Yet her feet were battered and bruised and her toenails were in a shocking state. She looked as if she had been walking across broken glass. She was also flat-out exhausted. Yet her heart beat steadily and her breathing was even. Whatever ordeal she had passed through, however potent her adversary, she had eventually emerged victorious.
She had been through a lot to get that egg he had refused so lightly. Her battered feet were proof of what her venture had cost her.
There was a puzzle here. Although shifting was a huge energy drain if one went back and forth too often in too short a space of time, taking bear was a potent energizer. Witness his own recovery.
Being in bear had largely healed him. Even his knee moved better. Of course, he had played while he was in bear. Swimming and running followed by eating and sleeping had proven a net energy gain.
And then he had slept for hours, before he shifted back into human and more sleep. No wonder he felt that familiar sense of fizzing restlessness driving him toward activity. His dad had guided him through his adolescence and duly warned him against shifting back and forth in a short span.
Of course, being know-it-all kids, he and his buddies had had to learn the hard way. They had spent many an afternoon in competitive shifting. Winner being the idiot who performed the most full-shifts in an hour. The game had shown them conclusively how exhausting that could be. And how it could cause system failure.
He remembered a coyote that had had to stay home from school for three days because he got stuck halfway between coyote and boy. Coy-Boy they had called him forever after. Cam had merely exhausted himself and returned home to deeply unsympathetic parents and a long list of chores to slog through despite his fatigue. That had taught him several valuable lessons.
Last summer, Frankie had explained that phoenixes had to pass through their human forms in order to change size. That gave him no clue to her activities in New Mexico. Except that it only made sense that she would have traveled in her larger morph for speed. Perhaps she had been forced to switch back and forth after her regeneration, and had worn herself out.
But she was safe in his arms now, he would allow no harm to come to his mate.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
Cameron~
For the first time in months he wasn’t sleepy – or bone-deep weary. He felt ready to take on the world. Almost back to normal. If it wasn’t for a sullen, persistent niggling warning of impending doom, he would feel perfectly contented lying here with his fated mate in his arms.
But he had felt this psychic alert before. Many times. Just before he was attacked from the rear. Just prior to mortar fire. Just before the gray desert sprang to life revealing a nest of guerrillas. His intuition had seldom been wrong. He might be suffering from PTSD, but even excessive anxiety sometimes had a real cause. Like they said, even paranoiacs have enemies.
Playing against this warning of danger, was the low-level arousal he always felt around Frankie. Her strong and vital body felt good against his chest. Better than good. Her remembered scent seemed somehow improved. Subtly altered. More exotic. More enticing. More fragrant.
The delicate perfume of incense enhanced her natural female aroma, as if she now exuded sandalwood, myrrh and frankincense, as well as the usual female hormones. As if he was now aware of her deepest phoenix nature. As if her scent had been created especially to lure him.
Of course, he was always randy around his mate. That was natural. So was the deeply rooted protectiveness and concern he felt for her. But holding her like this, it almost seemed as if she was now part of his flesh. As if he was experiencing the painful soreness of her feet and the utter weariness of her flight muscles. Even though she was sound asleep he felt as if they now shared a body.
Weird and weirder. Or natural and more natural? Because while this felt novel, it did not feel peculiar. Or crazy.
As if they really were sharing their thoughts, she turned in his arms and began kissing his throat, nuzzling and licking. He loosened his arms so she could slip on top of his body. Her rock-hard nipples pressed into his mat of fur and she moaned low as she rubbed the sensitive tips against his body hair. Her lips began a delicate suction in the hollow beneath his Adam’s apple.
Psychic energy rippled in the air. He could feel it with his normal and his paranormal senses, as if their energies were synchronizing. The resonance affected every cell in his body. “You’re going to have sore lips,” he warned. “I need a shave.”
If his phoenix had been capable of so frivolous a noise, he would have said she giggled. Her lips lifted. She blew where she had sucked. Electricity ran from that spot straight to his cock. She massaged its stiff length with her muff. The scent of spices and woman deepened.
“Do that again,” he begged.
“This.” She blew on the damp patch she had made below his Adam’s apple. His rock-hard cock got even harder.
“Don’t tease.” He cupped her supple backside and massaged his aching dick with her sex.
She chuckled and scooted up his body so that her bush tickled his six-pack. She did a little push up from his shoulders and lowered herself to find his lips. Her tongue traced the outside edge and then probed the seam. Her fingers pressed the hot egg into his navel before she covered it with her body.
Fire licked his belly button and spread in arousing waves. She jiggled about and aligned herself so they both cradled the lava with their navels. The sense of intimate connection deepened. Strengthened. As if they were now bound by chains forged of some paranormal super-metal. Unbreakable. Eternal. Sacred bonds.
Wherever their skin touched he felt a jolt as if energy passed between them. If he had thought he was aroused before, the intoxicating sensation was now almost unbearable. He bucked beneath her and fought to kiss her properly.
“You’re too impatient.” She pressed a soft and fleeting kiss on his half-open mouth. Moved to the sensitive corners and ran her fingers along his jawline as if assuring herself of its size and shape.
“Aren’t you ready?” He was about to explode. Their bodies were enveloped in a force field of pulsating energy. Two souls breathing the same breath, buzzing to the same frequency. He needed to be inside her. Now.
“Not hardly. What’s your hurry?” Her sultry tones made him even hungrier.
He groaned. It was payback time. He was about to suffer as he had made her suffer. Bring it on, Phoenix.
She ran those exploring fingertips down the side of his neck, plucking at the tendons and stroking the damp skin. As if she were the wires attached to his battery, he felt her touch as another shock to both his heart and cock. As if her sensual caresses were vibrating him emotionally too. As if their feelings were one feeling.
“Of course they are,” she whispered in his ear just before she pulled the earlobe into her mouth and swirled it around as if it were an all-day sucker.
“Are you reading my mind?” But her kiss robbed his words of indignation.
Her laughter vibrated the small fleshy treat she was suckling. That too was delicious torture. She put her lips to his ear, licked the hollow and whispered. “I can smell your frustration, Bear Boy. Taste your love. That’s how this works.”
Bingo. The smell of incense, was the smell of Frankie in a heightened state of arousal.
“Love. It’s the smell of love. I love you, you boneheaded bear.”
“I love you, Frankie,” he assured her. “But I don’t seem to be as good as you at this telepathic business.”
She stiffened slightly. He felt her sorrow. She pressed a shade harder on the egg. But her voice was light when she replied. “Naturally not,” she said in mock sorrow. “You’re poisoned by testosterone.”
“You’re one to talk. If you don’t have the magic T in spades, I’m a monkey’s uncle!” All women secreted some. But Frankie’s daredevil personality was stoked by hormones he could taste and smell. Not that he was complaining.
“Mine is mellowed with estrogen, Bear Boy.” She stroked his biceps. Squeezed
their bulges. Cooed appreciatively. Ground her sex into the thick ridges of his belly. Returned to his lips for more soft kisses. This time she let him join the fun.
He took her mouth as tenderly as he could. Restraint made his entire body granite hard as he fought the urge to roll her beneath him and ride hard and fast to completion. Her tongue glided along the length of his, taunting and exploring. Then she began to suckle on his tongue.
You can be on top, if you like, Lover.
The fiery shock waves were still moving outward from their conjoined navels. The pulsing heat wrapped them tightly together and shut out the world. But he wasn’t sure that that suggestion came from her. Frankie gave his tongue a last suck and lifted her lips from his.
“Want to be on top?” she asked aloud.
“Only if that’s how you want it.”
“I want it to last all night.”
“I’m not sure I’m up to Tantric sex this evening,” he admitted.
He reached between them, she rose up a little. The connection between them softened. Together they fitted him to her passage. She stretched back out and laid her palms on top of his. Their navels were no longer perfectly aligned. His belly button still tingled with burning pleasure, but the envelope of psychic power was stretched thin. Weakened.
She pressed her palms down onto his and their energies merged once more. The bubble around them thickened. He could feel her sensitized vagina pulsing with rapture at being full of his dick, just as much as he could feel his cock’s delight at being gripped by her snug passage. Double the pleasure. Sensual overload.
From this position he could not thrust as hard, but it didn’t seem to matter. His phoenix’s skin was now as damp as his. Their mingled scents fused into a single heady and exciting perfume. Frankie was singing. Perhaps she had been singing all along. Her song wove sensual bonds of unfurling energy about them. She pressed down to his upward thrust.
“Now,” she sang.
The most wonderful, shimmering pulse united them in a shared orgasm so intense his whole body seemed to extend upwards and out. Their bodies seemed to fly. Together. They were enjoying each other’s climax physically, emotionally, psychically. Like one person they slipped together into dreamless sleep.
A toxic cloud of brimstone and hell-deep growls pulled him awake. At first, he thought he was sharing Frankie’s nightmare. But that sulfuric smell and rumbling threat were all too real.
Cam wrapped his body around Warrior Woman’s and rolled off the far side of the bed still holding her. They landed together on the floor. He kept rolling until Frankie’s back was pressed hard against the far wall and his body was shielding hers.
A meteorite crashed through the blinds and curtains. The flapping rags burst into flames. Brimstone billowed. Cam gagged on the stench and fumes. Shift and damn. Of all the times to shift willy-nilly. This was no time to lose communication. If ever he had needed his power of speech, he needed it now.
The bed splintered beneath the intruder. Mattress and timber began to smolder. More smoke boiled into the room. That bedframe had been constructed out of solid oak beams in the Craftsman style. A substantial, heavy piece of furniture reduced to kindling by the impact of their attacker.
The fires lit by the flaming paranormal being calmed and went out. Somehow he knew that was Frankie’s doing. But the extinguished fires still filled the room with choking smoke and fumes. His bear coughed and sneezed. He stared in horror at the attacker looming out of the smog.
The mammoth three-headed, blazing intruder burned with scarlet and indigo fires. But where phoenixes were dazzling rainbows of paranormal color, this fetid, carrion-scented beast gave off light from the darkest edges of the paranormal spectrum. Its flaming hide smoldered and burned, but the red and blue was blotched with patches of rotting black flesh.
The great beast bayed a daunting challenge from the ruins of the bed. Teeth like daggers threatened death. Dark slobber dripped from all three snarling mouths. The blackened sheets hissed and dissolved. The three heads twisted around on elongating stalks like so many writhing vines. Jaws snapping, the heads extended menacingly towards Cam and his precious woman.
Smoke and flames surrounded the monster, lapping lovingly at its massive paws and caressing its shaggy legs. It appeared to thrive on the fire. Its claws dug into the bedding as it prepared to leap. Cam steeled himself to meet three death-dealing jaws bigger than his head.
Frankie’s fingers put the egg to his muzzle. “Eat this or you’re going to be roast bear.”
He believed her. Swallowed the living fire. It burned like a son of a bitch going down. If this was only a four or five on a scale of ten, with ten being childbirth, women sure had it way rough. Frankie tossed him aside like crumpled paper and leaped to one side as he fluttered up to the ceiling.
Fluttered? Up? Shift, he was tiny. At least in comparison to his huge mate and this hyena-from-hell. He had no idea what Frankie intended. But they had been trained in the same hard school by the same tough-minded strategists. He could go into battle with Warrior Woman, even if he was a fraction of her size. Bring it on, D’Angelo.
Easy, Bear Boy. We’re going to outflank the bitch. Wait for my signal.
They separated. Frankie still on the ground, her huge body crouched, her blazing wings tightly folded. Gold eyes glittering dangerously. Her open beak challenged their foe. Cam flew from corner to corner, dodging the Slobbering Red. The Red seemed befuddled by their maneuvers, or perhaps at having both a huge and small phoenix with which to cope.
Cerberus.
Oh, right. The watchdog of Hades. I thought Cerberus was just a myth.
Just like phoenixes and shapeshifters.
George Washington.
Say that twice.
The Cerberus was roaring but had not yet attacked. It was still confused by Cam’s furious flitting.
Damn, flying is hard.
You’ll get used to it.
Now he could see ‘bitch’ was no metaphor. This beast had the huge, swinging dugs of a female dog that had whelped lots of litters. Two of her three heads tracked him, red eyes glowing hatred. The third head focused on Frankie. That snakelike neck stretched ominously towards his mate.
Look at her eyes. She’s about to attack.
The smoldering bed roared into flames. Cam couldn’t tell if the bonfire had been set off by Frankie or the Cerberus. But the beast did not care about the raging fire. It continued to pursue Frankie.
But Warrior Woman sprang forward and spread her gigantic wings, covering both the burning bed and the Cerberus’ three heads. The bitch bellowed defiance from all three mouths. Beneath Frankie’s wings, her slobber dripped onto the ashes. Suffocating black smoke rose in great columns.
Cam’s lungs convulsed. He coughed. His wings ceased to obey him. He was going into freefall.
Touch her with a feather. Frankie’s bracing command rang loud and clear.
Seems like a good way to die. But he was falling anyway. He launched himself unhesitatingly into the blinding, choking smog, aiming for the center of the stinking cloud.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
Cameron~
Tail feathers. Use your tail feathers
Oh. Right.
He grazed the great rotting backbone of the Cerberus with his forked tail feathers. The beast flinched as if he had sprayed her with acid. Black spread through the patchwork of scarlet fire on her hide. The scent of rotting flesh grew denser. She spun in frantic circles, yowling in pain and fury as her flames were extinguished.
Frankie immediately seized the nape of the mighty neck at the juncture where it split into three. Blood spurted in a grisly fountain as Warrior Woman’s enormous beak bit deep. The three heads roared one final threat. Plaster fell from the ceiling, shaken loose by the shock wave of sound. Frankie’s dual scimitars closed. She and her enemy danced in a lethal embrace.
Yet one of the enormous heads was held clear of the engulfing fire and Frankie’s spread wings. It writhed above the
phoenix. The bitch lunged, chomped. Pulled back with a mouthful of flesh and feathers.
But Frankie hung on to her foe, wrenching her head back and forth until the Cerberus’ spine finally snapped. The Hellhound went limp. All three heads stilled. The Cerberus was dead. But his Frankie was mortally wounded.
Blood flowed from the gouge on his mate’s back and her movements faltered. Her feathers sizzled where the slobber had wet them. Her heartbeat was sluggish and her brilliant eyes drooped. He was going to lose her.
You’re going to die.
Fire. Hurry.
What?
Take Fire.
Frankie used her last strength to leap back onto her fallen enemy. Her talons sank deep into the smoking flesh. And then the two were one. Both part of the same intense conflagration. The bonfire rapidly dwindled into a smoldering heap. Gradually that turned from red, to yellow, to blue, to white, as it grew ever hotter and diminished.
Frankie was now part of the Cerberus. She was in control of the fire. And it controlled her. Astoundingly, she was enjoying this ferocious burning, which he was sharing. While his skin shriveled in the heat and agony clouded his mind, she reveled in the flames. Exulted in this fiery death.
Talk about your burning at the stake.
Take fire too. Hurry.
If only I knew how.
Will it.
It finally penetrated his pain-clouded brain that Frankie was about to turn to ash. To perish in the white-hot blaze she had initiated. That she lacked the strength and will to regenerate. She needed him. And as instinctively as he had learned to take bear, he knew how to control her fire to turn it from pyre to womb.
He joined her in the flames. Wrapped his fiery arms around her and clung. Ignored the urgent summons to experience the solace of death and the comfort of eternity as nothing but spirit. Drew on his last strength and pulled her out. Became a phoenix. As did his mate. He and Frankie tangled in the inadequate space of the guest bedroom, breathing hard.
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