by Zoe Chant
“Wait. Not yet,” she whispered, willing Zephyr to hear her, and understand. She raised her voice. “Mom—”
“Already ahead of you, love.” Rose studied the firestorm swirling around her mate. She clicked her tongue, as though Uncegila had tracked mud across a freshly cleaned floor. “Oh, now, really. No, this simply will not do.”
“Rose!” Wystan cried out, as she started for Uncegila. He stretched out a desperate hand, his fraying shield struggling to push back the flames. “I can’t cover you!”
“It’s all right, my dear.” Backlit by fire, Rose smiled at him. “Ash won’t hurt me.”
She stepped past the edge of the shield, strolling straight into the flames. They recoiled, parting before her.
Uncegila snarled. She hooked Ash’s fingers, trying to bend the fire to her will, to engulf Rose in flame—but nothing could make a shifter harm his mate.
Quite calmly, Rose walked right up to her possessed mate. Uncegila actually took a step back, a moment of uncertainty flickering across Ash’s features. Then she twisted his face into an arrogant sneer.
“Foolish mortal,” she spat through Ash’s lips. “You think you can stand against me? I shall feast on all your souls. I am Uncegila! Crowned queen, ruler of serpents, devourer of—”
“Oh, hush,” Rose snapped, in the same tone of voice she used when one of her patrons crossed the line from ‘drunk’ to ‘disorderly.’ She folded her arms, fixing Uncegila with a stern glare. “I think we’ve heard quite enough from you. Boys, ladies, a little help, please?”
Chase, John, and Griff came forward, flanking Rose. Their mates came too: Connie, fists clenched and jaw set; Neridia, tall and regal; Hayley, shorter, softer, and no less dangerous.
The flames drew back further, retreating in fear. Dai landed behind Alpha Team, red wings outstretched, Virginia like a warrior queen on his back. Ivy swooped in too, hissing defiance, her tail arched over her green back like a scorpion ready to sting. Hugh still had his hands full with the Thunderbird, but Blaise could sense him reach out telepathically, linking with the others. The unicorn shifter stood side by side with Alpha Team in spirit, if not in body.
Stepping in front of Zephyr, Blaise joined them, adding what little strength she could to the gathering group of minds. Rory was there too, and Wystan, and Callum, and Joe.
Rose gathered them all up, knitting them together into a single shining purpose. Alpha Team and A-squad, firefighters and hotshots; parents and sons and daughters and friends. She took them all, focusing all that love, all that power, and drove it like a spear into the darkness filling her mate.
Uncegila did not go easily. When Blaise had helped Darcy drive the snake demon out of Fenrir, it had been like banishing shadows by flicking on a light. But Fenrir had only hosted a portion of Uncegila, a fraction of her evil spirit. Now, they faced all of her, crammed into Ash’s skin, and she wasn’t going to give up without a fight.
She coiled within Ash, crushing his animal like a constricting snake. Even as Rose forced her back, driving her out, the snake goddess clung to her prey. Her fangs sank deep into the Phoenix, holding tight.
Ash’s back arched. Black smoke poured from his mouth—but brightness went with it. Golden fire unspooled from him, wrenched out by Uncegila’s grasping fangs. For an instant, a struggling shape beat frantic wings, trying to escape vast, shadowy jaws—and then it was gone, swallowed whole.
Ash collapsed, thin trails of flame bleeding from his eyes and ears. Above him, Uncegila tipped her huge, horned head to the sky, her vast throat rippling as she gulped down stolen fire.
“Now, Zephyr!” Blaise yelled.
The Thunderbird reared up, wings spreading wide. Charred black patches still marred the gray feathers, but the geometric patterns across the underside lit up with eye-searing power.
Storm clouds swirled above, blotting out all sunlight. Uncegila lunged, fanged jaws gaping, but the Thunderbird was already sweeping its wings forward. Its great beak opened, thunder drowning out the horned serpent’s hiss of rage. With a cry that shook the earth, the Thunderbird unleashed the lightning.
The brilliant, seething bolt hit Uncegila square in the heart… and splashed.
Electric sparks spluttered from dark scales, fizzling out. The last of Blaise’s hope died with them. Cold with horror, she stood frozen as Uncegila’s hissing laughter coiled around them.
Before the Thunderbird could try again, Uncegila’s tail whipped round. Contemptuously, she knocked the vast bird across the clearing. Dai roared, lunging, but Uncegila slapped the red dragon aside as well, sending him tumbling into the trees. The rest of the shifters were forced to scatter to avoid being crushed as the enormous serpent swept round. Uncegila reared up, cobra hood flaring, her shadow engulfing them all.
“Oh, you fool.” The horned serpent looked down at the Thunderbird, her burning eyes alight with triumph. “Did you truly think you could defeat me alone?”
“He’s not alone,” growled a voice.
Blaise had lost track of Buck in the confusion. Now the Superintendent stepped out of the Thunderbird’s shadow. He was unarmed, dwarfed by the monstrous serpent, yet he stood squarely between Uncegila and his nephew.
“You, little thunderkin?” Uncegila cocked her horned head, as though intrigued by this show of defiance. “You deny even the paltry power you possess. What do you hope to accomplish?”
“Me?” Buck’s fists clenched, and Blaise could have sworn that electricity crackled over his knuckles. “Mainly, to keep you distracted.”
Joe dropped from the sky, shifting as he fell. Uncegila shrieked as the sea dragon landed on her back. He was much smaller than her, but he still managed to pin her to the ground. Seren followed her mate, ripping and biting at Uncegila’s scaled hide.
“Took you long enough,” Buck muttered, still standing protectively in front of the fallen Thunderbird as the rest of Alpha Team and A-squad joined the fray. “Motherloving shifters.”
Every instinct screamed that she should be at her mate’s side. Her frozen paralysis breaking at last, Blaise ran for him, dodging round the fight. The clearing was a chaos of swooping wings and bared fangs, griffin shrieks mixing with draconic roars. Blaise ducked Uncegila’s lashing tail, and then had to leap back as Ivy flashed past like a green thunderbolt, spitting venom. She couldn’t even reach Zephyr, let alone help him.
Burn! Blaise’s animal shrieked in her soul. It stretched midnight wings, desperately searching for a spark that was no longer there. BURN!
But that was impossible. Even if she hadn’t severed her connection to the Phoenix, she had a sick certainty that she wouldn’t have been able to draw on its power. She’d seen that incandescent form sliding down Uncegila’s monstrous gullet.
She caught a glimpse of her father, limp on the ground. Hugh crouched over him, glowing hands pressed against his chest. Rose was there too, and Wystan, his shield flaring to deflect stray blows from the writhing Uncegila. Both unicorn shifters were white-faced with exhaustion.
All Blaise could do was pray that her father would be okay. She focused on Zephyr, trying to find a path to him through the chaotic fight. What the hell she was going to do over there rather than here was an open question. But he was her mate, and she had to be at his side.
Though at the rate things were going, possibly just to die together. Uncegila reared up, shaking off John and Joe. Even Neridia, by far the biggest of the three sea dragons, couldn’t get her jaws around Uncegila’s massive neck.
Uncegila swept her horns into Neridia, tossing the Pearl Empress aside like a farmer pitching hay. Before the demon queen could bite the fallen sea dragon, Rory, Griff, Callum, and Chase darted in, swooping around the giant serpent’s head and lashing out at her eyes with claws and hooves. They were barely more than annoyances to Uncegila, but at least they distracted her. She recoiled, snapping irritably at the griffins and pegasi.
“Everyone get back!” Virginia shouted from atop her mate. The red dragon had been circl
ing the fight, looking for an opening. “Stay clear!”
The shifters scattered, giving Dai a clear shot at Uncegila. The red dragon breathed out a rush of fire—but the orange flames just splattered harmlessly across the horned serpent’s thick scales.
Uncegila laughed again as the dragonfire rolled off her hide like water. With a single sweep of her tail, she slammed Dai into the ground before he could make another attempt.
“Idiot mortals.” She reared above them, cobra hood flaring wide. Already the few wounds they’d managed to inflict were sealing over, scales knitting back together. “You think such feeble flames can hurt me? I am Uncegila, the devourer, the end of all things. I have swallowed the Phoenix itself and taken its strength for my own! Even now it burns within me, rich and sweet. No mortal fire can harm me now.”
BURN! Blaise’s phoenix shrieked.
But she couldn’t burn. And even if she had miraculously found a way to set herself alight, what good would it have done? Uncegila had shrugged off dragonfire, after all, and Zephyr had said that only fires started by lightning could destroy her corruption. Maybe even the Phoenix wouldn’t have been able to touch her.
Across the clearing, the Thunderbird struggled back to its taloned feet. Half of its pinions were snapped and broken, yet it raised its wings again, painfully. Uncegila laughed yet again, the sound mocking and triumphant.
“Go ahead, my old enemy.” She tipped her horned head back, as though inviting the Thunderbird to take its best shot. “Poor, lost child. Did you think a mate bond could save you? All you have achieved is my own ascension. Unleash your feeble lightning. It is nothing more than a spark.”
All it takes is a spark.
And Blaise knew what she had to do.
Chapter 34
The storm was dying.
The Thunderbird was dying too, but it still lifted its wings, gathering what power it could for one last attack. No matter that it was futile; no matter that it would drain the last of its strength.
Its ancient enemy reared above it, powerful and mocking. There was no choice but to strike.
“Zephyr!”
A figure. A small figure, a shadowy soul, barely noticeable. Compared to Uncegila, or the Thunderbird itself, she was no more than an ant. Yet she ran between them, unafraid, waving her arms.
“No, Zephyr!” she was shouting. “Don’t strike Uncegila!”
The Thunderbird hesitated. A storm did not know doubt, yet something—some tiny, foreign speck—made it hold back the lightning gathering in its wings.
This small, scurrying creature should have meant nothing to it. But she did. The echo of her name filled the silence at the heart of the storm.
Blaise.
It knew her. Remembered her, in shattered shards of memory, bright and sharp.
Her hand on his chest, pulling him out of the dark.
Her face through the campfire, veiled by sparks.
The gleam of sweat over the line of her collarbones.
Her biceps flexing, over and over, cutting fire line with swift, practiced strokes.
Colored lights reflecting in her eyes; her agile fingers, dancing across controls.
The flash of her smile, brighter than lightning.
The heat of her touch.
Black wings.
Fire.
Blaise.
Uncegila hissed, hood flaring, but Blaise didn’t so much as glance at the horned serpent towering over her. She looked up at the Thunderbird, and there was nothing in her face but utter certainty.
“Not Uncegila,” she said. Her eyes caught the Thunderbird’s electric light, reflecting it back. “Me.”
Lightning did not pick its path. A storm did not choose where to strike.
But he was more than a storm.
He was her mate.
“All it takes is a spark,” Blaise whispered, opening her arms to him. “Make me burn, Zephyr.”
He unleashed the lightning.
Blaise disappeared, lost in that white-hot power. He poured himself into her, all of his strength and hope and love, holding nothing back.
From the flames, the Phoenix rose.
Black no longer; or at least, not only black. The base of each shining feather was still midnight mystery, dark as night… but as her wings spread, her pinions kindled into flame. First the dull red of banked embers; then hotter, shifting to the fierce, leaping orange of a bonfire.
And the fire didn’t stop there. Her flames licked higher, blazing gold, then yellow. She burned now with the furious force of wildfire, with all the power of nature. And still her feathers brightened—through yellow to brilliant, eye-searing white.
And then, with a thunderclap of superheated air, the flames shifted to spectral blue-violet, so hot that their light reached beyond the limits of mortal sight. She burned like the heart of a star; the pure, transcendent soul of fire.
In the face of that light, Uncegila was nothing more than a frail, thin shadow. The horned serpent recoiled in fear, shrinking away from that incandescent shape.
It wasn’t even a fight. Uncegila’s eyes might be the death of suns, but the Phoenix’s held the birth of galaxies. Taking flight, she swooped around the cowering serpent, caging her in violet fire.
Uncegila twisted, but there was no escape. This was sacred fire, born from lightning, and even the great serpent could not withstand its touch.
It was quick, and merciful. With one last, bitter shriek, the horned serpent crumbled to ash.
Ash… and something more.
As the wind scattered Uncegila’s remains, glowing motes rose into the air, freed from the serpent’s crumbling corpse. They swarmed like fireflies, dancing in the air.
Blaise hovered in the air, her beak opening to release a soft, wistful call; part welcome, part sorrow. The sparks swirled in front of her, brightening. They came together, coalescing into a shimmering, fiery shape.
Just for a moment, the spirit of the old Phoenix spread its wings over its daughter in blessing.
Then the luminous form broke apart, the glowing fragments scattering. Some soared up, arcing over the horizon; others zig-zagged through the trees, like dogs following a scent. Only one remained, dancing across the shattered meadow as though hunting for something.
“Absolutely not,” Rose exclaimed, as that sparkling mote circled her head like a butterfly looking for somewhere to land. With a flip of her hand, she shooed it away. “Once was quite enough. I’m happy the way I am, thank you very much. Off you go. Get back to where you belong.”
The spark hesitated, bobbing a little in the air, then streaked for Ash. Hugh jerked back as the brilliant ember settled over Ash’s heart. It settled down, sinking in, and for an instant a fiery glow outlined Ash’s body.
Ash’s chest rose. He drew in a deep, calm breath, and opened his eyes.
“Oh,” he said, looking up at the blue-violet flames of the hovering Phoenix. He smiled, pure joy lighting his face. “Oh, yes.”
The Phoenix touched down, her feathers fading back down the spectrum until the flames burned low and orange. With a final flare, they went out entirely.
“Dad!”
Blaise ran to embrace him. He hugged her back, eyes shining. Rose enfolded them both in her arms, laughing and crying. And then the others were there too, all of them, gathering together in relief and joy.
The Thunderbird watched the hugs and tears. A breeze tugged at its feathers. Its work here was done. Other skies called to it now, promising peace at last; gentle winds, and the deep, quiet dreams of the world.
Blaise broke away from the laughing, embracing mob. She looked up at the Thunderbird. Her eyes held their own light now, brighter than lightning.
“Zephyr,” was all she said.
Storm winds faded away. Not forever; not gone entirely. A storm never truly died. The clouds may scatter, but the wind always rose again, eventually. When it called, he would answer.
And he would always return.
“Blaise.” He took he
r in his arms, the mate bond filling his heart with fire. “My Phoenix. My mate.”
Chapter 35
“Do it again,” Edith urged.
Obligingly, Blaise clicked her fingers. Spectral fire flared in her palm, blue and purple flames flickering up.
Diana sighed happily, admiring the dancing flames. “It’s so beautiful. Just like you, Blaise.”
“How does it feel?” Callum asked Blaise.
She had to think about that one. She looked into the Phoenix fire, trying to find words.
“Natural,” she said at last. She closed her hand, pulling the flames back into the glowing presence at the center of her soul. “Right. Like this is how I was always meant to be, deep down.”
“You were,” Fenrir said, smiling. “Fireheart.”
“Okay, okay.” Blaise bumped her shoulder against the big hellhound. “We get it, you knew all along. Say ‘I told you so,’ and get it out of your system.”
“We told you so,” her friends chorused in unison.
“Oh, you so did not.” Blaise folded her arms, glaring round at them all. “As I recall, you were all certain that all I had to do was mate, and look how that turned out.”
“Fairly well, I believe,” Rory murmured, casting a sidelong glance across the crowded hall. “In the end.”
Blaise looked that way too. Over by the kitchen, Zephyr was still deep in quiet conversation with Buck. Zephyr had his back to her, but as her gaze fell on him, he turned. Their eyes met.
“Yeah, all right,” Blaise admitted. She tore her eyes away from her mate, though she could feel the dopey grin lingering on her face. “In the end.”
“I will admit that we were incorrect on some details,” Wystan said. His mouth twisted wryly. “It was just as well I was utterly exhausted before you had your epiphany, or I might have ruined the big moment. Though by the time I realized what you were doing, it was too late to throw a shield over you, anyway.”
“You should have seen her big entrance, bros,” Joe said to Fenrir and Darcy. He mimed an enthusiastic explosion, like fireworks. “It. Was. Awesome.”