“Your heartbeat is changing,” Gabe said, listening with his ear pressed against it. “It sounds more like ours every day.”
In Gabe’s embrace, I could finally admit what had happened. “Erin died in my arms, Gabe.” I hesitated and then confessed the rest. “I stole her energy like the Protectors do to Healers they hunt. I didn’t mean to do it, but it happened.”
“I know,” Gabe whispered. “I can feel how your power has changed.” He didn’t add to that, and I knew it didn’t matter to him, except that he worried with me about what this might mean. “Can you feel me?” he asked, and I heard the fear in that.
My fingers traced his shoulder blades and back, exploring the muscles. “Feel you and smell you and taste you. All senses accounted for.” I opened my mind so he could hear how I savored him and wanted him. “Do you doubt it?”
His arms tensed around me in a convulsive, relieved hug. If this had been any other moment, I would have found myself thoroughly kissed. “No. I’d say we’re safe on that count.” He sucked in a breath, obviously digging for control.
“I didn’t lose my senses, but is it possible that I’m becoming immortal?” The thought of it terrified me. What if I healed Gabe’s mortality only to become immortal myself?
“I don’t know what you are, sweetheart. You defy definition.”
We settled into silence again until I said, “Last night, I thought about killing Xavier and Alcais.”
“You were defending yourself.”
“No, I wanted revenge for what they did to me. To all of us.” The hate that had poured through me terrified me. “I don’t want to be like Franc, but that’s what I’m becoming. Protectors killed my grandmother, and his bitterness changed him. I’m changing, too, Gabe, and sometimes I don’t like what I see.”
Gabe rolled to the side, easing his weight off me. “Remington, you could never be like him. You’re angry at the hand that has been dealt to you, but I would be more worried about you if you weren’t. Don’t you think that I was pissed off when the Healers killed Sam and my parents?”
I lifted my head to see his expression. His eyes drooped with worry and sadness. “How did you get past that?” I asked, stroking a finger over his forehead to smooth the creases.
“Asher and Lottie. I had to take care of them. If I’d gone off and gotten myself killed, who would have looked after them?”
My thoughts turned to Lucy. Last night, I’d abandoned my sister with the others.
“She’s fine. In fact, she was worried about you.” I raised my brows, and he admitted, “I checked on everyone after you fell asleep. It’s not all on your shoulders. Don’t you see? We’re a family, the five of us. You’re allowed to take a turn being the weak one, especially after what happened last night.”
Last night, our family had lost another member. My mind spun with scenarios, trying to figure out if I could have done anything differently that might have saved her. No matter how I worked it, though, the end came out the same. Erin had made a choice to help her community and to help us, and she’d died saving my life. Maybe it had been out of guilt for bringing my grandfather’s men to our house, but I didn’t think that was it. Sometimes you made sacrifices for people you loved, and she’d been my friend. If things had been reversed, I would have made the same choice.
I sighed, the weary sound pulled out of me. “I’m sad, Gabe. I don’t think I can stand losing anyone else, and I don’t want this life for us. I don’t want to spend my entire life looking over my shoulder.”
“So we fight back,” he said. “We put an end to this, once and for all.”
He was right. There had to be a way to finish this, and get my father back. We couldn’t do it alone, though. Thank God, we had the Phoenix and Seamus on our side. The thought of what we could do together energized me, and I tucked the grief away to be dealt with later.
I jumped out of bed, startling Gabe when I smacked him on the butt. “Get a move on, Gabriela. There are plans to be made.”
“What plans?” he asked, sitting up.
I paused in the bathroom doorway. “I’m tired of my grandfather winning all the time. He’s going to be sorry that he ever messed with me.”
After showering, I left the bedroom on a mission. Last night I had been too overwhelmed to register much about the Phoenix, but it was time to get some questions answered. I thought about going to Seamus, but I didn’t completely trust him. He wanted something from me, and people lied and manipulated to get what they wanted. His truth would always be colored by his desires. So I decided to go to the source instead.
In the hallway outside the bedroom, I paused, dropping my walls and listening with all of my senses. Gabe showered in the bathroom off our bedroom. Seamus and Sean were talking somewhere downstairs. Some of his men were scattered about the house, their tense voices indicating they were on alert. Lottie was in my sister’s room, nagging her about sleeping in too late when she really was just checking on her. My sister argued back, but it sounded like she was grateful for the company because she didn’t put a lot of effort into it. Another few seconds of listening, and I finally heard three women speaking in various accents. They had to be the Phoenix.
I entered the sitting room without knocking first. I thought they would have heard me coming, but all three women looked up in surprise at my noisy entrance.
“Hi,” I said. I gave a small wave, and then felt like an idiot when they stared at me in silence. I tried again. “We didn’t exactly get introduced last night. I’m Remy O’Malley.”
The woman with the fire-engine-red hair rose from her seat on the sofa. She’d pulled her hair back in a retro bouffant ponytail that had a lot of height and about a can of hair spray holding it together.
“I’m Ursula Hitzig,” she said.
“You’re German?” I asked with surprise. For some reason, I’d assumed that all of these women lived here. Hadn’t Seamus said he wanted me to join them? Ursula’s thick accent reminded me of an exchange student I had gone to school with in New York. Ursula was also younger than I had expected. They all were. I thought they might be in their early to mid-twenties.
Ursula smiled. “Ja. Yes.” She pointed to the blond woman who had exchanged last night’s miniskirt and combat boots with tight jeans and an oversized sweatshirt. “That is Brita.” She turned to the brunette woman in the chic emerald-green silk dress. “And this is Edith.”
She pronounced the last woman’s name like ai-ditt, the way my French teacher had once pronounced the famous French singer’s name.
“As in Edith Piaf?” I asked.
“Exactly,” Edith answered. “My mother was a fan.”
All three women approached me, but none of them shook the hand I held out. I dropped it to my side, sensing they all had their guards up. If they had mental walls, we were alike in a lot of ways. After another round of awkward staring that threatened to turn it into an Olympic sport, Ursula suggested we all sit. She and Brita almost rushed the sofa, leaving Edith and me to take the armchairs. I was beginning to wonder if these women thought I had the plague with the way they avoided contact.
“Thanks for the clothes,” I said, with a wry smile.
When Gabe had carried me to our room last night, clothes had been waiting for us on the bed. It hadn’t occurred to me to ask, but I’d been grateful since my pajamas had been stained with my blood and Erin’s. Likewise Gabe’s clothes had been stained, too. The jeans left for me were a tad too short, leading me to believe they were Ursula’s, and I’d rolled the cuffs to hide that fact. The T-shirt, on the other hand, had to be Brita’s. She seemed to be the most likely candidate for the blue T-shirt with the rainy cloud that proclaimed, “I’m peeing.” Gabe had busted a gut laughing when I’d come out of the bathroom wearing it.
Ursula nodded, and Brita’s lip curled, confirming my suspicion.
I crossed my legs and clasped my fingers around my raised knee. “So. You’re all Phoenix.”
Subtle, Remy. Really freaking subtle.
; “Not exactly,” Ursula said, but she didn’t elaborate.
I’ll never learn anything at this rate. Frustrated, I rocked in my seat and tossed around for an opening.
“We are very sorry about your friend.” Edith pinned me with a pitying look that made me want to cry all over again. “She was a Healer, non?”
“No. I mean, yes. Erin saved my life. And Asher’s. She was a good friend. Do you know . . .” I gulped. I wanted to ask if they’d ever experienced what I had with Erin at the end, but I struggled to find the words.
Brita propped her legs on the table, displaying the scuffed-up combat boots she wore with her torn-up jeans. Her loud, exaggerated sigh sliced through the tension in the room. “Somebody kill me already,” she muttered in an American accent that I couldn’t place.
“Brita!” Ursula admonished her.
The woman scowled, tossing her blond hair. “What? Like you don’t have a thousand questions for her? And you know she’s dying to interrogate us. Aren’t you?” she challenged me.
I nodded.
“So spit it out,” Brita said. “Interrogate away.”
My words gushed out, tumbling over each other. “How do your powers work? Do you absorb the injuries you heal? How do you affect the Protectors here? Do you feel anything around other Healers? Are you immor—”
“Whoa,” Brita said, holding up a hand with short black fingernails. “How about we take it one question at a time?”
Ursula shoved Brita’s legs off the table and ignored the other woman’s glare. “We can heal people with our touch, and we do absorb their injuries. You, too?”
I nodded with relief, glad to hear of another similarity. I’d always thought of myself as a freak, but here were three women like me.
Edith crossed her long, elegant legs. “It’s unpleasant at best, painful at worst. Brita refuses to heal broken bones.”
Brita scowled. “It freaks me out when my bones break, and it takes too long to heal them. Not to mention how brutal the pain is. I’d rather take on cancer any day.”
A sigh hissed out of me. They could cure cancer. The Healers in Franc’s community had been stunned that I could heal serious diseases and illnesses, but these women could do it, too.
“Do you have to imagine the injuries to heal them?” I asked. “I have to . . . picture them. I don’t know . . . see them in my mind somehow.”
Ursula shook her head. “No. The ones like us that came before taught us how to direct our power. Think of the power like an electric current.”
Brita sat forward. “Yeah. The Protectors pull the current toward them, which is why they can steal energy from Healers. The Healers push the energy away, usually into another body, where it can be used to heal what is broken. Give-and-take. Ebb-and-flow. The energy never goes away. It’s just handled differently.”
My mother had given a similar explanation once about Healers and Protectors. “Which one are we more like?” I asked.
Edith smiled and held up her hands. “We are neither and both. We push and pull power. It is chaotic and beautiful.”
Chaos described last night perfectly. I’d had no control over my abilities, and being out of control scared the hell out of me. I ran a hand through my hair, gathering my thoughts. “But, Edith, what about the people around us? Aren’t we a danger to them?”
“Ah! You worry about your man and the pain you cause him,” she guessed. “Don’t worry so much. We use our shields, they use their shields, and they are safe.”
“But don’t they become mortal around you?” I asked.
Brita crossed her arms. “Only if we’re not careful with our shields. Or if one of our kind is careless enough to bond with one of them.” She noticed my expression, and her face lit up with a delighted smile. “Don’t tell me you’ve gone and bonded to that beautiful man you brought here?”
I winced. “Both of the beautiful men actually, though my bond with Asher is broken.”
Brita’s mouth dropped open. “No freaking way. Those boys are hot. I don’t know if I should be jealous or pity you.” She smacked her lips with a dreamy look on her face.
I scowled, wondering if she was imagining Gabe. “Frankly, it hasn’t been a lot of fun. They could both read my mind at one point.” I decided to change the subject because I did not want to dig into that history. “Haven’t any of you bonded? Could they read your mind?” I asked.
Ursula pointed at Edith. “She’s the only one. Brita and I have not met someone we cared about like that. Most of the men here are like family. Brothers, uncles. The idea of kissing them . . .” She shuddered.
Well then. If I’d needed more proof that my emotions had controlled my bonds with Gabe and Asher, here it was. Not that I had doubted it, but it would have been nice to have another reason behind all the pain I’d caused.
Edith’s brown eyes shone. “My husband, Sean, is somewhere in the house. I believe you have met him. He spoke highly of you.”
I almost jumped out of my seat at that revelation. “Sean? Yea high?” I waved a hand way above my head. “Sean the Protector?”
“Oui. My teddy bear.”
Brita made a gagging sound, and I almost wanted to join her. If Gabe tried a pet name like that on me, I’d have to kneecap him. I’d take “Remington” any day over “teddy bear” or “schnookums.”
“Edith, is he becoming mortal?”
She hesitated a moment and then nodded with some regret. “He does not care.” Her elegant shrug said that she still worried. “We keep our guard up to slow it, but eventually that won’t matter. We knew it would happen, and he is content.”
“What about you? Do his powers change you?” Really I wanted to know if she was becoming immortal. The question had hovered over my head like an ax since my proximity to the Protectors had begun to change me. What could come of a relationship where one person would never age?
Edith reached over and almost touched my hand before she pulled back, seeming to think better of the gesture. “We are not immortal. We grow old like every other human.”
I closed my eyes, grateful for that at least. Gabe would become mortal, but we would age together.
Then Edith added, “But, Remy, you are no longer like us.”
My eyes flew open, and I stared at her in confusion.
She sighed, the sound of it heavy with regret. “Last night, the way you healed your man, that is a gift that few of us have. It only happens when one of us takes the life force of a Healer. Your friend, non?”
I nodded, my heart thudding with dread as I tried to decipher what she was telling me. “It was an accident. She died while I was trying to save her.” I swiped a hand over eyes that felt as dry and gritty as a desert. Maybe I’d finally run out of tears, because this latest revelation threatened to break me but I didn’t cry. “If I’m not a Healer or a Protector, then what am I?”
She shrugged. “You are none of those things and all of them. My dear, you are a Phoenix.”
“But you just said that I’m not like you . . .” I said in confusion.
“We are not Phoenix.”
Her short answer frustrated me, and it must have shown on my face.
Brita snorted. “Stop speaking in riddles, Edith, and give the girl a damned answer. Can’t you see you’re making it worse?”
Edith glared at Brita before she continued. “We are born a balance of Healer and Protector. When we bond with a Protector, the balance is thrown off. Our powers increase because of what we take from them. But you . . . you have taken from another—a Healer. You must find balance again.”
Her words made no sense to me. How could you balance what you couldn’t control?
“Does this mean I’ll become immortal?” I asked, fear dropping my voice low.
Edith shook her head. “I wish I could help you, but I’ve never met a Phoenix.”
“Ah, Remy! I have been looking for you.”
Seamus had entered the room, cutting my interrogation short. I rose to meet him, and his grave l
ook warned me that more storms were ahead. Lucy, Lottie, Gabe, and Asher followed him into the room with Sean bringing up the rear, and I could see that he’d gathered them, either to give us the bad news at once or in hopes that the others would temper my reaction to whatever he had to say. Seamus avoided my gaze when he spoke again, and I guessed it was the latter.
“I am sorry about your father, but you understand we can’t possibly go forward with our plans to retrieve him now after last night. In truth, we think it best if we leave London immediately.”
His words didn’t surprise me exactly. I’d had some time to think through things in the shower this morning, and I’d guessed this might be his tactic. Still, I asked, “Why?”
He met my gaze with conviction. “These women must be protected. The O’Malleys are sworn to watch over them. Watch over you, if you would allow it. One man’s life is not more important than that.”
Once, I might have wished for someone to save me and keep me safe. But these last months had tested me, and now things had reversed. Others depended on me, and I wouldn’t let them down.
I speared Seamus with a direct look. “It is to me when that man is my father.” I let my gaze encompass the rest of the people in the room. Edith, Brita, and Ursula watched me with varying degrees of curiosity. “We were given these powers for a reason. I will not hide or cower from men like my grandfather. Please help me.”
Sean wore a tiny smile as he wrapped an arm around Edith’s waist. Gabe, Asher, Lottie, and Lucy surrounded me in a half moon at my back, each of them offering silent support. That said a lot about how far we’d come together. Gabe’s fingers twined with mine, and I felt that surge of love grounding me again. He smiled to encourage me, and I squeezed his fingers.
My attention returned to Seamus, and the grim look on his face somehow calmed me further. He’d kept the O’Malleys and these women hidden for years because they had the potential to become Phoenix. I respected him for that, but there was a difference between regrouping in the trenches and hiding in them like a coward.
“It would be senseless to fight them,” he insisted. “You must see that. Tell her,” he said to Gabe and the others.
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