Page 17 of In the Line of Fire

9

Soleil

It was easy to see where much of Damien’s commanding presence came from. His dad had an air of authority that was impossible to miss, and I had a hunch that he never promised anything he couldn’t deliver. Any uncertainty I may have felt was eliminated as I felt the depth of my mate’s support through our bond. “I know it won’t be easy to avoid questions within the hold about what breed of shifter I am. Thank you for understanding how important it is for me to keep our circle of trust as small as we can.”

“That won’t be a problem. The members of our hold understand that my word is law and that some things are meant to be kept in the family,” he reassured me.

“Although our family is bigger than most when it comes to dragon shifters. There’s Dean and me.” Damien’s mom pointed at his dad and then herself. “I’m Demi, by the way.”

I smiled and replied, “I’m Soleil.”

“Soleil. Such a pretty name,” she sighed.

Dean chuckled and shook his head. “As Demi was explaining, other than the four of us, there’s only our daughter, Denica, and her mate, Trey; my brother, Dale, and his mate, Adira; and my nephew, Dawson.”

That sounded like a big family to me, but I’d grown up as an only child of only children. “You guys certainly have an affinity for names that start with D.”

Dean grinned at his mate. “Blame their mom. She’s the one who picked out Damien and Denica’s names.”

“Hey, the tradition started way before me,” she protested with a smile.

I really liked how Dean and Demi were with each other. It reminded me a lot of my parents and boded well for my future with Damien...once we took care of the mess still hanging over my head. My mate must have sensed the direction in which my thoughts had drifted because he gave me a squeeze and led me over to one of the sturdy brown leather couches in the living room. His parents followed, sitting on the couch across from us.

Once we were situated, Dean took control of the conversation. “From the details I’ve picked up about phoenix shifters over the years, you must have found yourself in dire straits repeatedly over the past three years. Has the situation been resolved?”

“Not yet.” Damien’s grip on my hand tightened before he placed it on his thigh and threaded our fingers together.

I gave his dad a quick run of everything that had happened to me since I stumbled across the dark practitioners in the forest near Bear Creek. Several times during the retelling, flames swirled in his green eyes as his dragon’s fury built. When I was finally done, he turned to Damien and growled, “We have no choice but to eliminate the entire coven. No matter how many more of them are left.”

My mate nodded. “They all have to die, along with anyone else they’ve talked to about Soleil. We can’t risk running into the same problem down the line because one of them had loose lips and shared the information.”

I’d been vaguely aware of my need for Damien as we discussed how many times I’d died and been reborn while running from the dark practitioners. But the deadly determination in his tone ratcheted up the low hum of desire. “I don’t think that will be an issue. Each and every witch who has hunted me so far carried a similar scent. As crazy as it sounds, considering how many of them I’ve managed to kill already, I think they’re all from the same family.”

I felt the muscles in Damien’s thigh bunch up beneath my palm as he turned to me. “You didn’t mention that last night.”

“I hadn’t really thought much about it until you mentioned the risk of one of the witches telling someone else about me,” I explained, patting his thigh.

“You know what this means, don’t you?” Dean asked.

I seemed to be the only one out of the loop since Damien and Demi nodded. “What does it mean?”

“There are only a few magical families that have enough members to make up a decent-sized coven. That added bit of information will help narrow down the field quite a lot,” Dean explained.

Filled with a sense of relief, I leaned against Damien’s side. “Oh, wow. So it really might all be over soon.”

Damien wrapped his arm around my shoulders. “With the help of the witches who serve on the Council of Five with me, we could know which coven is our target in a matter of days, if not sooner.”

“It seems more than a little surreal that I’m going to ask witches for help when I’ve been running from a coven for so long,” I admitted softly as I tilted my head back to look up at my mate.

“I’ve worked with the four of them for as long as I’ve been searching for you, and I’ve known three of them for longer than that,” Damien reassured me.

“Blake Aldebrand, the warlock who represents fire magic, came to my father’s aid many decades ago. When he was despondent over the loss of his son and his missing granddaughter, he asked our hold for help. We couldn’t find a trace of her, and my guilt over that failure led to me doing the unthinkable—I offered to teach him the basics of dragon magic.” Dean shook his head, a faraway look in his green eyes. “He took me up on the invitation about a year later. He was searching for something to take his mind off his sorrows and came to stay here for six months. A bond was formed between our families during that time, and he’d never do anything to cross us.”

Although I’d heard rumblings that shifters and witches had started to build connections while I’d been on the run, I hadn’t realized that some of those connections spanned over decades. But I could understand how grief and gratitude could build a bond between people, no matter how different they were. “Did they ever find his granddaughter?”

Dean nodded as his lips curved into a blinding smile. “Yes, and oddly enough it was also because she was on the run from dark practitioners.”

“Really?” I leaned forward, curious about why a witch would be hunted like I had been.

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