by Zoe Chant
“He knew who you were. He knew your name.”
“How?”
Ash shook his head again, silent.
Swans weren’t the only type of shifter to have special powers relating to finding their mate. But the thought that her mate might have been a shifter, one of their own kind, and yet still been part of whatever evil organization had tortured Ash…somehow, that only made it all worse.
“Why didn’t he come for me?” she asked. “I came to find him. I crossed half the world in search of him. If I’d found him, would he have turned me away?”
“I think,” Ash said, with a catch in his voice, “that would have been the only way to keep you truly safe. He stayed away to protect you, Rose.”
“Do you think he was right?”
“Yes.” He met her eyes at last, and there was nothing but raw, bleak honesty in those dark depths. “God forgive me, but yes. He kept you safe, in the only way he could, and even now I cannot hate him for that.”
She hid her face in her hands. It was too much, too fast. Her swan still said no, no, no, even as her human mind had to accept the truth of Ash’s words. She didn’t know how to feel.
“I wish you hadn’t told me,” she said, muffled.
“I never wanted to.” She heard him stand. “But now you understand. Goodbye, Rose.”
And she knew that she would never see him again.
Chapter 12
Past
20 years ago…
Go back, go back, go back.
Blaze had a lifetime of experience in ignoring his beast. He ignored it now, flying steadily against the frantic pull urging him in the opposite direction.
Rose hadn’t wanted to leave him. No matter that she wasn’t safe as long as they were together. No matter that he was the Phoenix, while her own animal had no defenses against the predators stalking them. If he’d let her, she would have stayed at his side and guarded his back to her last breath.
He’d cheated, in the end. Used her fierce, compassionate heart against her.
“Rose,” he’d told her, cupping her angry, tear-streaked face in his hands. “We know how to free the other shifters now. I have to go back.”
It had been the one argument he’d known she wouldn’t be able to counter. And she’d had to admit that she would only be a liability on this mission. She’d snuck into the warlock base once—and the mere thought of how she’d endangered herself for him still froze the blood in his veins—but this was no longer a matter of stealth and subtlety.
He wasn’t going to infiltrate the base.
He was going to destroy it utterly.
He’d thought that his beast would revel in the prospect. But strangely, the fire fought him. He had to force every wingbeat, when normally he would have been able to arrow across the sky as fast as thought.
Go back, go back, go back.
He ground his beak, his talons clenching on nothing. Our animals are wiser than us, Rose had said to him, but there was no sense in the urgent tug of his beast’s instincts. No matter how they screamed at him that he had to be at his mate’s side to protect her, his rational mind knew better.
Corbin could track him. Until the warlock was dead, he couldn’t risk being near her.
He glanced up at the sun, judging the time. By now, she should have reached the airport. Soon she would be safely away, back to her own country. A warlock could theoretically open a portal even to England—though the effort expended would drain even a powerful shifter to the point of death—but why would they? Without his betraying presence at her side, the warlocks had no way of knowing where she’d gone.
He knew it was right for them to separate. He knew it was the only way to keep her safe.
But still: Go back, go back, go back.
He’d expected to hear the wail of sirens the instant he came in sight of the base. But no alarm came. No soldiers patrolled the high, wire-topped walls; no robed figures ran to meet his assault. Even the door to the menagerie hung open, unguarded.
The base looked deserted.
Suspecting some kind of trick, he dove fast as a missile, a wave of fire billowing before him. Barracks and labs burst into flame…but no one came running out.
He swooped lower, more slowly, still alert for any attack. His eagle-sharp eyesight scanned the base, and his unease grew.
Every last vehicle was gone, leaving behind only deep ruts in the dirt road. Even that could have been a decoy, to tempt him into coming down to investigate further…but there was no fooling his psychic abilities. If there had been people present in the base—no matter how well concealed—he would have sensed the fires of their souls.
They were gone. They were all gone.
Abandoning caution, he landed outside Corbin’s private residence, a stately manor house set within formal gardens. The front door hung ajar. It creaked in the wind caused by his fiery aura, swinging further open.
He shifted back into human form, recklessly. Even that didn’t prompt an attack.
He’d never been into the mansion before. The cells, the labs, the training grounds—those were the parts of the complex that he knew. Not this, Corbin’s private domain.
His feet left blackened footprints on the marble floor as he stalked through the deserted rooms. The library still had books scattered across the shelves, but many volumes were missing. Desk drawers were pulled out, clearly having been emptied of any important contents.
Corbin had departed in a hurry. But not in a panic.
The High Magus had been able to sense him coming. He’d had time to execute an evacuation plan. Blaze has a sick certainty that there wouldn’t be a single clue left anywhere in the complex that might hint where the warlock had gone.
The trail was cold. He had no idea how to find Corbin.
He couldn’t protect his mate.
Helpless fury from exploded out of him, torching the remaining books. Every window shattered, shards of glass lancing outward. The heat of the inferno swirled around him, but the fire offered no comfort.
He’d been certain that Corbin would face him rather than flee. He’d thought that the half-hearted attack earlier had just been a ruse to draw him back here—if Corbin had seriously been trying to take him by surprise, he wouldn’t have sent such weak warlocks. A wolverine, an ocelot, a wolf…those were all the types of creature that were given to mid-ranking Adepts, not the more experienced senior warlocks, the Magi.
He’d been expecting a trap. The base was heavily fortified, the best place Corbin could pick to make a stand. Blaze had been bracing himself for the fight of his life. Dozens of powerful warlocks acting together would have been a challenge even for the Phoenix.
Why had Corbin run? Why hadn’t he made use of all the weapons at his disposal? Why hadn’t he unleashed—
And Blaze realized that he’d made a terrible mistake.
Go back, go back, go back.
“I’m going back, stupid swan,” Rose snarled under her breath, trying to concentrate on the road. “Shut up and let me drive!”
She’d made it approximately ten miles before her swan’s incessant nagging had made her do an abrupt U-turn. Now she drove as fast as she could down unfamiliar backcountry lanes, following the pull of the mate bond. It was more urgent than ever.
“Shouldn’t have listened to him,” she muttered to herself, taking switchbacks at unwise speed. If she crashed and burned, it was all going to be his fault. “So distracted by that pretty mouth, didn’t realize what horsefeathers were coming out of it. Argh! Why do you have to be able to fly so fast, you overgrown oven-ready chicken?!”
Thinking up ridiculous insults for her noble, protective, and above all idiotic mate was all that was stopping her from succumbing to stark terror. She’d let him sweet-talk her into this stupid plan to separate. And now he was flying straight into a trap.
The warlocks captured him once. Of course they can bind him again!
But not if she was there. She’d freed him once, after all. And the war
locks who’d attacked them earlier hadn’t made any attempt to bind either of them. It was like their magic was a sick, twisted version of the mate bond. It had no strength in the presence of the real thing.
But she had a horrible, horrible certainty that protection wouldn’t work at a distance. And that Corbin had manipulated them both like puppets to separate them.
A sign flashed by, warning of another sharp bend coming up. Much as her swan screeched for more speed, it wouldn’t do Blaze any good if she crashed and burned. Reluctantly, Rose took her foot off the accelerator.
That was all that saved her life.
Between one breath and the next, the world outside the car windows went white. Her tires slid on sudden ice. Too shocked even to scream, Rose reflexively spun the steering wheel, turning into the skid.
If she’d been going any faster, she would have gone straight off the edge of the road and over a cliff. As it was, the car slid sideways into a tree with a bone-rattling crunch.
Shaken, bruised, it took Rose a moment to work out whether or not she was dead. The airbag had gone off in her face. She struggled free of its enveloping folds, beating down the collapsing fabric. Breathing hard, she stared out the cracked windscreen.
That can’t be right.
It was snowing. In July. In California.
Not just a little snow, either. A full-on blizzard had fallen out of the clear blue sky, whiting out the world. She couldn’t even see the end of her car’s hood, let alone the road. Her breath steamed in the suddenly freezing air.
Her breath steamed in the suddenly freezing air.
The warlock base. Blaze’s cell. The other cell.
“Oh no.” Her fingers had gone numb. She scrabbled at her seat belt, frantically trying to release the catch. “No, no, no…”
The wind scratched over the car. It sobbed and whined, like a starving dog.
It spoke.
“Hungry.”
Rose screamed as the windscreen imploded in a shower of glass. Branching antlers the color of ice stabbed through, nearly impaling her.
Rose made the fastest shift of her life. Her swan-self slid free of the seat belt as the monstrous antlers withdrew. With the speed of terror, Rose hurled herself out the shattered windscreen, leaping over the creature crouched on the buckled hood.
Polar bear, some oddly calm corner of her mind thought. But no, polar bears don’t have antlers—
Whatever it was, she thought for one heart-stopping second that it had grabbed her. The blizzard seized her outstretched wings, shaking her like a dog with a chew toy. She tumbled head-over-tail feathers, completely out of control.
Something smacked her out of the air. She smashed to the frozen ground, sliding, fetching up against something warm.
Legs.
“I’ve got the shifter!” Still half-stunned, Rose couldn’t resist as human hands grabbed her ankles, hauling her into the air. “Huh, it’s smaller than I—what the hell? It’s just a swan.”
“I don’t care what it is, hurry up and bind it!” yelled a second voice. Dangling upside-down, Rose had a confused glimpse of ice-blue light swirling around upraised hands. “I can’t hold my beast for much longer! I have to get it back to its cage before it breaks free!”
“I told the High Magus you were too weak to handle the wendigo,” the first man snapped. “You should be the one who has to shackle himself to this overgrown duck.”
“You really want to try to transfer familiars now? Just bind the damn bird! Unless you want to explain to the High Magus that you were too proud to carry out his orders?”
The first man heaved an irritated, put-upon sigh. “I swear, if any of you bastards dare to laugh about this…”
He switched to some foreign language, chanting out words that ran over Rose’s skin like ants. One of his hands groped for her right wing.
Unfortunately, the brief exchange had given Rose’s head time to clear.
“Just a swan?” Her beak turned the words into angry hisses and ear-splitting honks. The warlock howled as her wings smashed into his arm. “Just a swan?!”
Finding himself unexpectedly holding a very large, very awake, and very angry swan, the warlock made a very unwise decision.
He let go.
Birds were descended from dinosaurs. In this form, Rose was a lot more closely related to a velociraptor than a human being.
The warlock screamed as she attacked him, shattering his leg with a single blow. She charged straight over his fallen, writhing form, wings spread, aiming for the second warlock. He back-pedaled frantically, chanting something. Blue light crackled around his weaving fingers.
Rose’s iron-hard beak hit him, full force, square in the crotch.
Apparently not even a warlock could do magic under those circumstances.
The dancing sparks faded into nothing as he folded around himself. And from behind Rose, that winter-wail voice spoke again. A different word, this time.
“Free.”
Rose cowered into the snow as a frost-white shape bounded over her. Foot-long claws like shards of ice extended. The warlock never stood a chance.
Rose took one slow, careful step back, then another. The creature didn’t react, fully occupied with its prey. She crept back another pace.
A scrabble of sudden motion made her freeze. The other warlock was madly trying to flee on hands and knees, sobbing, his broken leg dragging through the mounting snow.
“No,” he cried, as the creature’s antlered head jerked up. “Nooooo—!”
His scream ended as bone-colored jaws closed. Red drops scattered across the snow, steaming.
Rose held very still.
A long white tongue ran over the lipless maw. The creature’s head wasn’t just bone-colored—it was bone, a stag’s long, eerie skull. The spreading antlers were wider than Rose’s car. Icicles clung to the branching tines.
The antlers dipped, as the creature nosed along the ground. Nothing remained of the two warlocks but a patch of red-stained snow. The monster licked it up hungrily, crouched on all fours. Its body was bigger than a bear, but lean as a wolf. Rose could count every rib through its ragged white fur.
Rose edged back another step.
The skull-head turned. Cold blue fire burned in the empty eye sockets.
“Still hungry,” whispered the wendigo.
There was no hope of fleeing. Even if the howling wind hadn’t made flight impossible, a swan couldn’t take off from a standing start. All Rose could do was face the beast head-on, refusing to flinch.
Blaze’s beautiful, beloved face filled her mind. If she was going to die, at least he would be her final thought—
Fiery wings swept around her, hurling back the blizzard’s cold. The wendigo howled in fear, leaping away from the burning feathers.
The Phoenix’s eyes were twin suns, incandescent with rage. Outside the vast arc of his wings, snow hissed into billowing clouds of steam. Every feather blazed white-hot—but where Rose crouched, in the heart of that protective embrace, she felt nothing but a pleasant, gentle summer’s warmth.
The wendigo was an indistinct white blur amidst the swirling veils of steam and snow. All Rose could see clearly were the bright, cold lights of its eyes, fixed on the Phoenix.
The blizzard picked up, making the edges of the Phoenix’s flame-feathers flicker. Winter winds whined and begged.
*Hunt, then.* The Phoenix’s searing voice wasn’t aimed at her; Rose only caught the edges of the thought, like smoke rising from a distant fire. *But only your rightful prey.*
The wendigo’s vast antlers dipped. It bowed, low to the ground.
Then, in a swirl of snow, it was gone.
In moments, the sky cleared to brilliant blue. Tentatively, a bird chirped, and was answered by another. Sunlight and summer returned, as if nothing had happened. Churned mud—and, of course, the crashed car—were the only signs of the attack.
Adrenaline deserted Rose, pulling her back into her human skin. Strong arms caught her
as her knees buckled.
“Rose, Rose.” Blaze held her as tightly as if he feared she might melt away like the snow. “I was nearly too late. If you’d been farther away, if you’d gone to the airport like we agreed…I was nearly too late.“
“I worked out it was a trap.” She clung to him just as fiercely, needing to reassure herself that he was truly there, hot and solid under her palms. “But I thought it was for you, that they were going to try to bind you again!”
“No. Corbin knows I’m too strong for that. He has to be touching me in order to bind me, and I’d kill him before he finished the spell.” He made a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob. “It’s not me that he’s after now. He wants you. To make me surrender myself voluntarily.”
“Don’t you dare do that,” she said forcefully. “Not ever, no matter what, you hear me? But how did they know where I was? Were they following me?”
“They don’t have to. That’s what I worked out, why I raced back. Remember what the warlock, the one with the ocelot, started to say? ‘You can’t hide from us. You or your…’” Blaze didn’t finish the sentence, instead burying his face in her hair. “Rose, I was nearly too late.”
“You weren’t,” Rose said again, though she was beginning to suspect he wasn’t going to break out of this spiral of guilt for a while. “But I still don’t understand.”
“Corbin can track the Phoenix. And you’re bound to me, to the Phoenix, sharing its fire.” His hands gripped her shoulders. She could feel him shaking. “Corbin can find you too.”
Chapter 13
“Wait.”
Ash didn’t want to. He needed to be gone, somewhere, anywhere. He should never have returned to her at all.
He had only ever brought her pain. The only way to avoid hurting her even more was to remove himself from her life entirely. The best thing he could do was to go, now, and never look back.
“Wait,” Rose said again.
He could not ignore his mate’s command.
He stopped with one hand on the door handle, not looking round at her. “You should let me go, Rose.”