The Lick of Fire Trilogy

by Bianca D’Arc

  In fact, Stone had been in touch with the Lords after Lance transitioned and had learned that his friend was the only known active surviving phoenix shifter in existence at the moment. The Lords of all Were tended to keep track of such things. At least, they tried to. A lot of their information was based on self-reporting, so it was possible there was another phoenix shifter out there somewhere that hadn’t phoned home, but such enormous power was hard to hide.

  In the weeks since Lance had transitioned, inquiries had come from all over. A human mage school had sent a representative to open negotiations for any feathers Lance might shed while in bird form. Apparently, such items had a potent magic of their own and could be used in spell work. Lance had sent the mage packing, even though the man had offered incredible amounts of money.

  Lance had been adamant. His magic would only be used for good and only by those he’d personally checked out. If he shed a feather or two, they were to be collected and preserved until Lance found someone he trusted. He’d almost violently declared that he wasn’t about to auction off parts of himself to the highest bidder. Stone respected that decision and had vowed to help his friend and the chosen Alpha of the Phoenix Clan—as they’d come to call themselves recently—protect the gifts of his animal form.

  Before Lance had transitioned, he’d felt drawn to the desert too. Or so he’d told Stone after the fact. During the crucial period, Lance had pretty much kept his problems to himself. When he’d run into Tina again, that had seemed to be the event that pushed him over the edge into finally realizing his other half.

  So, when Diana talked about the desert calling her, it was just one more piece of evidence in the case Stone was quickly building that pointed toward the likelihood that she was also a phoenix shifter on the verge of discovering her true self. Lance had been in touch with the Lords of all Were several times and had received visits from a priestess and her snowcat shifter mate who made their home in Las Vegas. Both had already been friendly with Tina, so their visit served more than one purpose.

  They’d revealed the strange events happening all over the magical world that pointed to a buildup of the forces of Light. There were rumors that the Destroyer of Worlds had returned to the mortal realm, and the theory went that the forces of Light were gathering in greater numbers and stronger representations specifically to prepare for the confrontation ahead.

  The priestess had offered up the idea that, if Lance’s power hadn’t been needed in this generation, it might very well have remained dormant for the rest of his human life. But something had sparked all kinds of happenings all over that made historians draw parallels to the last time the Destroyer had threatened the Light in this realm. There had been a buildup of power then, too. A half-dozen phoenixes had fought in that great war, using all their gifts to the best of their abilities.

  Since that time, many centuries ago, phoenix shifters appeared only rarely and never more than one or two at a time. Now, however, it could be possible that more than one might awaken. Stone would lay odds that Diana would be the next to transition. He wanted to help her come through it safely. To return to Earth and not burn up in pursuit of the sun, only to be reborn into a new incarnation. No. He wanted her to survive in this form. To be…with him.

  He didn’t fully understand the impulses driving him, but they were stronger than any he’d had before. She couldn’t fly to the sun to perish. Not his Diana. No, she belonged here. With him.

  “I like the desert too,” Stone admitted, trying to keep his tone casual. He didn’t want to let her in on the severity of his thoughts. Not yet. “It has a character all its own.”

  He directed her to the turnoff that would take her to his home. He lived on Pack lands, near the rest of his people but set apart a bit to give him some privacy. The Pack house was nearby, and he could walk there in a few minutes or run there in his wolf form in about sixty seconds. He was close enough to be there for his Pack, yet far enough away to have a little room to breathe.

  “We chose this place many years ago,” he went on, talking about the land over which she was driving. “It was kind of a coincidence when Lance opened his shop not too far away. I went down to check him out and ended up with a job. As his business grew, more of my Pack started working there. Not everybody is a mechanic, of course, but enough of our younger Packmates enjoy tinkering with engines that there’s always somebody interested in learning more through on-the-job training.”

  “So, your whole Pack lives around here too?” Diana asked, looking around at the desert vistas and the houses sprinkled here and there among the cactus.

  “These are Pack lands. We own them as a whole, and each member is entitled to a place here, though if they want a new house, they have to build it,” he replied.

  “It’s a communal set up? Sort of like an Indian tribe?”

  He could see she was grappling with a way to understand how they lived and shared their property. She’d understand in time. Especially if she turned out to be who he suspected she was.

  “Close, but not quite the same. Legally, because I’m Alpha of the Pack, I’m the owner of all this land. It’s taxed as ranch land with dwellings and outbuildings for extended family and employees, but that’s pretty far from the truth. We have barns we use as garages and workshops. We have a big Pack house where anyone can grab a meal or stay if they need temporary housing for whatever reason. We work together as a group for the good of the Pack.”

  “That sounds really nice,” she said, smiling gently. “I like the idea of everyone helping one another.”

  “A Pack is built, first and foremost, on love. We are all family, whether related by blood or chosen. We take care of each other. We also will fight to the death for each other, and we’re loyal—sometimes to a fault. That’s part of being what we are.” He would never have shared so much with a casual acquaintance, but the more he was around Diana, the more certain he became that she was someone very special indeed.

  “That’s really beautiful, and something I never really thought about. I mean, I knew shifters existed—at least, my grandmother claimed they did—but I hadn’t really thought about how the wild instincts and relationships of the animal spirit must translate to the human side.” Again, she favored him with an almost ethereal smile, as if she was charmed by the magic of what he was telling her.

  His inner wolf was pleased by her easy acceptance of his words and the way he lived. He felt a little smug as he directed her to the gravel drive that led to his house.

  “What was that big house we just passed?” she asked as she made the turn.

  “The Pack house. Combination mess hall, hotel, meeting place, you name it. We use it for just about everything we do as a group, and there’s someone there twenty-four-seven. If it’s not the grannies playing cards or cooking up a storm, it’s the youngest cubs playing together in daycare. And there’s always someone living there for whatever reason. We have parties there at night, or community activities, and the kitchen is open for three meals, plus late night snacks.”

  He couldn’t keep the pride out of his voice when he talked about his Pack and how well it functioned, but he figured he was entitled. He didn’t have a huge Pack, but it was well run and had all the advantages he could devise for a Pack its size. They were growing, too. They’d taken in new members through mating, but more than one good-hearted lone wolf had been lured into the fold in recent years. He counted each one of those a small victory. Wolves weren’t meant to be alone.

  “I always thought Oma was exaggerating when she talked about shifters,” Diana marveled, looking around at Stone’s domain. “But a lot of what she said makes sense seeing all this and hearing about the way you live. She claimed that you all worked for the good of the collective and that your families extended well beyond what humans considered close relatives.”

  “A lot of it depends on the kind of shifter you’re talking about, but what she said is pretty accurate,” Stone told her. “Especially for wolves. We’re long-lived
compared to humans, so we tend to interact most with those we know are as long-lived as we are. Otherwise, it just gets depressing.” He laughed to ease the truth of his words, but she gave him a sharp glance that said she understood what he was getting at.

  She drove the rest of the way up to his home in silence, and he was sorry he’d let slip one of the harsh truths about being a magical creature with centuries to live. He hadn’t meant to bring down the mood. Hopefully, eating whatever sweet treat Maximo had sent along would help restore her cheerfulness.

  Either that or he would have to kiss that worried look off her face. Hmm. Maybe a little of both. He wasn’t making any assumptions about what would happen in the next hour or so, but he certainly hoped it would end with them together…naked. In bed. Or anywhere the mood happened to strike. He was flexible that way.

  She parked her SUV in front of his house, and he jumped out and went around to help her out, even though it wasn’t strictly necessary. Good manners never went out of style—or so his granny had told him—and he just wanted to be as close to Diana as he could get. She didn’t seem to mind when he opened her door and helped her out from behind the wheel.

  He grabbed the bag with the desserts and led the way to the front door of his home. He’d tidied up a bit before leaving this morning, in hopes he’d be able to convince her to come back with him after lunch. He was glad he’d done so now. First impressions were also important—another teaching of Granny’s—and he didn’t want her to think he was a slob. Women didn’t like slobs, in his experience.

  He opened the door and ushered her into his home. He hadn’t had a human out here in a long time. He got the occasional visit from building inspectors when the Pack wanted to add on to his ranch, but he didn’t usually entertain non-magic folk in his home.

  Chapter Eleven

  Diana’s first impression of Stone’s home was that it was a lot of space for one man. The house was built in a ranch style, with a great deal of genuine southwestern flair. Adobe, dark wood, tile. Cool surfaces under the hot sun. A single floor that spread out in all directions from the front door.

  He ushered her inside and led the way through the enormous front room toward the back of the house. They stopped momentarily in a large—almost commercial-looking—kitchen, where Stone paused to open the bag from the restaurant. He found a tray in one of his cupboards and set out the boxes on it. There was also a bottle of wine in the bag, which Diana had not realized. Stone fetched two crystal glasses from another cabinet and asked if she didn’t mind bringing the tray as he led them into another room with floor-to-ceiling windows that was both cool and inviting.

  The entire house was kept much cooler than the outside temperature. Comfortable for a human and, she supposed, a werewolf, as well. There was a small table and two chairs in one corner of the room. They were at the rear of the house, overlooking what had to be miles and miles of open land.

  “Is all this land yours?” she asked as she set the tray on the table and just looked out on the inviting vista for a moment.

  “It’s the Pack’s,” he reminded her. “I’m just the caretaker. I hold it as protector for the rest of my Pack.”

  “That’s kind of a beautiful system,” she said. “As long as the Alpha is a good guy.”

  He smiled as she sat in one of the comfy-looking chairs at the table. “A bad Alpha is soon replaced. Although, I will admit, sometimes it takes a while before that happens. Still, any dominant can challenge an Alpha. It’s a mark of respect if an Alpha goes unchallenged for a length of time. It means his people are happy with him, and the Pack is stable. Alpha challenges happen a lot more often in unstable situations, and it can take a while to sort itself out.”

  “That sounds rough,” she commented, trying to imagine what might constitute an unstable situation within the confines of the werewolf Pack.

  “It can be. But that’s also why we have a higher authority. Any Tribe, Pack or Clan can seek help from the Lords of the Were. They can step in and sort things out if things get really bad.”

  “I remember my grandmother mentioning Lords of some kind a long time ago, but she didn’t have a lot of information.” She smiled as he poured wine for them both then set about opening the containers holding two different kinds of cake.

  “Keeping our secret is really important. Sure, other magical folk know we exist and we know they exist, but we don’t go around talking about it to non-magic people. We all know the shitstorm that would rain down on us if humans knew we were living next door. I don’t think the neighbors would take kindly to a werewolf Pack roaming nearby, do you?” She grimaced, and he went on. “The Lords are special, and we don’t talk about them to just anybody. That your granny had even heard vaguely about them is interesting. We protect their secrets above all others because they have the good of all shifters at their core.”

  “I keep wondering why you’re so freely telling me all this. I mean, I have no magic of my own.” She sipped her wine and accepted the serving of cake he offered.

  “That’s just it. You do have magic. It’s just…unfulfilled.” His eyes squinted as if he was trying to figure out how to explain his thoughts. “I sense it all around you, and it feels really familiar, but I think it’s waiting for something in order to come out.”

  She paused with a bite of cake on her fork. “You think it’s going to manifest?”

  Holy crap! He thought she was going to come into the magic that was part of her genetic heritage? She’d given up on ever having magic of her own, but maybe…just maybe…she’d been wrong. Maybe she was a late bloomer.

  No. Couldn’t be.

  Could it?

  Emotions rocketed back and forth in her mind. Having magic had been one of her deepest desires since she was a child. Stone made her hope again. But she worried that getting her hopes up would only lead to disappointment. Again.

  “Being around you feels a lot like it did being around a friend of mine before his magic came out in a big way. There’s a feeling of expectation. It sort of rubs against my fur and tingles when I’m around you,” he explained. “Do you know if there’s any shifter blood in your heritage?” he asked. He’d asked once before, but she hadn’t known what to say. Maybe the time had come to reveal more of what she knew.

  She shook her head. “Just some fanciful stories from way back. Oma always said some of our distant ancestors liked to exaggerate. We have diaries and journals going back almost a thousand years in the family archive.”

  Maybe she shouldn’t have told him about the books. That was supposed to be a secret, of course, but he was trusting her with things he probably shouldn’t have told her. And anyway, the archive was safely tucked away somewhere nobody would ever find it who didn’t know where to look.

  “Let me guess.” Stone sent her a playful look. “Somebody way back when claimed to be a phoenix?”

  “Is that the same as a firebird?” she asked, puzzled.

  His grin grew wider. “I knew it.”

  “Wait a minute. Are you telling me that firebirds really do exist? You have a friend who is one?” She could hardly believe what his words implied. She’d thought it was all just colorful myth passed down through the centuries.

  “I know of one,” he told her, his expression now a tad guarded, even if he still looked more than a little triumphant. “And you feel just like he did before he changed for the first time.”

  She sat back in the chair, totally flummoxed. “I can’t believe this.”

  “You probably should. I suspect your inner phoenix is just waiting for a nudge in the right direction, and when it flies for the first time, you’re going to need to remember there are people down here who need you. The temptation to fly to the sun will be very strong. You mustn’t follow it. If you don’t come back, you’ll die and be reborn and have to start all over again, with a new life in a future time.”

  “Seriously?” She just looked at him. It was all a bit much to take in.

  “That’s what I’ve been
told by people who have reason to know.”

  “Well, I would never leave Oma. She needs me, and I love her.”

  Diana thought about the call of the sun and the temptation of the heat of the desert. Would Oma’s love be enough, though? Would that be sufficient to call her back from the warmth and Light? She hated that she wasn’t sure.

  “That’s good,” Stone told her, though his own expression said he wasn’t altogether convinced that would be enough either.

  “Oma let me read all about the gifts of the firebird when I was little, but I’m not sure I remember it all. There was something about her being able to see evil and burn it without burning anything else,” she told him, trying to drag up those old memories of something she’d thought had just been a fantastical story.

  “I’ve seen that first-hand. My phoenix friend can shoot flames that only burn evil. It’s pretty amazing to behold.”

  She read complete honesty and a bit of admiration in Stone’s gaze. He wasn’t kidding. The fairytales she’d read about as a child were real. Oma would be tickled when Diana told her, but she wanted more information first. Especially since Stone thought Diana was going to grow wings and fly to the sun anytime now. Oh, dear. She just didn’t see how that was going to work.

  “The firebird who wrote our family chronicle lived for over five hundred years and probably would have lived a lot longer, but she was part of the forces of Light that fought against a great evil called the Destroyer of Worlds. Still, she claimed that her magic affected those around her, and everyone she loved lived longer than they probably should have, as well. She thought maybe the firebird herself was immortal, but that she could be killed. Her daughter wrote in a later entry that her mother had, indeed, been killed in battle with the servants of darkness.” The memories of reading that ancient tome were coming back faster, now that she was talking about it. “So, the first two gifts of the firebird were being able to see and flame evil and being close to immortal. Then, there was the clairvoyance.”