by Max Andren
Coalesce
A Phoenix Dragon Novel 02
Max Andren
AnCor Press
In loving memory of my Andrea.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Enjoy this book?
A Note From Max Andren
Also By Max Andren
Copyright
About Max Andren
1
They said I was the last true Phoenix and the dragon spoken about in legend and prophecy. They said I would be the one to bring the fragmented clans back together.
I said, “I accept all that I am and all that I will become. I am the last true Phoenix.”
It had all began when I chose to do the inexplicable and embrace their idea as truth and that decision would echo through the rest of my life.
My declaration had been a mere formality for what would unfold regardless of my acceptance. I still harbored doubts as to the veracity of the last true Phoenix, but I would own that premise, if for no other reason than to help my new dragon family. I would aid them, and myself, in the plight against our mortal enemy—the drampires.
It was one of the defining moments of my life, though I often thought, ‘what the hell have I done?’
It had been several years since I’d been rescued from my asylum hell and that question had plagued my mind incessantly—along with about a bazillion other questions that had no discernible answers.
What I’d said that day and what I felt today were not one and the same.
Today, I felt like a fraud!
My life had certainly improved since my rescue and yet, you could take the girl out of the asylum, but you couldn’t take the dank asylum out of the girl.
I was strong and resilient, I had to be, I’d died and became Renascent. But that didn’t make me immune to the doubts that plagued my mind or the emotions of unworthiness that strove to undermine the foundation I was creating.
I was now a full-fledged Phoenix Dragon, but nothing was ever as simple as it would seem and my life was far from simple or mundane.
“Do you feel that?” I asked Cipriano with my mind.
We were in dragon-form flying over Lake of the Ozarks searching for the perfect location to build sanctuary. It was easy to see how the serpentine-shaped lake had garnered its nickname, The Magic Dragon. It was beautiful and ironic.
The lake itself had twelve hundred miles of shoreline and was lined with lush trees and vegetation that were interspersed with rocky cliffs and sandy beaches. The varied terrain hugged the water’s edge for over ninety miles through central Missouri.
Somewhere below, in the vastness that was the Ozarks, we would build sanctuary and set down roots for the dragon race to grow and thrive—together, I prayed.
Our search today would be delayed by whatever was pulling at me. The compulsion to investigate right now was overwhelming.
“I feel…a vague sense of unease?” Cipriano answered with uncertainty.
“Something or someone is in a tremendous amount of pain and it’s coming from that small lake over there,” I said, and took off in the direction I’d indicated.
The noxious pain was so compelling, it forced me to spontaneously shift.
My less than graceful landing was, thankfully, cushioned by wild grass. The soft thud of my booted feet, was immediately followed by a loud grunt and a gasping wheeze, as I dropped the rest of the way to the ground, my bent knee jammed into my diaphragm.
Glancing at Cipriano, I rolled my eyes at his superior landing—show off.
Despite my shortness of breath, I jumped up to follow the empathic pain that resonated through me in diminishing waves. This visceral connection was my only guide and I was acutely attuned to its rapidly fading source.
It pulled me through thick vegetation that hid ankle-rolling rocks and thorn-laden locust trees—which ripped at my skin through my jeans. Why couldn’t I have landed in a more hospitable area, like the one where I was headed?
Once I reached the water’s edge, I searched along the shore for anything that could be the source of the pain. Finding nothing, I turned and walked towards my right, where Cipriano searched through the dark woods and it was in that moment that a pair of glistening wings caught my attention.
At first glance, I thought they might have belonged to a butterfly or perhaps a large dragonfly. Could this be the source of the pain that resonated like a beacon? An insect?
Dropping to my knees, I was unprepared for what I found.
A faery!
I should be used to the fact that there were other supernatural creatures running about besides dragons and drampires, but I wasn’t. Cipriano had once intimated we weren’t alone by quoting Shakespeare, “There are more things in heaven and earth.”
But a faery?
Brutally abused and discarded like trash, she was laying crumpled and unnaturally still between the edge of the lake and the dark woods. My aura was vibrating with the need to heal and tentacles of my essence were reaching for her.
I gently lifted her up and cradled her limp body in my hand. When I did so, I noticed to my horror that her wings had been ripped from her back and were laying on the ground next to her.
And, she was dying.
I could feel her heart stuttering against my bloody palm. Her breaths were shallow and stridorous, as she tried to breathe through the swelling that was obstructing her throat and airway.
“What do you have there?” Cipriano asked when he saw me drop to the ground.
“I don’t know. A faery?” I said, and showed him my hand where she was laying.
I barely felt her weight and thought she couldn’t have weighed more than a hummingbird.
“They often travel in packs, but we won’t see the others, not unless they want to be seen. She looks bad, Charani.”
Cipriano used his index finger to move her long silver, lavender and black hair from covering her delicate features. The bright sunlight exposed her grievous injuries and they were a shocking contrast to her pale, pearlescent skin.
Cipriano looked at me and our eyes connected. The rage blazing in his was undoubtedly mirrored in mine, as we were both feeling the red haze of it.
Her face had been battered and was covered in dark purple bruises. Both of her eyes were swollen shut and discolored. Her pale lips were swollen and split. Finger marks of dark purple and red, marred the skin around her neck—where evidently, someone had attempted to strangle her to death.
“Can you heal her?”
“I’m going to try.”
The white light of healing from my aura and the blue iridescence from my dragon essence surrounded her little body seeking to heal her injuries. I reached through the haze of her pain, to find the core of the little faery.
When we finally connected, she was about to cross over to the the other side. I had to intervene fast or she’d die.
“I can help you, but only if you are willing to accept the gift,” I told her with my mind.
“Yes…” She said, in weak reply.
“Her heart stopped!”
I quickly tethered her soul to mine.
“Did you reach her?”
We both knew what he was asking.
Her color quickly faded to grey.
“Drink of my essence, little faery, and be risen. Be Renascent!” I implored aloud.
Mind to mind and heart to heart, my essence bathed her soul in the chance to be reborn and to live again.
Her aura wavered, indecisive—losing all of its color and vibrance.
I lifted her closer to watch her delicate face. She was so dainty. Her pointed ears were peeking out from under her beautiful, tricolored hair. Her up-turned nose was crooked and swollen.
She was dying right before my eyes.
“Come on, little one. Drink and be reborn!”
Nothing. I felt nothing at all, no response from her—just a void. I looked at Cipriano and he shook his head. He felt it too.
I’d lost her.
Her choice had been made and she passed over to the other side. Her injuries must have been irreparable and her pain far too debilitating to overcome.
Tears clouded my vision, which was a rarity. I’d learned the hard way not to show emotion, but for Dreah’s sake, I’d been working to overcome that flaw.
It made me so angry and so sad to know that her life had been taken by someone else. Her delicate wings brutally ripped from her body. I couldn’t fathom that kind of hate and anger.
A tear escaped to splash onto my little faery, bathing her in my remorse and sadness.
“I’m going to drown if you don’t stop the waterfall pouring from your eyes, My Lady,” whispered a weak, but lyrical voice through my mind.
2
My eyes flew open.
No drowning the faery, I thought with a smile and reached up to wipe the tears from my face. She looked so much better. Her complexion was no longer ashen grey and her aura was gaining a small measure of color and vibrance.
The essence of my dragon and the healing of my aura were working their magic. We could see that her injuries were subsiding. Score one for the good guys.
The swelling about her face and neck had dramatically decreased making it possible for her eyes to be open. She sat up in my hand and pulled her knees to her chest, then turned to look at Cipriano.
“My Lord,” she said in greeting.
He answered her address by saying, “Please, just Cipriano.”
She nodded her head in acquiescence and said, “Lovely to make your acquaintance, just Cipriano. I’m just Violet.”
The corners of Cipriano’s attentive grey eyes crinkled when he smiled at her joke.
Violet turned and focused her exotic, upwards-slanted eyes on me. I was mesmerized by their ethereal purple hue. She was too beautiful to be of this world, I thought, and I realized she probably wasn’t.
As we took each other’s measure, I could see that the pain was slowly fading from the depths of her eyes.
“I’m Charani,” I said, and then asked, “How are you feeling?”
“That’s a good question, My Lady. I’m better than I was just a bit ago,” she paused, shrugging her shoulders and tilting her head left and then right, “and yet, I’m not quite as I was…before,” she answered hesitantly.
“You’re definitely breathing better and your color has improved,” I observed.
“Oh!” She exclaimed, “I think I’m healing quite well. Pray forgive me, I thought you meant to inquire how I was feeling after you brought me back to life with your Phoenix,” she said, surprising me.
I wondered how she knew that. I wasn’t exactly waving my freak flag about and announcing that I was a Phoenix Dragon. However, in offering her my essence, we had connected on a deeper plane—the place where the soul resides and where all and yet, nothing is known.
“But, to answer your question, I’m feeling much better. Though I have to admit to feeling a bit itchy where my wings were torn away,” she said, standing up to scratch her back.
“Here, let me help you,” I said, but before I could rub her back, I saw the reason for her itchiness.
“Violet, can your wings regenerate?”
“I honestly do not know. I’ve never heard of another faery being gifted with wing regeneration. That’s why people rip them off in the first place,” she said solemnly, but then asked with hesitant, yet hopeful awe, “Truly, they are sprouting anew?”
“Truly. Don’t you feel them pushing through?”
She nodded her head and grimaced. “Oh…I do now,” she said, then whispered, “and ’tis quite painful.”
I could feel her pain, as her new wings pushed their way through the mended skin of her back. I sent my aura to surround her again and the relief was evident on her face.
“Violet, how did you come to be here today? Who abused you so grievously?”
Sadness and betrayal flashed through our connection and that was all I needed to know.
“Are you in danger now? Would you like to come live with us and eventually at sanctuary?”
“What is sanctuary?” She asked, hope gleaming in her eyes.
“We are creating a dragon colony of sorts. A place where various dragon clans can come together to live and thrive. So far it’s just an idea. But you can live with us in the city, until it’s all finished,” I offered.
Violet nodded her head, though not really in answer, but in acknowledgement and acceptance.
“Oh, Goddess!” She exclaimed suddenly and shot off my hand when her wings had fully sprouted.
She flew around Cipriano and I, getting a feel for her new wings. They were beautiful and different from the mutilated ones on the ground. The old ones were smaller and more translucent.
Her new wings were just as delicate, so that her frame could handle their weight, but they were much larger, like that of a butterfly. Her wings were a translucent silver at their insertion point and transitioned in an ombré-like fashion, from lavender to black. The ends were tipped in dragon blue and there were pools of my Phoenix red staggering along the edges..
I didn’t know what to make of that. A Phoenix Faery? Weren’t Fae already immortal? She’d died from her injuries, but had risen, Renascent. Perhaps she would become a Phoenix.
Violet landed by her bloody wings and knelt down next to them. We watched, as she bowed her head and then with a wave of her hands, her wings disappeared, as if they’d never been.
She turned, opened and closed her wings, and said demurely, “Thank you, My Lady.”
Her words were accompanied by a curtsy to rival all curtsies. She performed the courtly gesture, as if she were wearing a beautiful ball gown and not a bloody dress that hung in tatters on her delicate frame.
She reminded me of a queen before her court—gracious and regal all at once.
“There are others coming this way,” Violet said before she flew up to my face to stare into my crystal blue eyes with her ethereal purple ones.
“I’m not ready to meet anyone else. May I rest upon your skin and heal?”
I nodded my head, yes, despite the strange nature of her request.
“Will you move your long red and black hair to the side?”
I grabbed my hair and moved it aside as she requested, and exposed the skin of my neck and shoulder. She landed there with her bare feet and once our skin touched, Violet was able to change.
When she shifted from a faery of flesh-and-blood, to a faery of colorfully rendered ink, like a tattoo upon my shoulder—a stinging sensation accompanied the transition. Once settled, she was able to move along my skin and wrapped herself around my left side.
I could feel her emotions and felt her revulsion to the skin between my shoulder blades, where the dark magic glyph had been etched. I couldn’t blame her for that, I hated it too.
I wondered if we would be able to communicate when she was this w
ay and asked her with my mind.
“Yes, My Lady, we can. We shall be able to share and sense each other’s emotions too.”
3
Our family landed in the clearing and by unspoken agreement, Cipriano and I chose not to tell them about Violet. We didn’t like keeping secrets, but we would honor Violet’s desire not to meet anyone.
Dreah Xavier jumped down from Tarrin’s dragon back and made her way over to me. The spring sunshine bathed her long auburn hair with beautiful golden highlights. When I looked at Dreah, it was hard to remember that she wasn’t as old as she appeared to be, especially when her amber eyes shone with the light of her old soul.
She had always been mature for her age, but now she looked to be around eighteen years of age—which we all knew wasn’t the case. After I’d rescued her and given her some of my dragon essence, she’d initially matured at a normal rate. However, over the last several years we’d noticed an acceleration in the aging process. Fortunately, that seems to have settled back down to a normal rate of maturation.
Dreah had handled the whole thing with grace and acceptance, as if her aging was the most natural of things and, perhaps it was. We had no way of knowing how she would have matured on her own and without the essence of my Phoenix Dragon changing her genetic expression.
Dreah walked around the small clearing, as did the rest of the family. And now that I wasn’t frantically searching for the source of the empathic pain I had been slammed with, I could appreciate the area around us.
