Phoenix Freed

by Elise Faber

  She had to have been responsible for the sudden change in attitude toward Daughtry.

  It was the only thing that made sense.

  And if that was the case, what were the consequences now? Was that black magic lurking beneath the surface, ready to spring forth again and turn the people Daughtry loved against her.

  “No,” Cody thought. “We’re stronger now. Whatever influence she had over us—and I do think that your assumption about Elisabeth being behind everything is correct because she is the only one powerful enough to pull off such a big deception for so long—but, regardless of her strength, that influence is gone now.”

  Daughtry hoped so.

  “Time will tell,” he sent. “All we can do is stay vigilant and hopeful.”

  She nodded, pushing those thoughts away to ponder later. “I didn’t realize that the glamour worked that way.”

  “I couldn’t see beneath it either when I came back.”

  “Really?”

  "No.” He sighed. “My parents were very efficient in their erasure of my ability to see magic. Anyway, once what’s left of the Council meets with Dante, they can decide if they’ll implant the same magic into the Forgotten."

  “Do you think the Council will let the Forgotten have the ability?”

  A mental shrug. "I imagine they will. The Forgotten are here, settling in for an extended stay. It’s seems useless to deny them that small measure after letting them come in the first place. But it’s anyone’s guess if implanting the Rengallan magic will actually work.”

  Dominic touched her arm, one brow lifted, and she realized that she’d been standing in the same place for several minutes conversing with her bondmate in thoughts he could easily detect.

  “Sorry,” she said. And to Cody, "We’re coming to you."

  There was the equivalent of a mental sigh. "I know. I can feel him eavesdropping."

  “It’s information he should know anyway.”

  “I don’t disagree.”

  “Me either,” Dominic thought.

  As she and Dominic began walking again, she thought, "I know you mean well,” she thought. “But I can’t let you torment those boys . . . not for too long anyway."

  Through the bond, she could see that Cody was in the LexTals training room, a large space filled with a frightening mix of ridiculously in-shape men and women and every free weight, exercise machine, and type of weapon she could imagine.

  The boys were on the treadmill.

  With Cody running the controls.

  A blip of laughter collided with her mind when he felt her looking. "They think they can act like men then they can damn well train like them."

  "Don’t spar with them," Dominic thought, interjecting himself into the conversation.

  She glanced over at him, surprised.

  "Why?" Cody asked.

  Dominic paused at a crossing of hallways. Daughtry indicated to the right and he moved that way. "Because you’ll leave that part to me."

  "You’re not going to fight me on this?"

  Dominic gave Daughtry a grin. "Fuck no. They want to be real men, fine. But it’ll be me to show them."

  Cody’s approval slid down the bond and erased the tension that Daughtry hadn’t known she’d been feeling. Despite their initial meeting—which had begun with a drop-down-drag-out fight—it appeared those two would be getting along fine.

  "Deal," Cody thought.

  “Men,” she muttered.

  Dominic laughed.

  She sidestepped a young female Rengalla who looked up at Dominic with wide eyes. He wore a short-sleeved gray T-shirt and jeans. The markings on his arms were clearly visible, black and crawling up his forearms and biceps.

  Except where the Dalshie’s stains writhed, appearing to try and crawl off the skin, the Forgotten’s were stagnant. If Dominic hadn’t said they’d grown up his arms to his shoulders during puberty, then she could have pretended they were an odd form of tribal tattoo.

  The girl’s mouth shaped into an “O” and she almost ran into the wall as they passed.

  Daughtry bit her lip to hide a smirk. With his dark hair, nearly black eyes, and chiseled features, Dominic was the equivalent of a dark angel. Just standing there he was attractive, but when he let loose a smile—like he unleashed on the poor unsuspecting female—he was drop dead sexy.

  "Trying to make me jealous?" Cody asked.

  "I think you do that all on your own," she countered. "Besides, I’ve told you before, I prefer blonds." With that, she sent him a mental snapshot of the latest Hollywood heartthrob and laughed aloud when he mock-growled.

  "Careful," he thought. "Just remember, payback."

  Daughtry did remember Cody’s form of payback. And it was one she was definitely willing to endure again.

  "La. La. La," Dominic thought.

  Her cheeks heated. Crap.

  “Sorry,” she said. “Old habits and all that.” She was used to projecting every thought to Cody, more than comfortable with the teasing they shared along the bond.

  But with Dominic able to listen in . . .

  It was something they had to get used to. Or—

  “Someone should teach you to shield,” she said.

  He had the good grace to look slightly abashed. “Look, my powers are what they are. I hear what I hear, that’s not going to change.

  Daughtry frowned. Because that sounded a whole lot like an excuse, and she wouldn’t have expected one from Dominic. Not from what she’d seen thus far.

  “What are you afraid of?” she asked. As the queen of avoidance, she knew all about justifying away her fears.

  “I—” He glanced up at the door that they’d stopped in front of. “This it?”

  She inclined her head. “Yes, but—”

  He pushed through into the weight room before she could finish the sentence, the door slamming closed in her face.

  “Nice talk,” she murmured as she pushed through.

  "Give him some space," Cody thought. "You’ll get your answers eventually."

  Daughtry supposed that was true, but couldn’t shake off the niggling feeling that not knowing put Dominic at more risk than he might imagine.

  Shaking off the thought, she returned to Laila and Brigette.

  “I hope you guys saved me some cookies.”

  She closed the final book with a sigh, knowing that to find her answer she would need a lot more than an hour or two with some old textbooks.

  Before he’d dealt with his own version of self-inflicted knife wounds—a.k.a. his attempt at sacrificing himself for the good of his people—Tyler had mentioned something about an Orb.

  He’d said the Colony was at risk because the Dalshie wanted the Orb.

  But what was the Orb?

  Well, she could deduce it was some sort of sphere. Kudos to her for knowing her shapes and basic geometry.

  So was it a magical artifact?

  A remnant of the past that the Rengalla weren’t sure even still existed, like Bond Magic.

  Or was it something that Elisabeth had left behind, another magical trap that put them all at risk?

  Daughtry had absolutely no clue. She only knew that it wasn’t listed in any of the books, old or new, that Francis, the head instructor, had given her as she began her journey to understanding her powers. The name also didn’t mean anything to her, the way that her powers of foresight sometimes pinged pieces of her memory or alerted her to something that might be dangerous.

  She felt nothing, aside from picturing a basketball in her brain every time she thought of it.

  But the way Tyler had forced the warning out through gasped breaths, how hard he’d struggled to mention it despite bleeding out in the field, told her it was critically important.

  But how? And in what way?

  And if the Orb really existed, where was it?

  Six

  “Hey, Dee?”

  Daughtry turned to face the voice, a slip of paper listing the rooms at the Colony clutched in her han
d. She’d hoped to get a head start on the Forgotten’s assigned quarters.

  So much for that.

  Blue eyes met hers then darted away.

  “What?” she asked, concern a vice around her throat, choking her. John’s expression was stark, his body stiff. Was someone injured?

  “It’s—” He stopped, staring at her hard then spoke, his words rushed and very much unlike the John she was familiar with. Where was the calm military man she’d seen so often before? “. . . It’s just. I—uh . . . well—” He cursed under his breath. “No one’s hurt.”

  “What is it then, John?”

  “Can we go somewhere and talk?”

  She could practically hear the dun-dun-dun that should accompany that question but pushed away the fear clawing at her anyway. Because she had an inkling about what he wanted to discuss, and though she wanted to forget about the last month—how her friends and Cody had abandoned her—Daughtry knew that was impossible.

  Because while it seemed that whatever hold had been clouding their thoughts, tainting their interactions, had disappeared, she could only guess what had brought it about in the first place.

  And she wanted to forget about it anyway.

  Everyone was back to normal. They should focus on the Forgotten, on finding the mysterious Orb that Tyler had mentioned.

  She couldn’t ask him for more details because he was currently confined to a cell and guarded around the clock. And when she had finally convinced Cody to let her see him, he hadn’t been awake, still recovering from the near-fatal injuries.

  But if it wasn’t Tyler didn’t know where to find the Orb, what was she going to do next?

  Keep searching, she supposed.

  It was just hard without a starting point.

  Convenient excuse, focusing on the Orb.

  She sighed, knowing the thought was true. Yes, the moment she and Cody had made their peace, everyone had begun to act normally again. But just because everyone was feeling normal didn’t mean that things could easily go back to the way they’d been before. A few days wasn’t enough to heal those wounds and she felt tentative, almost fragile around John, the man who’d been one of her closest friends just a month before.

  “What do you want to talk about?”

  “I—um.” He shook his head. “I need to—”

  She sighed, knowing that he needed closure as much as her, even though she might not be ready for another emotional expenditure. “Sure,” she said.

  When he led her to the infirmary, confusion and anxiety collided within her. “I thought you said that no one was hurt.”

  “They’re not.”

  “Is it Tyler?”

  John’s face went blank, the placid mask familiar. “No, he’s still unconscious.”

  And still in the cell despite Daughtry’s assurances that he wasn’t Dalshie. Dante may trust her, but he wasn’t about to risk his people. Not that she could blame him. It wouldn’t hurt the comatose Tyler to be confined. A bed was a bed, whether it was in the infirmary or a jail cell and if it ultimately ended up protecting the Rengalla then it would be worth it.

  What really concerned her was that Tyler had yet to wake up.

  “He’s doing okay.”

  Daughtry’s head turned because the assurance had come from Suz, not John.

  “I’ll put in a feeding tube in a day or two if he doesn’t regain consciousness. For now the intravenous fluids he’s on will be enough,” Suz continued.

  “Good,” she said.

  Suz nodded but didn’t say anything further.

  Daughtry glanced at John then back to Suz. Both were shifting uncomfortably, odd halting movements of their bodies that didn’t mesh with their personalities.

  “Can we get this over with?” she asked, exasperation finally loosening her tongue.

  John blinked and looked over at Suz, who shrugged.

  “Oh for God’s sake. This is about before, right?” Daughtry asked, deliberately making her words tough, trying to minimize how their abandonment of her had affected her so deeply.

  Yes, she’d needed their support when Caroline had returned.

  Yes, they’d been cold, distant, even a little cruel.

  And yes . . . it hadn’t actually been their fault.

  They’d been manipulated, the same as Cody, and though she might not have all the answers yet to as why it had happened, she had seen the confusion, the guilt mar their faces when they’d returned to themselves.

  Sighing, knowing that while logically she had already forgiven them, the emotional impact would take longer to heal, she leaned back against the wall and said, “You know that you were under the same compulsion as Cody?”

  A compulsion that shouldn’t have been able to penetrate the shields surrounding the bond or the rock-hard barriers around John’s telepathically-trained mind.

  Suz—new to protecting her mind that way—made more sense.

  John and Suz nodded.

  “So what’s the problem?” Daughtry asked. “If I’m not holding it against Cody, I’m not going to hold it against you guys.”

  “But Dee—”

  “Suz, your ten o’clock is here.” Gabrielle, Suz’s assistant, poked her perky blonde head around the corner into the infirmary’s hallway. Lost in the conversation, Daughtry had forgotten they hadn’t yet made it to the exam room that functioned as Suz’s office.

  The doctor nodded. “I’ll be right there.”

  “Here.” Daughtry opened the last door in the hallway and entered the empty space. Suz’s desk was crammed into one corner, and supplies were stacked all along one wall. She’d stocked up, which was prudent given the amount of Dalshie activity they’d endured as of late.

  John didn’t speak until they were inside with the door closed. “Sit, Daughtry.”

  She rolled her eyes but obliged. “What? Are you going to offer me more apologies? Cody’s already given me my quota of them.” The terse tone made her feel bad, so she continued to speak. “Look, I understand that it wasn’t really you guys saying all of those things.” A shrug. “Did it hurt my feelings? Make me feel incredibly isolated? Of course it did. But it’s doing no one any favors by dwelling on this. I just want to move on.”

  It was the truth. Her heart might be bruised and perhaps if she was being completely truthful, she did feel a little withdrawn from the two people she’d considered her closest friends.

  Maybe that would resolve itself. Maybe it wouldn’t.

  But to keep churning up the ways they’d hurt her? No thanks. She’d already lived through it once.

  “We need to worry about the Dalshie and the Forgotten a whole lot more than my feelings,” she added when the silence stretched between them.

  John tilted his head and studied her.

  “I’m fine,” she murmured and held up her hand. “Girl Scout’s honor.”

  He chuckled, a soft sound that let Daughtry know she was winning him over. “Are you really sure you’re okay?”

  She nodded, ignored the fact that agreeing may not be the entire truth.

  Eventually she would be whole again.

  Suz frowned, no doubt reading Daughtry’s emotions like the efficient doctor she was. “If we’re not strong,” Suz said carefully. “If we’re not family, the Dalshie will separate us—”

  “I’m not about to let something which you had no control over splinter us.” She would push away any hurts in order to take down those monsters.

  Suz looked like she wanted to argue but Gabrielle knocked on the door. “Sorry to interrupt again but the kids are getting restless,” she said with a wry smile.

  Suz sighed but nodded. “I’ll be right there,” she said then turned to Daughtry. “Don’t think this conversation is over.” She pulled her into a hug, whispering, “And for what little it’s worth, I am so sorry.” A beat. “Don’t let your past give you the excuse to push us away. We love you. You’re family.”

  Daughtry nodded but it was hard to ignore the insidious thought that fa
mily was just a word. A lot of people had said it and few had meant it. In her experience it had only been a convenient excuse to take advantage of her. To hurt her.

  She wasn’t going to let that happen again.

  Stifling a sigh, knowing she wasn’t going to let her past rule her, that time was the only cure, Daughtry smiled at her friend and returned the hug.

  Then she hurried from the Infirmary and made her way to the Library. She needed to continue her research, to focus on something that wasn’t emotions and hurt feelings and betrayals.

  At least until Daughtry’s heart felt whole again.

  She hurried to open the door to hers and Cody’s quarters. The timid knock had barely been audible through the panel of thick wood, but she’d rushed to answer it anyway, worried that it was news about Tyler.

  The moment she saw who stood on the other side, she regretted her decision. She should have just pretended to not hear the knock. Or looked through the peephole. It had only been a few hours since she’d left John and Suz in the infirmary and she wasn’t ready for what was sure to be another emotional conversation, especially when the Library had turned up absolutely nothing about the Orb.

  Because the woman standing two feet away was Darcy.

  Daughtry forced herself to hold her place, to not slam the door on the beautiful woman with lush lips, doe eyes, and more curves than a freaking mountain road.

  “Hi,” Darcy said.

  “Hi.”

  And silence.

  Daughtry resisted the urge to sigh, to say she’d reached her limit on granting absolution for the day.

  All she knew was that having another conversation was the last thing she wanted.

  “I couldn’t tell you about me because I was running,” Darcy blurted. “I couldn’t risk being found.” A pause. “But then I saw how torn up you were, actually saw the images flying through your mind when you collided with those people in the bar and pulled their visions.”

  Daughtry’s mind latched onto the memory, replayed the onslaught of death that had threatened to overwhelm her in the bar months before.

  The foot came out of nowhere. It knocked her off balance, propelling her headfirst into a dancing couple.