“My God, Indie—how?” he said as his hands cupped my face.
“It was a little hot in there,” I said, trying to mock my familiar sarcasm and appear stronger than I was.
“Indie, you were clinically dead—” Ben said, tracing the lines around my mouth where the tubes that were keeping me alive must have been. “You just don’t wake up and walk out of a fire—you need a doctor!”
That instant, I felt someone turn me and say, “Genevieve, dear, bloody hell! You scared the living daylights out of me!”
It was Phoenix. My face was now nuzzled against his strong chest, which I could swear had flames just under the surface. The heat was giving me composure.
“Who the hell are you?” Ben said in his all-too-protective tone.
“My...my...boyfriend,” I said, looking back at Ben as my arms embraced Phoenix. I guess that sounded more believable than ‘lover,’ ‘soul mate,’ ‘life.’
“Since when?” Ben asked with shock.
“Since forever,” Phoenix said boldly. “We need to get you home, Love. It’s freezing out here,” Phoenix said as his hands rushed across my back, sending fiery warmth through my soul.
“Home? No. Hell no!” Ben argued. “I’m getting a doctor.”
Phoenix reached out for Ben’s arm as he went to pass us. “They have enough to heal right now, Mate. I’ve called the best doctor in the world to come for Genevieve. He is meeting us at the manor.”
“And who is this doctor of yours, boy? Do not play with me. I trust little to no one with the fate of my sister.”
“Agreed there, Mate. Jason Haywood and John Blair are waiting on us. Search their names, and you will see their skills are unrivaled. You will find that John Blair checked in to see all three of them just as the fire alarms went off and that Dr. Haywood has been advising the staff as he traveled here.”
Ben pulled out his phone.
“Call them on the way,” Phoenix said, pulling me closer. “Where is your car? Or do I need cab?”
Ben looked to Mason and Gavin’s families. “Follow us, we’ll make sure they are out of the woods. I’ll have a helicopter on standby if they need to be moved to another hospital.”
I didn’t think either of their families would let them go, but they whispered something to their mothers and came to Phoenix’s side as we followed Ben through the parking lot to one of his SUVs. His driver stepped out and opened the doors as the guys climbed in and Phoenix lifted me. I was too weak to move, and growing weaker.
Once Ben was in and gave the orders to the driver, he turned his attention to his phone, demanding that his assistant find out who Jason Haywood was, how my floor was torched, and that a chopper be sent to the manor.
“Do we have time for this?” Gavin said in a whisper to Phoenix.
I could not figure out why they were stronger than me, why they looked as if they had been through nothing at all.
“All for show, Mate,” Phoenix said as he pulled me on his lap, ensuring that every part of me was touching his body, which was so hot that I could have sworn it was on fire.
Ben turned in his seat. “So, your doctor checks out. I want to know who you are, where you came from, and how you know my sister.”
“Sebastian Falcon, though my blokes call me Phoenix. I am from everywhere and nowhere. I met your sister long ago, and I assure you I will never let another soul strike her.”
“Falcon. You’re a Falcon? A child of a past adopted member?”
That wasn’t an odd question. My grandmother and her mother had both opened their homes to lost children. There may be seventy-seven in the flock Ben and I came from, but the number of Falcons that were created by our parent’s bloodline was in the thousands, maybe beyond that. Our name was freely given to any child that crossed our threshold, and at times that was worth more than the money they left with a few years later.
“The original, Mate. One of the last originals. Genevieve sought me out. We were bonded from first glance, and together we plan to make the Falcon name one that will never be forgotten.”
The dominance in Phoenix’s tone took Ben by surprise. He let his glance move to Gavin and Mason. “You know him? He’s always been around? You trust him?”
“Always,” Mason said, locking eyes with Ben.
I couldn’t find the strength to defend Phoenix. My head flew back against the window.
“That is it. Take us to the nearest hospital,” Ben ordered the driver just as I felt a whirl of wind and a surge of newfound energy.
“Why, Mate? There is a doctor just inside,” Phoenix said, nodding for Gavin to open the door and let us out. Phoenix had moved the entire car to the manor with a thought, completely befuddling both the driver and Ben.
I was in Phoenix’s arms at the front door before I even heard Ben start to make an argument. Once out of view of Ben, Phoenix moved me again. Now he was carrying me into a room that was not mine, but I had imagined that it was more times than I could count: our bedroom in the North Wing.
It was red and black, laced with gold, and a large canopy bed centered one wall. Heavy drapes covered wall-length windows, and gently aged chairs and short couches made up a sitting area just beyond the foot of the bed, before a fireplace. A glance from Phoenix gave birth to a fire there, adding to the dim glow of the eccentric lamps that rested beside the bed. The next beat, I was lying on the bed and he was hovering over me.
“What is wrong with me?” I said in an exhausted tone.
“Your transformation is not complete. I only had seconds, whereas it should have taken hours. I’m starting to think it would not have mattered, that the ice is stopping it, that death is pulling you back,” he said with heavy grief in his silky tone.
My eyes grew heavy. As they closed, I whispered, “It was written. You saved me.”
I could not form the words to tell him that we had not committed the ultimate sin, that he was meant to break the ice around me apart, that he was meant to set my soul on fire and raise me to this existence.
Chapter Seventeen
My dreams were heavy, beyond vivid, and they solidified what I had only heard whispers of in the North Wing. I saw this manor. A lost time. My world was on the verge of a civil war. Though we were born of light, born of peace, some of us had become restless, terrified that the natural order had been broken, that darkness was on the verge of an all out siege on us. They wanted to barricade The Fall, the point where souls moved through once their time was complete on the other side. They feared The Fall because the children that were reborn were broken souls, vacant of joy and creativity. It was as if they were damaged beyond repair, as if their past lives were too dark and too damned for them to overcome.
Guardian had always been a powerful speaker. He had a gift with words and the dominance to back up everything he said, just as much as my Sebastian. People from our cause charged them with orders of restoring the peace to our world one way or another. Sebastian accepted the call without even speaking to me about it.
He promised me he would return before the next moon, leaving me with the girl that Guardian had fallen in love with, my guards, and our growing family of abandoned children.
It was the coldest winter that I had ever witnessed. The snow was heavy, imprisoning us in our home.
My dreams, which had been vivid in that life, stopped. Instead, I woke with terror, believing without a doubt that my home was burning. I was not the only one that was losing sanity. The girl that Guardian left for me to watch over began to have violent dreams. And she insisted that there was a dark world that she had to save, that had captured our lovers.
She insisted that we move through The Fall, that she would go with or without me. She said we were divided, that we had to rise. We had to restore balance.
She was vindicated when my guards, who Mason and Gavin were then, began to have visions. When my family began to have visions. At that point, the plot for me to become some kind of supernatural redeemer began to form.
Everyone b
ut me could see some fate before us, everyone knew their roles.
Three moons passed. The snow fell on and on, and there was no sign of my beloved, no word that peace had been restored. That selfish foolishness was behind us. I began to believe the souls around me. I began to take their visions seriously.
We stood in the dome room, each on our own staircase. My family surrounded the circles on the marble floor. Guardian’s lover, Aliyanna, stood in the center chanting words, dark, commanding words. A shadowy energy surrounded her, then a force of energy caused the glass ceiling to explode, showering snow and ice around us.
A beaming glow of light came from Mason, Gavin, and me as the floor began to spin, as Aliyanna raised her hands and lightning, thunder, rain, snow, and wind whirled around us.
Everything started to spin, to turn at warp speed. It was nauseating, and when I didn’t think I could take any more, I closed my eyes and pulled myself into a ball. Several beats later, silence came. Still fearing the power that Guardian’s lover had displayed, I slowly opened my eyes and let my arms fall.
Now standing above me was Cadence. She let a malevolent smile echo in her eyes. “You. You are the one they sent to bring my fall.” She glanced at the marble floor covered in debris, with the bodies of my guards and family. “This is your army?”
Before I could utter a word or understand who she was, the bodies of the ones I loved were pulled up by some unseen force and twisted. The cracks of their bones echoed in the room just before they crashed to the floor. She knelt down to look deeper into my eyes. “You’re a bit early. Ahead of the fire, if you will, which means this is the perfect prison for you.” As she said that, I pulled my legs and arms up, wanting to shield myself, but it was all for naught, she had frozen me into a solid block of ice. I suffocated slowly as I stared into her cold eyes. I welcomed death. I welcomed it because I was sure that if my Sebastian was not here that he had failed, too, that we could only find each other in another life, another time.
Rage consumed me. I had never even come close to feeling something this violent toward Rasure. I didn’t understand who I was or what my purpose was, but I knew that I would not let my family die in vain, that I would not let this cold world that I was thrust into destroy the light I was born into, the peace I was fighting to maintain before fate divided my family, before my soul had sent me into a dark reality, one that I had yet to find my purpose in—that is, until now.
My eyes flew open as I sucked in a gasping breath of life.
A man I didn’t know was leaning over me. I wanted to get away— like, now and after a brisk, warm rush I found myself against the wall, my chest rising and falling rapidly with the beat of my heart. Before I could assure myself I was wide awake, Phoenix was in front of me, pulling me to him.
“Impressive, Love,” he said as he urged me back to the bed, where the older man was still standing. He wasn’t scary or anything. In fact, I felt nothing but peace coming from him. I found comfort in his green eyes. “This is Jason, a doctor,” Phoenix said as he gently encouraged me to sit on the edge of the bed. Jason came around to where we were.
“Do...do...do I need a doctor? Now that...” I didn’t know if was supposed to be playing a part for this man or not.
“He is a very special doctor. He fights with us. With Guardian. He knows what you are.”
“You know Guardian?” I asked weakly in an attempt to seem stronger than I was. Inside, I could feel fire and ice, both fighting for control and it was making me dizzy.
“He is my oldest daughter’s soul mate,” Jason replied.
Slowly, my eyes rose to meet his. “You’re Aliyanna’s father.”
Saying her name seemed to bring shock and joy both to him and Phoenix.
“In this life, she is called Willow.”
“Tell me she is more patient than when I knew her,” I muttered as my dream raced through my thoughts and I clearly remembered how driven that girl was, how she insisted that one way or another she was moving through The Fall. I knew Guardian would never forgive me if I let something happen to her. We all listened to her, created the most wicked spell that had ever existed, only to arrive before the fire, only to become prisoners. I didn’t remember seeing her on that floor with my family, though. Maybe she did make it to the dark world she spoke of, the one she said that she and Guardian had to free.
Jason smirked. “I am afraid not.”
“Did she redeem that world? Est…I can’t remember it.”
“In progress,” Jason said as his eyes carefully moved over me, like he was looking below the surface somehow.
“Must be a slow one. I carried her here forever ago,” I said as I felt a wave of dizziness come over me.
Jason had one hand on my shoulder before I could sway, like he saw it coming. “Nothing worth having comes instantly. It’s the fight, the drive that makes your dreams strong enough to withstand the mark of time.”
“Right, then. Well, tell your daughter I’m here. Apparently, we have a few sisters that are still in the wind and a war of balance to win.”
“Let’s get you better first,” Jason said with a proud grin. He looked down at Phoenix, who was on his knees before me. “I stand by my original advice. Her energy is but half. You gave her fire, but she must be immersed in it. Her soul has to know that you are there for her, that you are forevermore joined. Until it does, inside the ice and fire will be at war. Once her soul believes that you are true, not an illusion, the transformation will continue.” Jason smiled at me once more as he put his hand on Phoenix’s shoulder. “I’ll ensure that no one disturbs you.”
Phoenix held my stare as Jason left the room, closing the door behind him.
“I know you are here for me,” I said as I reached for his faultless image.
Pain echoed in Phoenix’s eyes. “I was shown the journal.”
I let a smile come to my eyes. “We are not the ultimate selfish sinners. Death had to come.”
“I almost let you go,” he said in a ghost of a whisper. “I convinced myself that I had done something horrid in a distant past, something that had forevermore taken you away from me.”
I moved my head to the side. “You went to bring peace, but the war was not there; it was here.”
Anger came to his eyes. “This whole time, you have been struggling to break free from your prison, and I was struggling to get home…a home you brought with you.”
“I’m not kidding. That Aliyanna girl is no joke. She insisted that we do the spell, and she was driven near insane. It was her idea.”
He smirked. “Trust me, Sunshine is easier to handle when Guardian is around.”
I leaned forward slowly as I reached for his lips. I didn’t know what Jason meant about my transformation, but I knew I wanted to feel the fire of his touch, that I had fought too long and too hard to be where I was, to let my weakness hold me back.
He moved closer, letting his lips frame mine as his arms went around me and he laid me gently across the bed.
“Do you trust me?” he whispered.
I stared into the gray of his eyes, the breaks of fire that raced through them. What I was about to do was going to take more courage, more adrenaline than any car crash, any brush with death, or even Rasure herself.
I swallowed nervously as I held his gaze. “I love you.”
A gasping smile came across his image. “Are you sure, Love? Forever is the commitment of all commitments. Rather suffocating idea to some.”
“Do you want me to say it a million times?” I said as I felt the power behind that commitment.
Phoenix could never suffocate me. We were both too independent, too full of determination, with matching flaming tempers. He would let me fight my war, he would never hold me back, and he only wanted the same in return. He only wanted to know that in-between our passions for life that we would give each other passion, that we would find a home inside of each other.
Slowly, he raised his hand over my chest. Holding my stare, he let his warm
touch rest against my skin, then he whispered, “I love you” as his hand pushed through what should have been flesh.
My back bowed as I felt fire explode inside of me, as I saw fire and ice colliding into one, as I felt his soul merge completely with mine. I struggled to get closer to that flame of his soul, to completely hide myself within him.
‘Rapture’ was the only shallow word I could use to explain this rush. This empowerment, this total, absolute feeling of being whole, one with another soul. No rush of passion, no moment that was skin-to-skin could dare match the emotions coursing through us. Complete transformation took control over my very being.
It was the plane that we dared to rise to the last time he held me, that night he had only given me a glimpse of what we could create together. I fought never to leave this feeling, to forget that that world around us existed, that a war was waiting on its warriors and I won that fight for what seemed like an eternity. Hours, maybe days had passed before he slowly pulled his soul from mine, before his eyes met mine once again.
“You are forevermore mine,” he said in a heated whisper.
Words that would have suffocated the life out of me if I heard them from anyone else were now my salvation.
Finding strength and clarity for the first time in what seemed like forever, I let my hands move up his strong arms, which were holding him above me. “Dare I say that I feel sorry for you? I was rather difficult to handle as a human, and as a ghost. God only knows how difficult I will prove to be now.”
A beaming smile spread across his face as a laugh bellowed in his chest. “Bloody hell, woman—truer words have never been uttered.”
His arms were around me, and I was lying on his chest within the next beat. I dared to look up into his eyes, which were slowly taking every part of me in. “Am I cured now? Is this over?”