“As far as I know, yes.” His tone remained neutral, but the intensity of his gaze never wavered.
“Do you know what it feels like? When it happens?”
A furrow creased his brow as he considered her question. “I was turned, Phoenix. As your father was. For us, immortality was a side effect rather than a birthright.”
What little she’d eaten of her dinner felt heavy in her stomach. He wasn’t telling her anything new, yet she’d hoped he could give her more information. Anything to put her mind at ease.
“Is there something you need to tell me, Phoenix?”
The temptation to lie, to brush it off, was strong. Once she said the words out loud, she couldn’t ignore them anymore. If she remained silent, she could stay ignorant and get on with her normal, happy life.
Until she couldn’t any longer.
“I’ve just been feeling a bit strange since my birthday. It could be nothing. Maybe I have the flu.”
Darius scoffed. “The flu? What, like a human? Don’t be ridiculous.”
She frowned, his tone taking her by surprise. Yes, she knew there was very little chance of her getting sick, but Darius actually seemed disgusted by the suggestion.
“It doesn’t matter. Like I said, it was probably nothing.” She pushed her plate aside, appetite completely gone.
“Maybe, but why don’t you tell me what happened?” His face softened as he reached for her hand.
Taking a deep breath, she told him everything: the strange dizziness, the moment of blackness, the edgy feeling she’d had ever since. For a while, he mulled over the information and rolled his wine glass back and forth between his fingers. Eventually, he sat back and looked at her.
“We never did know what to expect with you. Given the two elements that make up your dual nature, it would make sense for your fae side to be dominant. In this respect, at least.”
The heavy weight in her stomach dropped, and it was only then that she acknowledged the truth. She’d been hoping he would give her a reason to dismiss her fears.
As far as they knew, she was the first of her kind. The first hybrid. It brought with it a lot of unknowns, and with no one they could ask, each potential milestone was filled with trepidation and an increasing fear of what the change might mean.
“I know you don’t want to face this, but I think we really need to assume you’re settling into your immortality,” he continued.
A faint buzz started in her head. She rested her forehead in her hands, trying to think past the pressure that was building behind her eyes.
“Is there any way to find out for sure?”
He stared at her.
Sure, she could die and see what happens.
Darius grew grave once more. “Phoenix, if you have reached your immortality, then I think it’s time you come home.”
“Home?” Confusion distracted her momentarily from the growing headache.
“Back to the lair.”
Phoenix froze.
Taking a sip of her drink, she chose her words carefully, though the racing of her heart was no doubt advertising her feelings on the suggestion.
“Why would I need to come back to the lair?”
“Where else will you go once you cut ties with the humans?”
She choked on the sweet, burning liquid that ran down her throat, her eyes watering.
“You know you won’t be able to stay with them,” Darius said as he pulled a silk handkerchief from his pocket and handed it to her. “And it’s not like other members of the Lore will welcome you with open arms. It’s better if you come back to the lair where I can keep you safe.”
Her heart stuttered at the very thought.
Go back to the way things were before? To being alone? She’d been a shell of herself, merely surviving. She knew now that wasn’t how she wanted to live.
“I can’t go back to the dark, Uncle D,” she said quietly.
Before he could argue any further, she shook herself off and plastered a smile on her face. “Let’s not worry about it for now. We’re here to celebrate.”
“Okay, so what’s the plan?” Ethan turned from the panoramic view of the city and looked at the odd assortment of people gathered in his apartment. A vamp, a shifter, and two witches. It almost sounded like the start of a bad joke.
“We’re going to do a spell, apparently.”
Ethan threw an irritated look at the vampire slouched in the oversized leather sofa next to Nate. Shade’s ice blue eyes stared back with the insolent look he seemed to have perfected. A black hoody and baggy jeans only added to the angsty teenage vibe he was projecting, something Ethan strongly felt he should have outgrown at nineteen years of age.
“We’re going to search for the hybrid’s signature,” Annabelle said, swatting Shade with a magazine before she moved to stand by Ethan at the window.
He couldn’t help but smile as he pulled the young girl close for a hug. Her small, freckled nose scrunched up as she squeezed him tight and he could almost feel her humming with excitement.
Annabelle’s sister, Lily, stood with her back to them in the kitchen, lost in thought as she mixed a variety of strange-smelling concoctions. The sisters looked very similar with their long blonde hair and green eyes, but there was a seriousness to Lily that made her seem older than her eighteen years. Where Annabelle had held tightly to her youthful optimism in the face of their parent’s death, Lily had taken on the burden of responsibility and wore it like a visible weight. It hurt his heart to see on someone so young.
“I got that part, but how can we search for it if we don’t know what the signature is?” Ethan knew the girls were talented witches, but they were still young and still learning to use their power. This seemed like a big ask, even for an advanced witch.
“Process of elimination,” Lily said, finally focusing her attention on the group around her. “We know how a human signature reads. And most of the common supernatural signatures. So, we look for something … other.”
Ethan watched as she moved to the dining room table, unfolded a large map, and placed three small bowls beside it. Annabelle left his side to join her sister and a curious silence fell over the room. Nate and Shade both sat forward on the sofa. It was as if the room held its breath.
“You ready?” Lily’s voice was quiet as she looked at her sister.
Annabelle exhaled slowly and nodded. With her shoulders relaxed, the excited energy of minutes ago seemed to slip away from her. She calmly took Lily’s hands, and the girls began chanting, eyes closed.
The words were unintelligible to Ethan, but a strange sensation tingled over his skin in time with their cadence. It wasn’t an unpleasant feeling; nothing like the sickening weight that came with dark magic. This was pure, natural energy, channelled and moulded to their will.
Ethan closed his eyes and let the power flow over him, focusing his thoughts on their intention: find the hybrid. Unbidden, the vague snippets of a memory flashed through his mind. Green eyes. More vivid than any he had ever seen before. But as he tried to grasp it, remember where he had seen them before, the memory faded in a haze.
When he dragged his attention back to the room, he had no idea how much time had passed. The girls and Nate all stood over the map, talking quietly. Shade watched him from the sofa with an odd expression on his face.
Shaking his head, Ethan pushed away from the window and went to join the others at the table.
“She’s somewhere near Dublin, somewhere in the outskirts,” Nate said, glancing up as he approached.
“She?”
Lily nodded. “The signature feels … feminine.”
Ethan was surprised. He shouldn’t have been – hell, plenty of the women in his pack back home were scarier than the men – but he was.
“Can we narrow down her location?”
“We picked up a few hotspots.” Lily pointed to marks on the map. “We can’t narrow it down further without having something that belongs to her, but I’m sure she’s in
one of these locations.”
“We think if you can get close enough, you’ll be able to identify her from her signature,” Nate said, making a note of the marked locations on his phone.
Again, the remnants of a thought flitted at the edge of Ethan’s subconscious, just out of reach.
“Have we managed to find out what combination the hybrid is?” he asked, directing the question at Nate since he was their go-to for research, but also sparing a glance at Lily in case she’d picked up anything from the signature. Both of them shook their heads.
The question made him curious and anxious at the same time. He’d no idea what kind of traits a hybrid might have – or why she’d be looking to end humanity for that matter – but if she’d gotten the best of two strong species, and coupled it with some psychotic tendencies, they could be in serious trouble.
The increased speed of a vamp.
The strength of a wolf.
Some neat magic tricks courtesy of a witch or fae.
Near impossible to kill.
Shit.
Of course, there was no guarantee she had any of those traits. But who, other than an especially powerful Supe, could have wolves all over the country going feral? Vamps succumbing to bloodlust? An unprecedented uptake in dark magic practices? Because that was what he’d been encountering on a weekly basis ever since he’d left Donegal.
“You have to kill her.” Shade’s words cut through the silence that had fallen around them, turning everyone’s attention to him.
“Shade –”
“No.” He shook his head and stood. “I know what you’re going to say Ethan. But it’s the only way to make sure this stops.”
“She could be innocent in all this too,” Annabelle said, a look of horror on her face.
“It’s one life, Annie,” Lily’s voice was soft as she stared at the table in front of her. “What about all the innocent people that are getting hurt? What about our parents?”
Annabelle’s eyes brightened with tears, but the look on her face remained defiant as she shook her head. “It’s not right.”
Lily refused to look at her, choosing instead to level her gaze on Ethan. “You said you’d help us find out what happened to them. You’d help us make it right. If she’s the cause, you need to fix this.”
Ethan’s chest constricted at the pain shadowing her young eyes and the truth of her statement. He’d promised to help them, and he was failing. They were all innocent victims in this, each caught up somehow in the events that were unfolding. And they’d placed their trust in him. A trust that wasn’t deserved.
Around him, everyone was talking over one another, arguing the morals of murder and the value of one life compared to millions. He couldn’t think straight.
“Enough,” Ethan growled, not able to listen any longer. “Enough.”
He pushed away from the table. They made it sound so simple. Murder the hybrid and everything goes back to normal; they all get on with their lives. Well, life didn’t work that way. All actions had consequences. And how many people would be affected by his actions now? Hundreds? Thousands? More? Hell, he’d left his pack to avoid shit like this. Sighing, he grabbed his jacket and headed for the door.
“What are you going to do, man?” Nate called after him, the others watching quietly.
Damned if he knew.
Phoenix hummed softly along to the music as she wiped down the bar and restocked the shelves. Aside from a random group of tourists that looked to have set up camp for the night, it had been quiet for a Sunday. Normally she’d have enjoyed the lull, but tonight it gave her too much time to think.
The conversation with Darius earlier that week had been replaying itself on a loop in her head. His assertion that she would need to come back to the lair and leave this life behind was somewhat understandable. Still, the thought alone made her break out in a cold sweat.
He couldn’t know how it affected her, spending so much time in the darkness. As a vampire, she craved that very thing. But she wasn’t just a vampire, she was also half fae – a sun elemental – and that half of her died a slow death every day she spent away from the sun. Six years had been a very slow death.
That didn’t even factor in the consequences for Darius if the Council found out he’d been hiding her. They’d crucify him. Aiding and abetting an inter-species relationship. Harbouring the results of such a relationship. She didn’t know much about the Council, but she was pretty sure they’d be pissed.
Darius had taken her in without question when her parents disappeared and she’d be forever grateful to him, but she was older now. It was time to stand on her own two feet.
Lost in her thoughts, she jumped a mile when she turned to find a man standing patiently at the bar behind her with an amused smile on his face. He was vaguely familiar and she was pretty sure he’d come in with the group of tourists. He’d made a few attempts to talk to her earlier in the night, but her head had been too far up her arse to appreciate the attention.
“Sorry, was miles away.” Phoenix forced a friendly smile onto her face as her eyes scanned the pub floor for Abi. Her friend stood by the stage with a grin on her face, giving a not-so-subtle two thumbs up.
Phoenix groaned inwardly, “What can I get you?”
“A pint of the black stuff, please.”
His Scottish accent seemed to have gotten thicker from earlier in the night and he had a cute dimple when he smiled. He really wasn’t bad looking, Phoenix acknowledged, as she grabbed a pint glass and held it under the Guinness tap.
“Any chance I can buy you a drink?” His eyes watched her with unmasked interest as she waited for the pint to settle before topping it up.
“Thanks, but I’m working.” Phoenix waved at the half-empty bar around her, giving him a small smile.
The poor guy really had no idea what a loaded question that was. She hadn’t let herself feed from anyone in weeks, and the idea of a “drink” sounded pretty appealing. Generally, her fae side was dominant enough to gain sustenance from the sun without the need to take blood regularly. It was one of the few mercies of her hybrid nature, and one of the ways she could maintain the illusion of being normal. But with the stress of the past week, not to mention the serious lack of sun, the urge was making itself known.
“Maybe later.” He smiled and looked at her for a moment longer before taking his drink back to his friends.
Maybe …
Phoenix turned back to her morose thoughts while stocking the shelves. She had no idea how much time had passed when a cold breeze brushed the back of her neck and she heard the creaking of the door. A strange sense of awareness sent a shiver down her spine.
She froze. Arm paused mid-air clutching the bottle of Jack Daniels, she swivelled her head to locate the source of her unease. But all she found was empty space. The door swung closed, bringing with it the icy draught of the winter night beyond.
It was official, she was losing her marbles.
Ever since her birthday, she’d been on edge, feeling eyes on her everywhere she went. She was starting to think becoming immortal wasn’t her problem at all. Going crazy was.
“Oh my God, Phoenix, you’ve got to check out this guy that just walked in. Hot is not even the word!” Abi came up behind her, squealing with excitement as she reached around to grab a glass from the back wall.
Phoenix laughed, her earlier irritation forgotten as she turned to watch Abi fill the glass with a pint of Blue Moon. It wasn’t unusual for Abi to get excited about a cute guy, but she didn’t often reach the girly, high-pitched level she was currently at.
“Now, don’t make it too obvious, but he’s over in the corner booth beside the stage.” Abi placed the pint on the bar and ran her fingers through her long, wavy hair.
“I think you’re probably over-exaggerating a bit, there’s no way he’s that …”
The words trailed off as Phoenix turned to look in the direction Abi indicated, only to find the man staring intensely back at her. The guy
from New Year’s Eve.
Even across the open space of the bar his dark eyes burned into her; the awareness she’d felt only moments before wrapping around her like a blanket.
“Uh huh, told ye so …”
Abi continued on in the background, but Phoenix was no longer listening. Her head was spinning. What the hell was he doing here? Abi had been right about his looks. Even beneath the black V-neck jumper he wore, Phoenix could see the muscles rippling as he settled back in the seat and ran a hand through his dark tousled hair. His eyes were piercing and a light stubble covered his jaw, just enough to offset the strong lines of his face.
Everything about him screamed male.
And everything about him screamed predator.
Having been sheltered from the Lore most of her life, Phoenix wasn’t very good at reading the different signatures of Supes. From this distance, she could tell his energy was strong, much stronger than any human, but nothing like her parents’ energy. So, that ruled out vampire or fae. The feral quality of his looks made her guess werewolf, or shifter of some sort, and that meant heightened senses.
Phoenix squirmed and tore her eyes away from him. It was just a coincidence that he’d come into the bar, wasn’t it? Sure, Whitethorn wasn’t exactly Lore territory, one of the main reasons she’d come here, but it was possible.
It wasn’t a big deal anyway. Very few people knew about her true nature. Most Supes would simply mistake her for a vamp, as long as they didn’t pay too close attention.
He was paying very close attention …
***
Ethan watched her from the dark corner where he sat. The small, innocuous pub was the third place he’d tried on the list, and he’d known immediately he was in the right place.
The girl from the train station. The green eyes.
His wolf stirred to attention as soon as it caught a hint of her scent, rich and warm, bringing to mind thoughts of vivid sunsets. Her vibrant red hair only heightened the image. The energy emanating from her was unlike anything he’d ever felt before; familiar enough to mark her as supernatural, but so very unique in its undertones.
3 Minutes to Midnight: Urban Fantasy Midnight Trilogy Book 1 Page 3