by Connor Crowe
“So where are we going?” I asked him. “And why?”
“I don’t know much more than you do, really. Only what Arric told me. They still think I’m some kind of spy. This was supposed to be a test of my loyalties.”
And what are your loyalties? I wondered, deep in the back of my mind. I hoped Lionel couldn’t hear that.
“We’re heading to the Emerald Isles,” Lionel continued. He pointed at the horizon, where I could just barely see the beginnings of a land mass starting to take shape. “From what I’ve gathered, one of the omegas—Elliot, I think his name was—has some family there.”
“Hmm.” I turned the information over in my mind. Emerald Isles...where had I heard that before? And what kind of shifters would live all the way out in such a remote land?
“Dragons,” Lionel said in answer to my silent question. “I can’t believe it either. Real, live dragons!”
I sucked in a breath. Cold air hit my lungs and I coughed, looking over my shoulder to Elliot and Arric flying along behind us. Those huge, scaly wings...those razor sharp teeth...those reptilian eyes, shining through the clouds with a mystical light.
A whole island full of them? I shivered, and this time it wasn’t from the cold.
Looked like I had a lot to learn.
As we flew, my tension waned. The longer I talked to Lionel, the longer I stayed close to him, the more I realized he wasn’t like the humans I’d met before. Despite my bad experiences of the past, he had a way of reaching past all that. He was kind. He was, perhaps, a bit too rigid and stuck up, in my opinion—but I didn’t sense any ill intent.
And that was definitely a start.
The problem that remained, however, was the tenuous bond not only between our bodies but between our minds. I still wasn’t ready to give myself to another, despite my momentary lapse when we’d mated in the forest. Did I regret it? Not exactly. But was I ready, physically and mentally, for all the things a mating bond comprised?
Definitely not.
“Something on your mind?” Lionel’s voice poked through my thoughts.
I came back to myself and looked around. The isles were much closer now, the outlines of trees and a beach visible below us. We’d be landing soon, and at that thought, the fear of heights crept in once more, wrapping around my stomach like a snake.
“I got you,” he reminded me. “What’s up?”
I swallowed. Took a breath. How was it that I felt so vulnerable around him? So open, so exposed? I’d never felt so seen before, and it was scary just as much as it was exhilarating.
“I’m fine,” I muttered, trying to change the subject. Lionel wasn’t having it.
“Don’t pull that,” he scolded. “You’re not fine, and you’re going to tell me why. We’re supposed to be mates, remember?”
Ha. Yeah. Mates.
Would that really be so bad?
I sighed and leaned into him, letting the warmth of his body surround me. “I’m sorry,” I whispered at last. “Sorry I’ve been such an ass. I just...this is all so new to me, and I don’t know what to do, and...”
“Hey,” Lionel’s voice cut through my panic. “It’s okay. You don’t have to explain yourself to me. We’ve got time for that. I just want to make sure you’re okay.”
Flashes of pain and memory beckoned. I clenched my jaw so hard my teeth hurt. He was right. Damn it all, but he was right. Ugh. I gathered my courage and spoke. “Actually, there is something...”
“Hold on!” Came Tristan’s sudden cry, cutting us off. “Goin’ in for a landing!”
All thoughts of the past, all fears for the future, fled right out the window. We were dropping, and fast. I let out a very unmanly squeak, clung to Lionel for dear life, and squeezed my eyes shut as the ground rushed up to meet us.
Talk about bad timing.
5
Lionel
Kit clung to me like a vise until we were safely on the ground. I’ll admit, descending that quickly on the back of an animal, without being strapped in to anything, was terrifying. Didn’t think I’d ever get used to it, and for someone as scared of heights as Kit was? It was a wonder he was still conscious.
We landed on a wide, sandy beach. The sand, instead of the pale cream I was used to, was a volcanic grey-black that shimmered in the sunlight. My legs wobbled as I scooted off Tristan’s back, nearly stumbling as my feet hit the ground for the first time in hours.
I helped Kit down and then met up with Elliot and Arric, who’d landed right behind us. Elliot had transformed back into a human, shuffling back into his clothes Arric had kept for him. Tristan did the same.
So we’d made it.
The gravity of the moment was not lost on me. After all my years of research and study, I had set foot on an island no human probably ever had. Immediately I whipped out my notebook and starting scribbling down notes about my surroundings. I wanted to know everything. To remember everything. From the black sands to the rolling hills ahead of us. From the scraggly blackened trees to the misty white clouds above.
In fact, I was so sucked into my notes and studies that I didn’t notice the rest of the party drifting off, leaving me behind.
When I looked up again, they were gone.
This wasn’t the first time I’d let my insatiable curiosity get the best of me. It had happened often enough at the University. I’d miss important meetings when I was deep into my work. I’d get scolded by the board of advisors and promise not to let it happen again.
Rinse and repeat.
Probably a good thing they let me go, then.
But the consequences this time were much larger than a reprimand by some stuffy old men. I was in the middle of an unexplored land, with a whole sea between myself and civilization. And the only people that knew how to get out of here had disappeared.
Silently cursing myself, I stuffed my notebook back into my bag and looked around. I watched the sand for any footsteps. Any signs of which way they’d gone.
Unluckily for me, the wind was blowing something fierce, and the sands shifted even as I watched, covering any tracks that might have once been there.
“Damn,” I muttered under my breath.
I wasn’t going to give up that easily, though.
“Hello?” I called out at the top of my voice. It carried across the wind and echoed back to me a second later.
No response.
The sun beat down upon me. Any minute now, I’d start burning.
So much for the greatest anthropological discovery of all time.
I gathered up my things and made for the treeline, hoping for shade. That was the only way I was gonna survive this, if I couldn’t find my teammates.
A cold, twisted fear dropped into the pit of my stomach like a stone.
What if this was all intentional? What if this whole trip was a plot to get rid of me?
I swallowed, considering. From what little I’d been able to dig up, I wouldn’t put it past them. And they had good reason to be skeptical. If knowledge of their kind fell into the wrong hands…
I frowned. Smoothed out the creases on my forehead with my hand. Cleared my mind. I had to think. Worrying and panicking would only get me killed faster.
Maybe this was some sort of test. Or trap. Whatever it was, I had to stay on my guard.
But if it was, why had even Kit left me?
That hurt even more than Nox Bay’s desertion. I knew we’d started off a bit rough, but during our time on Tristan’s back, I thought we were starting to build a little rapport.
I guess I thought wrong.
Just as I stepped into the shelter of the trees and thought about what to do next, leaves rustled to my right. I’d heard that rustle before. I’d felt that presence before.
“What are you doing?” I called out finally, crossing my arms. “Are you trying to scare me or something?”
A moment passed, and Kit trotted out from behind the bush. His sleek orange fur was mottled with leaves and dirt, and he was holding a branc
h full of berries in his mouth.
When he saw me, he straightened and shifted back to human, not at all shy about returning to his skin naked.
Don’t look at it, don’t look at it...
I huffed out a breath through my nose.
I was looking at it.
“Do you know when the last time I ate was? I couldn’t wait around for those losers to go on and on about their plans any longer. My stomach was growling louder than they were!”
Kit plopped down on a tree stump and tossed a few berries into his mouth, then thrust the branch at me. “Want some?”
I sputtered. How could he be so...casual about all this!?
“No!” I snapped, perhaps a bit louder than I should have. “I don’t want your berries. I want to find the team. We’re lost.”
Kit waved away my fears with a swipe of his hand. “Chill out. Have a snack. We’ll catch up with them.”
Red hot anger flared through me and my vision blurred, my heart racing into double time. My hands clenched into fists at my sides. Fingernails dug into my skin.
He was part of the reason I was in this mess in the first place!
“How can you...” I gritted, barely able to contain my anger. “Do you have any idea how serious this is? We could die out here!”
“Relax, old man. All those rules and structures you love so much don’t have much of a use here.”
“Old man?!” I shrieked, advancing on him. “Well, you’re an immature brat who needs to learn a lesson!”
Kit tossed the berries to the side and grinned up at me, his lips smeared with bright red juice. “Try me.”
Something inside me snapped. He was the antithesis of everything I stood for. He annoyed and frustrated me to no end, made me want to rip my hair out—or his. But when I advanced on him this time, I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his plump red lips. His mocking eyes.
His naked body.
Without thinking, my instincts took over. I slammed forward into him, and claimed his lips as my own.
Kit didn’t flinch. He stood firm, pushing back into me with just as much vigor. My tongue lashed out and battled his. My mouth filled with the taste of him. My nose took in his scent. All over again, I found myself breathless, and not just out of lust this time.
Damn this man. And damn the terrible, wonderful things he did to me!
Kit wove a hand through my hair, clenching his fingers into a fist and pulling at the strands. I growled against his lips, but welcomed the pain. It only spurred me on faster. Made me harder.
“Brat,” I growled against his lips.
“Snooty professor,” he snapped back, his teeth nipping at my bottom lip. I hissed and pulled him closer, my hands running down his back and leaving scratch marks in their wake. He was still naked, after all, and his body was waking up around me.
I had just reached the swell of his ass, giving it a good smack, when a loud, roaring explosion blocked out my senses. A rush of heat flooded over me like a sauna, singing my skin and tearing me away from my mate.
I took a few steps back, lips still swollen, cock still throbbing. I stared at him, open mouthed, eyes half-lidded.
“What the hell was that?” Kit said first, craning his neck in the direction of the blast.
The smell of burning wood, rank and pungent, filled the air around us. And more than that, stronger than that, was something even more sickly. Burning flesh.
“Let’s go,” I commanded. I fished into my bag and dug out an extra pair of shorts, tossing them at Kit as we ran. “Throw these on!”
We stumbled through the forest, but the wreckage wasn’t hard to find. It was like a meteor had hit. A crater of ash stretched out for nearly fifty feet in each direction, leveling the trees and scarring the ground. In the middle of it all, however, was something even more jarring.
A small body, curled in on itself and only now peeking its head out to see the world. Red and gold plumage stuck out in every direction, as brilliant as the flames themselves.
It stretched its small, fleshy wings. Yawned. Then those blazing eyes trained on us, and I realized with a breath what this was.
“Is that...?” Kit started, his voice just as reverent.
“A phoenix.” I whispered.
And at the name, as if in recognition, the fledgling stretched his wings, craned his head toward the sky, and let out a cry.
6
Kit
I ignored Lionel’s shouted warnings and ran toward the fledgling. Something so small, so full of power and life...
I was drawn to it like a magnet, stepping easily over the piles of ash and fallen branches.
The phoenix was one of the most beautiful things I’d ever seen. I crouched down next to it, only a few feet away, and still the heat radiated off his small, reborn body. First dragons...then phoenixes!
Would wonders ever cease?
His fiery yellow eyes watched me as I drew closer, knowing with almost spiritual certainty that we were meant to be here, in this moment. Were meant to find him.
“Hey there, little guy.” I whispered, sticking out a shaking hand. “You caused quite the mess.” I looked around with a smile. “What are you doing out here all alone?”
With a screech, he opened his break and flames shot out. Just like the dragon I’d seen, only...
This was no dragon. Right?
The fledgling gained his legs, standing up to his full height, a not-very-intimidating twelve inches, and then before my eyes he changed.
I scuttled back on my hands and knees, watching the transformation with wide eyes.
No way.
Before us stood not a phoenix. Not a dragon. But a man.
A full-grown, adult man.
He blinked in equal surprise and astonishment, watching us with curiosity. I snapped my head back to find Lionel standing there, positively frozen in shock.
“H-hello?” I stammered. “Are you okay? Are you hurt?”
He had brown hair and a freckled complexion. Broad shoulders and a muscular chest. He stood defiantly, feet apart, shoulders squared. Chin jutted upward in silent challenge. What was this man? He had the air of an alpha about him, but no alpha I’d ever seen could do that.
Why I was asking such things, I didn’t know. Didn’t make a lot of sense. But then again, none of this did.
The phoenix-man opened his mouth to speak and a pleasing tenor rumbled out. “The name’s Hugo. How did you get here?”
“We flew,” I said simply, shrugging. “And I just about barfed my guts out a dozen different times, so that’s the kind of effort I put in to be here.”
Hugo snorted with amusement. “You’re small. But feisty. Reminds me of someone I used to know.” His eyes flicked away from mine, a sudden flash of sadness coloring his already red face.
Before I could ask what it was, he turned his searing gaze back to me. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
“Tell that to Nox Bay,” Lionel commented, speaking for the first time since Hugo’s rebirth.
“Nox...” Hugo repeated the phrase, his lips moving silently. “Sounds vaguely familiar, but from where, I couldn’t say...”
“We got lost in the forest, and when we were trying to find our way back to our group, we heard an explosion. Fire everywhere. And when we went to see what was wrong, we found, well, you.”
Hugo gave us a sad smile. “Downside of having phoenix blood in my veins. Even more so recently. Something’s gone all wrong, all topsy turvy in the world. Ever since a group of scouts left the Isles and didn’t return, our way of life has plunged into chaos. The Heart of the Hearth, that once kept us united and stable, is no longer. I can feel it in my heart. And without its guiding light, my phoenix...” He shrugged. “Doesn’t know what to do. The regeneration cycles are faster than I’ve ever had them, and so random...Kind of a pain in the ass if you ask me.”
“Wow,” I breathed, trying to imagine what that must have been like. Being a shifter was one thing. One I’d come to terms with long
ago. But spontaneously bursting into flames? That didn’t sound like much fun at all.
“When you say you have phoenix blood,” Lionel asked in that curious tone, “what do you mean by that? Are you a shifter?”
“I am, though it’s a little more complicated than that.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”
Hugo crossed his arms. Gods, he was huge. So much different from the small baby bird that had been laying on the ground only moments before. “I think I’d like to know a little more about you first. You’re the intruders here, after all.”
“I can’t tell you what I don’t know,” Lionel cut in. “I was just as much a prisoner as a guest, and without the rest of our group, we won’t be able to survive out here. Can you at least help us with that?”
He surveyed us both for a few long moments. Finally, he uncrossed his arms. He looked around the horizon warily, as if looking for some kind of unseen threat. “Fine,” he said at last. “But not here. The sun will be setting soon, and it’s not safe. Come on, this way.”
Without another word, he turned on his heel and took off in the opposite direction, leaving Lionel and I doubling our pace to catch up with him.
Well, I’d learned one thing about Hugo. He was the fastest walker I’d ever met. His long legs carried him quickly over the landscape in long, sure strides. It left me panting and practically jogging to keep up, and Lionel wasn’t faring much better. I was just about to shift into my fox form in hopes that I could run faster when he stopped short, throwing up a hand to halt us.
“In there,” he pointed. The sun waned in the sky, only visible in a pale twilight over the mountains. I squinted my eyes and could barely make out an opening in the rocky cliff face, yawning into darkness.
“A cave?” I asked skeptically. “You sure you’re not trying to lead us to our deaths or something?”
“If I was, would you know the difference?” Hugo quipped, and carried on toward the opening.
I ground my teeth together, let out a breath through my nose, and followed him. He was right.
