by Brenda Huber
A wave of warmth washed over Phoebe. She felt like she was suddenly floating on a cloud, with not a care in the world. Only that couldn’t be right, because Sebastian was hurt. Badly hurt. Maybe even dying.
She frowned, blinking furiously. Sebastian. She had to help him.
A gentle hand touched her shoulder. And the warm, fuzzy feeling intensified, wrapping around her, holding though she tried her damnedest to shake it.
“You need to hurry,” Maggie instructed. Though her voice was pitched low and easy, it held an unmistakable note of strain. “She’s very strong. And she fears for her mate. I don’t know how long I can hold her.”
Phoebe let two sets of soft, gentle hands ease her back, away from the three men working feverishly over Sebastian. She watched as they tore his shirt off. And she barely flinched when they maneuvered him around, pinning wings and arms to the ground at his sides.
Then the blond straddled Sebastian’s waist. Phoebe went up on her knees. She shook her head, resisting the fuzzy cocoon. They’d hurt him. They weren’t being careful enough. She made to move closer, but soft hands held her back. A cool, smooth hand came up to press against her forehead.
Phoebe dropped back on her butt. The room all but spun. She felt…drunk.
Whoa. What a buzz.
The short woman—Maggie, yeah, that was her name—Maggie knelt directly in front of her, blocking her view. But there was something wrong. Maggie had a thin trickle of blood seeping from her nose. Blood…
Sebastian. Where was he? He was bleeding too. She needed to help him.
“I’m losing her,” Maggie said as she dropped to her own butt and wobbled to the side.
Phoebe glanced over and frowned. The blond demon was straddling Sebastian. And his hands were glowing. She blinked. Refocused. No. Those were fire balls…no, plasma balls, she corrected. He was burning Sebastian’s chest.
And Sebastian was fighting, teeth gritted, flailing against the floor as the other two held him down.
Phoebe exploded into motion. She hit GI Joe like a tank. They went rolling across the floor and she smashed an elbow into his face. Just like that, she was on her feet, charging back into the fray. A well-placed fist sent the blond one sailing before she turned her wrath on Blue Eyes.
“Son of a…grab her!” someone yelled.
“I can’t. She’s moving too fast,” came the reply.
A muffled grunt met her ears as she slammed into GI Joe once more. Why wouldn’t he just stay the hell down? She darted away before he could get a grip on her, and then she wheeled around looking for Blue Eyes. Or Blondie. They were both going down for hurting her mate that way.
“Phoebe,” Sebastian whispered.
Phoebe froze. And then she flew back to his side, the others forgotten.
“Don’t…they were…helping…”
“But—”
“Trust them…safe now…”
His eyes fluttered closed, and he was out again. She glanced to his chest. The long gash had been sealed closed and all that was left was a long strip of bright pink, blistered flesh.”
Blue Eyes approached cautiously. “He’s going to be okay.”
She flicked a glance to his split lip, caught a glimpse of GI Joe’s swollen eye. She refused to feel bad. But then she saw the blond demon hovering over the woman—Maggie—as he held a tissue to her nose and glared holes through Phoebe’s hide. Now she felt guilty.
Phoebe glanced down at the hands cradling Sebastian’s ash colored face. Crimson hands with little black claws. She sat back on her heels, hard, and she held them up, staring at them, shocked. Disgusted.
“Help me,” she whispered, her eyes welled with tears as she looked around the room. “I don’t know how to change back,” she admitted her shame aloud. And then she dropped her head and sobbed. “I can’t…I don’t know how.”
You could have heard a pin drop.
Gentle hands cupped her shoulders. She looked up into kind brown eyes and a beautiful smile filled with empathy. “We’re here to help. Everything’s going to be all right now.”
Phoebe blinked. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered.
The woman’s smile grew. “I know. There now.”
She enfolded Phoebe in a careful embrace and rubbed slow circles on her back. At length, she pulled back and patted Phoebe’s cheek.
“I’m Carly,” she said. “And that is my mate, Niklas.” She pointed to Blue Eyes. Then she pointed out each one of the others in the room, tagging each with a name. GI Joe was Xander. The scowl on his face made her look away, until the beautiful woman Carly called Kyanna moved into his arms and poked him in the ribs.
“Pleased to meet you,” he growled, though he didn’t sound happy about it at all.
“The good looking guy over there is Gideon. He’s usually pretty easygoing. He’ll stop glaring at you as soon as his wife’s nose quits bleeding. And that’s Maggie bleeding all over his shirt.” When Phoebe started, sucking in a sharp breath, Carly rushed to reassure her, “Oh, honey, I’m just kidding. She’s not even bleeding anymore.”
Phoebe eased back on her heels.
“Have you never morphed before?” Kyanna asked, moving closer, ignoring Xander’s warning growl.
Phoebe shook her head. “No. Not all the way.”
That earned her some odd looks from the room at large. Was that not normal? God, she was a freak, even among monsters. Phoebe ducked her head and closed her eyes.
A throat cleared, and then Kyanna said, “That’s all right. It happens, ah, I guess.” Murmurs of agreement soon went around the room.
No. It didn’t. Phoebe could tell, just from the tone. But it was kind of them to lie. She could feel the panic rising again, and the fear. She just wanted to crawl in a hole somewhere. Alone. Not surrounded by Sebastian’s well-meaning friends.
“Maggie,” Niklas said, his voice pitched soft and low. “Her colors are changing again.”
“No!” Gideon barked. “No more. I don’t care if she starts shooting rainbows out her pointed little ears. Maggie is officially off duty for the night.”
Phoebe frowned as she turned to watch Gideon and Maggie engage in a quiet, if heated debate. At length, Gideon moved behind his mate, wrapped his arms around her waist, and rested his hands flat on her stomach.
“No,” he repeated firmly.
Xander cleared his throat. “We need to move him.”
The men moved into position around Sebastian, and Phoebe tensed.
“They’re just going to take him upstairs so he can rest more comfortably,” Maggie hurried to assure her. Nodding, Phoebe got to her feet and moved back so Niklas, Xander, and Gideon could heft Sebastian up from the floor. The sight of his battered body made her teary all over again.
As the trio moved past her, Xander took one look at her and barked, “Pull it together, demoness. He can’t deal with you falling apart right now.”
Phoebe’s gaped at him. Her tears forgotten.
Kyanna gasped. “Xander!”
He rolled his eyes and began moving the others along toward the stairs. Maggie came to stand beside Phoebe, and slipped an arm around her shoulders. She offered Phoebe a conspiratorial smile, and then turned to glance at the demon who’d just put Phoebe, very rudely, in her place.
“Don’t worry. He’ll grow on you.”
Chapter Twenty-One
Maggie, Kyanna, and Carly took her to Sebastian’s room. They helped her bandage his wounds, and then sat with her while she waited for him to wake up, a united front of solidarity in the face of their mates’ disgruntlement.
“Try closing your eyes and breathing deeply,” Kyanna suggested. “Kind of like meditating. Imagine what your eyes normally look like. The color of your hair. The shade of your skin.”
Phoebe did. Just as she’d been trying everything they’d suggested for the past
hour. Well, when they weren’t grilling her with the kinds of questions she suspected well-meaning sisters might utilize when meeting their brother’s girlfriend for the first time.
Nothing happened, and she began to fear she’d be stuck looking like this for the rest of her life, however long that might be.
Nerves had her pushing to her feet and pacing the room.
“Oh!” Carly exclaimed, drawing the other women’s attention. “Look at her leg!”
Phoebe glanced down. Her thigh had been throbbing for so long, and with Sebastian’s ordeal, she’d nearly tuned it out.
“Maybe that’s why she isn’t able to change back,” Maggie suggested. “Let’s get that cleaned out.”
The three women advanced on her like a battalion of field nurses. By the time they were done with her, even the smallest of scrapes had been thoroughly cleaned and bandaged.
“There,” Carly said as she smoothed down the last piece of medical tape. “All done.”
The three women sat back and stared expectantly at her. After a while, and a collective puzzled shrug, they eventually began wandering off, one by one.
“If you get hungry later, the kitchen is downstairs to the left, just off the foyer. Help yourself. If you need anything at all, Gideon and I are down the hall, second door on the right,” Maggie said. “And Niklas and Carly will be spending the night as well. They’re at the other end of the hall, third room on the left.”
“Thank you,” Phoebe murmured with a small smile.
Maggie slipped out and closed the door behind her with a soft click. Phoebe climbed onto the big bed beside Sebastian and curled up, careful not to bump him. Not an easy task, given how much space his wings took up. But she managed. She lay there for what felt like hours, just watching him. She was tired, emotionally wrung out, but she couldn’t fall asleep.
Heaving a sigh, she eased from the bed and tread quietly to the door. As she reached out to turn the doorknob, she caught a glimpse of her hand. Gasping, she spun around and rushed to the vanity across the room, patting her face, running her tongue along her teeth.
Relief swamped her at the sight that met her eyes. She was back to normal…or well, humanlike. She felt herself begin to tense up again, and quickly squashed that line of thought. She didn’t want to be red anymore, and she feared if she didn’t settle down, that was exactly what would happen.
Phoebe’s stomach growled. She shot one more glance at the bed. Sebastian seemed to be resting comfortably. So she slipped from the room and tiptoed down the hall toward a grand staircase worthy of Scarlett O’Hara.
Phoebe ran her fingertips down the banister, her gaze tracking her surroundings as she’d failed to do before. Maggie’s home was really beautiful.
She crossed the foyer, noting that someone had cleaned up all the blood. But her footsteps slowed as she reached the kitchen. The rattle of a plastic bag and clink of plates alerted her to another’s presence, and she stopped walking. Phoebe caught her lower lip between her teeth. She didn’t feel like being social, not just yet. And what if it was GI Joe—no, his name was Xander. What if it was Xander? Truth be told, he scared her a little.
She slowly turned and began tiptoeing back toward the stairs.
“You already made it this far, darlin’. Might as well come on in.”
Phoebe froze. She closed her eyes, groaned inwardly, and then let out a deep breath. Turning around, fingers fumbling with the soft hem of her borrowed T-shirt, she stepped inside the kitchen.
Gideon stood at the counter near the refrigerator. He wore a pair of tattered jeans, zipped but not buttoned, and not a stitch more. His golden hair was mussed, his feet were bare. He had the look of a man who’d just rolled from some lucky woman’s bed—that lucky woman being Maggie, of course.
Phoebe clasped her hands behind her and rocked back and forth. “So…”
He turned to fully face her, and leaned back against the counter, crossing his arms. His assessing stare traveled quickly over her before returning to consider her hair.
“Well, I gotta say, I didn’t expect brown.”
That caught her off guard.
“The green eyes, yeah, but not brown hair.”
“Why not?”
He prodded at a bruise the size of her fist along his jaw. “If you don’t mind my sayin’ so, you got one hell of a temper on you, darlin’. Red suits you better,” he said with a wink. But his roguish grin stalled out any offense she might take.
“Sorry about, ah, earlier.” Lord, at this rate, she’d be scraping her toe across the ground and ducking her head.
He let her squirm for a moment more, and then he broke out laughing. The sound rolled through the room, rich and warm. “Don’t worry about it. Any one of our mates would have done the same, my own included. How’s the big guy doing, by the way?”
“Okay, I think. He’s sleeping.” Phoebe felt the muscles in her neck and shoulders begin to relax. She eased farther inside the room.
“Rest will help him heal better than anything else right now. Hungry?” he asked, returning to his task.
She couldn’t see around his broad shoulders, so she went to stand beside him to watch him work. She studied the array of ingredients on the counter, puzzled.
“What are you making?”
“PB and J,” he said, licking a daub of purple goo from his thumb. “With jalapeño, pickles, bananas, and cheddar cheese. Want some?”
She shook her head, scrunched her nose up, and stifled a gag. “No. Thanks.”
“It’s for Maggie.” He glanced up. The grin he offered her was an adorable combination of goofy, giddy joy and boastful male.
“Really?”
“She’s pregnant. She has cravings.”
He sounded so proud of that bit of information, she laughed aloud.
“Congratulations,” she told him, amused.
“Thanks!”
She watched as he carefully trimmed the crust and then cut the sandwich into four precise triangles before moving them to a clean plate.
“Can’t you conjure?” Again with the lack of filter. She could have kicked herself. But she couldn’t seem to help it either.
Gideon glanced up and blinked, his expression surprised. “Yeah. Why?”
Phoebe eased back a little and wrapped her arms around herself. “Uh, well, Sebastian mentioned everyone has different, um, abilities. That not everyone can do certain things. I just thought…” She nodded toward the plate and the sandwich he’d constructed and shrugged.
“Oh, well.” He dusted his hands, and then turned to face her, leaning a hip against the counter. “Yes, I can conjure. Unless I’m hurt, or right after I morph. For some reason, morphing takes more out of me than it does some of the others. I make the sandwiches for Maggie by hand because…well.” He paused, as if searching for the right words. “Because I guess it makes me feel like I’m doing something important for her. I want her to know how much I love her, and this is one of the ways I can show her.”
Phoebe melted then and there. How could you not like a guy who was so sweet and loved his wife so much? Loved her, and went out of his way to do little things to show her.
“There’s so much I don’t know about this…this…” She couldn’t even find the right words.
He shot her a grin. “We’re figuring that out.”
She reached over, picked up one of the leftover slices of cheese, and nibbled the edge.
“So you’ve never morphed before, huh?”
She shook her head.
“How is that possible?”
Phoebe glanced at the bottle of 7-Up on the counter. “Are there anymore of those?”
“Sure,” Gideon said. He opened the fridge and pulled one out, cracked the lid, and handed it to her. “Whole fridge full. Maggie says they help settle her stomach.” He frowned. “You feeling sick,
darlin’?”
Phoebe shrugged. “Just a little off. Probably too much excitement, if you know what I mean.”
Gideon nodded, but he seemed to be watching her a little closer now. “I better get this up to Maggie. But seriously, you need to know we’re all here for you. When you’re ready to talk, if you have any questions, anything…all you have to do is let us know what you need.”
Phoebe held the 7-Up to her chest as she felt herself getting emotional. “Thank you. I mean that.”
Gideon scooped up the plate and the soda. He took a few steps, and then doubled back to grab a pint of mint chocolate chip ice cream from the freezer and a spoon from the drawer. With another nod, he walked toward the door.
At the doorway, though, he stopped and looked back.
“Phoebe?”
“Yeah?”
“Welcome to the family.”
Phoebe blinked, and by God if tears didn’t start welling in her eyes. But before she could respond, he vanished.
She sipped soda and stood there for a moment more, staring at the empty doorway, lost in thought. She took another bite of cheese. And her stomach rebelled.
Forcing herself to swallow the bite in her mouth, she grimaced. Phoebe looked around and found the trash can. After pitching the rest of the cheese, she gulped half the bottle of soda, grabbed another bottle from the fridge for the road, and made her way back upstairs.
When she stepped back inside the room, she drew up short. The bed was empty.
“Sebastian!”
He staggered into view, bracing his hand on the bathroom doorway. His hair was damp, and steam rolled from the room behind him. “Yeah?”
“What are you doing out of bed?” She rushed inside the room, deposited the soda bottles on the bedside table, and hurried to his side.
“I’m fine,” he assured her, but his words were slurred, and he was unsteady on his feet.
“No, you’re not. Get back in bed.” She inserted herself under his arm and he lumbered across the room beside her.
“You changed back,” he remarked, glancing down at her.