Page 55 of Wildfire Witch

He struck as quick as a viper. I barely felt a thing, just an uncomfortable sensation of movement in my insides, followed by a violent wrench. His fiery claws closed around Aodhnait’s golden glow and set it aflame, just as he extinguished me when he ripped out my heart.

AODHNAIT

At the dawnof my most important life, I had to make the willful choice to reincarnate. My kind was hunted for our powers for as long as we’d existed. I was no exception, and I’d burned myself to ash more than once to avoid having my one treasured spark stolen from me.

Something in the Carmine house felt different. I had rested in a near-death state for so long, I was considering leaving for good…but I gave life another chance instead. I’d sensedher. A child with tiny hands and a big heart. My witch, Verity Carmine.

She’d lifted me from my ashes and cradled my featherless, newborn body to her chest, where I could hear thethump thump thumpinside her body. Even then, I’d known I’d made the right choice. She was worth the risk of living for. Someday when we were both grown, she would protect me from those who would kill me by trying to access phoenix resurrection magic.

A different hand lifted me now, cradling my body in a shower of ashes as I manifested from the fire of my cage burning. Thatbig heart, rended from my witch’s chest and turned to dust. Her body collapsed as dragon claws closed around my torso.

“At last, you are free, noble phoenix,” Lance boomed over me. He was so much larger when I wasn’t a spirit looking through Nix’s eyes. I blinked eyes full of blazing white flame, stunned by the shock of my reappearance in the wrong person’s hold.

There was movement behind us. Nix’s men realizing she’d died, one by one. They’d entered a meditative state to give her so much magic, and that’d been the only opening the fire dragon shifter needed. Ceridor dropped to his knees, crying out. His hand, with the marks of their handfasting, clutched his chest, and the other grabbed his tattoos as the magic warped and reddened. Rusty whimpered, a most un-draconic sound, and dragged himself to Nix’s side. Seth was looking around in an unfocused daze, lost.

Though Lance made a sound of derision, he shifted further, extending out leathery dragon wings from his back. “Your new life awaits,” he said to me. “You will be the most pampered pet by my mate’s side. Anything you desire shall be yours.” Except he still didn’t realize that I would die trying to bring his long-deceased mate back to life.

Not that it mattered. As the shock wore off, flames erupted along my wing feathers, wrapping around my tail. I burst from his hold with a bird’s shriek and aimed my talons straight for his eyes. No one expected such a dainty creature as a phoenix to be strong, and I used that to my full advantage as I filled his face with furious wingbeats and a hail of scratches.

He snarled and tried to bat me away, attempting to be gentle. I was precious and rare, possibly the last phoenix left, and I took advantage of that too as I clamped my beak on his brow and tore.Lance roared and grabbed me. The world turned into a whirl of sky and earth when he reflexively tossed me away from his face.

Seth recovered first, pointing at the fire dragon shifter. Tendrils of water rose from the ground, some winding around Lance’s ankles, more bursting free to grab his thighs next. Orbs of dirty water hovered around him as his face contorted with realization and rage. An angry set was a terrifying sight. Especially when he solidified water and sent ice shrapnel straight for Lance.

He pumped his wings, shedding rivulets of blood from where I’d wounded him and ice punctured his skin. But the big shift was coming. I sensed the change of power around his form as scales rippled and clothing seams stretched to their limits. It’d be impossible to fight him if he transformed into his second form.

Another dragon roared, splitting the still sky of Spells Hollow. Rusty didn’t have the magic to shift, but he still barreled forward with claws and fangs extended to grab Lance’s leg and slam him to the ground. The earth quaked from the force, and Lance lost the concentration to fully shift. Rusty was on his former boss with a snarl, punching and ripping at scales while Seth summoned more water tendrils to hold the leader of the Fire Brotherhood prone.

I landed beside Ceridor, nudging his arm with my beak. He’d gone quiet, the air too still around him. His head was bowed, but when his eyes opened, they glowed from within like pure pits of silver radiance. I don’t think he saw me, just the fading marks on his arm. Loss and pain contorted his sharp fae features into a hateful mask.

My neck feathers stood on end as he rose and drew his staff from his back. The wind answered his fury, blowing into an echoing blast as he spun his weapon and wrapped his element aroundhim. “What have you done!” Ceridor shouted, and the wind screamed with him.

His magic rose to the force of a tornado around him, so strong I wasn’t sure he could maintain control. I flapped up to land on his shoulder, my feathers pulling in all directions even as he served as the eye of his personal storm. “She was so close,” he muttered. “She was…she almost made it…”

Lance had managed to break the water tendrils holding him and gained the upper hand on Rusty in their fight of fists and claws and bared fangs. He had his hands around Rusty’s throat, squeezing and shaking him. But he turned to see the cyclone of wind fae magic walking in his direction, and his draconic pupils dilated.

Lance flared out his wings and shot into the sky. “Face your fate, coward,” Ceridor hissed. He pointed the end of his staff and the wind whooshed past us, flattening my feathers to my back and blowing my tail over his shoulder.

The first cut of honed air sliced through the middle of Lance’s wing, exposing bone in the joint that held its webbing together. He was already falling when several brutal cuts opened the scales protecting his torso, leg, and neck.

Ceridor gestured and skidded Rusty and Seth away from the fire dragon shifter, blocking them with a wall of dense air. They beat on the invisible force before Seth gestured and said something. They went around it to face Lance with the slowly advancing fae.

Lance was still alive when Ceridor’s boots stopped at his side. He was a fire dragon shifter, after all, born to be a king of the sky. The growing puddle of his blood steamed from the chill radiating off the wind fae. He lunged upward, claws closingaround my neck. I screeched in surprise as he jerked me to his torso and squeezed until I was forced into silence.

“This is mine,” he hissed, shaking me. “Now that I’ve had my revenge, I’m taking the bird and leaving.”

A piece of jagged ice embedded in his wrist with pinpoint precision. He roared and flashed his fangs as he was forced to drop me and I flew to safety behind Ceridor.

“You are delusional if you think you’re leaving here alive,” Seth snapped. He sent out a wave of water that splashed into Lance’s open mouth and rapidly froze it. I thought it was to seal his mouth shut so there wouldn’t be fire, until the fire dragon released a pained moan as something in his jawpoppedaudibly.

The ground quaked and a massive rock slammed into Lance, spreading into rock shackles that weighed down his arms. He flopped onto his back and struggled to stand as his shift failed him, scales disappearing, and mangled wings shuddering in agony as they failed to retract.

Lance tried to gasp something as Ceridor loomed over him once more.

A high-pitched, discordant laugh escaped the fae’s lips. “You killed my wife. What mercy were you expecting?” He lifted his hand, and another slice opened up across Lance’s chest, cutting diagonally.

Blood leaked from the corner of the shifter’s mouth. His body jerked when Ceridor hit him again in the same place. Another strike like that and he’d bisect the dragon’s heart.

The wind slashed down, an unforgiving final blow. Lance fell still, but the air did not, cutting him over and over in differentplaces. Ceridor’s trembling hand remained extended, directing the magic. I flew up to perch on his shoulder. “He’s dead,” I whispered.

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