Forged in Flames

by Harper Wylde

  “Those are pretty large stacks.” I eyed my father’s leather bound schedule book lying on the desk. “Do these all have to be done now?” It was an innocent question, but one I hoped would angle the conversation in the direction I wanted it to go in.

  My father ran a hand over his dark hair. There was barely even a hint of grey, thanks to his Gargoyle’s lifespan. “Thankfully not, or your mother would kill me and it would probably deter you from ever wanting to fill my shoes in the future. Don’t let me steer you wrong. Being on the Council comes with a plethora of work, but you’ll still be able to maintain a life. Find a mate. Have children of your own.” My father raised an eyebrow at me, and I knew he was digging for information on whether I had my eye on anyone. I shook my head at him and smiled, letting my fingers skim over the planner I wanted to open.

  “Nice try, but I’m not ready to discuss girls with you just yet.”

  “Fair enough.” My father grinned. “I won’t push my luck all in one night.” My mother called for us from the kitchen and my father snapped to attention. “I believe we’ve kept your mother and your friends waiting far longer than will please her.” He started for the door and I discreetly tucked his schedule book into the back of my pants, hiding it from view with my shirt before following after him.

  “You’re right. She sent me to get you and instead I distracted you further.” Reaching the hall, I eyed the door to the bathroom and nodded my head toward it. “I’ll be right there. It was a long trip here from Anchorage.”

  “You could always move home again…” My father trailed off, leaving the invitation open.

  “Remember that thing you said about not pushing your luck?” I smirked, fully knowing I’d never move back to the commune, no matter how much my dad desired it.

  Holding up his hands in surrender, my father backed away and turned on his heel, heading to the kitchen. “I relent for now, but it would make your training easier if you didn’t have to travel back and forth as often.”

  “Dad,” I warned with clear exasperation.

  “Alright, alright. I fold.” He threw a grin over his shoulder before entering the kitchen and giving my mother his full attention. “It smells wonderful, dear. What are we having?”

  I slipped into the bathroom and quickly opened the book, flipping to the schedule for my father and the other council members for the next two weeks, quickly whipping my phone out and snapping pictures of the pages. When I was done, I went through the motions of using the bathroom so as not to draw suspicion from the shifters with excellent hearing just a few walls away, and then hurriedly exited, popping back into my father’s office and leaving the book as I’d found it before making my way to the kitchen.

  Having picked up on my covert mission, the guys were thoroughly distracting my parents with their antics as they set the table and helped lay out the food.

  “Everything okay?” Nix asked, fighting back the urge to wrap her arms around me. I so wish I could hug you right now. She pushed her need to me telepathically.

  I nodded my answer to her first question, expanding on it through our mental link. I have an idea. Something that might help us. It was all I felt comfortable divulging while we were still on the commune, and Nix appeared to pick up on my hesitance to say more, simply nodding and giving me her heartwarming smile.

  “Alright boys! Hopefully I’ve made enough food to feed you all. Nix, I don’t know how you do it back in Anchorage. These boys can eat their fill!” My mother carefully looked over the overloaded bowls as if worried she truly didn’t have enough food.

  “Honestly, Damien does most of the cooking at home. I can see where he learned all his skills from.” She blushed slightly from the social interaction as Theo pulled out a chair for her, getting her situated at the table. We all filtered around and took our seats, digging into the food while we kept the conversation on safe, comfortable topics.

  What was all of that about? Theo inquired, keeping his eyes fixed on the mountain of food he had piled on his plate.

  I’ll fill you in on the way home, I told him, for once happy about the long trip we’d have to make. A trip where we wouldn’t have to worry about prying ears or minds.

  Seventeen

  Ryder

  “This is ridiculous!” I burst out, shoving up from my chair. We all sat around the dining room table, debating our best chances at succeeding with our mission. Damien's plan to retrieve his father's schedule book and make notes of the Councilmen's schedules had been genius, and we'd been delving through the calendar all morning, trying to find the best day to make a move and collect the Basilisk venom that presented the least amount of risk. “Even if we manage to catch Councilman Williams or his son, how in the hell are we going to get the damn venom from him?”

  “We could drug him?” Theo suggested. “If we can force a shift while he's drugged, we could try and extract the venom that way.”

  “How are we going to force a shift if he's drugged? None of us have that skill,” Killian growled. “And if we manage to, we'd have to kill him afterward, it's not like we could let him go back to his normal life. LaCroix would figure it out after he dug around in their head a bit.”

  “First of all, we are not drugging someone. And we're definitely not going to kill anyone!” Nix objected vehemently. “We aren't taking anything from anyone without their permission.” From the way she shook, I knew she was thinking about her time on the island, and I sighed in understanding.

  “If we join the rebellion, we may end up killing a lot of people,” Damien pointed out.

  “It's not a war yet,” Nix argued, her mouth in a steely line. “People will die, I'm not an idiot. It doesn't mean we have to be the one to kill them—especially not yet.”

  “I agree, but it's not like we can just ask for it,” Hiro muttered, rubbing his temple. “Williams involvement on the Council would automatically rule him out and we don't know what Joshua's reaction would be. There’s no reason for us to need a venom that only has use as a weapon to kill. Even Nix asking for it as a suitor gift doesn’t make sense and will only raise red flags. It's too dangerous. He could easily report us to the Council, and the consequences of that would be devastating for all of us and the rebellion. I won't put Nix at risk like that." Hiro's eyes flashed with a determination that mirrored my own. I completely agreed with him.“Maybe it's a psychological test as well? I mean, if we kill someone—especially a Council member—it's going to get back to us very quickly and right back to the rebellion. We'd be far too dumb for them if we tried that. I wonder if we made an attempt along those lines if the rebellion would remove us before the Council even got a chance.”

  Goosebumps crawled over my skin at that idea and I shook my head. “Okay, so what does that mean? We can't kidnap one of them, we can't force a shift, we can't drug whomever we choose, and killing is obviously off the table. We've ruled out that it's far to risky to simply ask for it. Hiro’s right, I can't even come up with a good enough lie to explain why we'd need it in the first place. What else are we going to do? Provoke him into a fight and let him bite one of us?” I shouted the words in frustration, tugging at my hair.

  Theo cocked his head, pursing his lips, as he seemed to consider my words. “It could work, if we could control it correctly.”

  “What?” Nix and I screeched the word at the same time.

  “You could get hurt!” she added.

  “I was joking. I just wanted to show you how crazy that idea was.” I couldn't believe that levelheaded Theo was buying into this madness.

  “If we had something set up, if we got him to bite in the right place, then we may be able to collect something,” he murmured, glancing at Damien.

  “And if he misses?” Killian asked, rubbing a hand down his face.

  “It'd be problematic,” Theo admitted.

  “Do you think you could heal us, if he missed with a bite?” Damien addressed me, tapping his fingers together as he thought.

  I shook my head. “No. Even
if I was right next to you, I don't trust that I'd be able to stop it, and I'm not willing to risk any of your lives to try an experiment.”

  “You wouldn't need to heal me.” Nix's words were soft, quiet, and I whirled to face where her eyes were glued to the tabletop. A thick silence hung over the kitchen as all of us focused on her. Realizing we weren't going to speak, she looked up with a small, tight smile on her lips. “I rise from the dead, remember?”

  “No way.” My words were barely audible as shock crawled inside of me, turning my veins to ice.

  “You can't,” Killian gasped. “We aren't risking you for this. That's insane. We just tell them they're asking too much. It's putting them and us at risk. Maybe Hiro was right, it's a test.”

  “A completely unpassable test?” Nix shook her head. “Isn't that a bit ridiculous? Look, I don't relish the idea of dying again. But if I do, we know that unlike all of you, I'll come back. I'm the best person to get this venom.” She sighed, "While it's not a perfect plan, it also solves all of the problems. No killing, no drugging, and we're not taking something from him without permission exactly... if it was provoked... he'd be giving it to us in a sense. I'm not happy about it, but I'm not against it either. I can do this. I know I can."

  We all eyed each other, the silence in the air so thick you could have heard a pin drop.“Suppose we let you do this?” Damien asked, his voice hard.

  “You can't be ser—” Damien held up a hand to stop my explosion.

  “Suppose we let you put yourself at risk to get bitten. What would make the Councilman bite you? He wants you kept safe, taken care of, so that you can breed. An attack like this would put you directly in the center of their attention.”

  “It depends,” Theo spoke up. “What if it wasn't the Councilman, but his son? We can get his schedule too, and unlike the rest of us, you have an established reason to see him.”

  “Joshua.” Nix breathed the name as she mulled over the option. Cocking her head to the side, she said, “I’d need to get Joshua to bite me.” It was a statement rather than a question, and one that she was clearly pondering over how to accomplish. “He's been nothing but nice to me—” she trailed off as she bit her bottom lip, her words wavering with a hint of indecision. “The Councilman would be easier to provoke…”

  “Joshua is our safest option.” Theo insisted. “His father is bound to be more powerful and potent. Joshua isn't much older than us. He's still learning, still growing, still improving upon his power and skill. I'm sorry, Nix, but I think if we're going to do this, he's our better option.”

  “You're all insane. All of you,” I snarled, tugging at my hair. “Why are you even considering this?”

  “For once I'm with him,” Killian added, standing up to join me. “None of you can be thinking clearly.”

  “If she treated this like a date, an acknowledgment of Joshua's quest for her hand, it would give her a reason to be alone with him. It's not uncommon for courting shifters to change together, to let their alters meet each other,” Theo reasoned.

  “No.” I slashed the air with my hand. “We've suffered through Nix regenerating before, we don't need to do it again. That's too much to ask of us and you.”

  “You think I want to?” she retorted, pushing up to face me. Damien and Theo stood as well, the air charged with energy around us.

  “I'm not going to watch my dream come true,” Kill said quietly. “You can't ask that of me.”

  “I'm not asking it of you,” Nix whispered. “Abra, I would never want to hurt you. But what are we going to do? If we don't do these tests, if we don't join them, what's your plan for us?”

  Killian growled. “We can run away.”

  “Where?” Nix pressed. “How would we avoid the Council's searching for us? How would we make money, get new identities? How would we take care of Theo's family? Hiro's family? Ciar? Rini? Her mates?” she argued, her hands waving in the air, clearly having reached a decision within her own mind.

  “We'd manage,” I muttered shortly, crossing my arms over my chest.

  “We'd be taking an entire small colony with us. That's no way to stay hidden. We can't reach out to Hiro or Killian's families and force them to come with us, especially since not all of them would want to betray the Council. That doesn't even begin to touch Damien's family.” She shook her head as Damien laid a supportive hand on her shoulder.

  “If we join the rebellion before we run, we'll have support. We'll have a place for all of us to disappear to, and can try to convince our families to join us. It's the safest way for us to get out from underneath the Council,” Theo remarked. “You think I relish letting her put herself at risk for injury? Let alone a fatal injury?” His voice was hard. “It is the last thing that I want to do.”

  “You don't understand, Nix,” I pleaded. “Even if I were to hide somewhere nearby where you want to do this, I doubt I could save you. Basilisk venom is fast, very fast. I don't think I could get you away from there and healed before it took effect.”

  “I do understand, Ry.” She reached out a hand, stroking it down my arm. “You're the one who doesn't. I trust you, all of you, to guard me, heal me, protect me. There's more to me than just that, though. All of you have been training me to work with my Phoenix, yet you discard her—and me—when there's something that fits our skill set. This is what my power is, the same way healing is yours.”

  “Nix, we do trust you, but you have to think of us,” Killian beseeched her.

  “I am. I'm thinking of all of us. I'm thinking about what our future will hold if we don't do this. I'm not an idiot,” she clarified, squaring her shoulders. “I don't want to die again. I don't want to have to essentially trick Joshua into giving up his venom. It doesn't sit right, but neither does letting our family continue to live under the dangerous threat of the Council. We've already talked about all of the reasons that the rebellion is our best chance—our only chance—at the life we want together. Why it's the best chance to change the way things are for all shifters. This is so much larger than just ourselves. So I'm going to make peace with it, even though I don't like it. My Phoenix is as adamant about this as I am. She knows she can help, she knows she can protect her mates by taking the risk off of you. Why do you get to protect me, decide what's best for my safety, but you'd deny me the chance to protect you?”

  “It's not the same thing!” I cried out in frustration, grabbing her arms. “You'd die.”

  “And you'd risk it,” she snapped, tilting her chin up in challenge. “You have all put yourself in the way of bullets, knives, poison, the Council, kidnapping, an insane woman, and probably more that I don't know about or can't think of. You've done all of those things as friends and because you see the potential for us, what our lives can be together in the future.”

  “Yes, but...” Kill trailed off.

  “There are no buts.” Nix pushed my hand away, turning her attention to Theo. “Are you certain you can separate the venom from my blood?”

  “It’s not an easy task, but yes. I’m certain I can do it.” Theo rubbed at the back of his neck, but kept his gaze on Nix as she nodded.

  Nix then addressed Damien as well as Theo. “We know their stances, what are yours?”

  “I don't want you to do it,” Damien admitted, and I breathed a sigh of release. “I don't want you to, but I don't see another way.” I nearly gagged on the air I had just tried to breathe in, staring at him in betrayal.

  “I agree. It goes against every protective instinct in my body, my Kraken is furious,” Theo added. “However, it's the only thing that makes sense.”

  “She's right.” Damien faced me. “We continue to protect her, over and over again, putting our own lives at risk. How can we say we respect her power, her rights as our mate, if we refuse to let her do the same thing?”

  “I don't want to,” Killian objected, tightening his hands into fists. “She's risked herself in other ways, I'm not saying she's not an equal. This is different. This basically guarante
es she'll die.”

  “It also means I'll wake up again. I'm the only one of us guaranteed to live,” she pointed out.

  “You don't know that,” I muttered. “You hope that. You think that because you've regenerated before you're going to do it again? What if you don't?”

  “And what if your healing powers stop working?” Nix threw back at me. “What if Killian's dreams aren't prophetic? If Damien's mind reading fails? You don't expect your powers to stop working. It's not like I'm trying to use iron to kill myself. There’s no proof that basilisk venom is harmful to me or would prevent me from regenerating. I trust my Phoenix, I trust myself, the way you've taught me to. All I'm asking is that you do the same thing.”

  I tugged at my hair, turning to face Killian. His eyes were as wide and wild as my own. “I can't accept this. I don't think I could ever accept this,” he pleaded, his eyes on Nix. “I can't lose you.”

  “And I can't lose all of you either.” She rounded the table, wrapping her arms around Killian's waist and laying her head on his chest. “Your chances of losing me, of my powers suddenly not working despite what my Phoenix is telling me, are far smaller than the chance that I'll lose all of you if we don't do anything. Why does your choice matter more than my own?” Her words were quiet, muffled a little by his shirt, and he sighed before wrapping his arms around her in return.

  “That wasn't what I meant,” he murmured.

  “We've always been a team,” Damien spoke up. “There was always a vote. Right now, it's three to two.” He turned his attention to Hiro. “You're the only one who hasn't spoken up. What do you think in all of this?”

  Hiro approached Nix, tugging her from Killian and tipping her face up to his. “I would do anything to protect you. I would take you far away from here, live at the edges of the world with you. But I want better than that for our future. I don't want you living your life in fear, always on the run. I would never ask you to do this, just like I wouldn't ask any of them.” He indicated the others with a wave of his free hand. “Is this what you want, Nix? Don't sacrifice yourself for us. We will find other ways. Tell me, right now, exactly why you're doing it.”