by Evi Asher
He’d been so gentle, frustratingly gentle, and he’d treated her as if he cared. She was in love with what he did to her, but then she was in love with the whole package, the male and what he could do in bed, and she was even prepared to admit she wanted way more than just the one night.
She looked up and caught his eyes on her again.
“What?” she mouthed at him.
“Want you.” He mouthed back and Angelica felt her pulse ratchet up ten notches. Gods, what she would do to be able to give Colt what he wanted.
“Okay.” Grave stopped in front of a set of double doors, smaller but no less grandiose than the front doors.
“Watch what you say and be respectful. Remember, this woman can kill you with a breath.”
Angelica nodded, and tried to get her mind off hot sex with Colt and onto the task.
Find out what the Oracle wants, then get some alone time with Colt.
She almost laughed, but managed to smother it at the last second as the doors swung open.
Angelica remembered Scarlet talking about a bed with a pile of pillows that the Oracle had lounged on, but there was nothing like that here.
Instead, the room looked like a library. Floor to ceiling books shelves and books covered every wall.
There was a reading nook with a comfortable looking divan in it. A woman who could only be Cerise lounged on the divan with a book in her hands and a cute pair of cat eyeglasses perched on her nose.
“Hey,” Athera said softly from Angelica’s left.
Only then did she realize that both Athera and Laz were in the room as well.
“Hi.” Angelica smiled and wanted to turn and hug Athera, but the Oracle speaking stopped her.
“Fashionably late to an appointment with me is not the way to get on my good side.” She put down a large tome and looked up.
“I’m sorry, mistress.” Grave bowed low. “I had to wait for them to put clothes on.”
Angelica heard Athera choke on laugher and turned to glare at the other phoenix.
“I see.” The Oracle reached up and took the glasses off and bit on the ear piece. “Well, I guess I will have to forgive them. What do you think, Grave?”
“Whatever pleases you, mistress,” he said, keeping his head bowed, his blond hair falling down to mask his face.
“Oh, pull your head up. I’m not going to feed your testicles to my pet falcon today, Grave.”
He lifted his head, but there was a sardonic twist to his lips that made the Oracle frown.
“What is this place?” Colt asked as he looked around the room.
The Oracle turned her stare on him. “My home. My realm, actually. It’s magic, and I take it wherever I need it to be, but we aren’t here to discuss my place of residence. I have something for you to do.”
“Me?” Colt asked.
“Yes, but more specifically, Angelica of the Phoenix.”
“Me?” Angelica wanted to kick herself for being so obvious.
“Yes, dear.” The Oracle chuckled. “I need you to go and retrieve something for me.” The Oracle stood, bent to pick up a book, then straightened, handing it to Angelica open on a page.
Angelica took the book and looked down at the page.
“Dragon’s egg?”
The Oracle clapped her hands together. “Yes.”
“Impossible,” Laz muttered from where he stood next to Ath.
“What makes you say that, necromancer?” The Oracle canted her head toward Laz.
“Only place you’ll find a dragon egg—then only rarely—is inside a lava flow, and not even a phoenix can survive those temperatures.”
“She’s not doing it, and neither am I.” Colt glared at everyone, daring anyone to argue with him.
Angelica watched as Cerise—wasn’t that what Grave had said her name was—stiffened and turned a dark look toward Colt.
“The necro is right. One phoenix could not survive the task. However, a phoenix with two souls could.”
What gibberish? The woman was clearly delusional.
Colt stiffened. “If you mean what I think you mean, then you are crazy.”
“No. I’m. Not.” Cerise seemed to be getting angrier.
“Do you honestly think I’m going to send my mate and our child into a lava flow?”
What? His mate and child? What the hell was he talking about?
Angelica was confused. I’ll sort that out later.
“You are going to, and you are going to be happy about it, because if you don’t, I’ll kill her where she stands, as well as the rest of your group.”
Ice could have crystallized from Cerise’s words.
Grave moved a little closer and Angelica almost laughed—Cerise was going to have Death kill them.
Angelica rubbed her upper arm and interrupted the glare passing between Colt and the Oracle.
“I’m the one being asked to do this, so shouldn’t it be my choice if I want to do it or not?”
“You don’t understand, Geli.” Colt’s tone was pleading.
“Well, then make me understand.”
“You are pregnant,” Athera interrupted.
“What?” Angelica felt her jaw go slack. No, there was no way. Then, she did the math and realized she’d been in her fertile period when Colt and she had sex for the first time, and there was no way she wasn’t pregnant. Every Phoenix in their fertile period took, no matter what.
Her hands went to her belly and she looked down toward them. She was pregnant with Colt’s baby.
Joy suffused her whole body. She was in love, and she was carrying his child. A part of Colt and her was growing in her womb.
She looked up at Colt and saw a smile playing around his mouth. “You like the idea.”
Her own smile met his and she nodded. “Very much.”
“Oh, enough. I need you to go get me that egg.”
“No.” Angelica straightened her spine. “I will not risk my child for that.”
“I have to have that egg.” Cerise took two steps forward and Colt stepped between her and Angelica.
The Oracle stopped and drew in a deep breath. She exhaled on a sigh. “Alright, I don’t play the villain very well anyway. I’ll tell you the truth.” She turned and went to sit down again.
“I’ve had a vision of the future.”
The rest of them were silent. Colt pulled Angelica to his side, wrapping his arm around her. Athera moved closer and so did Laz.
Angelica had a feeling this was going to be one hell of a story.
“I don’t want to go into all the gory details, and trust me when I say, the details are gory. The only way I can stop that future is to get that egg. I need the dragon inside. He will save the world—with a little help from friends.” She looked around the group.
When they said nothing, her shoulders sagged.
“Maybe it will help if I share the vision.” She stood and walked over to Angelica, offering her hand. “I can only give it to one other, and since you are the one who has to risk everything, I’m going to give it to you.”
Angelica held out her hand to grasp Cerise’s.
“No, Geli.” Colt used his free hand to snatch Angelica’s hand back.
“Yes, Colt. I have to do this.” She looked at him in the eye and he stared at her for a moment, then let go of her hand. Angelica reached for Cerise’s hand and clasped it.
Angelica’s back bowed with the force of the images that hit her brain and she felt Colt grab her and stop her from falling. The vision unfolded behind her closed eyes and she flinched but watched the pictures that Cerise was forcing into her brain.
Smoke and fire, there was fire everywhere, buildings were burning and people were running around in chaos. Angelica was standing in a square in some city and watching the world end all around her. She saw a man shoot a woman point-blank in the face, brains and bits of skull splattered everywhere, some even hitting Angelica where she stood. She saw the crumpled body of a child, its limbs at odd angles, she watched
it twitch and start to rise, its mouth a gaping maw of blood and tissue. It staggered to its feet. Whatever it was now, it had once been a little girl of about ten. The child stumbled, regained her footing and lurched off toward a man standing dazed, holding a blood-soaked shirt to his head. The child made a growling noise that made Angelica shudder then attacked the man, trying to bite and chew chunks out of him. Angelica felt bile rise in her throat—the child was a zombie of some sort. It was almost funny in its horror. It was an apocalypse, a zombie apocalypse.
Angelica became aware of Colt’s face hovering above hers. “Are you okay?” His tone was worried, and a little…scared.
“I’m fine.” She let him help her to her feet.
Cerise stood in front of her. “Bad?”
Angelica saw the child in her mind’s eye again and shuddered. “Very bad, but how will the egg help?”
“I’m not sure. All I know is that the dragon inside of it can help stop that from happening.”
Angelica thought about it. “What do I need to do, exactly?”
“No, Angelica.” Colt’s voice was angry.
“You didn’t see what I saw, Colt. It’s the end of the world, and it wasn’t pretty.”
“I still don’t want you to do this,” he muttered.
“I have to. Please, just work with me on this?” He shook his head, but he didn’t argue any more.
Angelica looked at Cerise. “What do I have to do?”
“I know where the egg is. I can take you directly to the lava flow, you just have to dive in…” She flinched when she said that. “And get it out.”
Angelic puffed air out. “Okay, I’ll help. I don’t want what happened in that vision to come to pass.”
Cerise’s eyes lit up. “Thank you, Angelica. You will be rewarded, I promise.”
“I’m not in this for the reward.”
Chapter Eight
Colt, Angelica, and Cerise appeared on the barren slopes of a volcano. He felt a wave of dizziness and grabbed at Angelica as she started to tip backward. She smiled a thank you up at him, and his heart did a flip.
How could it be that he could love her so deeply and feel so guilty—how could he ever have thought she was responsible for his rape? Angelica was sweet, tough, loving, and wouldn’t hurt anyone. She’d tried to save him and he’d repaid her with vengeance. Colt decided he would spend the rest of his life making it up to her.
That was… If he got a chance.
He wasn’t happy about this task, but arguing with her over it had gotten him nowhere. She’d stubbornly refused, telling him he needed to trust in her and her abilities.
He took the opportunity to pull her into his arms as he scanned the new environment. The slopes of a volcano, covered in ash, must have had an eruption recently. The air fouled with toxins and heat. Breathing was not something he was enjoying at that moment. The ground was baking. He could feel the heat through the soles of his boots. He didn’t want his mate and his baby in this place.
He bent his head and whispered in Angelica’s ear, “Wont this air hurt our baby?”
“No, the baby will be fine. He or she has my body for protection.” She smiled up at him as if she was pleased that he was worried about their child.
“I will add a bubble of all the protection I can to both of them, Colt,” Cerise said. “I don’t want them hurt, either.”
He nodded, but didn’t say anything. He didn’t trust himself not to rant at the Oracle about the danger she was bringing down on their heads. He didn’t trust her completely. He knew her motives were her own, and he didn’t know if they were in accord with his motives or even Angelica’s.
His beautiful mate had tried to tell him what she saw in the vision, but it had freaked her out so badly that she lacked the words to describe it.
He figured in the case of a vision, seeing it was what it took to make it real, and he hadn’t been the one to see it.
“Where do I go in?”
Angelica moved away from Colt and he missed her touch. How had he fallen so hard so fast?
He didn’t want her in that lava tube. He didn’t want her anywhere near danger, and if he could have taken her home and wrapped her in cottonwood for the rest of her life, he would have.
Cerise moved away from them toward an open hole in the ground about twenty feet away. She leaned back, as if the fumes emanating from the hole were even horrible to her.
“This is your entry point, Angelica. You will have to swim a distance up the tube. You will pass into a cave, but be careful as you go by it.” She frowned. “This is a gold dragon egg. It will test you for purity of spirit. I know you are pure, so it won’t be a challenge, but try and keep your thoughts away from murdering me.” She let out a small chuckle, as if her humor had failed her in the situation.
She sobered. “Seriously. I will add all the magical protection I can, but my magic—as strong as it is—is not going to be enough, so get in and out as fast as you can.”
“I’m ready.” Angelica started to move forward, but Colt grabbed her hand. Pulling her into his chest, he hugged her tight. The urge to tell her he loved her was almost overwhelming, but they needed to have that talk first. He needed to explain and get her forgiveness for the way he’d treated her. He didn’t want to say those words with all the muck hanging between them. He wanted to say them when they had a fresh start.
He bent his head and kissed her, a soft kiss. “Remember, we need to have a long conversation, so please, be careful.”
“I will do my best.” She smiled at him.
He pulled her in tighter and kissed the top of her head, then laid his cheek against it.
“Colt?” she started
“Yes?”
“I…never mind.” She gave him a bright smile and pulled away from him walking to the edge of the lava pool.
Was she going to say she loves me?
His heartbeat sped up. He didn’t think there was any way she could love him, not after how he’d treated her. She wanted him, yes, and he’d build their life on that until she could forgive him, but loving him? No, he didn’t think so.
He watched her take in a deep breath.
“At least I’m warm enough for this.” She fiddled with something on her thumb, then burst into flames.
Colt hastily lifted his forearm to shield his eyes, because her flames were white with heat and they were so intense, his eyes watered from the light.
Angelica raised her arms above her head in a diving pose, then jumped, arching her body to enter the lava without a splash.
Colt’s heart started pounding in fear for his mate.
“She’s going to die in there,” he said in a dark voice. “And when she does, you die too, Oracle.”
She ignored his threats and clasped her hands together, then formed magic in them and tossed the magic at Colt.
“What the fuck are you—” The rest was lost in a roar as the magic forced his body into the transformation from Eternal to ice-bear.
“Don’t panic. There was a reason I need you with us on this mission. Fire Golems guard this place. They should appear as soon as Angelica enters the lava tube.”
Colt roared, unable to make words in his polar bear form.
“Relax, big boy—wow, you are big in bear form—I’ve given you extra abilities that will help in the fight.” She seemed distracted, looking around for a threat.
“We have to destroy the golems or they will be waiting for Angelica over our corpses when she gets back.”
That was all she needed to say. Colt was on board with anything that would keep his mate safe.
He lifted his forepaws off the ground and slammed them back down. He was amazed to see the hard hot ground on his paws form ice crystals and freeze over.
He lifted his big head and met the Oracle’s eyes.
“I told you I gave you extra powers, and yes they are for keeps. You are going to need them in the future.” She looked around again and gasped.
The ground shook, a
booming sound making them sway on their feet. Even Colt on his four feet felt the earth shift.
A mound formed near the lava pool and grew. Rocks, bits of strand and debris rained down as the creature took form in front of them.
It was easily ten feet tall, so even in his large polar bear form he was going to have trouble with this thing, but big meant slow, and he was glad of that a moment later when it took its first lumbering step forward. The ground shook under its weight and Colt was terrified that it would collapse the lava tube on Angelica.
He narrowed his focus on the golem and charged.
Another rumble in the barren earth warned him that another golem was rising. This one Cerise stepped up to, lifting her hands and weaving intricate gestures. That was all Colt had time to observe before he was on the golem.
He jumped at it, trying to go for its throat, but it swatted him away as if he were a mosquito. Colt flew and landed hard on his side, his breath knocked from him. He sucked in air and got to his feet as fast as possible.
Scrap that tactic—it wasn’t going to work. He’d take a play out the wolf playbook and hamstring the fucker.
He charged again, this time swatting at the golems leg. His paw connected before the creature could respond and Colt watched as ice spread up the golem’s leg, making it useless. Colt’s touch must be freezing the creature solid.
He took a step back and the golem tried to follow, but it was dragging the leg that Colt had hit.
It bent and swung a huge half-formed harm at him. Colt easily ducked it, but he felt the heat singe his fur.
He darted forward, under another swing, and swiped a paw at the other leg. The golem roared an unintelligible sound of pain and couldn’t move its legs anymore.
Colt barreled forward, slamming his bulk into the golem’s lower body, and ducked out just in time.
The golem’s legs shattered into a million shards and it toppled.
Colt darted in for the kill. He jumped and landed with both forepaws on the golem’s chest—once to freeze it, and once to shatter it. When he looked up from the shattered remains of the golem, Cerise was dusting her hands off, and flashed a grin over at him.