“Baby brother?” Rylee looked around for answers.
“My twin Aran.
*~*~*~*
Let’s go to the zoo. It will be fun. Next time they were doing something inside like watching a movie or paint dry. Anything was preferable to sneaking into the zoo. Did she mention that meant climbing that darn hill again?
Getting everything coordinated for tonight was hard. Aran who was a carbon copy of Slade came to watch the children. He brought his mate Rena and three of his brothers and their mates. Slade glared at Aran every chance he got. The way to tell the two apart besides the glare was their hairstyle.
It was the way Slade looked at Rena, Aran’s mate that made no sense. There were times he looked at her with longing and other times he looked at her with disgust. There was a history there that she wasn’t privy to.
They were going to stay until Mekhi, and the others got home.
She was standing with Phoenix, Elfin, and Sela as she worked on disrupting the security enough for them to get into the zoo. Behind them stood Mekhi and Quinn. Jabari and Brandi were at the doctor’s house. It sat on property adjacent to the zoo.
“Sela?” Phoenix asked how close she was.
“I almost got it, dad.”
He stiffened. It took everything Rylee had not to start laughing. That’s right when you suddenly have kids who are preteen.
“Feeling old yet?” she asked quietly.
“Centuries.”
She left that one alone. Sela’s board sparked then she rushed them through.
“I’m having the security footage play on a loop to keep anyone from spotting us.”
They moved quickly through the zoo until they came to the snake enclosure.
Laying on the floor in front of the snake enclosure was Dr. Walt Bickham.
“This is what I was worried about. At least, he still retains enough sense not to sleep in there with Queen.” Mekhi hurried over to Dr. Walt. “Elfin a little help. Tell him he’s sleepwalking. I don’t want him to wake up.”
Elfin closed his eyes. Dr. Walt began walking with the help of Mekhi and Quinn back to his house.
“Good luck,” Quinn whispered to Rylee as they passed.
She was going to need more than luck. How did Slade think the four of them could subdue Queen? She was a monster.
“I’m going to go in and cage her mouth. When that’s done, Rylee you can come in and start creating a cage around her tail. We’ll keep it up until we meet somewhere in the middle of her body.”
She stood staring at him with her mouth hanging open.
“Rylee?”
“Piece of cake.”
“Once we have her caged, then you two can come in.” Phoenix told Elfin and Sela.
“We got it,” Elfin told him. The teasing from earlier was gone.
Phoenix went to the door that was painted to look like part of the scenery. Sela raised her hands pulling out her board. The lock clicked on the door. He stepped inside closing it behind him.
“Tell me again why I am doing this?”
“Because your heart is big,” Sela told her.
Rylee bit back the sarcastic remark she wanted to make. All her life she knew she couldn’t afford to care about others, but that never stopped her. She fingered her necklace the gift from her mother. She would channel her gift through it to make it easier to control.
Phoenix came into view. Queen was following him silently. She wanted to scream at him to watch out. There was no way he would hear her through the thick glass. She was sure it was over a foot thick maybe more.
Queen raised up opening her mouth. Her neck stiffened before she dove into her attack. Phoenix turned swiftly with a rope of fire in his hands. He twirled it like a lasso tossing it. It missed falling to the ground to burn itself out.
Queen was on the attack now. She threw her body at him hitting him in the thigh. He fell and rolled staying out of the way of her bulk. His mouth was moving, but they couldn’t make out what he was saying.
Her head came down. He vaulted up tossing his body like he was jumping a pole in the Olympics. He went over her head and landed on her back.
She gave a full body shake trying to dislodge him. He slid downwards until his fingers turned into claws, and he sank them into her to halt his downward spiral. Her mouth opened. There was a high-pitched screech that was loud enough to be heard through the glass.
She was going to kill Phoenix. It was there in the look in her eyes. Dr. Walt spoke the truth. Queen was sentient.
Phoenix used his claws to begin climbing up her back. Her front teeth grew pointed. She had some type of poison. Of course, she did. They didn’t make hybrids of garden snakes. Her tail came up. She used it like a weapon aiming the barb for Phoenix’s belly where it would do the most damage.
The tail came at him again. He flicked it away with a trail of fire. She turned her head confident that he was about to become a snack. She moved fast. Phoenix took his fiery lasso slipping it over her head. He pulled tight to get her mouth closed. She resisted until he finally let her body go and hung from the fire allowing his body weight to help force her huge mouth closed.
Once he was sure she was relatively safe, he wrapped the cord around her mouth and began to build a cage of fire around her head. Rylee knew that was her cue to go in.
The enclosure was deeper than she first thought. That’s why it took so long for Phoenix to be seen in the glass. She picked her way through until she was standing under a tree at the edge of the glass. Taking a deep breath, she stepped out to start her end of the cage.
Queen locked their gazes. Rylee couldn’t move. Why was she here and did she really want to hurt this magnificent animal? What had it done to her? Nothing, she came into its home to hurt it. The penalty for that was death. It made sense, she should die for what she did.
The lick of fire against her face pushed her back. She fell, breaking eye contact with Queen. What the hell? She stood to find herself covered in snake feces and small bits of undigested animals.
“Eww, Phoenix.” She screamed, not because she was mad because she was covered in snake poo!
“I told you not to look her in the eyes.”
He had but now was not the time to tell him he was right. She started creating a ball of fire to mold into a cage when Queen's tail swung out to hit her. She let the fire drop and jumped for the low branch of the tree she was standing next to. If this tree was in the cage, it meant that it could withstand Queen.
She climbed until she reached the top. The smell of burning poo followed her up. Find a man Rylee, give him your heart. Did Phoenix have her heart? Queen beat against the tree with her tail. Right, cage snake. Everything else could wait.
She ran her fire through the necklace using it to pull the fire into a strong thin cord that she could shape into a cage like the one Phoenix was creating. She fought with Queen until she finally got the tail secured. From there she started building the cage. Sweat dripped down her face, her muscles both physical and mental began to shake.
She had never done anything of this magnitude; it was draining her.
“You’re almost done Rylee; you can do it.”
The image of Phoenix with pom-poms and shorts on to show off his legs as he cheered her on, gave her a boost. It helped to keep the tiredness at bay.
Her cage met Phoenix’s, they intertwined and locked. Queen was forced to coil her tail up cutting down on the length of the cage.
“Sela, I need you to form a protective barrier around the cage. Nothing, including air is allowed in.”
She nodded her hands working fast as she created it. The air around Queen hovered, the barrier becoming opaque, so they could see it.
“Elfin, I need you to put her to sleep for her safety and our sanity.”
He stepped up. Rylee couldn’t hear the words, but she felt the buzz. Queen tried to thrash around before she finally fell into a deep sleep.
“Now for the hard part.” Phoenix told them as she shook his bod
y trying to loosen up.
He’s insane. Why am I always attracted to the crazy ones?
“Look up,” Phoenix said.
Overhead was a shuttle. She was a sci-fi buff; she could spot one of those a mile away. Sela worked her magic creating a hole in the shielding. A tractor beam caught the snake pulling it upwards. Once it was securely attached to the shuttle, but not inside Phoenix told them to hold on to him.
He changed shapes. This shape was different from the one he used to convince her he was an alien. She’d never seen anything like it before it wasn’t a bird, although it made her think of Icarus. Fire enclosed them. His arms became long as his torso stretched and thickened. He took a shape not seen on earth.
Phoenix left the ground carrying them with all the grace of the bird he was named after.
Chapter Twenty
They were monitoring Queen from the bridge. There was a small picture of her on the corner of the full-size screen in front of them. The shuttle they were on flew through the atmosphere breaking the cloud cover and then rose even higher. Soon they were in space.
She found herself hyperventilating and rubbing her arms like she was cold. The air was fine, and it was warm. Maybe she had seen too many movies where space was cold, and the air was thin.
“Won’t she die?” Was the first question Rylee asked when they left the airspace around earth.
“No, I made sure that there was plenty of oxygen in her enclosure. The air is also warm,” Sela said.
“I put her to sleep, she’s not using unnecessary air moving,” Elfin told her.
When they got on the ship, they drew Queen in and placed her in the cargo bay. Sela placed small holes that would allow air to filtrate in without causing any structural damage to her enclosure.
Phoenix took her to his room. She needed a shower. Rylee wrinkled her nose, there was no way to get used to snake poo and undigested animal parts. It made her think of becoming vegan.
Phoenix handed her a suit that looked like the one he was wearing when she left the shower. A shower that didn’t use water, but she was just as clean. Maybe cleaner.
“We always wear black, my brothers and me. The sisters, on the other hand, like color. They don’t seem to understand the word stealth.”
She looked at the green suit he gave her.
“It matches your eyes.”
She was losing her heart and there was no way to stop it. He took her to the mirror after she put it on. She was beautiful. Green was not a color she thought she could pull off. The suit made her eyes glitter like emeralds. Phoenix stood behind her tall and proud in his otherness. She leaned back against him. They didn’t look like they fit, but they did.
“Thank you.” The words were caught in her throat.
“Your welcome, but the thanks should come from me to you. You’ve given me everything I ever wanted.” He kissed her. It was slow and tender. She ached with the way it felt like it might be their last kiss.
Now they were on the bridge waiting.
“We can leave now,” Slade announced. They had been orbiting the earth for two hours.
“What happened that we could leave?” Elfin asked.
“I got the all clear from Mekhi. He needed to completely break the enthrallment between Dr. Walt and Queen before we left, or he would become a vegetable.”
They cared for a man they didn’t know and a snake that could destroy the world. The scientists who were human didn’t care for her life. They were willing to sacrifice her in the name of science.
“Rylee?” Phoenix walked over to her.
“Sorry, I was lost in thought.”
“Take a seat we’re going to go via the slip stream. That’s the fastest way, this ship was built to withstand those speeds. If we go the traditional way, it will take over two weeks to get there.”
“How long will it take this way?”
“An hour. Hold on entering the stream will cause turbulence.”
She nodded and clutched at the handles of the chair she was sitting in.
“Five, four, three, two, one,” Thrice gave the countdown.
She was going to die. Her heart was pounding she could see it through the shirt she was wearing. Words, thoughts that she had long forgotten were back to make a mockery of her and the life she was creating. The scientists were stalking through the stream looking for her.
It was the figure from her bedroom that almost stopped her breathing. “I will kill him.” The voice was worthy of any that she ever heard in a spooky movie. It conjured images of black fire and sacrifices. “If you stay with him, you will die too.”
She believed the voice, it was coming after Phoenix, and it would kill her with no regret.
“You can move now,” Thrice announced.
“Move? We’ve been in there for eons. I thought you said it would only take an hour.” She would have screamed it or acted indignantly, but she could barely take a breath.
“It was ten seconds.”
“No way in hell. I saw my whole life flash before my eyes, I saw…”
“What did you see?” Phoenix was kneeling in front of her. He took her cold hands into his rubbing gently to return the warmth.
“I saw a monster.”
He nodded believing her.
“Can we talk about it later?”
“Yes.” He stood picking her up. “We’ll be in the lounge if you need us.” He carried her to the lift.
The lounge was large with furniture that looked hard but shaped to fit the individual when they sat. She curled up in his lap enjoying his scent, hints of black coffee and chocolate mint hit her. They were chased by fire and mesquite and then there was the smell of ambrosia. His scent was ever changing, and she was addicted to it.
“Do you ever wonder why you’re here?” Her question was low; she was almost afraid to ask not wanting to sound childish.
“Yes.”
“You do?” She sat straight wanting to be able to see his face.
“We had no plans to come to earth. Then not only do we come, but we come to what is our past. So, I’ve wondered why we’re here. Each time I do one of my brothers finds a mate. I am here to find you.”
That was not what she was expecting. If he was here to find her, was she here for the same reason? Who else would be willing to put up with a female as different as she was?
“Mates?”
“Yes, Rylee we are mates, but that’s not why I want to be with you.”
“Then why?”
“It’s the way you challenge me without making it obvious. I like how you process trials and tribulations. There is a strength at your core even when you're climbing my back. You fought for a snake even though they scare you. You took in an alien cat and an alien child and didn’t blink an eye. I turned into an animal with fangs, and you accepted me. How could I desire anyone except you?”
“Did they send you to school to teach you how to sweet talk?”
Phoenix laughed, then he started to tell her about the planets they were passing. She couldn’t see them when they were in the slipstream. He painted her a vivid picture of worlds that he promised to take her to one day.
*~*~*~*
“Are we sure this is safe?” Rylee looked through the view screen. They were hovering over what had to be a jungle. Not one she was used to. The trees (the only name she had to call them) towered in the sky, but the bases weren’t round and slender. They looked more like tall rhombus structures with triangles at the ends pointing to the sky. The leaflike ends weren’t leaflike at all. This could be a video game for anyone tripping on LSD. Was LSD still a thing?
“Queen will thrive here,” Phoenix told her. “Call your fire to you.”
She called it back. It came with a swoosh she could hear before it hit her body lighting her up from the inside. It rolled around in her before her cells could absorb it. Phoenix caught her before she hit the deck.
“I didn’t realize how much energy I was using to hold it in place. My fire doesn’t exist ou
tside of myself?”
“Yes and no. In order to lock someone in place, you have to control the fire, its shape and the intensity of it. Or you can let it lose to burn, consume anything in its path. The first is controlled, and you are the controller. The second is abandoned, but you are still responsible for the results.”
They watched as Queen was lowered to the ground.
“Have a good life Queen. Is that a person?” Not a person, is it what passes for a person on this planet. It did have legs. “Phoenix, Queen will eat it.”
“Remember love this isn’t earth.”
Love? Although she used the word once. It was taking on more than a general endearment of affection.
Queen slithered up to the person who didn’t step back. She lowered her head and looked the person in the eyes. There was a movement from the trees. Another snake as massive as Queen slithered through. It had someone riding on its back.
“The enthrallment is a symbiotic relationship here. They need each other to live.”
Queen hissed and attacked. The person jumped up catching queen around her neck. They rolled on the ground while Queen tried to throw the person or crush them.
“Our work here is done. Thrice, take us back to the ship.” Slade gave the order. They left Queen to her new world.
Rylee was quiet as they debarked the shuttle and headed for Phoenix’s room.
“It can be amazing to see a new world and culture.”
“It is.” She snuggled down with him on the bed. “It’s more than that. My life is being rewritten. The things I thought important don’t really matter when I weigh them against the wonders of the universe. I know I only have this life to live, but I wonder what I could do with it if I left being petty behind.”
“I think you're doing a wonderful job being you.”
“That’s why I love you.” Rylee’s hand flew to her mouth as her eyes went wide. She hadn’t meant to say that even though it was true.
“You love me?”
Phoenix (The Broken Book 5) Page 12