Page 39 of Phoenix Chosen 3

“Listen to me,” Airos says. “We mean you no harm. We want tohelpyou.”

“What are you saying, Airos?” I growl. “Take him down!”

The sorcerer flinches like a cornered animal. Airos raises his hand at me like I’m a child to be silenced, but keeps his eyes fixed on the hooded sorcerer. “Don’t listen to him, he’s an idiot.”

Airos holds his staff out in front of him, then to my shock, slowly places it on the ground.

By the Gods, what the hell is he doing?

I look to Tyler, standing in the back of the wagon. He looks back at me and shakes his head, telling me not to do anything. What have they seen that I haven’t?

Airos moves cautiously towards the sorcerer like he’s approaching a skittish feral animal. He reaches out to pull back the man’s hood.

I hold my breath. For a moment, he seems ready to allow Airos to touch him. Then, just as Airos’s fingers reach the lip of the tattered fabric, the sorcerer swings his arm like a striking snake and catches him on the chest. There’s a noise unlike anything I’ve heard, like a hundred trees snapping all at once. Airos collapses. The sorcerer flees into the woods.

I’m about to stop time and throw a dagger into the man’s back when Tyler shouts my name.

“Don’t!” he yells. “Kalistratos, he’s Phoenikos!”

18

TYLER

Iclimb down from the wagon. Airos is on his back with a dazed look like he just got socked in the jaw. Kalistratos runs over to us.

“They’re Phoenikos,” I repeat. “I felt it when they stopped the cart.”

“Those weren’t phoenix flames,” he says.

“No, they weren’t,” Airos says, groaning as we help him to his feet. “And whatever they just did to me wasn’t phoenix powers either. I don’t know what that was.”

“I think I might know what that was,” I say.

They both turn and look at me.

“A high voltage stun gun.”

“Cheesus, Tyler. Speak plainly,” Kalistratos says.

“It’s a thing that… uh, stuns. Bzzt. It uses electricity to knock you flat on your ass. I’d recognize that sound anywhere. I usedthe same thing for half a decade at work. Whatever—the point is that it’s frommy world.This sorcerer bandit guy? I think he might be the omega we’re looking for.”

Airos walks to the trees and pushes over one of the cloaked figures. It crumples into a pile of loose dirt and fabric. “They’ve been putting on a performance, and quite an impressive one. I felt it, too, Tyler. They used phoenix abilities to create these puppets and hide the truth that they are only one person. They moved the earth to trap the wagon. It seems our so-called captured omega isn’t in need of rescuing after all.”

“I felt nothing,” Kalistratos says. “Are you certain they were Phoenikos?”

“You must attune yoursenses, my friend,” Airos says, patting Kalistratos’s shoulder. “Not your boner. The way you were waving that thing around, I was worried you’d put someone’s eye out.”

“I’ll put your eye out,” Kalistratos shoots back.

“But, wait, wait, wait,” I say. “How aretheyable to use phoenix powers, but I can’t?”

“You sensed his phoenix energy,” Airos points out. “Even your mate couldn’t. That counts for something, Tyler. Don’t be too concerned about such things.”

How can I not be? If this guy really is from Earth, if he really is one of the other omegas—and every damn sign is pointing to yes—then doesn’t that mean he’s been here just as long as I have?

A noise from the bushes has the three of us poised and ready to attack, but we all relax when Gral crawls out, disheveled with brambles all over his fur.

“I… apologize,” he says, straightening himself out. “I am not a warrior.”

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