"She didn't tell me specifically, but she's a doctor and it would make sense for her to cater to the uniques," Nate answered Rick. It sounded like he spoke English, but I wasn't so sure.
"What are you guys talking about?" I asked, since no one else seemed to need an answer.
"How many uniques are we talking about, and why did you stop me from shaking hands? I can sense he isn't human, but your instincts on that matter are a lot better than mine," Nate continued, ignoring me. I really hated when they did that.
"From what I can sense, the whole town is uniques, not a human around. And he," Rick said pointing at Kyle, "is a berserker. With the aggression you're feeling for the way he looked at Avery, it wasn't a good idea for you guys to touch."
Okay, the boys had gone off the deep end, which was a spot they enjoyed visiting. What in the world was a berserker and what was the part about no humans being around? That didn't make any sense. My brain felt like it was going to melt as I tried to figure things out on my own.
"You must be high in your rankings to know what I am," Kyle said to Rick. "I have a similar ability. I know you two are birds, like Lizzie, those two back there are a panther and a Faie of some sort, and that one over there is made of metal, but that one is harder to pin down," he said pointing at me.
"What do you mean?" I asked, not sure how the situation could get even more confusing for me. "If you know what those two are," I said, pointing to Nate and Rick, "you should be able to tell what I am."
I wasn't sure why he thought Gary and Frannie were anything but human. No one had mentioned that to me before, and I would've thought it was important to let me know my best friend was Faie. I had no clue what that meant either, but it sounded like fairies to me.
"Don't get me wrong, you feel like a bird, but there's something more to you. I can't tell if it's another animal or something else." He looked over to Rick, "Your ability is strong, what do you get from her?"
"She's different, but we haven't figured out exactly how. We don't know you, so we can't go into details about what we've found out. For now, I'll leave it at she's a unique phoenix," Rick replied.
It seemed to me like people had been keeping secrets from me. I knew I came back different, but I didn't know I came back as anything other than a full phoenix. Not only that, if Frannie hadn't been busy trying to look something up on her phone, she was clued in on the last secret I'd been keeping from her.
"Well, the shifters in town are going to have a heyday with this," Kyle said. "Phoenixes are like royalty in the shifter community, since you were the first. Not only that, I know at least one of you is high up in the hierarchy. That means Lizzie is a phoenix too, doesn't it? She felt like a bird, but she's kind of quiet about her specific variety."
"Elizabeth is our daughter," Nate said pointing between me and him. "Do you know where she is? Her sister called and told us she's missing."
"I can't say I've seen her around, but the doc is often needed to help out with the people who live close by, so she may just be out on a call," Kyle replied. "We do have a few other people missing though, and their disappearances aren't as easy to explain."
"While we're looking for our daughter, we can try to help find the others. If you don't mind a little outside assistance," Nate said. "Do you think you can take us to Elizabeth's place, so we can see if she left any clues?"
"Sure, with all of you it's good that it's the biggest place around. I can't think of anywhere else you'd all fit. ?Just to clarify," he said, turning to me, "you're spoken for, right?"
"According to this big guy," I said, going over to Nate and holding his hand.
Kyle towered over Nate in bulk, but I still felt safer standing next to him. I didn't know what a berserker was, but it sounded like they were aggressive from what I'd heard, and apparently they had an unhealthy fascination with me. Kyle had barely taken his eyes off me as we stood around conversing.
Turning to Nate, Kyle said, "You're going to want to stay around her then. I think it's just her uniqueness, but there's something about her that draws you in. We have a lot of unmated males around here, and even though she's mated in her primary species, whatever else she is may be around here looking to mate."
That didn't sound good. Just for fun, and to prove I could take care of myself, I concentrated on making the big man levitate. He was heavier than Rick, so it took a little more work. Slowly, but surely, he started rising up off the ground. I figured if Frannie knew I wasn't human, I might as well show her how weird I really was.
"Okay, which one of you is able to do this?" Kyle asked as he looked around. He seemed more amused than anything else.
"Put him down, Avery. It isn't a good idea to play tricks on a berserker. They tend to have short fuses," Rick informed me.
"I just wanted him to know I'm not defenseless," I said, taking a page from Frannie's book by pouting. "He was talking like I'm powerless and I didn't like it." I slowly lowered Kyle the two feet he'd risen.
"I know, sweetheart, but you know I have to die protecting you and I prefer not to have to fight our first day here. There's plenty of time for you to drive everyone crazy," Rick replied, causing me to roll my eyes. I didn't buy the protector crap one bit.
"Wait a second, you're the protector? I know phoenix lore and the only person who has a protector is the queen. Are you telling me I'm talking to the king and queen of the phoenixes?"
It was really unfair that everyone knew so much about me. I needed to find a book that I could lock myself up in a room over a weekend with to catch up on my own history. Clearly, if the berserker guy was in the know, there had to be something out there for me to read.
"That would be a correct statement," Nate said simply. His voice wasn't really different, but for some reason he started exuding a little extra pompousness. That probably wasn't the right word, but the air felt different in our little bubble.
"They kind of prefer not to announce they're royalty," Rick said. "Nate here is extremely modest about being picked for the king and Avery, well we'll just say she's special." That was one word for it. I had a long list of others.
"So we've pretty much had a princess living with us for the past few years. I don't think anyone is going to believe Lizzie is a princess." Even after, or maybe because of everything that had been said, Kyle's eyes lingered on me a little unnecessarily. I was starting to wonder how long Nate was going to let it continue.
Keeping a firm grip on me, Nate turned to Rick and said, "What exactly are we looking at here, as far as species we'll be dealing with?"
"Lions and tigers and bears, oh my," Rick said, laughing. "Really, I sense bears, wolves, foxes, hyenas, a few varieties of Faie, a couple bird species, and surprisingly a couple more berserkers. You don't usually see more than one of them in a place."
"What, no vampires?" I asked. With a list like that, I was curious what other things were running around out there.
"Vampires don't exist, silly," Nate told me as he kissed the top of my head. "So there shouldn't be anything we haven't dealt with before. I'm a little surprised to find them all in one place though."
"We're kind of a refugee camp for uniques who are tired of living amongst humans. We take in anyone who doesn't want to move around and change identities every couple decades," Kyle explained.
"Wait a sec, you mean all of those things are immortal like us?" I asked.
"Yup," Rick answered. "As long as the animals shift every once in a while they won't age. The Faie and berserkers don't have to do anything. They're lucky that way."
I turned to Frannie, "So you aren't going to be dying on me?"
She laughed, "Of course not. You may have years on me, but we'll both live forever."
I felt like jumping up and down, but kept myself grounded. Kyle was already looking at me strangely; I didn't need to give him a reason to stare.
"That's great. I've been worried you wouldn't be around to be my matron of honor whenever I decide to finally get married. I was thinking of making Nate wai
t a century, but you wouldn't have been available if you were human."
"Don't worry. Me and Gary will be there with bells on whenever you decide to go through with it."
"How long have you known what I was and just what exactly are you?" I asked, not caring that we were supposed to be on our way to my daughter's house.
"I've known you weren't human since we first met. Kyle was right about you having some kind of special aura around you. It drew me to you in class. I didn't know exactly what you were until Nate told me after that blind date we set you up on.
"He'd been moping around ever since he'd turned back to a human. I decided to try to get him back into the real world and thank God I did. If I hadn't, you wouldn't have found your way back to each other."
"I don't know about all that. We would've met the very next day, but I suppose it was better to not have that meeting in front of coworkers. They might have thought the FBI assigned us with someone not able to speak, based on how long it took Nate to string words together."
"Say what you will, but you know it was all me. As for your question about what I am, I think we'll have to have a private conversation for that one. We have more important things to worry about right now."
I almost dramatically fainted, but I was sure the floor was too cold for that. Frannie not wanting to talk about herself was a miracle.
"Answer me one thing first. Is the man you claim is your father, who owns all the hotels, really your dad?" I knew Nate had a false cover story about parents, but I'd actually met the man Frannie said was her father, and I believed they were related.
"Yes, you haven't actually seen the real him before, though. He uses a glamour to look old enough to be my dad. We don't always play father and daughter because, like your parents, he doesn't look much older than me. Sometimes my parents like to play a young couple in love, and then I'm not in the picture at all."
I was learning all sorts of new things. Whether I'd ever be able to make sense of those things was still to be decided.
"Okay, I think everyone here has a lot of explaining to do. It seems there have been a lot of secrets kept from me and I'm sure each of you knows exactly how that makes me feel."
"Don't worry, my little butterfly. Nothing that was kept from you would actually cause any harm. I'd explain further now, but I don't want to reveal too much about the situation. We've probably already let more slip out than we should," Nate said as he nodded his head to the side a little.
Evidently they didn't trust Kyle. I couldn't say I blamed them because I didn't either, but I didn't trust anyone. I hadn't tried to pick up where his thoughts were, mainly because I thought his facial expressions did a pretty good job of explaining what he was thinking.
"Don't look at me," Rick said, defending himself from my wrath. "Any important decisions are made by your fianc?. I just do what he tells me to."
"I know, Freddie. We're still going to spar over it though. You know you're my favorite person to take out my aggression on."
"That's only because you can beat everyone else up and it really hurts them."
"That's true, but you also have the tendency to laugh at me too much and I like wiping the smile off of your face," I said as I walked over and gave him a hug. "You know I love you even as I'm trying to bruise that pretty face."
"Ha. Now you're just trying to butter me up. What do you want?" he asked.
"Right this second, nothing. I'm pretty sure I'll think of something before long, though."
"As fun as watching all your interactions has been for me, we should probably go get you guys settled at Lizzie's. Her place isn't far from here. If we don't leave shortly, others may be showing up soon looking for me. They sent me to check things out since it's hard to take me by surprise," Kyle explained.
"Thanks, Kyle. Give us a second to grab our stuff and we can be on our way," Nate said, moving into action.
Everyone except Frannie grabbed their bag. Frannie brought eight bags. I guessed she wasn't joking about being prepared for any situation. To solve the problem of all the extra luggage, everyone except me carried one of her bags. The last two I just levitated behind me as I walked.
I'd already shown that was one of my abilities, so it didn't hurt to go ahead and keep using it. Kyle led the way and everyone else took a protective stance around me. They evidently didn't get the memo that I could take care of myself. I thought about making them all levitate as I walked on, but decided I didn't want to deal with Nate telling me I shouldn't strain myself.