by Emma Hamm
Her hands clutched his biceps. “It’s too early to love me.”
“We’ve been through enough together for me to know.”
“You really love me?”
“Enough to let a woman take control over my body and make a plant grow. Which I didn’t know I could do.”
Mercy snorted. “You can’t. Bluebell can.”
“She appreciates the credit.” He brushed a tear from her cheek. “Are you putting yourself back together yet?”
She didn’t have to say the words back, even though it made his heart ache. Mercy wasn’t like him; he understood that. And she had told him long before that Phoenixes didn’t experience emotions the way humans did. Perhaps she was already too far gone for love.
“Jasper.” She shook her head at him. “You must know what is between us is more than love. You are part of my soul. The last, lingering piece of sanity left inside of me.”
“Does that mean you love me?”
“It means that there is more than just love in what I feel. You are in every breath I take. You are the reason I will remain human for a little while longer.”
“Is that a good thing?”
She shrugged. “I don’t think we’ll have an answer to that until you’re seventy years old and wishing I was just as wrinkled as you.”
“We’ll burn that bridge when we come to it.”
“If you wish.”
Jasper embraced her, tucking her head into the crook of his shoulder, and breathed in her spicy scent. Relief was a dangerous drug. It coursed through his system and made him think for just a moment that everything was going to be okay.
Theirs might not be a good life. He knew that deep in his core. There was a good chance neither would make it until Jasper was seventy — there were many more battles to fight, and a war to be won
But in this moment, none of that mattered. She was in his arms. She was holding onto her sanity by a thread, but she was still here. Still human. Still breathing.
“You really want to become my master?” she asked.
“Yes.”
Mercy nodded. She slipped her hand between them and pressed it against his chest. Her words sighed out of her mouth as she whispered, “I bind my soul to yours until I feel your passing from this realm. To you I give my will, my right, and my being. Until death takes me.”
His spine tingled as heat washed from his toes to the top of his head. His heart skipped a beat, and he knew it was now aligned with hers. Every breath he took, every pump of blood through his body, was linked directly to hers.
Jasper pulled her against his chest, staring down at his hand, which was settled on her back. Sparks of light danced beneath his fingertips, arcing from him to her in a never-ending play of fire.
“That sounds dangerously like wedding vows,” he muttered into her ear.
“They are. A Phoenix has only one mate or master.”
“Ignes doesn’t mind?”
Jasper’s fingertips began to burn. The skin of her spine split open, and Ignes crawled his way out of her body. He opened his great wings, and launched himself into the air. Jasper watched the Phoenix take his true form, a massive eagle made of fire and brimstone. Ignes circled them slowly in the air, as though protecting them from any who dared interrupt this moment.
“At least he only got the Unicorn horn,” Jasper whispered. “It could have been much worse.”
Mercy stiffened. “It was more than that, Jasper. It wasn’t all about the horn.”
“What? What else did he do?”
“It’s not what he did. It’s what I did for him.”
Jasper leaned back to look at her face. “What did you do?”
Mercy’s eyes filled with tears again as she met his gaze. She seemed to shrink further into herself as she shrugged. “I destroyed Haven. I’m sorry, there was no way to stop. The power was too great, and his compulsion was too strong. He said to destroy everything bad. And I did.”
“How? How did he tell you to do anything if he wasn’t your master?”
Mercy shivered. “He distracted the Phoenix. The spikes in my eyes, the immense amount of damage he had done before bringing me here. Ignes was so invested in healing me that his concentration was broken. He was so angry at what they had done, that when Malachi said to wipe the world clean… It was a perfect opportunity to do so.”
Jasper grunted. “Why Haven? Haven doesn’t have anyone evil in it.”
“There was at least one person in Haven who was bad enough for the Phoenix to want to wipe it from the planet.”
“Who?” Jasper couldn’t imagine anyone so evil — barring Malachi — that they’d deserve such a death.
“I do not know.” She looked up at him helplessly. “The Phoenix does not care about a face or a name. Only the soul underneath.”
He pulled her back into his arms, a troubled expression wrinkling his brow. There were no words to say after learning she had destroyed his home. His Haven.
“I’m sorry,” she repeated. “I cannot explain how sorry I am.”
Jasper tasted the truth of the words she whispered. It lingered in the air like seawater and rang in his ears. But that didn’t make it any easier to hear.
“I’ll go get the others, and we’ll figure it out.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I know.” He kissed her forehead. “Stay with Ignes. I’ll be back.”
With one lingering glance towards his destructive beauty, he disappeared from the ashes. Mercy was left curled in the remains of what she had done. And what she had become.
15
Jasper put the last slice of bread onto the sandwich with a soft smack. Cooking had never really been one of his talents, but he found it to be relaxing. There was a rhythm to it he hadn’t ever appreciated. Perfect measurements were important, as were the directions.
He was good at following directions. With the loss of Haven, Jasper in particular had been forced to find new outlets for his need for order. Working out could only relieve so much tension, and without the Five, there weren’t any missions to go on. He was floundering, in a sense.
A soft tsking behind him made him turn.
Lyra leaned against the door jamb. She was so tiny that the door was almost twice her height. Her shirt was sequinned and this time depicted a kraken smashing a boat.
Maybe Wolfgang was good for her after all. The Lyra he had grown up with would never wear a shirt that suggested she might be a creature of the water.
“She’ll never be able to eat that,” Lyra declared.
“What? Why?” Jasper looked down at the plate of food. “It looks fine to me.”
“You have too many layers. No one can open their mouth that wide.”
Maybe she had a point; the sandwiches were a good six inches thick. He shrugged. “She can pull it apart then.”
“No.” Lyra shoved away from the door and took the plate. “If you want this much food, then you’ll need to make these into smaller sandwiches. Even a Giant couldn’t eat them.”
Lyra had never seen Tiny, but Jasper didn’t correct her. He just wanted Mercy to eat. Everything he found out about the Phoenix species suggested that they ate a considerable amount of food. Keeping their bodies at such a high temperature required burning a lot of calories.
Mercy didn’t really eat at all. Although she told all of them that she was fine, he worried she wasn’t. Food was an essential part of life.
So, Jasper continued to bring her bits of whatever he could find, and it satisfied a base part of him when she ate it. The same part that wanted to hunt something down, kill it, and bring it bleeding to her doorstep.
If anyone would appreciate that savagery, it was Mercy.
“How is she doing?” Lyra asked.
“Good.”
“Okay. Now how is she really doing?”
As Lyra puttered around the kitchen, Jasper sat at the table. “I really don’t know. She’s not very talkative, you know?”
“Well, she’s certainly n
ot like us. But we can’t really expect her to be. She’s a different sort of creature.”
He placed his hands on the ancient table and sighed. “She’s been more withdrawn since we moved here.”
“Well, it can’t be easy on her, moving in with all of us right off the bat in a small, enclosed environment. If I were her, I’d be running to the high hills screaming about the crazies who are convinced they’re going to save the world.”
Though there were many places they could have gone after the city was destroyed, Jasper chose his childhood home. It wasn’t much — an old, four bedroom log cabin on the edge of the forest — but they all somehow crammed into it.
Jasper and Mercy had ended up sharing a bedroom, a decision he soon questioned.
Lyra seemed to guess where his thoughts had turned. She raised an eyebrow as she separated the meat and cheese into smaller piles. “Still starting fires, huh?”
He rubbed the back of his neck. “Yeah, I never really thought when I finally settled down with someone whose nightmares light the bed on fire. But we’re figuring it out.”
“I’m curious, how are you doing that?”
A blush crept up his neck. “We’re replacing the blankets.”
“Ah, so you’re not dealing with it at all.” Lyra grabbed the loaf of bread and began cutting more slices. “You know, there might be something really wrong with her.”
“She’s fine.”
“It sounds like she has post traumatic stress. Hell, she killed an entire city with her mind. You’d think that would do a number on someone.”
“She’s strong.”
“She doesn’t really know any of us, except you. You’re a great person to go to when you need a laugh, but, no offense, I don’t think you’re really capable of helping her. Those emotions all bottled up inside something that’s so strong is probably a bad idea.”
“Lyra.”
“I’m just saying. There are people and creatures who know what she’s going through and might be able to help.”
“Lyra!” Jasper finally shouted. She paused, knife in hand. “I’m trying. I’m doing my best, but she’s not going to talk to anyone about it.”
“She shouldn’t be alone through this.”
Jasper ran a hand through his trimmed hair and sighed. He wanted his surrogate family to be able to bond with her. That was important to him. But Mercy had withdrawn deep within herself. He hoped she would heal, though he feared she was beyond that.
“I understand what you’re trying to do, Lyra, I really do. It’s just not that easy.”
She nodded. “Of course not. But you know we’re here for you. And for her.”
Jasper would have to be blind to miss how much his family had helped them. Burke had been the first person to run into their burning bedroom and start beating out the fires. Wren had held Mercy in her arms while Wolfgang had run a cooling touch over the burns on Jasper’s body.
It had taken him nearly a week to coax Mercy back into bed with him after that incident. They had gone through it three more times since, and the nightmares were getting marginally better.
“This sort of thing takes time,” he told Lyra as she finished spreading mayo on the bread. “I think she’s going to pull through.”
“I hope she does.”
“Because of the prophecy? Yeah, we probably need everyone sane.”
“No, not because of that.” She slapped the knife down on the counter. “Because I like her. She’s good for you, even though you don’t see it. You’ve changed.”
“Have I?” He looked down at himself. Other than being clean, he seemed the same.
“You’re more responsible. You stand on your own two feet better than you had before. You’re more assertive, you tell people what you want, and you take it. They’re good changes. I can’t tell you how impressed I am.”
Jasper didn’t know how to feel about that. He didn’t like to think he had changed because of another person, but pride puffed up his chest all the same. These were the kind of changes he had wanted to see in himself.
Apparently, repeated near-death situations over a short period turned a boy into a man.
He leaned forward and stacked the sandwiches atop each other. “You’ve changed too you know.”
“Have I?” Lyra’s smile suggested she was all too aware of her changes. “How so?”
“You’re softer. Kinder. More aware of other people rather than just yourself.”
She tucked a loose strand of ink dark hair behind her ear. “Being in love will do that to you.”
“You’re good with him. I don’t know if I ever told you that, but you are. He treats you well. And magic looks good on you.”
He left Lyra standing in the kitchen with her jaw agape. Jasper liked surprising her every now and then, and this time, it had been a home run. She probably wasn’t a fan of him moving on. Frankly, neither was he.
Jasper would always have a special place in his heart for the little girl who had wanted a strand of sparkling beads. He had delivered them to her bedroom and fallen in love with her that instant. But that childhood infatuation couldn’t compare to the ache in his chest every time he saw Mercy.
His footsteps echoed in the hallway as he clomped towards the front door. On a whim, he paused by his bedroom and left the sandwiches on the dresser. He still had a few tricks up his sleeve to surprise Mercy, and fully intended on seeing her shocked expression.
He walked into the bathroom with soft steps. The only time she emerged from her stupor was when Jasper surprised her. He had come to love the way her face changed in those moments.
Mercy was usually so stoic. Her expressions rarely changed. Her eyes always watched the landscape around them as though someone was going to attack them. Maybe she was used to that.
But, when Jasper surprised her, her forehead wrinkled and she would open her mouth slightly. Then the corners of her lips would tilt upwards in a slow smile that lit her eyes with vivid emotion.
He missed that. More than anything else, Jasper missed seeing that fire in her eyes.
Snagging the sandwiches on the way out, he stepped out the front door and journeyed east. The bench overlooking the nearby pond was her favorite place to sit. That it was within earshot of the cabin was a comfort to Jasper.
Malachi had gone underground again, but he remained a threat underlying their daily lives. The closer Mercy stayed, the better.
Her red hair glinted in the sunlight. Strands of gold and copper sparkled as though metal was now growing from her head. He wouldn’t put it past her. The more she withdrew into her mind, the more Phoenix like she became.
“Hello there, darling. Have a sandwich.”
She took the offered plate, settling it in her lap without a glance. She always made it seem as though he was disturbing her, even as he eased his weight onto the groaning bench. Yet he saw a change in the way she was sitting today. Her spine was straighter. Surely that was a good sign.
When she did not respond, he lifted his sandwich and took a large bite. “I have a surprise for you today.”
“Do you?”
He heard the curiosity in her voice and grinned. “Maybe if you looked at me, that would be a good start.”
Slowly, Mercy turned her head to him. He loved these moments. Her eyes widened in shock and her hands immediately raised to brush over his cheeks.
“Your beard is gone,” she said in awe.
“It’s different. You’ve never seen me clean-shaven before.”
In the months they had been on the run, Jasper had rarely been given the luxury of having soap. After the fall of Haven, everyone was so frantic that cleanliness hadn’t been a priority. It was only in the past few weeks, here at his family home, that they had all settled into a regular routine again.
His long hair had been cut short, his face was bare, and his wings were out in the air. He could imagine how different he looked to her.
“You look wonderful,” she said. He watched her look down at hers
elf, measuring the old clothing of his mother’s, her own weight loss, and he saw the moment she found herself lacking.
Jasper tucked his finger under her chin and lifted it up. “So do you.”
“I’m still broken.”
“Yeah.” He brushed his thumb over her lips. “I’ll take you broken, whole, or in pieces any day.”
She smiled softly and tilted her head into his palm. “I’m trying very hard. But it’s like I’m missing bits or the places where they should go are gone.”
“You aren’t a puzzle. You’re a person.”
“There’s something missing though. I keep hearing a voice in my head.”
His lips twisted as he failed to hide a smile. “We all do.”
“This isn’t Ignes. It’s a woman, I think. I recognize her voice, but then when I think I know who it is, I lose the memory.”
He straightened. “Is it one of the Five?”
Mercy shook her head. “No. It’s a similar kind of power but not one of the Five. It doesn’t feel like them. There’s no overwhelming sense of strength, and she’s not urging me to complete some task or find information about you. She just wants to help me heal.”
That sounded familiar to Jasper as well. “Sounds like bells?”
“No, more like rustling leaves.”
Jasper recalled the mysterious white magic that had aided him in the square. Was the same entity contacting Mercy now? He considered telling her about it, but decided to let her have the voice to herself. If it was helping, he wouldn’t interfere.
“I wouldn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. Maybe you have a Guardian Angel.”
“Those aren’t real.” She nudged him with her shoulder. “But maybe.”
Only then did she eat. He watched her take delicate bites of the sandwich as her eyes glassed over.
This would change; he would continue helping her piece herself together, helping her learn to love herself. It was no insignificant task. For now, he could be content that she was eating.
“Mercy?” he asked.
She made a soft sound as she chewed. He remembered her eating with gusto back at the camp of creatures. He had been surprised by how much she could pack away. Now, that was a distant memory.
