by Lacy LeRoch
I need to keep her down until I find it.
I hit her again and again, not giving her a chance to catch her breath, or the ability to move. I use my body as an anchor and place my whole weight on her chest pinning her shoulders and arms under my legs. She tries to let her Phoenix free, but she can’t because her hands are pinned in my wings.
“Don’t you want to know my story, Watcher? Don’t you want to know why?” Sarah calls out.
I know she’s stalling so I don’t relent in my punches. No supernatural power can be released through my wings. They are a shield of all sorts, it’s why most of the time we use them to shield the ones we love and honor. Lacy screams again, distracting me. I misjudge a punch and hit the ground at the side of her head. A sharp pain runs up my arm and I can’t help but cry out from the pain. I grab my damaged right wrist with my left hand, stunned that I would do something so stupid as to lose my focus.
“Fuck me,” I scream out in agony, as heat blasts up my back.
The distraction from Lacy’s scream, and the damage I took to my hand, I must have moved my wings allowing her to hit me with a magic blast. Sarah gets the upper hand, advancing on me. She hits me with wave after wave of heat. There isn’t anything I can do about it as I’m frozen with pain. Sarah uses this distraction to her advantage, spinning me around and taking me to the ground. She uses the heat of the Phoenix to keep me pinned.
Our perfect match might be in a Phoenix shifter, but they have one thing to use against us. It has been known to happen more than once. Goddess Lylian, never wanted her Lyian to be a weak species. She gifted her girls with the lethal powers of the Phoenix. It’s another reason in our council the girls are referred to as the Lethal Lyian’s. The girls, once in control of all of their power, can kill us with just one single blast of heat.
I twist and turn in desperation trying to get out of Sarah’s hold. If I can just get the heat off my wings, I’ll be able to break free. That’s when I see the very thing I was looking for, a feather from Markus’ red wings hanging from her neck. This shatters my world into pieces, and reality kicks in. I had a feeling she’d taken it, but the situation is worse than I thought. I don’t stand a chance and know in this moment that I won’t be leaving alive tonight.
Sarah reaches down, rubs the feather between her forefinger and thumb, laughing. “Oh, this was a great prize, and you know what that means don’t you?”
I lower my head in defeat, responding, “It means, nothing I do will kill you. It means—”
Whack! Whack! Whack!
She slams my head into the ground viciously, leans over and takes hold of my distended wings in both of her hands and pulls backward with all her strength, keeping me trapped.
“Before I kill you, Watcher, know this… that girl in there was never really yours. I found a nice little spell that mimics the slow burn of a mating heat, but you knew that, didn’t you? Because after you had sex with her, you didn’t get your mark and she never got hers.”
She cackles over the top of me like an old witch casting a spell. She pulls on my wings. Once, twice, then pulls back so hard I feel her body fall against the back of my legs. She rips my wings clean off my back in one swift movement. I howl like a banshee in heat. I can’t breathe, can’t think. I failed the one person in this world that I was meant to protect. Weakness takes me over as my life force leaves my body.
I am dying.
I have failed.
“Oh, poor, poor, Watcher. You want to know something even better than the feeling I got while pulling your wings off?” Sarah taunts.
I look toward the bedroom doorway and see the ex-Watcher Kelan, carrying Lacy over his back like a sack of potatoes.
Whack!
Sarah slams my face into the ground again, lowers her head and whispers in my ear, “She was never really yours, it was all a spell.”
“You told me, bitch,” I growl.
She might have already told me, but it doesn’t stop the way I’d started to fall for her. Sarah laughs and slams my head into the floor again. She makes sure that my face is pinned to the ground facing Lacy. I know she’s using my death to haunt Lacy. She might not have been my true Lyian, but I loved her still the same.
A total calm floods my body, a euphoria. My time has come as I hear the whispers of peace and love flow through me, as the Goddess calls to me.
Feeling the heavy stare of Lacy’s eyes upon mine, I tilt my head toward her making sure I’m looking her straight in the eyes. I know she can’t move or speak, but I need her to know just how much she means to me.
“I will always love you my sweet, always.”
Chapter Fifteen
Mom turns around while holding both of Bevan’s wings in her hands, like some sort of sick trophy. She smiles sadistically, as she watches the blood drip down from the brown wings and pool on the floor. She then walks over to the beast holding me.
“Kelan turn around,” she orders, spinning her finger in a circle indicating for him to turn. He lowers his head in a bow and spins around. “Your dear Bevan is dead. Fun isn’t it. Oh, and this right here…” she pats him on the leg, “…his name is Kelan. And like your precious Bevan is… no was a Watcher… Kelan isn’t good.” She laughs with glee. “You belong to him now. Oh, how much fun we’re all going to have together.”
Kelan smacks me on the backside, laughing. “Thank you, Mistress. Thank you so much.” He reaches around to the back of my legs, grabs hold of them and pulls me down the front of his body. He then wraps my legs around his waist and holds me close. My head falls backward from the effects of being paralyzed.
Kelan leans in and grabs hold of the back of my head in one of his hands, and kisses me on the lips forcing my mouth apart for his tongue. If I could move, I would bite him. His tongue moves slowly around the inside of my mouth. Kelan pushes me against the wall, not once taking his lips from mine. The foul taste of metal invades my senses. I start to panic, visions of the rape coming back to me in vivid scenes flashing in and out of my senses taking me back in time to that horrible night.
“Tune out, little shifter, I am here. He may have your body, for now, but your soul belongs to me. Stay in your head, here with me. Always with me.” Brad’s calm voice lulls my body and mind into a relaxed state, stopping the flashbacks. “That’s it, little shifter, listen to me. Slow down your breathing. We have this. Trust me, I will kill him as soon as I can.”
I try to think of anything else but Kelan. But the only thing I have left is Lucy, and I don’t even know if she’s still alive. I’ve lost the man that I love at the hand of my stepmother. I just saw my father’s body lying on the bed with his throat slit. Maybe I should just give up. Give them what they want. I mean what have I got left?
“Little shifter…” Brad’s growls, “…you’ll never think these things again. I have been stuck in your mind for far too long. I know you. You’re worth more than you think. Don’t make me burn your ass to get you to see it.”
The growl that echoes in my head is lethal. I don’t think Brad is happy with me.
“Too fucking right, I’m not happy. You keep thinking all negative thoughts. You are more than you give yourself credit for. Together, little one. We are together. You will never be alone as long as you allow me to help you.”
Kelan uses his strength to push me hard against the wall, he runs his spare hand up the inside of my thigh, lifting my dress as he goes along. He groans when his finger grazes my panties.
“So sweet, so very, very sweet,” he muses.
Just the thought of him touching me makes me want to be sick. I close my eyes and try to block him out. A loud crash outside makes Kelan pull my dress down to cover me. The act is almost… tender and caring.
"What the fuck?" he growls.
Just when I think that Kelan can’t get any more brutal, he brings his hand back and backhands me across the face. I see the constellations burst behind my eyelids. When I open my eyes again, I swear I see him looking at me… regretfully. When
he notices that I’m staring at him, he growls and hauls me over his shoulder making a run for the bedroom door.
Mom comes in stopping our escape. "Kelan, knock her out. We need to go, we have company. The pack has found us. I’ve already sent the other Phoenix ahead of us, but we need to move fast."
Mom turns and makes a dash for the door, making her escape. A radiating pain shoots from my skull and lower neck, before I can react or cry out a blackness overtakes my vision and I am once again knocked out cold.
Chapter Sixteen
“Jordi, are you picking up a scent from Sarah or Lucy?” I whisper as I creep up toward the cottage.
Philli came up with a great plan. We’re to approach in from the south, in a surprise attack. They won’t be able to pick up our scent. The only concerning problem is making sure that we catch up with Owen and Jordi without the council getting wind of our plan. Philli put the call out for the only two brothers we could trust not to snitch and destroy our only chance. They had turned up to the Prince’s cave within minutes.
It was hard trying to sneak off the Devilice Island without being noticed. With the Prince being a well-known Dragon, and the commander of the flying squad, not to mention a royal. So every Dragon and his mate, wanted to talk to the all-important Dragon shifter all at once about their problems, as if sensing he had somewhere more important to be.
We don’t know what we will be facing. So it was decided we’d come together as a team, and work it out when we arrived. With not having any time to consider a stronger plan, this was the only choice we had available. It just meant that we were going to be coming into this situation blind. Like going to war for the first time, surviving on the only information provided—shoot and defend.
“They were here, Rafe, but I can’t tell if they’re still around. Something is blocking my senses. I can faintly smell Bevan in the house, and a lot of blood. We need to move fast, something isn’t right,” Jordi calls out, shifting back into his human form.
Owen runs up beside me, frantic. “I felt a shift, Rafe, I felt a shift.”
I reach out and grab my brother by the arm, stopping him from running straight into the cottage to plunge to his death. He shakes uncontrollably.
“What are you talking about Owen, what shift? Calm down and talk to me. What shift?” I demand, spinning my younger brother around to face me. He tries to push past me, ducking and dodging my arms, as I reach out to get a better hold on him. “Stop and talk to me. Tell me what’s wrong? What can you feel? We can’t go running into danger without knowing all the facts, and especially giving away our position.”
Owen shakes his head, and reluctantly starts speaking, “I felt Bevan leave this life. I felt him take his last breath.” His voice shakes.
He lowers his head, allowing his salty tears to fall down his face in streaks of emotion. Philli, Jordi and I, stare at Owen in a state of disbelief and confusion. None of us wanting to be the first one to speak up.
“Brother, are you telling us what I think you are?” I ask after a few seconds of complete silence.
Owen looks up at me, shrugging his shoulders. Anguish and pain stare back at me. I’ve never seen my brother so broken, so defeated.
He takes a deep shuttering breath. “Bevan and I…. Well, before um…”
I watch open-mouthed as my normally smart mouthed, joking brother, struggles to find the right words.
“Speak up, no judgment here. We’re all friends and family,” Jordi tells him.
I have a feeling Jordi already knows and is just making out that he doesn’t. There was a time when Jordi, Owen, and Bevan were inseparable. So I have my doubts that Jordi wouldn’t know what is going on now?
Jordi winks at Owen. “Just tell them O. Trust me, they won’t care, brother.”
I knew it, he does know something. If I didn’t want to know what was going on so bad, I’d walk over and kick them both in the nuts for keeping a secret from me.
“Bevan and I were together, like together, together. He was mine and I was his. I loved him Rafe with everything in me, I loved him.” A heart-wrenching sob racks his body and he continues, “But, I know that now is not the time or place for such talk. This I understand. I will say, that my heart stopped beating and fell to my feet the moment I felt the loss of his existence. I felt him leave this world.”
Holy shit, I can’t believe it. I’m lost for words. I should have known, I could have helped him with the bond and the council in the acceptance of this relationship. I know I shouldn’t be mad at him, but I am.
“If you were bonded, that can only mean that Bevan and Lacy were not actually a bonded pair or a perfect match.”
Owen braces his stance, stands up straight and says, “Battle up men. We talk about this later. Right now, I want to avenge the fucking assholes who took my only love from me.”
He’s right, now is not the time. I know this, but with everything going on, I can’t get my body to move. I feel guilty that I’ve found love and Owen has just lost his. I feel guilty because I’ve managed to put my mate in harm’s way.
Fuck, I just feel guilty about everything that’s going on.
“Rafe… Rafe,” Philli calls out, bringing me into the land of now.
“Ya, what?”
Gee, is that the best you could do Rafe? I mean you are never lost for words, I chastise myself.
“Right battle, let’s suit up men. If Bevan is still in there, we take him home. Agreed?”
The brothers raise their right fists in the air and bang them on their chests three times. I pull out my broadsword from under my cloak and get ready to attack. I look at the men standing around me and give the order.
“Owen and Jordi come in from the back entrance. Jordi give us a howl if you smell anything off. Philli and I will hit the house front on, stopping anyone from being able to give us the slip. Agree?”
The men nod their heads in agreement. God, I hope that Lucy’s inside. I need to get to her. Every day that I’m away from her makes me crave her even more. I need her more than my next breath.
“Right, we’re moving out. Rafe, I can’t smell anything on the air. We’re good to go,” Jordi says, his nose raised high.
Jordi and Owen hunch down low and sneak over to the door. They swiftly make it in record time. Jordi looks at Philli and me, and nods giving us the all clear to move forward. I creep around the front, being careful to keep the noise to a minimum. Scanning the area for any intruder or anybody standing guard of the door, then I hear Jordi scream. “They’re here, they’re here.” He crashes through the back door. That’s all the confirmation I need. I sprint up to the house, leap up the steps and run inside tripping over the shattered door in the walkway. My heart hits my feet when I take in the mass of destruction around me.
Lying on the floor in a pile of broken glass and debris lies Bevan’s lifeless body. He’s lying face down, his arms and legs are spread in an unnatural posture. His left arm is bent up his back with his hand resting face up on his neck, his right arm is pointing directly into one of the bedrooms to the right. I jump around the sofa and climb two of the stairs leading toward the second floor, where Bevan is lying in the hallway. I want to be sick when I notice his wings have been completely ripped from his body. My eyes flit around the room in search of the missing wings.
Why the fuck would anyone do this to him?
“Philli, stay with our fallen brother. I need to look for Lucy,” I scream over my shoulder, as I run into the hallway.
I start frantically searching every room I pass. The first room I come across is the room that Bevan was pointing toward. Markus lays on the bed with his throat slit.
Shit. All the Watchers had felt the shift in his life leaving, but seeing it confirmed is heartbreaking. He was my best friend for many good years. I will grieve later, right now I need to find my mate.
“Lucy…Lucy,” I call out, running.
I’m numb as I think about what I might find behind this door. Am I ready to find my Lyian hu
rt or even worse… killed? Before I get a chance to check the room, I hear a scuffle going on out in the backyard.
Shit! I run down the hallway, back down the stairs, passing Philli and Bevan.
“Trouble outside,” I scream as I run past.
I make it to the back door to find that Jordi has shifted into his black wolf form ready to attack Sarah. A viscous snarl reverberates throughout the air as Jordi opens his jaw wide presenting a mouthful of sharp teeth. He lowers down on his front paws, into an attack position. Sarah turns around and kicks Jordi straight in the jaw.
What the fuck is going on? Since when does Sarah try to attack?
“What the fuck?” I yell, running immediately toward the fight to try and break it up.
Jordi charges at Sarah, but she disappears at the last minute, leaving Jordi to jump at thin air.
Where the fuck has, she gone? And even worse when did Sarah get transportation powers. He howls at the night sky in defeat, shifting back into his human form with a swirl of smoke and debris. He’s mad, and I can’t say as I blame him. He’s had to shift a couple of times tonight, and from everything that I’ve heard it can be downright painful and draining.
“What the fuck happened out here, Jordi?” I demand.
I turn around searching the area for Lucy and Owen. Jordi instantly bends over at the waist, resting his hands on his knees in an attempt to catch his breath.
“That bitch is evil. She’s turned, Rafe. I didn’t even smell her presence.”
“What are you talking about, Jordi? You can always smell everything.”
Jordi shakes his head in disbelief, responding, “I don’t know what to tell you, but I couldn’t smell a thing. I didn’t know she was here until I saw her with my own eyes. I came out to see if she was okay and that’s when she attacked me. Her phoenix is at the surface.”
I couldn’t have heard that right. I must have misunderstood. That has to be it. Just a misunderstanding.