Page 63 of Heron's Flame

Pain lanced every cell in my body. The agony originated with the bullet wound in my heart and spread outward, reaching with jagged claws that seemed to shred my muscles, tendons, veins, and arteries and shatter my bones until I felt like nothing of my physical form remained. And just when I thought it couldn’t get worse, I felt the heat begin to rise.

Fire.It spread into every broken, crushed piece of me that remained, scorching the nerve endings that somehow avoided destruction. I felt engulfed by invisible flames that seared and branded my soul. I cried out with the pain, shouting obscenities as the flames continued to lick and consume.

I had died. I knew that. I felt it when my heart stopped beating. But I never ceased my struggles, fighting against this ruthless, ravenous hunger that formed from hellfire. I couldn’t say how long the process lasted, but eventually, I felt the heat begin to recede.

The flames that had taken hold somehow received a command to cease. They burned to a low simmer. I felt my body become weightless, a shell forming as a protective barrier around the cells that began regenerating. My muscles, bones, and tendons reformed. My arteries and veins started to pump blood again. My vision returned, only to see my Rebel crying as she knelt beside my body.

How could I burn to ash, and no one notice?

How did I die and fucking come back?

In my head, a voice answered, one that I never heard before now.You are chosen. A bloodline that comes from the lava-filled mountains deep out in the sea. A land where fire erupts and the ash brings renewal.

Who was this?

Your true form.

What?

A phoenix.

Phoenix. That was a myth.

No. It is your heritage.

In awe, I listened to the phoenix as he explained how my Samoan bloodline descended from a powerful phoenix shifter odyssey. I hadn’t been given up because my birth parents didn’t want me. They put me with gentle humans who would raise me until I could bond with my phoenix and learn the truth.

The island where I came from had been attacked, and some of the odyssey killed. Fearing for my safety, my birth parents hid me where the enemy couldn’t find them.

Where is this enemy now?I asked, wondering if the threat still existed.

It is eliminated.

And my birth parents?

Alive. They await your return.

Wow.

And my mate?I wondered, knowing I needed to return to her.

Always welcome. Our mate. Ours to protect and cherish.

I wondered what I should call him. I felt his presence in my head and heart, a bond that nothing could ever rival except for the crow who shared space and my mate, Rebel.

Phyre.

And the crow? How did he share a bond with the phoenix and me? It seemed unlikely, yet I felt it.

Your parents shared a unique merge. They formed a special union and gave birth to the first of your kind. A Kindred with the sharp senses of the crow and the fierce dominion over fire and resurrection of the phoenix.

Life and death. Birth and renewal.

Phyre brought me back from the dead.

His amusement turned to concern when I felt pain seep into my heart, surging with so much heartbreak that I trembled inside my obsidian shell. That protective barrier kept me hidden until the moment I could rise from the ashes.

Go to her. She needs us.

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