Fated for the Phoenix: A Shifters in Love Fun & Flirty Romance (Mystic Bay Book 5)

by Isadora Montrose

  In that moment, he could not have said where he began and his mate ended. He knew an eternity of shared bliss that ended as sweetly and as wildly as it had begun. He returned to himself. He was still holding her. She was still the other half of his soul. They were still standing under the waterfall. The pounding of the water was still as loud as the blood in his ears and the fire in his veins.

  “I love you, Rafael,” she whispered as she kissed him. And then she began her exploration all over again.

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  Samantha~

  She had hit him. For the first time in her life, she had punched another human being in anger. And she wasn’t even sorry. Not by a long way. She was filled with cleansing, righteous rage. That felt good too.

  Her hand hurt, even though she had made a fist the way she had been taught in basic training. But she had hurt Rafael too. Good. He was fingering that square jaw that had haunted her dreams. Waggling it to and fro as if checking for loose teeth. Excellent. The lousy bastard.

  He stood transfixed, fingering his jaw, lost in some private vision. And then he cursed. “Millard Fillmore,” he said vehemently.

  And he was her lover again. Maj. Rafael D’Angelo who quaintly swore by the presidents. Not that she had had any doubt. She might not have recognized his face at first glance. It was as pitted and lumpy as if he had been caught in a shower of burning hail. And covered in three days’ worth of whiskers. But she would have known those bright blue eyes anywhere. And that voice. The voice of a fallen angel.

  “What did I do?” he demanded, still working his jaw.

  “You let me think you were dead!” she snapped.

  “Ah.” He waggled his jaw some more. “Samantha Belfast, I presume?” His voice became thoughtful. “I thought unicorns were sweet tempered and non-violent?”

  “Are you saying you don’t know who I am?”

  “I’m afraid I’ve forgotten.” His voice was faintly apologetic. Faintly amused. “I have memory loss consistent with a head injury. I was filled in on your existence by a,” he paused delicately, “A third party.”

  “This isn’t funny,” she scolded, seriously irritated by the laugh underneath his sober words and medical terminology. A unicorn is compassionate, even-tempered, kind. Not today.

  “No. Or if it is, the joke is on me. Did Dr. Peterson send you?”

  “Of course.”

  “Hmm. I think we’ve been set up.” He waved a hand at the other rocker. “Haul up and sit down. We have a lot of catching up to do.”

  She sat down gingerly. Now that the first rush of satisfaction was wearing off, she was feeling a bit shaken, both by the act of violence and by the emotions it had unleashed. “Just what game are you playing, D’Angelo?”

  He held out a scarred hand, palm upward. Despite the shock hitting him had given her, she carefully placed her own hand palm-down on his. His fingers tightened around her hand.

  As quickly as that she was plunged into a seething nightmare of violence, fury, and trauma, of grief, despair, hate, and boiling resentment. Rafael had been to hell and back, and he was escorting her through the black and twisted landscape of his personal torment.

  She yanked her hand away, but it was too late. It felt as if it had been burned to the bone. She was almost surprised to see the skin smooth and whole. She couldn’t help but scrub her palm against her jeans. But of course denim couldn’t cleanse that kind of horror and disturbance.

  “Okay,” she croaked. “I believe you. You don’t remember me. Global transient amnesia followed by retrograde amnesia. Fair enough. So just what are you doing in my hometown?” She controlled her impulse to flee. This was no place for a unicorn, but she wanted answers.

  His lips twisted. “I’m scarred,” he said wryly. “But it’s not contagious.”

  “No,” she agreed. She forced herself to remain in her rocker. “This isn’t about your injuries. Answer my question.”

  Broad shoulders shrugged. “I sort of had the idea that you might be glad to see me, given the kid and all.”

  He knew about Carmody! “What kid?” she bluffed.

  “Our daughter. I have it on good authority that we have a child. Isn’t it true?” His voice was bitter.

  “It’s true.” She stood up, desperate to leave. The sun was still shining, but she felt plunged into darkness. “Listen, you don’t owe us anything. I get that you have amnesia. That’s okay. These things happen.”

  “Where are you going?” he asked mildly.

  Where indeed? She was in a total flap. A unicorn is always calm. Always in charge of her emotions. Not so much. Get a grip, Samantha. She had been sent to check up on a blind invalid. One who needed assistance with daily living. Those bright eyes looking at hers didn’t look blind, but Dr. Peterson had assured her that Maj. Ardee was both lame and blind. The penny dropped.

  “Not Ardee,” she said aloud. “RD”

  “What?”

  “I’ve been told by at least three people that your name is Ardee. But they’re just your initials.”

  “What else?” He frowned. She had to admit, he seemed genuinely puzzled. As if he wasn’t firing on all cylinders.

  “Okay, D’Angelo. Where are your meds?” The sooner she went through his drugs, the sooner she could go home and try to wipe the horrors she had encountered in his mind from hers. She suspected no amount of meditation was going to entirely erase those vile images and worse emotions, but she could try. Terror warred with grief and disgust in her psyche. She wanted to run away more than she had ever wanted anything. Breathe, Samantha. A unicorn is steadfast.

  “Inside the cabin,” he said. “Dr. Peterson wants me to titrate off the psychotropics. She has already taken me off my painkillers. You are supposed to have brought some of those bitty pillboxes with you so you can open the blister packs and remove the pain meds and reduce the antidepressants and so forth.”

  Her pack contained a stack of plastic pillboxes in various sizes along with food. “Let’s get that over with,” she said. “Dr. Peterson gave me instructions.”

  “Right. They’re in my bedroom.” He rose clumsily to his feet as if his left knee couldn’t adequately support his weight.

  “Do you need assistance?” she asked, even though she was beyond reluctant to touch him again. One dose of brute violence was quite sufficient for one afternoon. But he was an invalid. And she was still a nurse. And he was still her lover and mate. Wasn’t he?

  “I’m just a little tired,” he ground out. He staggered through the doorway, but didn’t actually bump into the doorframe. What had happened to her athletic phoenix? Even a bum knee shouldn’t make him this unsteady. And Dr. Peterson was correct about his fragile aura.

  Samantha followed Rafael into the dark cabin. It was small. Just a main room with the kitchen in one corner, and a couple of tiny bedrooms. His bed was unmade. Dirty clothes lay on the floor.

  In the kitchen, unwashed dishes were piled in the sink. The bathroom was a welter of discarded clothes and damp towels. So not like her hyper-neat Air Force officer. The disorder of his mind was echoed by the disorder of the cabin. Well, she was a nurse, not a nanny.

  She put the food she had brought in the fridge, telling him what was in each container. Wishing she had thought to mark the boxes with raised symbols.

  “Thank you,” he said. “I wasn’t expecting a gas stove. Sully thinks it’s too dangerous for me to use, and he’s probably correct. My pills are in the bedroom. This way.”

  “Have you eaten today?” she forced herself to ask.

  “Cereal and peanut butter and bread. A banana.” He seemed to be having trouble recalling.

  “Do you have difficulty with short-term memory?” Samantha asked.

  “Not usually. Probably more than I had in the past.”

  Her lover had had an almost photographic memory, which he had told her was part and parcel of his phoenix gift. “How’s the rest of your psi talent?”

  “Lousy.” He ground out the words.
>
  His chaotic and weakly pulsing aura confirmed that. Unwilling pity welled up. “Do you want to eat any of this now?”

  “Later. I don’t have much of an appetite.”

  Rafael had lost weight, mostly muscle by the look of him. He had always been lean but muscular. Now he was skinny. He was wearing jeans, but his T-shirt revealed long scrawny arms. “Those drugs will suppress appetite. It’s hard to heal if you don’t eat right. I shouldn’t have to tell a doctor that.”

  He growled. No other word for his response. “You want to look at the meds or not?”

  She wasn’t surprised by the quantity of drugs. Not after her briefing from Dr. Peterson. But she suspected that rather than suppressing his memories of his accident and the fire and pain that had followed, the meds were causing hallucinations. Making them worse, not better. Which was sadly not unusual. Sensitives did not respond like non-sensitives to any drugs. Drugs that affected the mind usually disturbed paranormal talents too.

  “I need better light,” she said.

  “No electricity. Outdoors is the brightest spot.”

  They went back outside, Rafael trailing behind her. “Mind telling me what the heck is wrong with you?” he asked.

  “Shock,” she said absently as she seated herself beside the porch table.

  How could she explain that she had blundered unprepared thorough the horror he lived daily? Like a fly caught in a sticky spider web. His memories and his imaginings and all the violent emotions they triggered had seared her senses. His mind was a cesspit.

  “Huh.”

  She consulted the sheet Virginia Peterson had given her, as well as the one that had come from the pharmacy, comparing both with the pills in the first compartment. And then the second. And the third and fourth.

  It looked as if his psychiatrists had just kept adding drugs as he presented with new and dangerous symptoms. The ones probably caused by the drugs. They couldn’t be blamed for not knowing that he was a shifter. But they could be blamed for prescribing drugs that in combination were contraindicated. A fix would be a long process, as they slowly reduced the drugs one at a time, bit by bit.

  Rafael sat down noisily. Stretched out his left leg as if to ease a cramp. “What did I do?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, why are you perched on the edge of your chair ready to run?”

  “I thought you were blind.”

  “I am. But there’s nothing wrong with my sense of smell. Ever since you took my hand you’ve been acting terrified. On the verge of flight. I knew unicorns were timid, but this is ridiculous. What on earth did we have ever in common, besides sex?”

  She didn’t try to deny her fear. Unicorns never lie. “You seem to have forgotten that unicorns are telepathic. When I touched you, I visited your subconscious.” She suppressed her shudder. Controlling her physical reaction didn’t count as a lie. “It was,” she sought a neutral word, “Unpleasant.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Yes. I can see why your doctors have prescribed these drugs. They’re attempting to suppress the hallucinations. But they don’t seem to have helped much. I am concerned they may have made bad worse.”

  “Oh?” He touched the back of her hand.

  His cauldron of savage emotions was now laced with equal parts of primal lust. Not an improvement. She sprang to her feet, backed away. “Don’t touch me!” she begged, tucking her hands in her armpits.

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Rafael~

  As soon as he grazed her hand, she bolted. Her voice came from the far end of the porch. “Don’t touch me,” she yelped.

  “If you’re this skittish, how on earth did we ever manage to make a baby?”

  “That was before.” Her pleasant contralto had become high-pitched, strained, and anxious.

  He had guessed that the scarring was bad. Her disgust made it obvious that bad was an understatement. Which was a pity. Because under the reek of fear, Samantha Belfast smelled like a sex goddess. Like the woman in his flashback. His phoenix senses were blunted, but her basic fragrance was addictive.

  “Fine,” he ground out. “Sit down. I’ll keep my hands to myself.”

  “I’m sorry,” she whispered as she returned to the rocker. “But I can’t handle the disturbance in your aura.”

  “Disturbance?” He tasted the word and found it inadequate.

  “Some of these meds are to control psychosis,” she said. “Are they working?”

  “How the heck would I know?” He felt crappy most of the time. He thought of the words the shrinks liked. “I suffer from low mood.” For which read an abyss of darkness.

  “And perseveration.” As in recurring cyclical daydreams and nightmares of the accident and the fire. Like a fricking video stuck on replay. Trying to care for Belovitch with burned hands and blind eyes. He could seldom tune out Belovitch’s screams. Or the raw pain of immolation.

  She sighed. “Would you say your symptoms are better or worse than they were when you were discharged from hospital?” She seemed to be trying to keep her voice uninflected and clinical, but it remained an octave higher than it had been on arrival.

  “Worse. I could sleep in the hospital.” Would she believe him? He had grown accustomed to the polite disbelief that claim was greeted with by the professionals. “I’m sleeping better on West Haven than in Portland.”

  “Were you taking sleeping meds in the hospital?” she inquired.

  “I don’t know. If I was, they were different ones. Dr. Amherst changed them around a month ago.”

  “Amherst is your psychiatrist?”

  “Yeah.”

  “He prescribed the sleeping pills, because you weren’t sleeping?”

  “And because I had daytime dreams.”

  Another sigh. “These pills disrupt REM sleep – that’s when you dream. If humans don’t dream, they go crazy. And suffer from daytime dreams aka hallucinations. Dr. Peterson has agreed that the sleeping meds are to be the first to go.”

  “Would ‘crazy’ be the professional term for psychosis?” His joke came out a snarl.

  “When was your last psychotic break?” she asked. Not if he had had one. When. She was good.

  “If you mean when was my last flashback?” Better not to mention the waterfall episode. That would make her bolt for sure. “That was this morning after breakfast.”

  Belovitch had shown up shrieking, his face a bloody mask. His body in shreds. Moved pretty good for a guy with a broken back, which Rafael figured made it a hallucination rather than a real memory on steroids. Just the thought of his morning horror made him break a sweat and his mouth go dry as dust.

  “Before or after you had your morning meds?”

  “After. And before. I have some before breakfast and some afterward. To be honest, I don’t always remember what exactly I’m taking. I just swallow whatever is due when my alarm goes off.” Short-term memory loss was a symptom of PTSD. Hell of a symptom for a phoenix.

  She pounced. “I thought you said your short-term memory was okay?”

  “It’s patchy,” he confessed.

  “Hmm. I’ve set up your meds for the next three days. I’ve removed all the pain meds, and the sleeping pills. I’ll leave the others as is for now. I need to do some more research on the psychotropics. And see if Dr. Peterson has had any success getting hold of your records from the VA hospital. You are going to a VA hospital?”

  “Sure. But I can afford a private psychiatric nurse, if that’s what you mean.”

  “It isn’t. But Dr. Peterson should have better luck with an inquiry if she uses your correct name, Major.”

  “Don’t call me that!” Anger came out of nowhere.

  “No?” Her voice was syrupy sweet.

  “I’m no longer an officer. Or a doctor. My name is Rafael. Or Rafe.” Millard Fillmore. They had been lovers long enough to make a child!

  “Okay, Rafael. I’m going back to Mystic Bay now. I’ll be back tomorrow.”


  “What about the kid?” he demanded. And his laundry? And the dishes? He had to remember, this stay on West Haven was all about claiming his daughter.

  “What about her?” She bounced back to being worried.

  “I want to meet my child. Sooner rather than later.”

  “No. Absolutely not.” She might have been defending her young from an armed attack.

  “Why not?” With an effort he suppressed rage. Kept his voice at a bare roar.

  “First, because I have no way to get her here. Second, you are too unstable. I can’t expose a three-year-old to a hunter with your psychological profile.” She sounded prissy but resolute.

  “I’m her fricking father.”

  “Yes. And I am her mother. Carmody is just a little girl. Unicorns are even more susceptible to a violent atmosphere than other children. I’m sorry, Rafael, I just can’t risk her mental health.” She didn’t sound sorry. Just terrified, but determined. Joan of Arc waiting for the flames.

  “The scarring isn’t that bad,” he blurted.

  “It’s not your scarred face I am concerned about, but your scarred soul.”

  “Poetic,” he sneered. “But what does that mean?”

  “You admitted to experiencing hallucinations as recently as this morning. It would be inappropriate to introduce a child into this situation until you are stabilized.” It sounded like pure stall to him, but the note of truth in her voice was unmistakable. She was polite, prim, and barely holding on to her composure.

  “Weren’t you an Army nurse?” he demanded. “Working in the psych ward?” How the heck had she coped there with battle-weary veterans in every room?

  “I was. Why?”

  “Because you’re acting as though you’ve never encountered post-traumatic stress disorder before. Never met a wounded vet. How the heck did you ever cope at Tripler, woman?”

  “That was before,” she said softly, sadly. “I no longer work as a psychiatric nurse. And obviously it was a mistake to take this assignment from Dr. Peterson. We’re going to have to find you someone else.”