CHAPTER FIFTEEN
The councilman took my mulling as rejection and sighed. “Just promise me you will try to forgive yourself, so you can move forward with your training and education. That is what your parents would have wanted, no?”
A pike that eclipsed Lakuro’s agony speared through my skull.
I doubled over and slammed my palms over my temples, but the pain only grew worse.
The leash on my magic unspooled and slipped through my fingers.
Dane’s screaming and the crack of breaking glass amplified the next wave of pain. Something deep in my mind shattered.
The pain exploded in a wave of agony down my body. Skin ripped from flesh, flesh peeled from bone, every bone in my body was unmade and forged into something new and I was pain. I collapsed, my back arching off the ground as it consumed me.
A deeper agony seared down my spine and along my shoulder blades as pressure built between my back and the ground. I rolled over, my forehead against the floor the only thing anchoring me to this world.
Another scream tore up my ravaged throat as the cadence of the pain shifted, from a bellowing roar in my limbs and torso to concentrated points of agony along my brow and jawline, the tips of my fingers, and again with my fucking shoulders.
My bones thickened and bunched, pulled and shifted and elongated into a shape they were never meant to be. The torment abruptly ended and—
My lids snick open. The wood beneath my fingers is a visual feast of pits and cracks and irregular colors. I trace a barely there whorl in the grain that ends in a jagged hole. Its edges are smooth against my skin.
Movement flashes in my periphery. I whip toward it.
A curtain flutters in a cool breeze that smells of smoke and burning flesh.
I uncoil and spring to my feet, silent footsteps carrying me to the shattered window.
I hop into the frame and curl my fingers around its edges.
Shards of glass snap under my palms. I lean toward the alley, my nostrils flaring as I drink in the fragrant air.
Hints of spices, sweat, and crisp mountain snow ripple beneath the reek that wafts from below. I let go of the frame.
Only a small puff of dirt marks my landing beside a blackened corpse that pumps that foul-smelling smoke into the air. I kneel beside it, cringing at the pungent odor, and pick apart the voices that drift into the alley.
A harsh screech. I pivot.
A door swings open a couple dozen paces away.
It grinds on ancient hinges, flooding the alley with a metallic scent that spars with the burnt flesh.
A human, her arms loaded with dirty linens, stumbles through the door and trips on the bottom step.
Everything cascades out of her grasp. Her soft cursing is a steady stream in the undercurrent of noise pouring from the door behind her as she stoops to gather the towels.
I sink back into the shadows. My attention homes in on her graceless movements and questionable balance. Her frail frame. Muscles that already quiver from crouching for too long. Not a threat, then.
She freezes, her hand hovering over the last linen.
Her nostrils flare as the hideous concoction of scents that choke the alley finally registers.
She slowly lifts her head. Her wide eyes find the corpse before shifting to me.
Her mouth opens but no sound comes out. The bitter scent of fear hits me in a wave as everything tumbles out of her grasp again.
My muscles lock, eyes narrowing at the arrant display of weakness. She whimpers. My wings tuck tight against my back just before I pounce.
My talons close around her throat and pierce her soft skin.
I haul her back against the wall, every facet trained on the pulse pounding in her neck.
The rapid breaths that flutter through her chest. Weak.
This creature is pathetically weak. A nearly nonexistent threat barely worth the time to extinguish.
But even the weakest of opponents can down a larger predator if given the opportunity. I wouldn’t give this one that chance.
“Lydia, no!”
I whip toward the voice. A large male stands at the end of the alley. His warm, woody scent hits me—cedar, with a hint of cinnamon. I growl, my talons digging into the weak creature in my grasp.
He steps toward me. “I’m the threat. Not her. Let her go.”
My gaze rakes over his broad shoulders and powerful wings. The muscles cording his arms and chest. Yes. He is a threat. My focus leaves him long enough to whip toward the other end of the alley. Clear. I fling the girl toward the male and run.
The pungent odors and voices fade away. Silence settles over me.
I veer into an adjoining alley, the street ahead dimly lit with delicately shifting light.
The male’s scent strikes me a second before he does.
His arms close around my wings and shoulders as he takes us to the ground.
The impact jars his hands loose. I roll away and spring to my feet.
He faces me in a low crouch, fangs bared. “You are Lydia Blake,” he growls. “Now anchor!”
He lunges for my arm and twists it behind my back before driving me down.
My cheek strikes the ground and his weight crushes me, my wings splayed awkwardly to the sides.
The male grips the edge of one. I snarl and thrash beneath him but can do nothing as he forces it shut long enough to roll us over.
His thick arm moves to clamp over my neck.
I brace my hands against it and sink my fangs into the flesh.
He grunts but doesn’t let go as his other limbs cocoon me.
I jerk my head to the side, but his muscle refuses to tear from bone.
“Fuck,” he hisses. “Lydia, remember yourself. Find yourself.”
I jerk my head the other way, and his flesh surrenders. He howls as I turn my head and spit out the hunk of meat. I eye the expanse of smooth, brown marble next to his gushing lifeforce. I open my mouth to strike again.
His muscles quiver. “Remember the phoenixes,” he gasps. “Remember me and you and the phoenixes and anchor yourself, Lydia!”
I pause. The image of a white bird fills my mind. I shake my head. The coppery tang of his blood floods my senses and sweeps the vision aside.
“Remember your fire,” he grinds out behind me.
Fire. I grin.
“And—”
Flames erupt across my arms and torso. The male groans but maintains his grip for a second. Two. His limbs fall away. I scramble to my feet and sprint across the street and into the alley beyond.
It dead-ends at a tall brick wall. I skid to a stop before it.
My wings unfold behind me, their movements clumsy as they beat against the air.
That scent of cedar and cinnamon, now buried beneath a mountain of bitter pain, wafts to me on the back of a soft breeze.
My nostrils flare, my searching gaze falling on a door beside the wall.
I shoulder my way through it and ignite the doorway in a flurry of thrashing flames.
The room is a jungle of shelves that stand between me and the exit.
A low growl sounds behind me. I twist toward it.
The male stalks toward the door, his inky hair plastered to a sweat-slicked brow.
A wave of shimmering black magic streams from him, soft hues of gray and purple and purest blue writhing within the darkness.
It snuffs my flames. My palms flare at my sides and the shelves between us burst into a conflagration.
Another wave of power rolls through the room and suffocates my magic. “Stop burning shit!” the male growls as he stalks toward me. “What I was going to say before you torched me, was remember the fucking birds and the joy you felt at watching them eat your fire.”
Another image assaults my mind. No—a memory. White birds chase plumes of fire into the air. A laugh that rings through my head. My hands slacken.
“Now anchor!” he demands. “Anchor in the memory and remember who you are!”
My frame of reference in the memory shifts. I see us, me and this male, surrounded by the birds. Awe is scribbled across my face. A broad smile softens his. I’m Lydia.
My tense frame goes limp. I collapse to my knees.
“Now shift!” His voice is tight. Strained.
I dive toward that shred of who I was and latch onto it, dredging it up through the thick haze that has it buried. Pain tears through my body and I scream. I strike the ground, my back arching and fingers grasping at the slick wood. Hands clamp around my waist and hold me down as I buck and—
I panted, sprawled out on something cold and hard.
I pushed myself up and wobbled on my hands and knees until the world stopped spinning.
I blinked. Once. Twice. A room I’d never been in came into focus.
Scorch marks mangled a slew of wooden shelves, the air thick with smoke and a miasma of charred… things. My nose crinkled.
I tried to push back off the ground, but my hands slipped on something warm and wet. My breath hitched on the familiar, stifling feel of blood encasing my hands. I slowly looked down. It was smeared all over my palms and up my arms. Its coppery taste flooded my mouth at the sight, and I gagged.
Heavy breathing just over my shoulder finally wormed its way into my awareness. I jerked around and gasped.
Griffon panted on his back, his eyes closed. “Fucking fuck, Lydia,” he grunted. He tilted his head just enough to look at me.
My hand fluttered to my lips. Blood sheeted from a hole in the topside of his forearm and leaked onto the floor.
A puddle of it already leached into what was left of his clothes.
The undersides of his arms were seared an angry red, but it was the length of his torso that sent bile shooting up the back of my abraded throat.
His skin was just…gone.
Griffon went rigid and he growled, his back lifting off the ground as he shifted back to Flesh. I couldn’t tear my eyes off his ruined torso, the expanse of his chiseled chest and abs a raw, gooey mess.
“Thank fate your ass didn’t get as hot as your back or I wouldn’t have a fucking dick,” he ground out as he struggled to sit up, bracing himself with his less injured arm.
“Oh, gods,” I choked. Where was I? Why was I…? “I’m…” I sucked in a wild breath and choked on the smell wafting off Griffon. “I…” My mind snagged on that scent—the memory of a different seared body. And then another, horrible, inescapable death surged through the muck in my mind.
I mashed my eyes shut. “Please, on every god in the Quartet, tell me I didn’t kill her,” I pleaded. “Please, please, please tell me she’s just freaked the fuck out but still breathing in that alley.”
When I cracked my eyes open, Griffon’s face was tight with more than just pain. Tears were already streaming down my face when he slowly shook his head.
A sob tore out of me, and this time I welcomed the pain. “Oh gods,” I gasped again. I was vaguely aware of Griffon’s hands on my shoulders, and his quietly murmured words. Of him getting up and limping into the alley.
My head swam and I braced my palms against the ground again to keep from falling. A frigid gust of wind funneled through the open door and struck my bare skin, my ruined gown dangling in shreds off my shaking frame.
A thick cloak came around my shoulders, and Griffon knelt in front of me, a bag slung across his back. His steady hands rose to my face and lifted my agonized gaze to his. “There is nothing you can do. We have to leave, before someone figures out what did all this.”
I stared at him for another heartbeat, then shoved his hands away and surged to my feet. I sprinted out the door and down the alley, my feet a jumbled mess as I tried to outrun the monster behind me. But no matter how fast I ran, I couldn’t escape it.
Because the monster was me.