Chapter 20
CHAPTER
TWENTY
PHOENIX
Eli looked at me, and I stood. He wasn’t in the full gear I’d seen him wearing the other night—no helmet, just gold bracers and a chest plate. He held a flaming sword in his hand, and his gray-tipped, white wings were stretched wide. I couldn’t tell if he was on the mortal plane or the spiritual plane. I thought he was likely on the mortal one, but I wasn’t good enough at this stuff yet to tell the difference.
Wait. I could figure this out. Max was staring up at Eli with wide eyes. Tessa and Dastien hung back on the yellow house’s porch stairs. They were sitting together with Tessa tucked tight against Dastien’s side. She shook as she clung to him.
From what I could tell, Dastien had handled seeing the spiritual realm when he’d had the sight at the Sanctuary, but that might not be a fair comparison. The only demon he’d seen was Gabe, who was supposedly an ally. Tessa had walked into a fully infested house and looked extremely pale. I knew she had visions, so it was possible she’d had one and seen something bad. Or who knew what had happened? I’d been so focused on Sam that I hadn’t paid attention to anything else in the attic.
Some of the other wolves were hanging around the front yard, some still wandered through the house, and others were driving up with the SUVs.
I was ready to get the heck out of here, but I wasn’t sure Sam was ready to move yet. I opened my mouth, but Eli answered my question before I could even speak it.
“She’s not,” Eli said.
He was reading my mind again. Like that wasn’t creepy at all. “I figured.”
I knew he was an angel or whatever, but I didn’t like the way he stared down at Samantha like she’d done something wrong.
“She did,” Eli said without looking at me.
Man, I truly hated that he could read my mind.
“Tough.” He bit the word out, still not looking at me.
I swallowed down the shitty retort I wanted to sling at him because Eli was an angel. He stood there, seemingly annoyed, like we’d interrupted something, and I wasn’t stupid. I knew I couldn’t pick a fight with him. I’d lose— big time . But man, if he was angry at Sam, he was dead wrong for it.
I’d seen what Samantha had done, what she’d fought against, what it had cost her. I didn’t know how it happened, but I knew exactly when she’d gotten weak. Just like I knew that my touch would help, even though I had no logical reason for knowing it or any explanation for why it should.
It had to be something with our bond, but I hadn’t talked to Sam about what might be possible with it. I wanted to say that we hadn’t had time, but that was bullshit. We could’ve talked about it at some point in the last few days, but I’d wanted to ease into this thing with her. I wanted to date her without rushing and pushing her to tell me things she wasn’t ready to talk about. Now, I was regretting that move.
Could I have helped her more if we’d had those conversations? Maybe. Because—as I watched her lying on the grass—I knew she was totally, fully, completely spent. And yet, if someone asked her for help right now, she’d haul herself up and do the hard thing. Again .
And he was mad at her for it?
Eli shot me a look that said I should stay out of it, but I wasn’t going to do that.
“What did she do wrong?” From my end, it seemed like she’d done everything she was supposed to.
That house had been infested with an open portal, and now it was clear of evil and the portal was shut and gone. She’d also cleared the demons from the neighborhood—because I searched, and I didn’t see any—and from the werewolves that we came to help.
No one died.
No souls lost.
It was all good.
“Correct.” Eli flicked his wrist, and his sword, wings, and the little bit of armor he was wearing totally disappeared. Instead, he wore a white button-down shirt and ripped, light wash jeans. But there was no mistaking he was otherworldly, no matter what he wore. His shoulder-length blond hair waved in a nonexistent breeze, and he still glowed, with a white aura surrounding him. Though maybe only those with spiritual sight could see his aura.
Eli moved to stand on the other side of Sam. Max got up, backed away from the angel, and sat next to Tessa on the porch stairs.
Eli gave me a smirk, and I was pretty sure he thought it was funny how quickly Max ran away from him.
He gave me a nod.
Right. Same.
It wasn’t that I didn’t know how powerful Eli was. I just didn’t think he’d hurt me.
“That remains to be seen,” Eli said in an ominous voice, but I wasn’t buying it.
No, he wouldn’t hurt me. Sam would kill him if he did.
“Maybe. And speaking of Sam…” Eli crossed his arms and he stared down at her. “She did a good job, but in her current state, she knows better than to take on too much.” His feet were bare on the grass. I hadn’t noticed until he knelt next to her.
“She was supposed to call for me if she needed to do anything other than rest, heal, and slowly resume training.” He flicked her forehead. “There was nothing slow about what was done here.” He flicked her again.
Sam swatted at Eli’s hand, trying to bat it away, but her eyes were closed. She missed him completely. “Come on, Eli. You knew that wasn’t how this was going to go.” Samantha blinked her eyes open and then shielded them with her hand again. “Can you turn down the light effects a bit? My head is hurting, and it’s super annoying right now.”
Eli flared brighter for a second, and then he grumbled something under his breath. I was glad I couldn’t hear it. Eli was getting on my bad side.
“That doesn’t bother me, Phoenix. The important thing to remember is that you don’t want to be on my bad side.” The light aura around him dimmed, but it wasn’t gone- gone . He’d just toned everything down for Sam. Which was decent of him.
I didn’t want to be disrespectful—I knew Sam and Eli had a unique relationship—but I wasn’t about to let him beat Samantha down when she was literally already down.
I sat on the ground next to her, making sure to block the angle of the setting sun so that she didn’t have to hold her hand up.
“Thanks,” she said.
I brushed my hand across her forehead. She still felt a little clammy and was a little pale, but otherwise, she seemed fine. But something nagged at me, just beyond my perception. I had no idea what it was, but I knew I couldn’t leave her alone. “You okay?”
She turned her head to look at me and gave me a smile. I could still see what she saw—the lines around the werewolves—their bonds. I could feel evil lingering, even if I couldn’t see any demons around us anymore. And when I looked into her eyes, I saw the flames in them. I was sure only someone who could see into the spiritual realm could see them because no one had ever mentioned them before. I knew that sometimes people could see the fire around her—like when she’d that nightmare—but I had a feeling not many people had seen her like this.
“Correct,” Eli confirmed. “On all of your assumptions.”
At least I wasn’t completely off base with what I was thinking. If I had to guess, the look in her eyes, the power she had, and the things she fought were what scared her ex away.
I raised a brow in question to Eli.
“See? You understand more than you think you do.” Eli gave me a sly look, and I wasn’t sure what to say to him. Instead, I looked down at Sam.
She was still watching me, and I wished I knew what she was thinking. The flames in her eyes didn’t bother me. They didn’t make her evil. She worked hard, sacrificing her safety, well-being, and risking her life to save people over and over and over again. So, no. The eyes were just a part of what made her special, but there was something else that caught my attention.
The silver threads—hers and mine—twisted together, running from the light in her soul to mine.
She’d described it before, but I’d never been able to see it. She’d never let me in like this, and I was glad she had. I wanted to be in this with her, but the only way that I could do that was if she let me see .
And now that I could see, I couldn’t help myself. I reached out to touch the threads, but my hand went right through them.
Sam laughed. “Found them, huh?” She reached up, hooked her pointer finger around them, and gave them a sharp tug. A tug that made me feel like the ground was falling out from under me.
I lost my balance, but I managed to catch myself before I fell on top of her.
Sam stared deep into my eyes, and it was more than just a stare. With the flames in her eyes, it felt as if she was seeing into me, and I didn’t know what to say.
“Are you okay?” she asked.
Wait. She was asking me?
Yeah. I was. On every level. “I’m great, but you don’t need to worry about me,” I said seriously, hoping she got my meaning. I wasn’t talking about the tie she’d tugged on or the fact that I’d almost fallen on top of her.
I meant that I was fine with everything that had happened in there.
Everything I’d seen.
Everything that she was.
There would be no name calling from me. No telling her she was evil. And definitely no running from her.
She continued looking at me, searching me, as if trying to discern if I was telling the truth.
I was. She might not believe me now, but trust took time, especially when she was still dealing with what whatever her ex said to her when he bailed on her.
“Wait,” Eli said. “Has she told you what he said? Because she refuses to tell me.”
Right. He couldn’t read Sam’s mind, and he was just an angel—meaning definitely not all-knowing. “No. But whatever it was, it clearly devastated her.”
“Can we not do this right now?” Sam groaned. “It’s really not the time to delve into the past. We have things to deal with. Like what is killing?—”
“Fine. You don’t want to talk about it, then back to me now.” Eli leaned down, getting in her face. “Why did you not call out to me?”
Sam rolled her eyes and pushed him away. “You were supposed to be watching me. Plus, the last time I called you, it seemed like you were in a massive battle. I didn’t want to pull you away from that again. I assumed if you weren’t here, then you were too busy to come. I would’ve called you if I really, actually needed you.”
“If you called me before you needed me, then maybe you wouldn’t keep getting in over your head.” He shook his head. “Stubborn. That’s what you are.”
“No. I’m determined and persistent. Those are good qualities.” Samantha closed her eyes. “Besides, you can’t close portals. That’s why you need me. So, what good could you have really done?”
That was an interesting bit of information. I thought he could do anything, but apparently, I was wrong.
“You’re annoying me,” Eli said to me.
“Don’t pick on Phoenix,” Sam said. “Go back to whatever important battle you were fighting.”
“No. I’m not going anywhere yet, especially since you’ve proven yourself untrustworthy, angel.”
“ Don’t call me that,” Sam snapped at him. But her voice was gaining strength from fighting with Eli, so I wasn’t about to step between whatever was going on with them.
“It’s accurate,” Eli said. “You are an angel, of sorts.”
“No, it’s really not accurate.” She tried to sit up, but her arms shook, and she fell back onto the grass.
I grabbed her hands and pulled her up to sit. “Better?”
“Yeah.” She took a breath. “Thanks.”
We were going to need to get her some food, but she could probably do with some water right now. “Anyone got water in one of those SUVs?”
“Yeah,” a voice called out. A second later, one of the wolves—I hadn’t gotten all of their names—handed me a water and a packet of peanut butter crackers
“Perfect. Thanks.” I snagged both, and opened the water for Sam.
The werewolf gave me a nod and then went around handing out snacks to everyone else, but I was focused on making sure Sam had hers.
Her hands shook as tried take a sip, so I snagged it back from her and tipped it for her.
“Sorry,” she said when she was done taking a sip. “I hate that I’m this weak.” She looked down and away. I knew what it was like to fight so hard to be strong for everyone else. I’d done it for my family, but never on this level.
“Sam will be fine,” Eli said as he sat back on his heels. “She just has to be patient and ask for help .” There was a bit of an edge to his words that I didn’t like.
I bit my tongue to keep myself from telling him to lay off. Sam was exhausted, and I wasn’t going to be able to sit here silently much longer if he was going to criticize her. I refused.
“That only works when the other person can’t read minds.”
I ripped open the package of crackers and handed one to Sam. “Well, maybe you should learn that it’s rude for you to constantly be in my head. And talking down to someone who just did a good thing at great cost to herself? That’s pretty shitty.”
Samantha muttered something too softly for me to hear, but all the werewolves started laughing.
Eli shook his head. “I thought we were over the adolescent phase.”
“Apparently not,” Sam said.
I was about to ask what she’d said, but Eli shot her a look. “You will not repeat that.”
She rolled her eyes. “Can we go somewhere else? I need to recover before we go patrolling tonight. And I want away from this house.”
I wasn’t sure what the werewolves were doing. My focus was on Sam, but I hoped they could wrap up whatever it was so we could leave soon.
I looked over to Tessa and Dastien, who were getting up from their spot on the porch stairs. A group of werewolves stood by the SUVs that were all now parked in front of the yellow house.
Max said something to the ones by the SUVs and some got in the cars, but four stayed where they were.
Dastien and Tessa stopped by Sam.
“Four of the Wayfarers are going to stick around here,” Dastien said. “They’ll work the cleanup and start tracking down the people who live here, but we don’t need to stay for that.”
“Great. Because I’m so ready to go.” Sam wasn’t as bad as she’d been after she went into Hell, but she was far from okay. Food and hydration, then a nap. If she wanted to go patrolling tonight, she was going to have to do all of it or we were going to have words.
“We totally can do that, but you have options, depending on what you need,” Dastien said to Sam.
Sam nodded. “Okay. What are they?”
“We can go to the big house the Wayfarers are renting here. It’s a new build, outside of the city, so potentially okay enough for you. Not a guarantee that it’ll be totally spiritually clean, but it’s very likely fine. I had a priest come bless it while we were flying here just in case you liked that option. But the rest of the pack members who didn’t come out during the day are all there resting. So, it’s not the most private.”
“Right,” Sam said, and her shoulders hunched just a little bit.
“If you want more privacy, we can go to the hotel and start checking rooms to see if any are clear enough for you to stay in, but you might need to actually do some clearing before you can rest. Which—given what you’ve just done—I’m not sure you have the bandwidth for.”
“Yeah. No. That sounds like a bad idea,” Sam said, which I was relieved to hear.
From what I was feeling from her, I could tell she was on the verge of of collapsing.
I held out the water for her again, and she took another sip. “Thanks,” she said, and then looked at Dastien. “Any other options?” She took the cracker I held out, giving me a small smile.
The look made me feel a lot better. There wasn’t much color in her cheeks, but there was some. It was a start.
“Or we can go to a restaurant and get you food. See if that gives you enough energy to clear a hotel, but the house still might be the better option.”
I liked the food thing. She needed more protein. “We should definitely get her some real food. This snack isn’t going to cut it.” I knew he wasn’t talking to me, but food had to be a priority. Sam was exhausted, and she had to keep her strength up. Somehow I knew she wasn’t going to pick food, even if she needed it. “She needs to refuel.”
“Agreed. I saw what she did in there. I saw everything.” Tessa’s voice shook a little as she spoke. “What she did and what they were saying and my flashbacks of what has happened before when Sam…” She cleared her throat. “I’m exhausted just witnessing that.”
I wanted to ask questions about the flashbacks, but the way Tessa was wringing her fingers together, I wasn’t sure I should. I didn’t want to make her explain more when she was clearly still processing it all.
Tessa took a breath, and Dastien turned to her. I saw their bright, golden bond light up and a bead of light travel down his line to hers.
Huh. I guessed that was how they mentally communicated. I wondered if I could do that on our bond. Ours was silver, so maybe not. But did the color really matter? Why were theirs gold and ours silver?
“If it were me,” Tessa started, drawing my attention back to her. “I’d want some quiet. She’s not going to get that at a restaurant. She doesn’t like fast food. So, it’d have to be a sit-down restaurant, which means people and all the chaos that brings for her. She has to make a choice.”
“Fair point.” If the kitchen at the Wayfarer house was stocked, I could just make her something. It might be faster. Or we could pick something up. I looked at Sam. I hated to make her decide, but I didn’t know enough about her yet to make the decision for her. “What do you want to do?”
I glanced at Eli to see if he had any thoughts on it, but he just shrugged.
Fine. I had no idea how their relationship worked on these types of things, so I stayed out of it and let Sam decide.
Sam crumbled the rest of the cracker in her hand as she thought, then shook the bits onto the grass. I wasn’t sure she’d even taken a bite of it. Not great.
“Let’s try the Wayfarer house first,” she said. “If it’s safe, and I can find a room to crash in—great. And if we could get some kind of carry out or delivery or something, that would be perfect. I don’t care what it is. Just not fast food. Not a restaurant with people.” She looked at me, her eyes filled with an apology. “I can’t handle that right now. I don’t want to be around people, especially in this city. I need a second before I go out searching for other things and?—”
“You don’t have to explain.” She didn’t need to justify anything. I was here to help her in any way that I could. “Let’s head to the house, but you need to eat before you crash. Okay?”
“Yeah. That works.” She made a face, like she really didn’t want to ask for the next thing. “Also…”
“I know that look,” Tessa said. “You really must be not feeling great if you’re actually asking for a vitamin IV.”
“I’m not that bad…” Sam winced, as if she knew she was lying to herself and to us. “I just know that I need to be ready for whatever happens tonight, and so, yeah. As much as I’m sick of them right now, I’ll take any boost I can get. I might not need a full IV, but maybe a shot of vitamins. You think you can talk to the pack doc for me?”
Tessa turned to Dastien, and that little ball of light bounced back and forth as Dastien pulled out his phone. “On it,” he said.
I rose from the ground. “You want me to carry you?”
“Not really.” Her cheeks pinked a little bit. “It’s kind of humiliating to be carted around like a kid.”
“Not when you just battled against part of something that’s been killing our wolves,” Max said. “Nothing wrong with getting a little help now and then.”
Sam looked at Eli. “Can’t you just—” She waved her hand in the air. “—make me feel better.”
“One time, angel. I broke the rules one time, and you won’t let me forget it. No way. Maybe I would have if you’d called for me…” The angel shrugged, and I wondered if he really wasn’t going to help Sam.
“You’re punishing me? Seriously?”
He was really getting on my shit list.
Eli dropped the arrogant smirk. “No. That was meant to be a joke. I’m not punishing you. That time when I healed you? That was life or death, and you were a child.” When he spoke like this, he sounded older than he looked. Much, much older. The whole cadence of his words changed. “I crossed a line, and if you’ll remember, I wasn’t allowed to come help you for three years. Three . Years . Do you remember what happened while I was kept away from you?” The light around him flashed once and then it was gone. “We don’t have time for that. Not now. Things are getting dangerous in the heavenly places, forces are moving against the Kingdom, and I need to be able to come to you when the time arises.” The arrogance returned with a raised brow. “Assuming you won’t continue being a stubborn moron.”
Sam blew out a breath. “Fine. I guess I’ll just do it the hard way.”
“Builds character.” He poked her side, and she jerked, slapping his hand away.
“I think I have enough character.” She looked up at me, a plea in her eyes.
She didn’t need to ask. I reached down, and she put her hands in mine. I tugged her to her feet and walked with an arm around her to make sure she didn’t pass out on the way to the SUV.
I remembered she’d crashed hard at my house, and I really didn’t want a repeat. She wasn’t going to pass out and hit her head on the ground. Not while I was here to help her.
Garrett opened the car door and folded back the seats. “Why don’t the two of you rest in the way back. Gives her room to stretch out.”
“Thanks, man.”
“Not a problem.”
I helped Sam get back there, and as soon as I slid in, she spread out, placing her head in my lap.
“This okay?” she asked.
“Yep.” I ran my fingers through her hair. “Feel free to close your eyes.”
“It’ll be a forty-five-minute drive to get to our base here,” Garrett said from the driver’s seat. “We like to stay a ways out from the city. Give our pack a little room and privacy to run in wolf form. Just waiting on a couple more people, and then we’ll get on our way.”
“Fab,” Sam said. “I’m just going to take a nap.” Her eyes were already closed.
I thought I’d have to fight her to get her to nap, but within seconds, her breathing evened out.
We’d made it through the first battle today—closing the portal.
I wasn’t sure what would come next. I hoped the fight wasn’t as bad as what I’d just seen.
But as I leaned back in the seat, I knew there wasn’t a chance of that. The pictures I’d seen on the plane were horrific, and if I thought about it too much, I’d take her straight to the airport. Get her as far away from here as I could.
She’d hate me for it, so I restrained myself. For now.
I brushed my fingers through her hair again, watching her as she slept. Even if I was scared for her and what might happen tonight, I was grateful I was here, helping her.
I couldn’t imagine any place I’d rather be.