring if any of them break off, and he shrugs it off impatiently. When it’s gone, I slide my hand down his smooth, muscled chest, feeling the way his breath is heaving, and fumble with the buckle on his belt.
