Firefighter Phoenix

by Zoe Chant

  Chapter 19

  “What’s happened?” Hayley strode into the council chamber with a sleepy toddler on each hip and an expression that could have killed a man at twenty paces. The two towering sea dragon knights escorting her looked positively cuddly in comparison. “Rose, what’s going on?”

  “Give her some space,” Connie said, without looking up from sponging Rose’s arms. “Ivy, can you pass me that ointment?”

  The wyvern shifter shook her head, her hands tucked under her armpits. She was being careful to stay well back from everyone else in the crowded room, especially the children. “I can’t, I’m not in control of my venom. Not with Hugh—” She broke off, biting her lip.

  “Here.” Virginia plucked the tube from the first aid kit, tossing it to Connie. “Do you need bandages too?”

  Rose hissed as Connie started dabbing the antiseptic cream on her burns. “Not that bad,” she croaked. “Don’t fuss. No time.”

  She had to stop to cough. Her throat still felt full of smoke. She’d had to fly through the burning roof of her pub in order to escape. Even in the confusion of the fight, she’d barely managed to evade capture. There had been so many of them.

  She took a deep breath, trying to stop her shaking. She’d flown straight to Neridia and John’s private seaside villa. It was the most secure place in the city—quite possibly in the entirety of England—thanks to the dozens of sea dragon knights who made up the Pearl Empress’s honor guard. Even now, she could hear the muffled sounds of clanking armor and shouted calls from the warriors securing the perimeter. Everyone would be safe here.

  But the warlocks had taken down Alpha Team…

  “Daddy!” Hayley’s son Danny shot out from behind his mother, making a bee-line for Reiner. The boy leaped into the lion shifter’s arms, burying his face in his chest. “I can’t feel Da in my head anymore, he’s not there, he went away!”

  “I can’t feel Alpha either, my son,” Reiner said, rubbing Danny’s back. He exchanged a worried glance with his sea dragon mate Jane. “Something’s interfering with the pride bond. But he didn’t go away. Someone took him.”

  Hayley looked like she would have thrown up her hands, if they hadn’t been filled with her clinging children. “How does anyone kidnap a fully-grown griffin? Or, or a dragon, or the Phoenix, for crying out loud! Rose, your message didn’t make any sense.”

  No matter how much Rose tried to get a grip on herself, she couldn’t stop trembling. She felt cold, bone-deep cold, like her heart had frozen solid.

  “Someone should find some beds for the little ones,” she managed to get out. “It’s very late.”

  “Rose,” Hayley started, but stopped as Virginia put a hand on her shoulder.

  “Little pitchers have big ears,” she murmured, with a significant glance down at her own daughter Morwenna. The three-year-old was staying close to her mother, but her wide emerald eyes were skipping from face to face, clearly trying to interpret the adults’ expressions.

  “We’ll take them,” Reiner said, catching his mate’s eye. Letting Danny slide down to the floor, he took the twins from Hayley. “Rory, Ross, we’re going to have a sleepover! Won’t that be fun?”

  From the way the twins’ faces crumpled, they weren’t entirely convinced.

  “I’ll shift and we can all wrestle,” Reiner hastily added, turning the incipient wails into happy giggles. “Come on, Danny, you too.”

  Danny hung back, his brown eyes fixing on Rose. “Is my Da in danger?”

  “Da goes into danger every day,” Hayley said firmly, before Rose could find words. “But he always, always comes back to us. You know that.”

  Danny nodded, his mouth firming. “Then I’ll be alpha for the little ones until he gets back. Come on, Wenna. I’ll protect you.”

  “I dragon,” Morwenna said indignantly. She drew herself up to her full height, which put her about on level with Danny’s elbow. “Protect you.”

  Jane smiled, coming forward gracefully. “Well, I’m a dragon too, but not a big, fierce, fire-breathing one. Perhaps you would come and help guard my hoard?”

  “Go with your Auntie Jane,” Virginia murmured, sending Morwenna off with a pat on her backside. With a last defiant glance at Danny, the little girl took the turquoise-haired sea dragon’s hand.

  Neridia motioned the ever-present guards to close the doors again after the children had left. “Now we may speak plainly. Rose, what has happened?”

  Rose had finally managed to stop her teeth from chattering, though she still shook with cold. She looked around at them all. “You can all still feel your mates?”

  “I can sense John,” Neridia confirmed. “But I can’t reach him.”

  “Dai’s further away than I’ve ever known,” Virginia said. “I can’t tell where he is, but I can feel that he’s furious.”

  “So’s Hugh,” Ivy said. She swallowed hard. “And he’s hurt.”

  “I think Chase is as well,” Connie said, her face pale beneath her flaming red hair. “He’s barely there. I think he’s unconscious.”

  “Griff is knocked out too,” Hayley said. “And he’s…” She took a deep breath, as though needing to steel her nerves to get the words out. “It feels like something’s pulling him apart. As if his lion and eagle have separated and are fighting again.”

  “It’s not that,” Rose said, and Hayley’s shoulders slumped with relief. “But he is being pulled apart. They all are. We have to get them back, quickly, now. Or they’ll lose their minds, their very souls. We have to get them back!”

  She realized that her voice had risen shrilly on the last sentence. Her heart thudded against her ribs like a bird battering against a cage.

  They could all sense their mates. But she couldn’t sense Ash. Had no idea if he was all right, or in agony, or already dead…

  “Rose, dear heart,” Neridia said, crouching down. Even kneeling on the floor, the sea dragon Empress was still taller than Rose sitting down. “We will get them back. I have every warrior in the sea poised to move at my command. But you need to tell us exactly what’s happened.”

  Rose ground the heels of her hands against her eyes. Her memories were a shattered mosaic, sharp-edged new shards pushing everything she’d known into foreign shapes. How could she begin to explain, when she barely grasped it herself?

  But she had to. Ash needed her, now.

  She dropped her hands, meeting their eyes again. There was only place to start, really.

  “First, I need to tell you all how Ash and I met,” she said.

  “Wait,” Virginia said, holding up her hands. “I’m still trying to grasp this. Ash is your mate?”

  “Yes. No. It’s complicated.” Rose gratefully accepted a glass of water from Neridia. Her throat felt lined with sandpaper after telling her tale. “He was. But like I said, he burned our bond.”

  The mates all exchanged glances. “He offered to do that for me, once,” Neridia said. “When I was still afraid of my destiny.”

  “Yes, and I put a flea into his ear for even suggesting such a dreadful thing.” Rose sipped her drink, remembering that night. “The irony is overwhelming.”

  “That—that—“ Connie appeared to be searching for a strong enough word. “That man! Oh, when we get him back, I’m going to kill him with my bare hands!”

  “I think that’s my line,” Ivy murmured. “Though maybe you should do it. My venom would make it too quick.”

  Despite everything, Rose found herself with an obscure urge to defend her ex-mate. “He did it to protect me. It was the only way.”

  “Considering what happened the moment you two did get back together, it seems that he was right,” Virginia said with a sigh. “Evidently these—what did you call them? Wizards?”

  “Warlocks,” Rose supplied.

  Virginia wrinkled her nose, as though it pained her scientific mind to have to admit to the existence of such things. “These warlocks must have been spying on him all this time. Just waiting for something
they could use against him. No wonder he was always so distant.”

  “Poor Ash. It does explain a lot.” Hayley glanced round at the others. “We’re still going to beat him like a piñata, right?”

  “Definitely,” Neridia said, with a dangerous gleam in her sea-blue eyes that did not bode well for Ash’s continued health.

  “Well, before we can kick him as he so soundly deserves, we have to find him,” Virginia said pragmatically. “I think we can assume that the warlocks will have taken them all to the same place. If we can find one of them, we’ll find them all.”

  “If he was still my mate, my swan would be able to lead me to his location,” Rose said. “But he’s not, and I can’t. None of you can track your mates?”

  They all shook their heads. Rose’s heart fell, although she hadn’t really been expecting any other answer. Most mated couples could tell where each other were over short distances, but it generally only worked within a mile or two.

  “Swans aren’t the only type of shifters who can find people, though,” Hayley said thoughtfully. She glanced at Connie. “Could one of Chase’s relatives help?”

  “I already thought of that,” Connie said. “He’s much too far away. Even a pegasus can’t locate people over this sort of distance.”

  Neridia smiled. “I think I know someone who can.”

  “The Phoenix?” said the Master Shark, his image rippling on the surface of the wide silver bowl of sea water.

  Rose had met the man in person once before, just after Neridia had ascended the Pearl Throne. Then, he had been a hulking, glowering, silent presence, clearly only dragged into her pub by the direct order of his Empress. Even her empathic sense hadn’t been able to penetrate the ironclad armor around his soul.

  Now, however, he looked…different. The harsh, craggy lines of his face were smoother, more relaxed. His previously marble-pale skin had a faint tan. He even appeared to have put on a little weight which wasn’t entirely muscle. He was no less broad and looming, but somehow considerably less terrifying.

  Of course, Rose had to concede, it would be difficult for anyone to appear menacing while wearing a neon pink Hawaiian shirt with a startling pattern of cheerful cartoon sharks.

  “Yes,” Neridia said to the Master Shark. She had her fingers submersed in the scrying pool, using her sea dragon magic to talk to him across thousands of miles. “I know that shark shifters can scent power like regular sharks are drawn to blood. Could you track the Phoenix?”

  “A dead shark could do that,” the megalodon shifter said dryly. “But yes, I can do so over greater distances than most. A shifter of that power, I could sense from halfway around the world.” He turned his head, his gray eyes going a little distant. “I can taste his smoke even now, though only faintly in this form. Give me a short while, my Empress, and I will find him for you.”

  “Grandpa Finn, Grandpa Finn!” A young boy appeared in the shimmering image, leaping up onto the Master Shark’s back like a monkey. “Why are you standing in the lake? Abuela said we couldn’t swim straight after lunch—oh! Hi, sea lady!”

  The Master Shark looked pained. “Your Majesty, Manny.”

  “Your Majesty,” the boy echoed dutifully. He peered over the Master Shark’s shoulder, his dark eyes bright underneath his mop of curly black hair. “Are you and Big John gonna come see us again soon?”

  “I hope so, Manny,” Neridia said, with only the faintest of catches in her melodious voice. “But first I need to borrow your grandpa for a bit. Give my love and apologies to your grandma, okay? Finn, I’m sorry to have to pull you out of retirement like this.”

  The Master Shark shrugged the boy off his massive shoulders, dunking the delighted child into the lake. “I always stand ready to serve, my Empress.”

  “Be careful,” Neridia warned. “Just find them, and report back. The last thing we need is for the warlocks to get you too.”

  The Master Shark grinned, showing double rows of jagged, razor-sharp teeth. Suddenly he was just as menacing as the last time Rose had met him, Hawaiian shirt or no.

  “They might find me a difficult catch to land,” he said. “But I shall heed the warning. I am already near the Sea Gate you created for me. I shall go through to the open ocean, and shift, and then the hunt shall begin. Expect to hear from me shortly.”

  Neridia withdrew her fingers from the scrying pool. The image on the rippling surface of the water blurred back into their own reflections.

  “So now what can we do?” Connie asked, her hands cradling her rounded belly protectively.

  “There’s no point in making plans without information.” Rose looked round at them all. “So now we rest, while we can. And wait.”

  It was agonizing.

  Neridia ordered guest beds made up for all of them, but no one felt much like sleeping. Ivy paced round the perimeter of the council room like a caged tiger, arms folded and shoulders hunched, keeping away from everyone else. Virginia and Hayley drifted in and out, compulsively checking on their sleeping children. Rose made cups of tea that nobody drank. Connie constructed a nest of blankets on the floor, and lay staring at the ceiling. Neridia dozed in a chair next to the scrying pool, one hand limp on the rim of the bowl.

  The first morning light was brightening the windows when the pool began to glow. It was so dim that at first Rose thought it was just a trick of the dawn. But no—the water rippled with a faint, silvery radiance, brightening and fading in a steady rhythm.

  Rose sat up quickly, dumping Connie’s feet off her lap. “Neridia!”

  The sea dragon Empress awoke with an unladylike snort, her hand splashing into the basin. They all crowded around as the silver glow steadied.

  The Master Shark’s craggy face looked up at them from the water. “I found him. I went through the Sea Gate intending to start the search at Atlantis, but the Phoenix’s blood-scent dragged me out at quite a different location. And not one I would ever have expected.”

  “Where?” They all said it at the same time, their voices overlapping.

  “A place I know well. But I cannot imagine the warlocks are there for the same reason I was.” The Master Shark looked grim as death. “My Empress, we must move quickly. They are on the island of Shifting Sands.”

  Chapter 20

  Shifting Sands. We’re on the island of Shifting Sands.

  Ash had never been here before himself, but Chase’s cut-off sentence combined with the unmistakably tropical climate had allowed him to work out their location. Chase had once won a vacation at the all-shifter resort here, as a finalist in some ridiculous ‘Mr. Shifter’ pageant. The pegasus shifter had waxed eloquent—even more so than usual—about the many delights of the island for months afterward.

  He’d even mentioned that there was a disused villa on the far side of the island, well away from the main resort. It had once been the private residence of the island’s previous owner, a man who had kept a secret zoo of imprisoned shifters. Justice had caught up with the collector; the captives had been liberated, and no one had used the place since.

  Ash was fairly certain that Corbin was using it now. He also suspected that Corbin had known the previous owner—he certainly sounded like a man whose interests would have aligned with those of the High Magus, even if he hadn’t been a warlock himself. Corbin seemed just a little too familiar with the layout of the dusty, abandoned mansion.

  And Ash had a growing, terrible certainty that he knew why Corbin was here.

  The warlock had been using his power to portal in dozens more warlocks throughout the day. But these warlocks had all come alone, without familiars. The runes around their left wrists had just been flat black ink, the tattoos not yet shimmering with power. They’d all had hungry, eager expressions. Ash had seen people like that before.

  Acolytes. Trained in binding shifters, but not yet with familiars of their own.

  And across the island, there was a whole resort full of shifters, unguarded and unaware…

  “More,” Cor
bin demanded.

  Ash clenched his teeth, feeling the warlock’s will probing at him like a dagger between his ribs. He kept his own mental walls high and tight, as blank as his face.

  He had years of experience in hiding his soul. He’d sat night after night in Rose’s pub, watching her from the corner, and never revealed his feelings.

  He used all that hard-earned discipline now. The binding cut into his arm like red-hot wire. He couldn’t stop the warlock from drawing power from him, but he could at least slow the torrent.

  The warlock held up one hand, studying the orange light jumping fitfully over his runes. “This childish defiance is pointless, Blaze. You are only hurting yourself.”

  Despite Ash’s resistance, Corbin’s fingertips still burned with flickering flames. They glowed bright in the dim, shuttered room, reflecting in the glassy eyes of the stuffed animal heads on the walls.

  Corbin rubbed his hands over each other, as though smoothing lotion into his skin. As the fire faded, so did the age spots and wrinkles lining his old flesh. His swollen knuckles straightened and strengthened.

  Corbin let out a long, pleased sigh. He opened and closed his hands experimentally, his fingers moving more smoothly now.

  “Twenty years will take some time to undo,” he said, admiring his own rejuvenated flesh. “It was the one spell I could not perform with any lesser shifter. Even I can only be reborn in Phoenix fire.”

  He’d never wondered, before, why Corbin had never seemed to change. When Ash had been a child, Corbin had just been a towering, god-like figure. Even as he’d grown, he hadn’t really noticed that Corbin didn’t age. When you were in your twenties, everyone over the age of forty just fell into the vague category of old.

  But now that he was in his forties, it was painfully obvious in retrospect that Corbin had never aged naturally. Ash cursed himself for not realizing exactly why Corbin had been so fixated the Phoenix. No wonder the warlock had pursued him across twenty years and two continents.