Once Upon a Shifter (68 page)

Heath shook his head as he leaned toward her, placing a sweet kiss to her cheek. "Please don't do that, baby. You and Heather can go. Just leave the brutal and corporal punishments to us."

Tracy rolled her eyes as she grinned. "It's not brutal to me."

"I can't believe you're letting them go," Brad whined. "You know Phoenix is gonna kill us when he sees them."

Roel smiled. "Now that… is something he won't do."

Phoenix

It felt like there was sand in his eyes as he opened them to look at the bedside clock. The digital numbers said it was 4:38 a.m., and his cell phone was ringing.

"Who the—" he started, but cut his question short when he saw Roel's number on the screen. "It's almost dawn. What do you want, wolf cub?"

"You said to come see you when we got the Alphas and their numbers. We're here."

Phoenix pushed himself to a sitting position then rubbed his eyes. "Who is 'we'? You didn't bring the whole pack with you, did you?"

"No need. Brad's wife has all the information in binders. It's cold, asshole. Are you going to let us in or not?"

Phoenix grunted as he got out of bed and stumbled to the bathroom for his robe. "Give me three minutes. I haven't fed in a few days and my body is trying to shut down."

"So that's why I feel like shit," Roel said, and then lowered his voice. "The girls are with us. They don't know about the nexus, so keep your trap shut or we'll all die tonight."

Phoenix chuckled as he made his way to the weapon's room where Lea kept blood bags stored in a fridge. "Gotcha," he said, and then he ended the call and bit into the bag.

Grabbing another, because he had waited much too long to feed, he kicked the door of the refrigerator closed and tossed the first empty bag in the trash on his way out of the room. As he sank his teeth into the second bag, he bounded up the stairs to the first floor, made his way across the kitchen and into the garage.

Tapping two buttons on the wall released the garage door and the main gate. A half a minute later, he was greeted by a handful of smiling werewolves.

Chuckling lightly, he led them into his house, hitting the buttons to close the gate and garage door.

"What's so funny?" Brad said.

Phoenix shook his head as he swallowed the last bit of blood in the bag. "If someone would have told me two weeks ago that I was about to invite werewolves into my home, I would have probably considered them crazy and killed them for it."

Roel grinned. "I would have probably done the same."

Instead of taking them downstairs, Phoenix led them into the living room on the main floor of the house. Pointing to the ladies first, he said, "Can I get you anything? Lea keeps food and drinks in the kitchen for herself. There is also wine if you're nervous about being here, but I promise nothing will harm you."

Neither of the girls moved or said anything; they just stared at him with silly grins on their faces. It wasn't the first time women had looked at him like that. Phoenix gave them a dazzling smile right back, and one of them actually sighed.

"Heather!" Brad shouted, and both girls jumped in surprise, then averted their gazes from Phoenix. "Sorry," Brad said as he sat a stack of three-ring binders down on the coffee table. "They don't get out much."

"Bradley Dewayne Rutherford the Third, stop telling lies!" the blond girl yelled.

Brad's hand flew out and he pointed at Phoenix. "Stop staring at your Alpha's boyfriend like you want to hump his leg or something! Did you forget you have a husband, and that he's standing in the room with you?"

"Brad, chill out, dude," Heath said.

"He's in a freakin' robe, Brad. I'm not dead. Of course I'm going to look. Don't act like you don't look at other girls."

The brunette rolled her eyes. "Both of you are being ridiculous. Phoenix is hot and we've never seen him before. Give her a break, Brad. She's not going to seduce him."

"Not while he's in the room, I'm not," Heather mumbled.

"What?" Brad fumed.

"Nothing," she sneered. "Nuh-thing."

"Shut the fuck up!" Roel shouted. "Y'all are both over two hundred years old and fighting like you're in high school. Take a pill. Shit!" He pointed a finger in Brad's face. "And don't you dare ask me why I'm not married ever again. After seeing the way you two fight all the damn time, why the hell would I want to tie myself to one person for an eternity? Just… just stop. Nobody wants to hear y'all bitching at each other all the time. The shit gets old."

Phoenix pressed his lips together then held out his hand to the couch and sofa. "Why don't we get started," he suggested. "I'll have to retreat downstairs in less than an hour. Of course, you are all welcome to join me. I just figured the ladies would be more comfortable here, where I'm the only vampire they can see."

The girls sat quickly down on the sofa, leaving the guys to take their seats on the couch together. Brad purposefully avoided looking at Heather or Roel, a sullen mask on his face hiding only a fraction of the anger that was practically steaming out of his ears.

Phoenix snickered to himself. He hadn't really pegged the guy for the jealous type, but how well did you really know someone?

After Phoenix sat in the chair across from the girls, Roel opened the meeting.

"You said you and Mena were still awake when the witches knocked the rest of us out. I get that she wanted to knock the wolf out, but why the rest of us?"

Phoenix shrugged. "She said she needed to make it believable, but she didn't say that she needed to make it believable to only the wolf. I trust the three of you, but they may not. Meridia knew that there was some sort of spell over Jaxon before everyone came in the house, and the locator spell on the dagger and the rogue wolves was a fail because there is a powerful blocking spell around them."

Heath frowned. "A powerful spell? What, like they weren't the ones who cast it? I don't know any other witches in Montgomery."

"There are more," Phoenix said, "though I didn't think any of them were very powerful. I guess there's at least one, and that one is on Jessica's side." As he rubbed a finger over his chin, he stared at the stack of binders Brad brought in. "And that's bad news, but not nearly as terrible as what else I have to say. You're not going to like it, but Meridia says it's the only way for us to discover the wolf's name before the full moon."

"What is it?" Heath said after a few seconds of thick silence.

"Another Alpha wolf is the only one who can discover the wolf's name, and in order to do that she has to bond with him."

Roel shot to his feet, outraged. "There are over three hundred Alphas in those binders, Phoenix, and not one of them is going to go for that!"

"We have to find at least one, Roel. Mena made me promise to kill her if it couldn't be done." He let only his eyes ask the question of whether he really wanted that to happen or not.

"But," Brad started, "you and Mena are together. And not only is she with you, but she's also with Rhodes—"

"Mena isn't with the cop; the wolf is," Phoenix growled.

Brad waved a hand through the air. "You know what I mean. Are you really going to be able to share her with another dude? I couldn't do that."

"We all know," Heath, Tracy, Heather and Roel said together.

Phoenix leaned forward, letting his elbows rest on his knees. It took a while to answer, because it was the first time he'd said it out loud to more than Mena. Somehow it made it more of a reality when you said things out loud. He hadn't been ready to say it. He still wasn't ready, but he supposed he needed to in order to move on to the next step and make right on at least one of his two promises.

"I'm going to do everything in my power to get Mena back in full control over her wolf or I am going to die trying. I expect no less effort from any one of you."

Brad stood up and grabbed the binders, then started walking out of the room.

"Where're you going?" Roel said.

Brad stopped, turned, and said, "Downstairs. We're not going to be finished making phone calls before the sun comes up, and I don't intend on dying this month."

Heath stood and followed him. "The boy's got a point."

The girls followed immediately after, leaving Phoenix and Roel in the living room, alone.

"Can you do it?" Roel said, quietly. "Because I'm not sure I could."

"I don't have a choice. I promised her one or the other would happen, Roel. I won't fail her."

Roel gave him a weak smile that didn't reach his eyes. "You did it, didn't you?"

"Did what?" Phoenix asked, but he already knew what the guy was going to say.

"You wouldn't be able to give her away or kill her unless you had fallen in love with her. That may sound morbid, but in this case, it's the truth. You may be the only one who can do it."

"Like I said, I won't fail her, Roel."

"Just say it," Roel said teasingly as Phoenix walked by him to join the others.

"I am well aware that either fate I choose for her will leave me dead…" he stopped just before walking downstairs, and turned to look over his shoulder at Roel, "…or with a shattered heart. Is that good enough?"

Roel nodded as he frowned. "I know we've been enemies for over a hundred years, Phoenix, but if this is the last few weeks I have to spend on this Earth, I'm really glad we're not anymore. And for what it's worth, I hope you can find a way to be with her. You make her happy, and a happy Alpha makes a happy pack."

Phoenix stared at him a moment longer before nodding in agreement. "I'm glad we don't hate each other anymore, too, Roel, but I'm a realist. This won't end in my favor." He shrugged as if it didn't matter. "It's just not written in the stars for some people."

Chapter 44

Phoenix

They were on their second break, and each of them looked and felt beat to the bone.

After Heather tossed a closed binder to the floor in front of her crossed legs, she leaned back against Brad's knees and kneaded the stiff muscles in her neck. "We need to come up with a different strategy. Not one Alpha has agreed to even come meet her. I had two cuss me out for our pack's stupidity for not telling our new Alpha about naming her wolf, and the Alpha of Louisville, Kentucky just laughed at me."

"Most of them hung up on me after I told them I was the High Vampire of Montgomery," Phoenix said, defeated. "They think Mena is crazy, and they don't want anything to do with trying to form an alliance with my kind. I even left out the part about us being together. I was afraid they might bring their packs and try to kill her."

"Little Rock, Arkansas, is a maybe, but he wouldn't give me a direct answer. Said he needed to think about it," Roel said. "He was interested about our pack and your clan joining together, though. If we get enough on our side, maybe it will convince the others to at least listen. None of us thought this new way would work over night. There are bugs still needing to be worked out, like anything. It's going to take some time."

Heath nodded. "I got about the same from Houston, Texas."

"How are you already on Texas?" Tracy said. "I thought we were going in alphabetical order."

Heath shrugged. "I started at the end. All of Wyoming was a no," he said with a frown.

"Maybe we would have better luck with Alphas from another country," Heather suggested.

"I'm not ruling that out, but we need to start here," Phoenix said. "The biggest threat from the moonrising wolf will be here first. I don't think any of them are grasping how dangerous this will be for humanity. She'll be ten times harder to kill than a regular Alpha once she is in full control."

"I had a few offer to come kill her for us," Brad said. "They didn't seem to care that five others would die right along with her. They only saw it as 'problem solved.'"

The room fell eerily quiet as everyone stared at Brad.

Roel covered his face with his hands when Heather asked what he meant about five others dying if Mena died.

"What is he talking about, Heath?" Tracy said, her voice quivering already.

"You stupid jackass!" Heath shouted at Brad.

Phoenix stood and walked to the bar for a drink, wanting to stay out of that particular conversation as much as possible. It was inevitable that his name would be brought up soon and he would be dragged into it, since he was the one who had the witches link them all together, but he wasn't going to offer up his neck for the chopping block right off the bat to two pissed off werewolf wives. And he was sure they both soon would be. Maybe it was best to just rip the bandaid off and get it over with. Glancing over his shoulder, he opened his mouth to tell the girls it was his fault, but Roel started speaking first.

"We thought it was the best way to protect, Mena," Roel said.

Heather jumped to her feet and stared down at her husband, anger swiftly flaring in her eyes. "Wait, are you telling me that you're linked to the moonrising wolf?" When he didn't deny it, a hand flew up to cover her mouth as tears filled her eyes. "Why?" she screamed, and then she slapped him across the face before he could respond.

She was just about to slap him again when Phoenix rushed across the room and grabbed her, pinning her arms down to her sides. Silver flashed in her irises and a low growl bubbled from her throat, but Phoenix didn't back down or let her go.

"Calm down, Heather. If that moonrising wolf wins, there will be worse things than death in store for all of us. I wasn't sure who of your pack were traitors, so I chose a few I thought I could trust. Nobody within our circle is able to cause her physical harm without bringing upon them the same wrath, and neither can the wolf hurt us without the same happening to her. She is aware of this. As vile as she is, she won't hurt us."

Her eyes returned to a deep honey brown and Phoenix let her go.

Tracy was there beside him when he took a step back, and then she enveloped her friend in comforting arms and let her weep for an uncertain future.