Phoenixheart: A Reverse Harem Romance (The Rogue Witch Book 7)

by KT Strange

  He took them three at the time, hauling ass upwards, as I buried my head against his chest and did my best to not be a burden. If he dropped me…

  Fresh air washed over us, and I gasped, coughing as we emerged from the building. Cash didn’t stop running, in a flat out sprint across the grass. My eyes watered. The guys were just past the hedge maze. Daria was with them, doubled over and coughing hard. Luka and Ace both were sitting up, looking dazed. Wolfe glanced at me for a moment, then double-taked as Cash slowed to a stop.

  “Where’s Mackenzie?” Wolfe asked, even as dawning horror spread across his face. I pressed my hand to my mouth to keep back the hiccup of a sob. There came a rumble behind us.

  I slid down Cash’s body to stand and turned.

  The whole compound was on fire. The flames that had started in the belly of it had breached right to the roof. Glass burst in the windows as the cracking sound of explosions made the ground shake, and my breath caught in my throat.

  “The fire was too strong,” Cash said, his breathing almost as labored as mine. “I couldn’t… she…” his words died in a helpless whine, more animalistic than human.

  Wolfe’s eyes went black, and he stepped forward. Eli shot out an arm and stopped him.

  “She’s a phoenix,” Eli said, although he sounded uncertain. “Isn’t… isn’t this what they do?”

  We all stared helplessly as the fire licked at the sky, consuming the building slowly. The walls crumbled from the top, dust and ash flying as the roof started to cave.

  In the distance, sirens wailed.

  Wolfe seemed to snap out of it.

  “Elias, Cash, take everyone home,” he said. “This place will be crawling with authorities in moments.”

  “But,” I took a step toward the building, wincing when the wall facing us fell inward. Max… “I want to be here when she gets out,” I whispered. Wolfe gave me a look that made me swallow hard. “She’s going to get out of this,” I said. He didn’t respond, the roar of fire and the cry of sirens filling the silence for him. “Wolfe, please, she’s going to get out of this,” I repeated myself.

  He said nothing.

  “Wolfe…” My eyes watered, and not from the acrid smoke. “Wolfe! She’s-” I reached for him. He stared at me with dead eyes.

  “Sweetheart,” Finn’s voice was rough as he pulled me back. “We need to go.”

  No. I fought him, twisting in his arms.

  “Please, we need to get her out. She was fine before, when that hunter stabbed her. She was fine before!” Hysteria took me over as Finn doubled down, pulling me back.

  “Wolfe will take care of it. He’ll get her out,” Eli said, but I knew he was patronizing me.

  “Stop it, please, stop! Let me go, I have to get her-” No. No, it couldn’t happen. Not like that. I couldn’t lose Max. A sob rolled up the back of my throat and I cried out, elbowing Finn hard in the stomach. He grunted, and grabbed me the second I escaped his grip.

  “Darcy,” Daria said, stepping over to us. I looked at her desperately. She’d help. She’d tell them we needed to go in for Max. She’d make them go look for Max. She raised her fingers up and sighed. “I’m so sorry,” she whispered. Magic, inky-black, fluttering with glitter, glided from her hands through the air, toward me. It wrapped around me, and I gasped.

  My limbs grew heavy.

  “No, please,” I begged, my mouth funny, my tongue numb. The words sounded warped and slowed down. The light went dull, the sound of the fire fading in the distance.

  Please…

  Seventeen

  Elias

  We were silent, the lot of us, as Darcy slumped into Cash’s arms.

  The sirens grew nearer.

  “We must go,” Wolfe said, his voice icy and eerily calm. His face was a frozen mask, his eyes black as the sky.

  “Right,” Cash said, hauling Darcy up into a gentle bridal carry. “Someone get the door?”

  Ace, his limbs still a little shaky, reached for it. We piled into the cars and I wrapped my hands around the steering wheel.

  Behind us the fire raged, and we drove into the dark, getting onto a side road just as the firetrucks started rolling by.

  “Sure hope they can’t fucking control that,” Charlie said from the back seat. “We need the whole thing burned to the ground, don’t we?”

  “I have faith in Max,” Cash replied, shifting Darcy in his lap. Her head rested on his shoulder. “Whatever she did… I don’t think they’ll be putting that fire out for a week.”

  Daria told us Darcy would sleep, and sleep deeply, for at least a day or two.

  “I don’t want her waking up until we find out if Max is okay or not,” the young witch said, her lower lip trembling as she sat at the kitchen table. Frank sat in the chair next to her’s, Luka on her other side. Three young, pale faces stared at the rest of the pack and Wolfe, daring us to argue with them. Frank slung an arm over her shoulders, and she leaned into him with a sigh. I wanted to smile at the sight of it, but my heart was too heavy. Waiting was a fucking bitch.

  “From the mouths of babes,” Wolfe said with a shrug. “Let her sleep, and recover. She might wake to the best of news.”

  Deep down I knew he was lying. He had no idea if Max had survived, none of us did. That’s why I followed him to his library, where he holed himself up when he seemed to be in a mood.

  “You think she’s gone,” I said when I found him, staring out the window, a book closed in his lap as he sat in a great leather wingback chair.

  “She’s a phoenix, Elias, of course she survived,” Wolfe said, his tone too light and airy.

  “Then why’re you acting like she’s dead?” My words hung out to dry, and Wolfe’s shoulders tensed. He might’ve been undead, a vampire, but he was still a man. He had all the same tells as anyone did. “You loved her.”

  “It was a fool’s errand,” Wolfe snapped.

  “You fell in love with her.”

  “She was much too young, it was impractical-”

  “Did she know?”

  Wolfe turned to level a flat glare at me.

  “Of course not. I would not… she was my guest,” the way he said it sounded like a lie in my ears, like he was pretending to be far more removed from the situation than he really was.

  “Was it when you had her shacking up with Sentinel?”

  “I resent your choice of words.”

  “They’re the truth. What happened between you and her then?” I met his eyes, glare for glare. He was on the defensive and I wasn’t going to let it go. There was something he wasn’t telling us, had been keeping from us, for far too long.

  “Nothing, I would never touch her. I would never betray that kind of trust-”

  “You let Sentinel touch her. Those demons had their paws on her, anyone could see it, and it marked her, Wolfe, it changed her.” Anger, and confusion, boiled inside me. We’d trusted him with Max. And he’d let those fucking demons touch her.

  "Do you think I am not aware?" Wolfe stood up, the book tumbling from his lap. He didn't seem to notice. His eyes flared with rage. "Do you think I had a choice?"

  "We all have choices," I replied, watching him carefully. He looked like he was on the edge. I didn't want to be the person who pushed him to snap, but I needed him to come back into himself. I wanted to respect his grief, but we needed to know if Max had to be rescued from the wreckage of that heap of stone and ash or not. The place was going to be crawling with authorities for days, and a highly covert extraction would be needed. At least we had Daria to help with that. Her powers were more than useful.

  Wolfe stared at me as we stood in silence. Finally he broke, turning to the window.

  “Well I am paying for my choices now, am I not?”

  “You aren’t the only one. Is Max going to survive this? Do we need to make plans?” I hated having to ask, but I knew the answer and I wanted him to spell it out.

  “She should have walked out of there,” Wolfe’s words were clipped, and pai
nful. “Phoenixes are not immortal. No more than I am. Eventually our time on this world runs out. We can be killed, or… in the case of a phoenix, if they expend their power exponentially during a firestorm, it eats them up. They have nothing left, no power remaining, for their rebirth.”

  I blinked.

  “So there was a risk of her dying if she’d started a fire with Darcy, in that building? You knew that from the get-go?”

  “I did not expect her to destroy it by herself, without help,” Wolfe whispered, his voice weak. “She should not have done it by herself… things did not go to plan.”

  “But there was a risk.” Shock gripped me. Had he always known? Had he even told her? “Did she know?”

  Wolfe’s shoulders lifted up and then fell. He gave a slow, tired nod.

  “I told her. I warned her. But she was young, new-come into her powers, and felt that she was invincible,” he sounded watery, and when he looked at me over his shoulder, his eyes were wet.

  “Was.”

  “I fear she is no more.”

  “When… when will you be sure?”

  “You would no more tell Darcy she is not to fight than I would tell Mackenzie,” Wolfe ignored my question. “Even if it meant her destruction. This is their war as well, and they deserve to fight to protect the ones they love.”

  “So you let her walk in there, knowing she might burn herself up, and you didn’t tell us? We could have reorganized the plan-”

  “Darcy was not up to the task at hand,” Wolfe snarled, turning on me. “She was not strong enough. If she had been, then Max’s return would not be a question-”

  “Stop,” I demanded, and Wolfe fell silent. “Stop. It’s done. We all made our mistakes, and now all we can do is move forward. Quit dicking around and tell me. Is Max dead?” I waited, uneasiness and pain in my gut, making it hard to do anything but hold my breath and hope for the best.

  “Likely, yes,” Wolfe said, after a long, hard minute. “More than likely. Her sacrifice brought us further toward our goal. Now there is only clean-up work. I suppose she has our thanks for that,” his voice became clinical and detached. It was a coping mechanism. I knew too well. Pulling back from Darcy in the same way, keeping myself from having all of her… I knew exactly what Wolfe was doing.

  “I should go looking for her. Me and Daria. She can hide me with her magic again,” I said, not wanting it to be real, but then… losing people I cared about was something I was used to by now. I knew how to shut it off, the well of feelings inside me, so I could get done what I needed to get done. It was for the good of the pack. I could mourn later, when we were safe. “We don’t know that all the witches died in that fire.”

  Wolfe looked disturbed at that thought. He really wasn’t thinking five steps ahead like he normally did. In my mind I recalculated… if Wolfe wasn’t at his best then that left me to pick up the slack. I was going to get a lot less sleep over the next few weeks if that was the case.

  Not that I blamed him. He looked like shit. Losing your girl would do that to you. Not that he and Max had ever… well, it was clearly a one-sided thing. But he’d loved her all the same. I’d lose it if Darcy went down in a fire like that.

  As if reading my mind, Wolfe lifted his head and closed his eyes. When he spoke, his words chilled me.

  “I waited,” he said. “Do not forget that you are under the illusion that time will stretch to accommodate you. It will not. Put aside your foolish notion that you are unworthy.”

  “I-”

  He held up a hand and cut me off.

  “None of us are ever truly worthy, Elias. Not a one. The gift of love that Darcy is offering you? You could go to the end of the world, slay every dark force on this planet, and still not be worthy. Stop believing that you need to be worthy in order to accept what she is offering to you. You have her heart, if only you would take it.”

  My throat knotted.

  “I don’t want what I haven’t earned,” I said. Wolfe sighed and went to the window.

  “Then you will wear yourself out trying to earning something that cannot be won. Do you not see it? Love is not earned. We are never worthy for it’s pure gift anyway. Love is for us, even when we are broken, even when we abuse it.”

  His words made me feel uneasy, but I knew that I had to listen to this. Something was yelling at me from the inside that he was very right, and that if I waited much longer…

  “She loves me, but the pack’s not safe.”

  “You know that’s an excuse. The pack will never be safe. How many ways do I need to say this to you? Stop waiting.” He watched me and then sighed, with a slow shake of his head. “None of us are guaranteed a tomorrow, or a next week, or the next decade. Make sure you let her know how much you love her and adore her while you still have her.”

  My arguments had run themselves into the ground months ago, but I’d been clinging to them, stubborn and stupid, like the hard-headed idiot I was.

  I was worse than Cash.

  Why had it taken losing Max to really see it?

  “I-”

  “Unless the next words out of your mouth are ‘Yes, Wolfe, you are correct about everything, I am leaving your presence this instant to go to my beloved woman and make her know how much I desire a place at her side’, I will zap you,” he said. I raised an eyebrow. He lifted a finger, a spark lighting up the tip. “Go.”

  “I was gonna anyway,” I said, feeling grumbly, “not because you’re threatening me.”

  “Oh, is this a threat?” He looked down at his hand. “I suppose it is. And here I was just trying to illuminate the room, the better to read by.”

  I snorted.

  “Whatever, old man,” I said. “Put that shit away before you burn down this house.” The moment the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them, from the pall of sadness that fell over Wolfe’s face. We stood, silent.

  “Go,” he murmured, “and make sure she is well. I trust you to keep your council over the nature of our discussion.”

  I swallowed hard around the painful lump in my throat, nodded, and left the room.

  Eighteen

  Darcy

  I slept for what felt like a week. My limbs stopped working, my body listless. All I did was roll over and find a new spot on the mattress to curl up on. The guys… I could feel them, hovering in the doorway, hesitating. The only one who came in for long periods of time was Frank, to bring me soup, or a cup of water. Everyone else left me alone.

  Whenever I drifted up to consciousness, a horrible feeling of guilt and shame came over me. That couldn’t have been it. She couldn’t really be… gone.

  “You were the only one I didn’t have to worry about,” I whispered into the darkness as another day slipped away into night. Maybe it was stupid, to talk to her like she was there, but I swear I could feel her, all around me, thick in the air.

  Tears welled up in my eyes, misting my vision over as I lay on my back, hands stretched out to my sides. The world felt grey, and I felt heavy, like I could never laugh again, or even smile.

  I just wanted to lay there and waste away, forever, until Max came back, until I heard her voice again. My best friend, she’d been through so much and had hardly begun to heal when-

  In my dreams, what happened twisted into her begging for help, a blurry image of her reaching for me, the stone roof toppling on her from above, and everything becoming flame. I was choking, watching her die.

  I sat up, grabbing at my chest, feeling like it was me who’d been buried alive, crushed to death. I was dying, I was-

  A noise ripped out of me, high pitched, a hysterical keening.

  “Darcy,” Eli was there, in the doorway, and then beside me. He wrapped me up in his arms. I sobbed.

  “No, no.” I didn’t want him to touch me. I couldn’t bear it, the feel of his fingers on me. “Please no,” I begged. “I can’t, I can’t- I need to go.” I shoved away from him, standing on the bed. I was wearing a t-shirt, I guess I’d pulled it on days ago when w
e’d gotten home.

  “Darce?” Charlie came in next, worry etched in the lines of his brow.

  I wiped at my face.

  “I have to go look for her,” I said, thudding onto the ground from the bed. The guys tracked me with their eyes as I yanked on clothes, shucking my shirt and finding another one just like it.

  “Darcy, sweetheart,” the pain in Finn’s voice as he entered the room nearly stopped me. “She’s gone, doll, I- we looked, we went back, there’s nothing left of the place. It’s ashes down to the grass. All of it, gone, and she’s gone too.”

  I inhaled, the air filling me and burning every second it ran down my throat.

  “Don’t! She’s not, she can’t be. She’s a phoenix, that’s what she does, she’s somewhere, lost, maybe doesn’t even remember who she is, it’s happened before-” I pointed at Eli. He was staring at me with pity on his face. I didn’t want it. I wanted Max. I would find her. “You said you saw her, when she was little, years ago, in Germany.”

  “We think we did,” Eli said, “we aren’t exactly sure.”

  “She set the tent on fire back then,” Cash sounded raw and hurt. He was in the doorway, Ace right behind him. “I remember it like it was yesterday. Knew something wasn’t right about that kid. She set the damn tent on fire and then… just vanished, like she’d never been at all.”

  “And then she ends up here, in the US, decades later, decades after she should have been dead, she’s back, with no memory of any of it, going to university. She was raised by a family, grew up, went to school, met me, met you…” I turned to Finn. “You have to see it, you have to. She’s somewhere, and we need to find her.”

  “You don’t know that,” Finn’s shoulders slumped as he spoke, defeated. “What if she comes back half a century from now? What if you don’t recognize her if she does? What if she doesn’t even know who you are?”

  A piercing noise filled my ears, and I swallowed, the world swimming. Finn reached for me just as I fell, catching me against his chest. My legs were weak. It felt like I was going to throw up.