Corbin’s mouth curved in the thinnest of smiles. He turned away from her, facing the door.
“He will,” he said. “He has.”
Rose had seen Ash in his shifted form before. She’d seen him freed, soaring across a summer-blue sky. She’d seen him unbound, rising in fury from the prison that had held him.
But she’d never before seen the Phoenix truly unleashed.
The old oak door exploded as if hit by a meteor. The entire front wall of the pub simply vanished, stone vaporized instantly by unimaginable heat.
He came like a falling sun, like the wrath of heaven, like the end of the world. Even shadows burned away to nothing before him. He filled the room with white-hot fury, his wings curving round to trap Corbin in a circle of flame. The great beak opened, blasting the warlock with a wordless, blistering shriek of rage.
The warlock tipped his head back, facing the Phoenix without flinching. The edges of his robes smoldered. “We will speak when you can do so as a man rather than a beast, Blaze.”
Fire swirled, condensing down into human shape. Ash stood there, backlit by the inferno. The flames were so bright that he was just a dark silhouette, face hidden.
“Release my mate,” he said.
“No,” Corbin replied, quite calmly.
Rose tried to move, to call out, but the runes bit into her arm. Corbin didn’t so much as glance at her, but her jaw locked tight, bound by the warlock’s will. All she could do was watch.
Fire spread behind Ash like wings unfurling. “Release my mate now.”
“Or what, Blaze? You’ll burn me?” Corbin shook his head. “If I die, she dies with me.”
“Not if I free her first.”
“Go ahead.” The warlock stepped to one side, sweeping his hand in Rose’s direction in invitation. “There she is. I can’t stop you. Burn her animal.”
No! Rose screamed silently, as Ash’s head turned in her direction. No, kill him, kill us both. Take my life, but don’t take who I am.
Ash stood there, motionless. Corbin laughed.
“I knew you would not be able to do it,” the warlock said, with an ugly, gloating smile. “There is only one option left, Blaze. Even I can only bind one shifter at a time. So who will it be? Her, or you?”
The flames died, all at once. In the sudden darkness, she heard Ash speak.
“Me.”
No, no, no! Rose cried out in her mind—and then, as the bindings around her swan loosened and fell away: “NO!”
Too late. The runes wrapping her right arm shimmered and faded as the warlock released her. The sudden lack of pain such an intense relief that every muscle in her body went limp. For a moment all she could do was gasp for breath, as though she’d been drowning.
“Yes, yes!” Fire flared again—not Ash’s pure white flame, but demonic hellfire. It twined around Corbin’s upraised hand, illuminating his face with a baleful orange glow.
The warlock flung his head back, expression transfigured in bliss. “My power, mine again at last, yes!”
Rose tried to push herself back up, to fling herself at the warlock while he was still distracted, but her limbs were still shaky with shock. She had to clutch at the bar just to stay on her feet. She groped for something to throw at the warlock. A pint glass, a bottle, anything.
Soft laughter froze her hand.
It didn’t come from Corbin.
Runes wound around Ash’s forearm, on top of the old scar. He’d fallen to his knees at the warlock’s feet, hands braced in the rubble, head hanging. Blood slicked his wrist, spreading across the blackened floor.
Yet still he laughed.
Corbin’s arms dropped from his exultant pose. He frowned down at Ash, brow creasing in suspicion. “What?”