Phoenix Blood (Old School Book 1)

by Jenny Schwartz

  Sadie took reassurance from the phoenix’s confidence. Karma trusted that Marcus wouldn’t hurt her. Sadie ought to do the same. Her hands shook. “May I touch you?”

  The griffin lowered its belly to the grass.

  Ever so hesitantly, Sadie touched the sharp beak with her fingertips.

  The griffin was the size of a horse and its beak in proportion. The thing could gut a human.

  She touched the feathers on its head and neck as a great fiery eye watched her.

  The feathers were soft, becoming stiffer as she reached the flight feathers on the wings. They were all shades of brown, gleaming bronze in the sunlight. The tawny lion fur was softer—and warm.

  She stroked the soft fur. She could feel the ribs beneath. The griffin was as lean as Marcus.

  Reality shivered and she was touching empty air.

  She looked down.

  Marcus was naked and on his belly, human again.

  “Dear God.” She dropped to her knees, her hands shaking more than ever. “Your back.” She touched the raised scars that striped his back and the angry red marks of old burns.

  “I fought in the Arena and elsewhere.” He pushed up from the ground, shoulder muscles flexing.

  He was striding for the truck before she could get her thoughts together. Her emotions would take even longer to stabilize. He dressed on the far side of the truck.

  She stared at her hands. Her fingertips held the memory of the feel of his scars. They had been deep and painful; awful enough that she knew this wasn’t the first time he’d faced death.

  But the blood burning in his veins…she scrambled up and ran to the truck, ignoring the wet yuckiness of her jeans and splashed t-shirt. “Marcus, is the feeling of the blood burning in your veins gone? Maybe it never meant death, but foreshadowed your transformation into a griffin?”

  He pulled down his t-shirt and walked barefoot around the truck to her.

  She blushed, suddenly overwhelmingly aware of him. She’d seen him naked. She’d touched him.

  “My blood isn’t burning.”

  “That’s great!” She searched his face, heart dipping at the frown creased between his eyebrows. “Isn’t it?”

  “My transformation into a griffin used a lot of magic. It’ll be interesting to see how long it takes to build up again.”

  “To build up again? Oh. You think this is like a remission, not a cure.”

  He shook his head, turning a bit away from her. He watched Karma tracking something through the grass. “I think it’s another symptom.”

  “Or the sign of a cure.” She wanted him to be optimistic. “You can beat this, Marcus. When the magic builds up in your blood, you can transform to use it up.”

  He looked at her then. “Spontaneous transformation into a griffin isn’t a good sign. Human bodies aren’t designed to withstand the heavy level of magic that transformation requires. One way or another, either transforming or not transforming, the magic in my blood will kill me. And what happens if I transform into a griffin somewhere less safe than here?”

  “I’ll be with you,” she said earnestly. “When you feel the burn in your blood heating—”

  He slashed a hand through the air, cutting short her attempt at reassurance.

  She shivered internally at his bleakness.

  “You’re cold and wet,” he said. “You should change.” He walked away from the truck, giving her privacy but also preventing further conversation.

  For now, she thought determinedly. There had to be a way to save him. She dressed in a blue t-shirt and jeans, and stowed her wet clothes in a plastic bag.

  By the creek, Karma perched on Marcus’s bare foot. The bird’s trust in him was well-founded. He would die to save her, to free her.

  How much did the phoenix understand of the situation? Sadie hitched herself up to sit on the hood of the truck. The warmth of the metal felt good after her wet and clammy jeans.

  Marcus glanced back, saw her there, and returned with Karma flying ahead of him.

  “How did you change back from a griffin?”

  “I thought about being human and my body flowed into that form.”

  “So you can control your transformation! It needn’t be spontaneous.”

  His smiled faintly, ruefully. “You’re determined on hope, aren’t you?”

  “One of us has to be.”

  The faint humor in his eyes vanished, replaced with a passionate, haunted expression. “Sadie, don’t start caring about me. The selfish part of me wants you to. I want to snatch at happiness. I want to kiss you, seduce you, lose myself in you.”

  The emotion powering his words pierced her. She jumped down from the truck.

  He caught her outstretched hands, holding her off. “We’re not a good idea.”

  “And if I think we are?”

  He released her hands and stepped back fast. “I vowed I’d keep you safe, and I will. Even from me.”

  Marcus drove for the next hour. Despite the fear that had flooded him during his spontaneous transformation into a griffin and the torture of having to rebuff Sadie—for her own good—physically, he felt better than he had in over a week. His blood didn’t burn.

  People didn’t value good health as they ought to.

  It would be too much to say that Sadie’s optimism had infected him, but relief from the grim endurance that pain demanded was freeing. Only when she joined in with a song playing on the radio did he realize he was singing.

  It was an old song, back from when he’d been at med school. He and Sadie had made out with it playing in the background.

  He’d believed he could have everything then: her love, a rewarding life as a doctor, kids, Moose the dog, a life of happiness and fulfilment.

  It was sad that driving to his death, he was the happiest he’d been in nine years. It was the first time he’d been happy in nine years.

  He grinned as Sadie sung out of tune. Maybe she was right—not that he could cheat the addiction in his blood, but about being optimistic. He couldn’t stretch as far as optimism. He knew from his research and his grandfather’s journal that raw phoenix blood was a death sentence. But he could be happy, now. With Sadie.

  The burner phone in the glovebox shrilled.

  “You answer it,” he said to her. “It’ll be your friend. Only Dad has the number.” And that only because his dad had seemed so alone when Marcus had left him to handle the Senator’s funeral arrangements.

  Marcus had left a letter, one that had taken hours to write, which his lawyer would give to Paul Aurelius on news of Marcus’s death. Marcus expected it would be the only additional communication he and his dad would have. There was too much guilt, pain and anger between them. The Senator had seen to that. The old bastard had corrupted their relationship. He had—

  “Marcus?” Sadie’s hesitant voice interrupted his angry thoughts. “It’s your dad.”

  “Put it on speaker.”

  “Mr. Aurelius, Marcus is driving and—”

  Paul Aurelius was always polite, courteous to a fault. Not this time. “I heard. Tell him to pull over.”

  Marcus didn’t see the need. Whatever Paul had discovered about the Senator’s activities, it wouldn’t surprise Marcus. There were no depths he wouldn’t believe old Chester Aurelius had explored. But Sadie wasn’t so shockproof. For her sake, Marcus indicated and pulled into the emergency lane. The truck rolled to a stop and he took the phone. It wasn’t on speaker, but in the cabin, Sadie would still hear the conversation. “Dad.”

  “I have someone who wants to talk to you, son.” His dad’s voice was rough and uneven.

  There was the faint sounds of a phone being transferred, sounds quieter than the traffic roaring past the truck. Then, “Marcus?”

  His blood, which had run hot for nine years from his phoenix blood addiction, went cold. Combat-ready tension flooded his body as his survival instincts kicked in, shutting down his emotions.

  The voice on the phone wasn’t possible. There was n
o such thing as ghosts.

  “Marcus, it’s Mom.”

  Sadie caught the phone as Marcus threw it.

  Karma hopped up from roosting on the back seat to sit on the cup holder. The bird swayed as Marcus accelerated violently, cutting into the stream of traffic.

  “Um, Mrs. Aurelius.” Sadie didn’t know what to say. I thought you were dead? “Can Marcus call you back?”

  “I don’t think this is a conversation to be had over the phone.” Mrs. Aurelius had a Chicago accent. “I’d like to meet Marcus. There are some,” for the first time, her voice hitched. “Explanations he needs to hear.”

  “No,” Marcus said distinctly.

  Paul Aurelius rejoined the conversation. “We can fly to meet Marcus, wherever he is.”

  Sadie glanced at Marcus.

  His profile was severe, bitterly emotionless.

  Rage welled up in her. Marcus was dying. She wanted to save him, but she wasn’t sure she could. His need to protect Karma and any other phoenixes from what Karma’s mother had suffered meant Sadie couldn’t ask her Old School network for help. She couldn’t confide the truth in them, and on her own she had so little power. But this was cruelty, for Marcus’s mother to fake her death, only to re-emerge now.

  …when the Senator was finally dead.

  Had Mrs. Aurelius hidden from her father-in-law? Had Marcus’s dad known? Oh dear heaven. Marcus would feel doubly betrayed if his dad had conspired to convince him as well as the Senator that Mrs. Aurelius was dead.

  If his mom had run from the Senator, why hadn’t she taken Marcus with her? He’d told Sadie he’d been eight when his mom died. It had been something they’d had in common. Sadie’s mom had died when Sadie was nine. Her dad had remarried within a year.

  The emotional pain Marcus had to be feeling might flare up the fire in his blood, leading to yet more pain. Would explanations—excuses—help or hurt him?

  What should she do?

  He reached across and took the phone from her. “Meet me in Oklahoma City, tonight. Book the Thirteenth Suite at the hotel. If they won’t take your booking, use my name. We’ll meet you there.”

  Sadie exhaled silently. We. She would go with him! As awful as the situation was, she was glad he thought of them as a partnership. She was proud that he thought he could count on her.

  He ended the call without a good-bye and dropped the phone into the cup holder.

  Karma pecked it with a sharp plasticky tap.

  “The Thirteenth Suite is used by mages for meetings and other activities. It’s strongly warded and has a number of rooms. You’ll be safe there,” he said.

  So much for thinking he needs me. She folded her arms. He just wanted to keep her safe. But I’ll still be there for him.

  Marcus exceeded the speed limit for the hours he drove.

  Sadie tried to stay within it, but her own emotional turmoil sometimes gave her a lead foot. They reached Oklahoma City late afternoon. She was driving.

  He directed her to the river. “I need to cool off.” He stripped and dived in.

  She expected Karma to fly off, but the bird perched on the back of the truck near where Sadie leaned. It nibbled on the sleeve of her t-shirt. No, tugged. Sadie considered the bird. “Is there some way I can help him?”

  They both knew who “him” was.

  Marcus swam powerfully up the river. No one appeared to notice him. Children ran and played, dogs barked, someone bounced a basketball with a rhythmic thud-thud-thud.

  Karma crooned. It was a sad sound.

  “Yeah.” Sadie sighed and stroked the bird’s softly feathered back. “There ought to be a limit to how much one man suffers.”

  Marcus emerged from the river. Water streamed down his body and from the black boxers that, being wet, molded to his lean body.

  She could have looked away, but if there’d ever been a time for shyness or games, it had long gone. She watched him walk to her—to the truck—and stepped into his path. She put a hand on his chest, over his heart.

  His chest was scarred, although not quite as horrifically as his back.

  “Is your blood burning?” she asked quietly. “Do you need to transform?”

  “I’m fine.” He looked down at her hand on his chest. His mouth twisted and instantly compressed into a thin line of control.

  Her own self-control shredded. She sobbed once and hugged him.

  His arms closed around her.

  River water soaked her clothes. She pressed closer.

  “Sadie. My heart.” He kissed her ear, her cheek, the corner of her mouth.

  She angled her head and their mouths met properly. She drank him in. She teased till he plunged his tongue into her mouth. Yes. Yes, she wanted to be filled with him.

  He leaned back against the truck and brought her into the V of his legs.

  That felt good, right—and so frustrating. He was nearly naked and she was completely dressed. And they were in a public space.

  Marcus seemed to realize it, too. He tore his mouth from hers and pressed her face against his throat. His hand stroking her hair, shook.

  She felt him swallow, then shudder as she kissed him.

  He groaned. Carefully, he pushed her away from him. “I’m burning up. I have to transform. If I can.”

  It confirmed her suspicion that emotion intensified the magic in him. She refused to believe that he was right and that the fever of his addiction was reaching its critical point.

  He transformed into the glorious griffin.

  On impulse, she flung herself forward and hugged his feathered neck. They stood there for minutes till she felt calmer and thought that he did, too.

  He retreated a few steps, shifted back to human and pulled on his clothes, going commando since his boxers had combusted in the transformation. Then he drove them to the hotel and their meeting with his parents.

  Chapter 8

  The Thirteenth Suite was actually the entire thirteenth floor. It was large, luxurious and curiously soulless. It was a meeting space that faked being a home. Sadie could see why Marcus had chosen it. As a place for a family reunion, it sucked emotion out of the air leaving the atmosphere aridly business-like.

  Karma was with them. Marcus had tried to leave her in the warded truck, but the phoenix wasn’t having any of it. She’d kicked up a fuss of squawking and wing-flapping and even gnashed her small beak. In the end, they compromised and Karma rode in on Sadie’s shoulder.

  “Dad doesn’t know there was a second phoenix. This way he’ll think she’s simply your bird.”

  Karma preened and rippled her tail feathers as Marcus accepted a passkey to the suite.

  The concierge had narrowed his eyes disapprovingly at the sight of Karma, but mention of the Thirteenth Suite silenced any comment. Which meant that whoever generally booked it, they were powerful.

  At the thirteenth floor, Sadie exited the elevator and had half a minute to study the cream and rose-veined marble floor and the expensive Neo-Realist painting hanging above a hall table, before she heard footsteps.

  One set of footsteps.

  They sounded male.

  Marcus moved fractionally in front of her, instinctively protective.

  Peeping around his shoulder, she recognized Paul Aurelius from a couple of meetings nine years ago. The man’s hair was grayer, but otherwise he seemed younger. Alive. Free. Hopeful.

  The contrast to how cruelly bound Marcus remained cut at her. Paul might have been able to shake off the effects of the Senator’s actions with the man’s death, but Marcus remained haunted.

  Karma stroked her beak gently against Sadie’s cheek. Perhaps it was sympathy. Perhaps it was a reminder to exercise her own self-control. This was Marcus’s decision: to meet his mom and hear from her why she’d deserted him.

  Sadie reached for his hand. Screw letting him make all the decisions, including how his parents perceived his and her relationship. She wasn’t going to let him stand alone. Not again. Not ever.

  His fingers
closed firmly around hers.

  She moved to stand shoulder to shoulder with him in the foyer.

  “Dad. You remember Sadie Howard?”

  “Sadie.” No recognition flickered in Paul’s eyes. Unlike his son’s dark brown eyes, Paul’s were a pale blue. “There is a lovely sitting room through to your right. You can order room service…something for your bird.”

  “Sadie stays with me,” Marcus said firmly. “Where’s Mom?”

  “Winona’s waiting for you in the living room. Be kind, Marcus. She’s nervous.”

  She’s nervous! Sadie opened her mouth to comment.

  Karma dug her claws into Sadie’s shoulder.

  It was tough, but Sadie held in her comment although she was angry. Why did Marcus always have to be the strong one? Why shouldn’t he be angry that his parents had failed him and left him at the mercy of the monster who had been his grandfather? Instead, he was told to repress his emotions, to carry all the burden himself.

  She walked beside him, after his dad, into a grand living space with large leather sofas the tawny color of which reminded her of the griffin, expansive artwork on the walls, marble statues and a bar in the corner. Drapes the same shade as the sofas framed floor length windows.

  The ordinary woman who stood in the center of the room with one hand on the back of a sofa ought to have been overshadowed by her surroundings, but the intensity of emotion emanating from her prevented it. Winona Aurelius was tall and dark haired with brown eyes and a strong-boned face. The resemblance to Marcus was evident. She wore a sensible knee-length, navy-blue skirt with a matching blazer, white blouse and navy pumps. Her fingers dented the back of the leather sofa. “Hello, Marcus.”

  “Hello, Winona.”

  She inhaled sharply.

  Paul hurried to her and put an arm around her shoulders. His support—his love—for his wife was obvious.

  Marcus’s dark gaze shifted to him. “Dad, did you know Mom was alive?”

  “No, he didn’t,” Winona answered quickly. “I had to lie to everyone so that Chester would believe the lie.”

  “You were right to distrust my father.” Paul soothed her with a caress. “Marcus, Winona came as soon as she could once she heard the Senator was dead.”