The Fire Catcher's snarled black lips turned up into an evil smile. She screamed out in anger and took off toward him. As she ran at a speed she had never achieved before, heat boiled all around her, and she raised her arm to strike at the evil creature. However, just as she was about to make contact, the Keepers moved straight toward her and her mates. She stumbled forward through their black mystic robes, and as the air cleared around her, the Fire Catcher was gone.
She looked around confused, not understanding where he could have gone so quickly. From what she understood, he was still crippled from when her father had put him there. He was still weak and untamed. What she hadn't realized through all the stories was that even in his most fragile state, the souls that he held within him kept him stronger than any of them. Any of them except for her. She knew she could beat him, she just had to think. The sounds of the Keepers swirling through the volcano clouded her mind. They reached into her as they passed by, twisting her in her consciousness and stopping her from understanding exactly what she needed to do.
She reached up and cupped her hands over her ears, closing her eyes tightly. The sound became muffled and almost unrecognizable, and she felt a calming soothe over her. A voice whispered in the back of her mind, Zevi's voice. "Calm yourself. Breathe deeply. Think. Do not worry about us, whatever happens, it is our destiny."
“Screw that,” Brighid replied. “From now on, we make our own damn destiny.”
She whirled around, her body shifting and changing as she moved, wings sprouting large and long as her body exploded into that of her Dragon. This time though, her Dragon was anything but ordinary. The scales all over its body shimmered and sparked. Her wings stretched large and wide, and her belly burned brightly, the fire swirling deep in her Dragon's soul.
Brighid knew that if she didn't make a move, and she left her mates there to fend for themselves, they would all die. There were too many Keepers, and they were coming at them in every direction. The sounds of her Wolf wailing and injured, the cries of her Stag as it lifted up on its back legs fighting with everything it had, and the screech of her Phoenix, calling out for anyone or anything to help them. Her emotions fueled her magical energy, and it spread like wildfire through her entire Dragon.
She reared her head back and roared, letting out a long jagged strip of fire. It reached out over the top of her mates, taking down three or four of the Keepers. But three or four wasn't enough, and they just continued to flood the space. From behind her, she felt a hand gently lay on her scaled tail. Her Dragon's head snapped back, narrowing its eyes at the Fire Catcher, who stood clutching her with his eyes closed, repeating some sort of demonic enchantment beneath his breath.
An icy cold blanket began to creep over her, just as it had done in her living room earlier that day. She turned her attention back to her mates, who looked over at her with love and caring. Even as they battled the Keepers, knowing there was a good possibility that they wouldn't leave that volcano alive, they sent her warm and strong emotions. They flooded her, pushing through her soul, reminding her and her Dragon just how powerful they really were. Her Dragon snorted again, and lowered its head, tightening all the muscles in its body.
The Fire Catcher's eyes opened wide, and he snatched his hand away from her Dragon just as the energy in her chest reached its crescendo, exploding outward and lifting her from the ground. The Fire Catcher flew back and crashed to the ground. He jumped to his feet, but he couldn't reach Brighid as she rose higher into the air, her entire Dragon engulfed in flames. She looked like an enormous Phoenix, and her mind was focused only on saving the ones that she loved.
When her Dragon had risen far enough into the air that nothing could touch it, its eyes shot open, glowing wildly. She flapped her wings once and then again, bringing them high up over her head. As the tips of them touched, it sent out a wave of fire and magic spiraling down onto the ground below. As it hit the stone walkway, it fanned out, slamming into every single Keeper in its path. The Keepers burst into balls of mist, the sounds of their screams echoing against the streaming lava rivers around them.
Very slowly, her Dragon returned to the ground below. As her feet touched down, her eyes immediately shifted, looking for any sight of the Fire Catcher. Across the enormous cave, she found a creature, shriveled and broken, lying with its knees to its chest. She bent down on one knee and stared at him. She shifted back into her human form and shook out her hair. "You're not so tough, anymore are you?"
Finn, Zevi, and Ash shuffled through the smoke and magic that lingered in the air. They stood next to Brighid, staring down at the powerless demon. Brighid looked from one mate to the other, making sure that they were all okay. Beyond a few cuts and scrapes, they looked like they were in good shape. The fire that she had sent out hadn't come anywhere near them.
The ground shook beneath her feet once again, and she rubbed her face in agony. She had thought by defeating the Keepers, the quakes would have stopped. To their right, a loud crash sent tumbling rocks and debris straight at them. Brighid put up her arms to cover her eyes from the dust. She coughed and waved her hand in front of her face, watching as the Giant came lumbering through.
He paused for a moment and looked down at Brighid, giving her a bright smile. She smiled back at him, knowing full well what he had come for. The Giant turned his head toward the mates and snarled his lip, rolling his eyes like a teenager as he continued over to the Fire Catcher. He raised an eyebrow and smirked, looking at the defeated heap curled up in a ball.
The Giant reached down and grabbed the Fire Catcher with one hand, lifting him up and wincing at the horrible smell he was giving off. "Back to your cell. You'll never escape me again."
Finn walked up next to Brighid, leaned in, and whispered to her. "From the looks of it, he'll never do very much of anything ever again."
Brighid laughed and put her arm over Zevi's shoulder, and walked next to Finn and Ash looking up at the steep volcano above. She had forgotten entirely about the fact that they needed to get back out of the volcano and hadn't made any type of plan for that.
She cleared her throat before the Giant could leave. "Do you think you could do us a favor?"
The Giant grumbled but put on another sweet face for Brighid as he put out his hand. All four of them climbed on and held on tightly as he lifted them up and out of the volcano. The men stumbled back, watching as Brighid smiled and waved to the Giant, his head dipping back down into the shadows of the volcano. When she turned back around, she stopped, her eyes growing wide as she glanced all around them. The mates followed her gaze and moved over next to her. A white mist began to rise up from every corner of the island.
This mist, though, was nothing like she had seen before. And as she looked closer, she could tell that it wasn't magic at all; they were souls. The lost lives that the Fire Catcher and his minions had caught, at least in recent years. It was a beautiful, lively feeling surging through her.
“You did good kid,” Thomas’s voice echoed from behind her.
Zevi, Finn, Ash, and Brighid all spun around, enormous grins on their faces as Thomas stood in his sorcerer form, pausing to thank them for what they had done. "There's someone that's been here waiting for you."
Just then, Brighid's father stepped forward, and though she had only been a little girl the last time she saw him, it was unmistakable. Tears welled in her eyes as she stepped forward. "Dad."
He grinned at her. "I knew that you would be a force to be reckoned with. I knew it from the first moment that I saw you and every other moment that I've watched you." He glanced up at the boys and gave them all the wink. "I love you all like my children, and I thank you for helping us to be released. So many souls can rest now."
“And there’s one that I’m pretty damn happy to see,” Omera’s voice echoed outward, claiming Brighid and her father’s attention.
They both looked over to their left, watching as Omera stepped through the hazy veil, dressed in a long white Bohemian gown, her hair dow
n and beautiful, and her bare feet coming nowhere close to touching the ground as she walked. She walked up to Brighid's father and looked at him with loving eyes. "I've been waiting for you for a long time."
Her eyes shifted to Brighid, and her smile grew wider. “You did so well. I’m so proud of you. These souls are free, and the Shifters are safe from the Keepers. You have done exactly what we asked of you.”
Brighid couldn't believe she was standing in front of her mother and her father. She had never seen that before and never thought that she would. "But what do I do now?"
Omera ran her translucent hand over Brighid's cheek. "Take your mates, and go back to the Castle, two of your sisters are there waiting for you. You have much more work to do, but know that it is naturally inside of you. And know that me, Thomas, and your father will always be here watching over you. Tell your sisters I love them and know that if you always just make the right choice, even if you think it's impossible to figure out, you can make a difference, you can make a change. The Shifters are ready for a change."
They weren’t the only ones. Brighid was ready for a change too, and this one was going to be happy, she wouldn’t settle for anything less.
Epilogue
Two Weeks Later
"I think the Castle is now full of men, more so than it's ever been before," Brighid said, laughing as she sat with her sisters at the table.
Iris shrugged. “I kind of like it.”
Althea snorted as she took a sip of her drink. “You only like it because they treat you like you’re the queen.”
Brighid smiled at both of them and shook her head. "The last time I remember seeing you guys, I just about threw myself off of a cliff."
Both of her sisters looked at her and blinked. "Well, that's not very nice."
Brighid laughed. "Not literally. Well, actually yes, literally but not consciously. The Keepers had twisted my mind, and I thought I was in the gardens running toward you two and Indra. Turned out, they were just trying to get me to step off the cliffs. That's the first time I made any contact with my mates."
Althea shook her head. “Seriously, the two of you had a much easier time figuring out who your mates were than me. I just guessed and hoped that I got it right. They are pretty fantastic though.”
The three of them laughed, looking out at the field as they watched their mates shift and change, spending time as their animals out in the freedom of the covered Castle lands. Brighid glanced up at the bright blue sky and looked back at Althea and Iris. "Do you think Indra is doing okay? I hope she comes back soon."
Althea nodded. "I think she'll be fine. Personally, I'm hoping that since she's water-bound whenever she wants to change into her animal, she won't run into as many problems as we did. We need her here so that we can begin making changes to the Shifter community. I saw so many things in my travels that let me know we're far from protecting everyone."
Brighid took a deep breath and stared down at her empty plate. "I'd have to agree with you. Even just taking the trip from the islands to the Fields of the Dragons opened my eyes to so many things."
Iris rubbed her arms nervously. "I know that she's probably fine just like you're both saying, but I still worry about Indra. It's probably stupid that I do, considering she's always been a bit more responsible than the rest of us. Still, until we're back together, I won't feel settled or comfortable."
The sound of a whistle drew the girls' attention up to the walkway leading to the Castle. Zevi, Fin, and Ash all waved toward Brighid with smiles on their faces. Brighid grinned and stood up. Althea lifted an eyebrow. "Where are you going?"
Brighid shrugged her shoulders. “I think I’ve earned at least a day with my mates before diving into this whole High Alpha thing. Don’t wait up.”
Her sisters rolled their eyes and laughed, and Brighid hurried over toward the guys, putting her arms around her mates. "This place is pretty awesome. Don't you have a fourth sister?"
Brighid nodded her head. "Indra. Her name is Indra, and she's a Dolphin Shifter. She kind of marches to the beat of her own drum, though. She's a free spirit."
The truth was Brighid was starting to feel like a free spirit as well. Her powers were still growing stronger every day, and the energy that circled through the four of them sometimes felt almost overwhelmingly intense. She loved it though, and she loved her mates as well. Before she'd met them, she had no idea how she could ever have feelings for three different men, but now that she had them, she wasn't sure how she survived without them. Whether her future was faced with adversity or was smooth sailing from there on out, she knew that she could face anything with the guys by her side.
“Are you worried about her?” Zevi asked.
Brighid scoffed as they got to the top of the staircase, leading into the Castle. "Worried about Indra? Yeah right. How much you want to bet that right now, she's just killing time. She's probably relaxing on some boat out in the Caribbean, drinking Mai Tais, and laughing at the fact that her sisters had to battle demons, enormous cats, and tiny little shadow creatures. She'll get here when she's tired of the luxurious life."
THE END
Indra
Indra sat in the sand at the bottom of the clear blue Crystalline Sea watching as her blonde hair swayed with warm currents bubbling around her. She blinked several times, hating the way the goggles pushed against her skin. A school of fish danced in the distance, moving in unison, shifting forward and back as the water moved them toward the coral. The silence underwater was calming, serene, and her favorite place to be.
A tap on her shoulder sent a trill through her heart, and she quickly stuck her mouthpiece back in before Bree could see her. She lifted up from the seafloor and fluttered her rubber fins, cascading her long slender legs against the water as she turned toward her assistant. Bree pointed to the left with a twinkle of a thrill in her eyes. Indra gave her a thumbs up and nodded, following behind her as they swam back to the spot they had been scouting for several weeks.
It was Indra's last day out looking for that specific treasure, one that held a lot of meaning to her, despite what she had told Bree. As far as the young, excited human girl knew, the treasure they sought was nothing more than precious stones and coins from a collector who had perished in the heavy waves hundreds of years before. But the truth was, the coin and gems were just for show, at least to Indra. What she really sought was what lay in the vault of the sunken ship. It was a map, but not just any map, the one that would lead her to her past, her present, and her future. This map was placed there by the Ancestors themselves and held the clues she needed to find her mates.
Bree showed her down to a section of quartered off ocean bed that they had used mild explosives on to upturn the seafloor. She swept the sand away, revealing the words etched into a solid gold plate and melded to the ship's side. "The Mist."
This was it.
Immediately they began to excavate, sweeping through the loose sand, burrowing deeper into the wreckage. When the waters began to grow dark, they lit the water, knowing that they couldn't lay claim to the treasure inside until it was safely on their boat. Treasure hunters could be ruthless. Indra herself had an arch-nemesis in the business. His name was Cane, and just five years before, he had dove down during the middle of the night, stolen the treasures Indra was digging up during the day and replaced it with a fake chest. Indra was still burned from that day, pulling out a worn and weathered chest, her heart pounding excitedly, only to open it and find a bag full of pennies and a sealed picture of Cane blowing her a case. That man made her want to vomit all over herself.
So, they persisted, working night and day, taking only small shifts to sleep and eat before returning to the waters. On the third day, they pulled the last of the treasures from the ship, the vault Indra had been waiting for. Bree took one side, and Indra the other, lugging the chest up through the water and to the edge of the boat. Indra used her strong legs to push the vault up as Bree hopped in the boat and groaned and grunted as she pu
lled it over the side.
Indra took off her mask and pulled the breathing piece from her mouth, smiling big at Bree. Her assistant put her arms out and twirled in a circle. "My first real find. Well, ours, but my first time."
Indra chuckled as she lifted herself up onto the back of the boat, kicking her fins off. She immediately grabbed a few of her tools and began to chisel at the rust and growth on the vault door. She wasn’t waiting until she got back. She wanted to hold the map in her hands. Bree flinched with every slam of her hammer, unsure why Indra was so obsessed with the vault. She stayed quiet though, knowing full well that when Indra got something in her head, she was going to see it through.
Three hours, a hammer, two chisels, a drill, and more than one pound of her fists, and Indra was lifting the vault door off, letting it fall to the side. She pushed through the papers and bags of coins, pulling out a small wooden box with two golden dolphins crossed, latching it shut. She breathed deeply, trying to keep her excitement under wraps. As she opened it, she carefully pulled out a worn and weathered map, grinning wildly at Bree.
“This is amazing,” Indra whispered. “I’ve been looking for this for a very long time.”
Bree squinted at her, looking back at the enormous amount of treasure, and then again at the map. "You're not excited about the treasure, but instead, an old map. One that was probably some sort of child's creation."
Indra ignored her, walking to the back of the boat, staring down at it. The language wasn't her own, nor was it the language of the Merpeople as she had expected. She turned back toward Bree and motioned to the front. "Let's get all this back to shore. We can lock it all up and go celebrate."
Her Fire Mates: A Reverse Harem Paranormal Romance (Shifters Of The Elements) Page 12