Page 24 of No Potions Needed

“Not yet,” Teddy shrugged. “I did tell the Rian that he better have patted you down before I got here.”

We all laughed except for Ormund. The old bird wasn’t thrilled with Teddy’s presence. The dead didn’t carry their scents with them but if I could’ve smelled him, he would’ve been fighting mad. Ormund spent centuries -at least – protecting his mate. Teddy had knocked Dern out after getting shot. So of course, the dead phoenix had to size him up.

“Don’t you start that,” Dern warned. “He ain’t gonna come back if you start acting like a peacock. Save it for tonight, Orm.”

Ormund sat back down next to his mate but he didn’t take his eyes off of Teddy as we all sat down. I retrieved my laptop and prayed to anyone who might be listening in that the alphas could keep their tempers in check long enough for us to get all this over with. I wouldn’t rush Dern but didn’t look forward to the nightmares that were certain to follow hearing more of his story.

“What do you know about my carrier?” Teddy asked, cutting straight to the chase.

“Plenty,” Dern sighed. “We only met once but I know plenty because everyone does, lizard pup.”

“Thought you wanted to tell me something to do with her,” Teddy said, and I glanced at Othoni. While I hated the notion that as omegas it was our jobs to keep our mates in line, I really hoped Othoni could keep Teddy from going off the hinges. Othoni moved to sit on his lap, and I breathed a quiet sigh of relief. Teddy probably wouldn’t toss his mate across the room to attack Dern.

“I do when the time is right. Besides, we haven’t finished keeping the promise yet,” Dern said. “So, where were we when you left yesterday?”

I almost reminded him that I was dismissed the night before but bumping heads with Dern on such small details wouldn’t get us anywhere.

“I had just saved you and taken you home to the peck,” Ormund said, his eyes and voice softening when he spoke to his mate. Maybe it wasn’t our job to keep our alpha mates from losing their shit. Maybe we just had that effect on them.

“Not like we’d know,”my wolf rolled his eyes inside his inner sanctum as Dern began to speak.

Chapter Sixteen

Dern

Many years ago on Pharenos

Everything burnt when I woke up in a strange place, my call for my dad still dying on my lips. From my toes to the roots of my hair ached. My lungs constricted as if someone filled them up with dirty cotton and rubbed my throat raw stuffing it all down there. My whole torso and groin burnt like someone had laid me out on a bed of hot coals and planned to cook me. What the hell had Doctor Jenkins done and where the hell had he left me?

The room was dark, lit up only by too many sets of glowing eyes to count and the whole place smelled like a feather pillow.

“Big cats?”my wolf huffed.“Big cats in the hospital? Did they come to save me? Cats, though? So many cats! ”

Only big cats all had similar colored eyes when they glowed in the dark. All the sets of eyes were different colors from fiery to burning green forest. I sniffed the air but moving burnt my stomach and groin.

“Shhhh… Mate of Ormund, you are okay. You are with friends now. No harm shall come to you here,” the owner of one of the sets of glowing eyes spoke.

“Huh?” I grunted. “Mate of who?”

Who the fuck was Ormund? Someone else who Elke had made a promise too, probably. It was always about that fucker. Everything bad led back to Elke. Everything bad in our lives led back to the fact he was so fucking unhappy unless he was micromanaging us all. How the hell did he ever become leader? One of the glowing eyes had spoken but lost to the haze of surgical drugs I missed what was said.

“I think he is still full of their poison,” another pair of eyes spoke. “We should get Ormund. Perhaps he can calm his mate.”

“Not yet,” the first pair of eyes spoke. “He is too angry. He is best where he is now. We must keep Ormund busy while we work. He should gather all the bones of his mate’s enemies so that we might burn them when the moon dies and perhaps, he can bring the remains of the family so that----”

“DAD?! MOM!?” I shouted, jarred to my very cells by their words. My throat ached as if my words raked over sandpaper instead of vocal cords.

My parents had never appeared in my visions of the future, but I had always assumed that was because my visions were many years in the future. I always felt like an old wolf in the visions. Remains of my family?

“Shhh.. Mate of Ormund. I cannot bring them back. This is not the best way to find out. In my anger, I have forgotten myself. For that, I will forever beg your forgiveness. I am Kaladar, head healer of our peck. A peck is a flight of phoenixes.”

“Where are---” the world went blissfully black for a few moments.

“My parents?” I finished the question moments later when I resurfaced. Only more than mere moments had passed. The burning in my belly had eased to a dull sting. My hands were bound to the sides of a soft bed that smelled like someone set a feather pillow on fire but in the best possible way.

“I am sorry. I did not get there in time,” another pair of glowing eyes spoke.

Only this time there was only one set of fiery glowing eyes and they were breathtaking. I breathed in to gather my wits. Glowing eyes weren’t exactly the sexiest thing on Pharenos but then again, maybe they were. The speaker’s scent wrapped around me like a warm blanket, and I almost drifted back off to sleep. The draw of sleep was strong. When I was asleep, I didn’t know how dead my parents were, my stomach was whole, and my own pack hadn’t turned on me and left me to the monstrous birds who lived in the mountains above the clouds.

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