Page 1 of Phoenix Falling
ChapterOne
SUN
The cacophony of music and laughter and humans on the hunt for their latest lay stirred the animal lurking restlessly within me. My phoenix was only a bird in the strictest sense—an integral part of my being, my alternate form, he was more mythical monster than modern-day member of any class of vertebrates. When I released him, his massive form was endowed with flesh-rending talons and unstoppable strength, not to mention near immortality.
And what he wanted right now, more than anything, was to pick the meat from the bones of the closest human body for daring to disturb his peace.
Only one thing saved them: the scent of the female we had come here to meet.Risk.Her essence mingled beneath the odor of human sweat and alcohol and sex, reaching my nose and my animal simultaneously. The creature stirred in my chest now for a far different reason than anger. This was hunger of a different kind.
Need.
Lust.
My all-too-human cock stiffened immediately. I’d had the same reaction to Risk before I’d ever met her, the first time I’d caught her scent in a bar very much like this one several weeks ago. She’d been a possible source for the intel my clan needed, intel that had led us to the discovery of the enemy compound located right on our doorstep. The Anigma contingent had since been decimated, its remnants scattered, but I had no doubt that the threat was just beginning. And I needed Risk’s help to prevent the war I feared would be coming all too soon.
“Sun.” Risk leaned against a wall in the darkest corner of the club, head tilted back to meet my much taller gaze. My phoenix enhanced my eyesight, seeing every detail of her clearly. The thick blonde hair draping her shoulders, with its garish red and blue streaks. The silky-smooth skin gleaming in the dim light. And oh, that kick-ass body. Risk was high-octane sex appeal wrapped in an athletic form prepared to take down any comer, and with my phoenix’s gifted sight, I couldn’t miss a single curve of a single muscle that came together to make that gorgeous physique.
My animal took it all in, staring from my eyes, breathing in her intoxicating scent through my nose. I barely managed to suppress his avaricious growl as it rumbled up inside my chest. When it came to this woman, being both animal and man seriously sucked—there was no chance of ignoring her.
“Risk,” I murmured, her name like gravel in my tight throat. The female had gone to ground not long after our battle with Maddox’s Anigma soldiers, a fact I still found suspicious, but since she’d also dropped Cale, my fellow warrior and her former lover, around the same time, Cale had convinced me it was no more than fickle female hormones rearing their ugly head. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t be watching her closely. My phoenix would ensure that, if nothing else.
One feminine brow arched above a deep blue eye.
I quirked my own. “What?”
Risk straightened away from the wall. “I should be the one asking you that. You requested this meeting, not me.”
I had, hadn’t I? And I was standing here dazed over the female’s erotic appeal rather than getting down to business. “Of course. Perhaps we could sit.”
She turned to lead the way. “Perhaps we could.”
A frown tugged at my mouth at the same time that a hint of uncertainty tugged at my brain. And wasn’t that a mind fuck in and of itself—the Archai prince unsure of himself around a human woman. My people survived because the strongest of us ruled, and I was first in line for the throne. As part of leading the largest Archai clan in the world, formality had been drilled into me for a thousand years. What did I care if Risk was amused by the precise way that I spoke? She had been drawn to Cale, after all, the playboy of the Archai Warrior’s Council. Her type definitely wasn’t tall, deadly, and decidedly stiff.
Her type didn’t drink blood or change into a giant immortal bird either, I was certain.
Risk preceded me along the back wall of the club. I focused on not staring at her well-shaped ass outlined in a tight red dress, watching our surroundings instead until she came upon an empty booth, raised on a dais to overlook the writhing figures on the dance floor. It was as private as things got in a place like this, but Risk insisted on setting the location of our meetups. Yet another thing I had no control over when it came to her.
My phoenix screeched his displeasure at the idea that we were not the ones in charge, particularly ofher.I shook off his reaction and followed Risk into the booth.
The curved walls cut the chaos of our surroundings in half, insulating the two of us in a quasi-intimate atmosphere that did nothing for my current mood. I had never met Risk alone before; always Cale had accompanied me. Now, with Risk at the back of the circle, facing out toward the club, and me moving instinctively close to grant us a modicum of privacy, the draw of the female was impossible to ignore. I had never been close enough to feel the warmth radiating off her skin, to taste her blood with no more than a bending of my head toward her neck. I cursed under my breath at my body’s instant reaction and scooted back a few inches, bringing my knee up onto the seat to give myself more space.
If she noticed, Risk didn’t let on. This time when she arched a brow, I knew what she was thinking.
Time to talk.
“Your assistance with our previous problem proved to be invaluable, Risk.”
She raised her hand. “There’s no need to butter me up. I did a job, and I’m happy to do another one. For the right price.”
Agreed. But first, follow-up. “We’d like to know if you’ve seen any indications that the group we discussed previously has returned to Nashville.”
She tapped her red-tipped nails against the slick table. “Not as a group, no. Though there may be individuals out there—I’m not specifically hunting them anymore—I haven’t seen the kind of activity we tracked before.”
The wordhuntingon her full lips had certain parts of me throbbing harder than the bass line of the current song torturing everyone from the club’s speakers. I shifted in my seat. “Good.” I narrowed my eyes on her. “If you should happen to see—”
“You’d be the first to know, big boy. Again, for the right price.”
I tilted my head, finally putting my finger on what was bothering me about Risk’s words. She was saying the right things—the right Risk-sounding things—but her tone was flat, empty. No teasing, no laughing.
