by LeAnn Mason
Toward escape.
My own body coiled, remembered pain and fear flooding my system, but I pushed through. He couldn’t fall into some dark oblivion of self-loathing; that wouldn’t help anyone.
“It wasn’t your fault. I got too close. I knew better. You don’t approach a supe in turmoil, especially a Shifter. You weren’t trying to hurt me.” My words finally pulled his eyes to meet mine, but there was building anger in their amber depths, a glow burgeoning as his stare burned into me.
“Do you think that makes it any better? Do you think that I can just absolve myself of what happened, what I did because I didn’t mean to?”
“Calm, brother.” Jason stepped forward, channeling Hunter to match Nick’s rising animal, whom I could not call “Teddy” just now. He wasn’t cuddly but the deadly, cornered beast ready to lash out. I’d never seen him like this. “What’s going on? You’ve been off since… we got you back.” Jason didn’t say anything specific, but he was right; Nick had been different since he’d disappeared the night of the Lupo Coven raid.
“Nothing. I’m fine, or I was until this morning,” he amended gruffly when he took in the room full of disbelieving stares.
“I asked you here so that you could see for yourself that Bianca is okay.” Rory held up a hand to stay the protest trying to leave Nick’s open mouth. “We also now have a theory as to why that may be.”
“What do you mean?” Whether he meant for it to or not, curiosity leaked into Nick’s tone, his body coming to attention, even taking a step further into the room. I much preferred this state of readiness to the kicked puppy demeanor he’d previously shown.
“Bianca believes she may be a phoenix or something of the sort.”
And the focus was back on me. I gave a sardonic wave and half-laugh. Man, I needed to get used to being the center of attention sometimes. Having friends would do that. Make me the focus sometimes. Standing taller, I decided that if I didn’t like when Nick cowed, I shouldn’t do it myself. “It makes sense.”
“How does that make sense? I’ve never heard of a phoenix existing in our world. They’re a myth.”
Pulling the chain and bird pendant from where it lay nestled against my skin, beneath my shirt, I brought it into the light. “This survived my… transformation.” I had no idea what to actually call what happened, but it sounded better than “rebirth,” so I stuck with it. “I have been called some form of “firebird” all of my life. First by my mother, now by my guardians. A phoenix is said to be reborn from the ashes of…” What? Themselves?
“But they don’t exist. Not to mention they are also said to be birds, right?”
He had me there.
“The point is,” Mae interrupted, stepping forward to take the room’s focus. “It’s something we can look into. For some reason, Bianca was able to be, I don’t know, reborn. There is so much to learn about this or to put to paper if she is the only case.”
“Calm, Nerdo. Put your deductive powers away for a minute, will ya?” Allya threw the admonishment cheekily at her friend, giving her a pat to complete the chide.
“Well, there may be one easy way to figure this all out,” Rory said coolly. When all eyes were focused back on the prince, he crossed his bulging arms across an equally bulging chest before expounding with a shrug. “Ask the dwarfs.”
CHAPTER 14
“N o! Nope. Uh-uh.”
“Why? It makes sense that we should talk to them if they have some ideas on exactly how it is that you can reincarnate, right?” I should have known that Mae would come at me with logic. Again.
I knew I wasn’t being logical, but that didn’t change my mind.
“If I tell the dwarfs that I died,” I made a point to note the crucial part of the sentence, pausing for emphasis before I continued. “They will never let me out of their sights again. I will be stuck at the diner, day and night. Who knows what else they’d come up with. I wouldn’t put it past them for me to have a chaperone at school, too!” Like that wouldn’t put all eyes on me. My hands began to sweat just thinking about it.
“Oh, come on, I’m sure it’s not that bad.” I hardly broke out the “bitch, please” look, but this moment and Allya’s comment called for it.
“How did Jason react after you were attacked in the woods?” I threw the incident back at Allya. Was it a crappy thing to do? Yeah. But we all said stupid things when backed into a corner.
“I put her ass in training, and look at her now. Total badass.” Pride shone in every line of Jason’s body as he looked at his girl. It was sweet… and vomit-inducing at the time.
“That’s what we should do,” Nick broke in, tone firm. Swelling to his full height and breadth, the bear Shifter finally seemed to regain some of his former assurance. A smile leaked from me before I had the fortitude to lock it down. I couldn’t bend to their wishes right now without becoming the town spectacle. Everyone knew that news like this wouldn’t stay quiet for long.
Not in this town. Everyone died. Everything could be killed. It was known. It was a fact.
Until now.
“She’s already trained with her sword, we’ve seen her. She’s good. Maybe we give her a job as a Sentinel, put that weapon in her hands twenty-four-seven.” Nick’s conviction was cute if misguided.
“They will never let me become a Sentinel. There is an inherent danger in the position that they’d never allow. Why do you think I work at the diner? It’s so that they can keep an eye on me.”
“Oh? I thought it was because of your charming personality. You know, the one that seems to be missing at the moment?” I could always count on the Shaman-Shifter-Witch for sarcasm. Normally, I dug it, but right now?
“A fire Mage in the forest? Have we ever had one of them?” Jason asked, rightfully wary, the question mainly directed at Rory.
“Yeah, see? Fire hazard right there.” I pointed a finger at Jason as if to draw everyone’s attention to the very valid point he’d just made.
“But you can’t create fire from nothing, right? And you have control, do you not?”
I’d never wanted to punch Nick before…
“Right.” The word felt like gravel as it crawled up my throat to be forced out through clenched teeth.
“Ooh, her aura is threading a bit red, guys. Might want to take a step back for safety,” Allya cooed happily.
“Throat punches all around,” I grumbled, taking a step back to widen the space between me and the potential targets. Didn’t want to connect on impulse.
Or did I?
“But you can defend yourself if you have your sword. No one will be able to take you unawares.” Nick’s molten chocolate eyes lightened to amber. The telltale sign that he was agitated and Teddy was responding to his emotional state. I couldn’t say I hated that the thought of me hurt elicited such emotion.
I could only allow so much self-flagellation on his part. “You think I would hurt you? That I would use my sword on you, any of you? There would be no earthly way that I could knowingly do harm to anyone in this room.” I found that the more I thought about using my sword on anyone, the more uneasy I became. “I’m not sure I could use it at all.”
“You’d be surprised how quickly your thoughts on that can change,” Allya spoke from experience, or at least I assumed so. I hadn’t known her before she’d escaped her hellacious life… by killing her brother.
Point taken.
“What happens if we tell the guys and they want Nick’s blood? I’ll only agree if you promise you won’t allow any harm to come to him as a consequence.” Rory would have to agree. I wasn’t budging.
“I give you my word.”
I nodded curtly, in silent acceptance of his vow. I’d hold him to it.
“Fine. I, we,” I corrected myself when the glares kicked up, “will ask them if I am a phoenix. Work?”
“What about–”
“I’d like to leave out the actual dying part if I can,” I said, talking over Mae. Meeting everyone’s eyes in tu
rn, I waited for their agreements before moving to the next.
“Right, then. Let’s do this. I’m ready to know just what kind of freak you are, Sparky. I need a sparring partner.”
“You want to know if you’re a phoenix?”
“What would make you ask that?”
“Phoenix, you ask?”
“Yes.”
All eyes swung to Stein after his succinct and definitive response. The three other dwarfs sat on barstools at the kitchen counter while Allya, Jason, and I sat on our brown corduroy couch. Mae perched in the only remaining seat, a well-worn recliner that my guardians usually rotated through on a predetermined schedule I’d stopped worrying about figuring out ages ago. Rory had stayed behind at the Shifter mansion to do whatever kinds of things an acting monarch needed to. He had, after all, been away from the compound most of the day.
“Seriously, Stein?”
“What? We knew we’d have to tell her one day.” The little bearded man shrugged his shoulders. He said it like it wasn’t some kind of supernatural nuclear bomb being dropped.
Phoenixes didn’t exist. They didn’t. And yet…
“Why didn’t you ever tell me?” My hurt and confusion were burning away in the wake of my new reality, one where my guardians had kept such a monumental secret.
“Maybe they didn’t know for sure?” Mae, seeing my rising ire, attempted to smooth the situation with her sweet rationale. But she knew better. Everyone in this room knew better. They’d known. They just hadn’t said anything. Not one word.
Well, I guess they did say one word: Firebird.
Stein sucked in a deep breath like he needed all of the air in the room to fill his lungs before he began to explain, but I cut him off. “Was my father one?” My mind churned. I assumed it was genetically inherited, so he was my first guess because my mom had died years ago.
But then, didn’t the Queen of Evil say that my father had died? That’s why she was here. She was the new Mage Elder for my hometown of Andersenville.
I pinched my forehead where the headache was building again. My eyes were beginning to throb. That couldn’t be good.
“No. Your mother’s line is where you get your phoenix heritage.”
I shook my head vehemently. I didn’t want to believe it. I couldn’t. “But she’s dead,” I exclaimed, my temper bursting free, my hands leaving my head as if expelled by a physical explosion before slapping heavily to my legs.
The room fell into silence in the aftermath of my verbal bomb. Not a peep came from the many bodies scattered throughout the room. No one moved.
No eyes met mine.
Finally, Isaak, who still looked like our barging into the cottage had awoken him from his afternoon nap, cleared his throat. His mouth flopped open and closed like a dying fish as he tried to find the words he wanted, rejecting every form his mouth took and trying another. Or he was trying to stifle some massive yawns.
I fought against raising my voice again, but I couldn’t quell the foot that hammered the floor where it lay. The old, shaggy rug thankfully kept the nervous energy from being an audible annoyance. I gritted my teeth to keep the words at bay. It wouldn’t do me any good to get angry with them right now. If anything, they might decide to shut down the information entirely.
Realizing I couldn’t handle it if that was to happen, I concentrated on releasing the tension I could now feel riding my every muscle. With slow, steady breaths, I aimed my efforts at each muscle group I was able to identify in turn. When I’d reached my lower back, Isaak finally found his voice.
No one had jumped in before that, content with letting the man take the brunt.
“The full scope of phoenix abilities are not known to us, or any outside of the bloodlines, I’d say. The lineage and its… repercussions,” he threw a look at Tabbart, the dwarfs’ genius member, for confirmation before continuing when he received a small nod.
“Repercussions? Like being literally burned to ash before miraculously reincarnating to the formerly present version of myself?” I stumbled over the ideas. Such a mind-blowing revelation, my mind balked at the knowledge. Geez, this was so messed up.
“Phoenixes often live a large portion of their lives in relative solitude. It’s a burden to know that you cannot die, and yet, if you did, there could be other complications,” Tabbart put in, cutting over Isaak’s slow explanation.
“Are you trying to tell me that you didn’t say anything because my knowing could have put me in danger?”
“How in the world did you make that leap?” Allya asked, turning to face me. Her voice was thick with incredulity, face torqued in confusion. Not a look she wore often.
I wanted to focus on that, on her instead of the very taxing issue of my incendiary nature.
“I’ve come to know my guardians and their manner of speaking quite well over the last several years. They’ve basically been my communal parents after all.” I aimed my last barb directly at the trio of bearded men atop the barstools, who, at this particular time, all reminded me of little porcelain garden gnomes, their mannerisms each seeming to fit a segment of the blind, deaf, dumb adage.
“So. Tell me, what harm would have come from me knowing what I am?” Defiance and confrontationalism was my key to this conversation. If I wanted to stave off full-on combativeness, this was going to be the best I could offer.
“If you had known as a child, one, everyone would then know,” Tabbart said with a placating lilt. “And how many would have tested the theory? How many times do you think someone would have killed you, or tried to, just to see if you did indeed rise again?”
“I hadn’t thought about that,” Mae murmured. “That is definitely true. Not only are children curious, but some are downright cruel. It would be mayhem.” She continued on her train of thought, seemingly oblivious to everyone’s attention, a finger pushed to the bridge of her nose where her eyeglasses rested as if holding the plastic frames in place. “Then, there are the scientific curiosities and implicatio–”
“Exactly. No one could know. Ayami had planned to tell you about this age, but alas,” Tabbart trailed off as he thought about why my mother couldn’t tell me about our heritage. “Even now, my brothers and I were unsure if we should say anything.”
“Why would you not tell me?”
“We’d hoped there would never be a need. After all, the only time it mattered is if you died.”
“But my mother died. How did she die, then, if she was a phoenix too?!” I felt my cheeks heat as my eyes filled with tears. I didn’t want to cry in front of my friends but… it was all too much.
Sad, knowing, dark eyes focused on me as Stein said the last thing I’d expected and the one thing I’d feared.
“Because of you.”
CHAPTER 15
T he sounds of a small dog having a sneezing seizure punctuated Stein’s proclamation that I, myself, had been the reason my phoenix mother had died for good. Florian’s head whipped around, shaking back and forth with each forcible expulsion. An odd occurrence, at least to my friends, it succeeded in capturing the attention of every eye.
“Sorry,” Florian dipped his head, cheeks heating below the dark red beard with his sheepishness once the sneezes ceased. Then he brought a hand up to smack the back of Stein’s head, his favorite form of reprimand for his brother.
“That is not what he meant. Well, it might be what he meant, but it’s not how it sounds. Please forgive the old fool his poor choice of words.” Florian threw another narrow-eyed glare toward his dim sibling, who mumbled an apology as he rubbed at the sting at the back of his head. “We don’t know everything, but what we gathered is that once a phoenix reproduces, their immortality is severed, allowing them to grow old with their family.”
“To die, you mean.” I sulked, saddened by the truth of Stein’s words even if not in the strictest sense of the word. I had been the reason my mother had died, if not the reason she’d been killed.
“But that was what she wanted. She fell in
love, she had you, and she was exceedingly happy about that.” The words were a small band-aid to the wound of knowledge I now possessed.
“Okay, so, yeah. We know a little more now, that’s good.” Allya cut off my response, bouncing her head as if nodding would make her believe her own words. “What we need to do now is prepare. B needs to be able to defend herself. Who knows what could come at her, intentional or not, and she shouldn’t just die.”
I held my breath when Tabbart’s mouth opened. “I agree.”
Wait, what? “You do?”
“I do. We do. We know that you need to explore yourself, to grow, evolve. The new goal needs to be to avoid death in the first place. Especially with Circe here… I do not trust the reason for her visit,” he trailed off, obviously troubled. “Take Birdie, and train. When you are not working the diner floor, I want you to wear it. Always.”
“Well, that takes a load off of my mind as I’m sure it will for Nick,” Jason agreed. Sitting tall, the wolf Shifter Sentinel was the picture of poise. His hazel eyes cataloged everything he’d seen, including the nuances of the place I called home and those who lived there. I was quite sure his other senses were just as alert.
“Hang on a sec; who’s Birdie?” Mae asked, leaning forward from her spot on the recliner to my right, raising a hand as if she were in a classroom.
I froze. I’d hoped they hadn’t caught onto that little tidbit. Mae and her sharp mind, sheesh. I pitched my eyes her way without truly facing her. I’d be going for nonchalant… “My sword.”
“Your sword? That glorious piece of steel that is like an extension of yourself? You named it Birdie?” Allya’s face would have been comical, pinched and confused as it was, if she wasn’t revolted about… Birdie.
“In my defense, I was only eleven at the time, and it looked,” I shrugged in helpless defeat at my poor attempt to explain. “Like a bird.”
