Rose edged back another step.
The skull-head turned. Cold blue fire burned in the empty eye sockets.
“Still hungry,” whispered the wendigo.
There was no hope of fleeing. Even if the howling wind hadn’t made flight impossible, a swan couldn’t take off from a standing start. All Rose could do was face the beast head-on, refusing to flinch.
Blaze’s beautiful, beloved face filled her mind. If she was going to die, at least he would be her final thought—
Fiery wings swept around her, hurling back the blizzard’s cold. The wendigo howled in fear, leaping away from the burning feathers.
The Phoenix’s eyes were twin suns, incandescent with rage. Outside the vast arc of his wings, snow hissed into billowing clouds of steam. Every feather blazed white-hot—but where Rose crouched, in the heart of that protective embrace, she felt nothing but a pleasant, gentle summer’s warmth.
The wendigo was an indistinct white blur amidst the swirling veils of steam and snow. All Rose could see clearly were the bright, cold lights of its eyes, fixed on the Phoenix.
The blizzard picked up, making the edges of the Phoenix’s flame-feathers flicker. Winter winds whined and begged.
*Hunt, then.* The Phoenix’s searing voice wasn’t aimed at her; Rose only caught the edges of the thought, like smoke rising from a distant fire. *But only your rightful prey.*
The wendigo’s vast antlers dipped. It bowed, low to the ground.
Then, in a swirl of snow, it was gone.
In moments, the sky cleared to brilliant blue. Tentatively, a bird chirped, and was answered by another. Sunlight and summer returned, as if nothing had happened. Churned mud—and, of course, the crashed car—were the only signs of the attack.
Adrenaline deserted Rose, pulling her back into her human skin. Strong arms caught her
as her knees buckled.
“Rose, Rose.” Blaze held her as tightly as if he feared she might melt away like the snow. “I was nearly too late. If you’d been farther away, if you’d gone to the airport like we agreed…I was nearly too late.“
“I worked out it was a trap.” She clung to him just as fiercely, needing to reassure herself that he was truly there, hot and solid under her palms. “But I thought it was for you, that they were going to try to bind you again!”
“No. Corbin knows I’m too strong for that. He has to be touching me in order to bind me, and I’d kill him before he finished the spell.” He made a sound that was half-laugh, half-sob. “It’s not me that he’s after now. He wants you. To make me surrender myself voluntarily.”
“Don’t you dare do that,” she said forcefully. “Not ever, no matter what, you hear me? But how did they know where I was? Were they following me?”
“They don’t have to. That’s what I worked out, why I raced back. Remember what the warlock, the one with the ocelot, started to say? ‘You can’t hide from us. You or your…’” Blaze didn’t finish the sentence, instead burying his face in her hair. “Rose, I was nearly too late.”
“You weren’t,” Rose said again, though she was beginning to suspect he wasn’t going to break out of this spiral of guilt for a while. “But I still don’t understand.”
“Corbin can track the Phoenix. And you’re bound to me, to the Phoenix, sharing its fire.” His hands gripped her shoulders. She could feel him shaking. “Corbin can find you too.”
Chapter 13
“Wait.”
Ash didn’t want to. He needed to be gone, somewhere, anywhere. He should never have returned to her at all.
He had only ever brought her pain. The only way to avoid hurting her even more was to remove himself from her life entirely. The best thing he could do was to go, now, and never look back.
“Wait,” Rose said again.
He could not ignore his mate’s command.
He stopped with one hand on the door handle, not looking round at her. “You should let me go, Rose.”
“Not until you answer one final question.” He heard her get up, coming toward him.