Courting the Phoenix (3 page)

Talinora was already gone and their mother had breakfast waiting for Elly when she came down.

“I can’t believe that you are the phoenix potential.”

Elly ate her oatmeal and grimaced. “Aw, who told?”

Her mother smacked her on the shoulder. “I figured it out when Terric the Black asked to come courting. There is only one woman he has been interested in in the last few decades and that was the phoenix. How long have you known?”

“Since I was thirteen.”

Andora sat next to her. “Why didn’t you tell me, Elly?”

Elly gave her a sober look. “You had other things to worry about, and then, I forgot about it. The fire was just always there, and once I looked it up on the internet and in a few of the reference books, it made sense. Frankly, I wasn’t sure until I was at one of the gatherings and Terric showed up. The fire came roaring.”

“Twelve years is a long time to keep a secret, hon. Are you all right?”

“What, for being outed in public? As fine as I can be. Now, I have to get to work. Bills to pay and pacing to correct. I will see you later.”

“Fine, call if you aren’t coming for dinner.”

“Will do. Thanks, Mom.” She kissed Andora on the cheek, got her bag from its spot next to the door and headed to the garage.

She saw a shadow shift next to her favourite tree, and she adjusted her path. “Hello?”

“Good morning, Miss Dyanhart. Terric has asked me to watch you for the day.”

The man stepped out from the shadows, and she cocked her head. Werewolf, not dragon. Interesting.

“Well, I am off to work, so you can either run alongside or come with me in my car.”

“There is a driver waiting for you and a guard placed in your place of work. I will watch your family home.”

Oddly, it made her feel a bit better. “Fine, but don’t let my mom feed you. She puts chocolate in everything and it isn’t good for doggies.”

“You know what I am?”

She shrugged. “Of course. It comes with being what I am becoming. I can taste it in the air. Not great when you are dealing with trolls but better than not knowing what they are.”

He grinned. “I wish you a good day at work. Everything will be as you left it when you return.”

“Thank you. Don’t work too hard.”

“My senses are on alert, and I have a Sudoku standing by. Thank you for your concern.” He winked and a car pulled down the driveway.

She turned to watch the town car approach, and when she looked back, the wolf was hidden in the depths of the trees and bushes that surrounded her childhood home.

She called her mother and informed her of the change in plans. If her mom wanted to use her car for the day, she was now welcome.

The driver didn’t speak, but his cheekbones and scent screamed that he was at least partially goblin.

She sat in the back, and he took her to her current office building without a question. Apparently, Terric did his homework.

Her day was the same as any other. She went through her lecture, had them laughing and interested in what she was saying and then she began the exercises that would get them talking to strangers in little groups, and as they spoke, they gained confidence.

By the end of the day, she was exhausted and completely unsurprised to see the goblin and car waiting for her again. Instead of home, it pulled up outside a restaurant.

She looked at the restaurant entryway and her office clothing and sighed. There was nothing for it; she was going to look like she was doing an audit.

To her surprise, the driver came with her and spoke to the host. The host inclined his head with respect and escorted her to a private room where Terric was on the phone with a notepad in front of him.

The moment she came in, he ended the call and closed the portfolio that contained the notepad. “Good evening, Eilinora.”

The host took her jacket and her bag and she was seated next to Terric with polite efficiency.

“Good evening, Terric. You have certainly involved yourself in my routine.”

He shrugged. “It is the nature of a dragon to know everything about his mate. I have called your mother and told her where you are. She was very polite.”

She snorted. “I bet she was.”

He looked at her and laughed. “You just breathed fire.”

She slammed her hand onto her nose. “I didn’t.”

“You did and you are right. It does look peculiar.”

She laughed and peeked at him over her hand. “Did you bring books?”

“In the trunk of the car. Tualion will bring them in for you when you get home.” He took her hand from her face and kissed the back of it. “Those clothes do not do you justice.”

Elly shrugged. “I know, but they are as close to sexless as I can get, and for teaching, you need to be a neutral body at the head of the room. If the men in the offices I go to start to see me as a woman, their absorption of the material goes right down the tubes.”

“Why do you work like that? Your father is very wealthy.”

She laughed, and it was a harsh and broken sound. “He hasn’t been near our house for twelve years. His money is his own, and we have to scratch to make a living and keep our house. We pay it off and he re-mortgages it just to keep us in our places.”

“Can’t your mother divorce him? It is all the rage in human circles.”

“Sure, if she could find him. She hasn’t had the money to go in search of him, so we are bound to him, and he drains our efforts because the house is still in his name.”

Terric’s features darkened. “Why don’t you leave?”

“It is our home and the money is never there. Mom’s family married throughout the other races, so there is no one really to call upon for help. We get by.”

He sat back, but she could see his mind whirling.

A server appeared and brought them hot water and towels to wash their hands. Once those items were removed, it was time for the appetizers.

“Pardon my presumption, but I took the liberty of ordering your meal so that you could return home in plenty of time to get some research done.”

It was very thoughtful, but she could see he wanted to do some research of his own.

The appetizers were tiny and each fitted on a flat-bottomed spoon. She slipped it into her mouth and smiled at the explosion of flavour followed by a wave of heat.

“Very nice. Trying to start a fire, Terric?”

He looked at her innocently and took the other one. “No, I am just sure that you can handle a little heat.”

She narrowed her eyes at him and sipped at the wine that the server presented. It was a nice red and had a good body to it. It was a rare luxury as well.

“So, do you have servants at home, or do you just barbeque sheep when you are feeling peckish?”

“I have a cook-housekeeper. She keeps things organized for me. Her name is Dualion, Tualion’s mother.” He smiled and sipped at his own wine.

“Nice, so how did you get captured last night?” She had to know.

“They told me they had possession of you and I was to do as they asked.”

“Oh, wow. You are better than I am. They told me that you were in danger and I refused to follow them. I followed your energy instead.” She went quiet when the servers returned with a salad made of frightened lettuce and a drizzled dressing.

She had never understood the new trend to lettuce that looked like it had been grown using some kind of electroshock therapy. If she ate lettuce, she liked it identifiable, romaine or iceberg. This frizzled stuff was just annoying.

She was just delighted to finish it and put her fork down.

“You do have better instincts than I did. I was so worried about your safety, I would have agreed to just about anything.” He shrugged and scorched his salad with a blast of heat, puffing the ashes off his plate with a light breath.

“Cheater!” She was mainly upset she hadn’t thought of it first.

“I will tell you now, Terric, if they catch me, they are not going to come out of it without burns. I am giving off a lot more heat now. I scorched my favourite bra, damn it.”

“You are in transition, as you very well know. You will shift into your ultimate form soon, and when you do, I want to be there.”

She sighed, and the main course was slid in front of her. Strips of meat and vegetables were twisted together in a pastry shell. “You can’t watch me every moment of every day.”

“No, but members of my organization can.”

“Organization?”

“Of course. Black Dragon Enterprises is a legitimate company that helps the paranormal find means of making money in the human world. For a nominal share of profits of course.”

Elly finished her pastry with a grin. “Of course. A dragon has to eat after all.”

“It keeps my ties to the community strong.”

“I am guessing that it would. Now, tell me about those who are terrified of the end of the world.”

They sat back and sipped their wine while the course was cleared.

When they were alone, she tapped her finger on the table.

Terric sighed. “Every time the dragon and phoenix draw close to each other, there are those who fear the outcome. You will see in the histories that sometimes there are volcanos, earthquakes and other times there is no disaster at all. The societies always exist to throw fear into the next generation, and they become frenzied the moment that the phoenix appears.”

“By frenzied, you mean hunting down all traces of the phoenix and destroying her.”

He shook his head. “No, if they could get the phoenix to choose another, to choose one of their kind, the collision would not take place and the activation of the phoenix would kick over into the next generation.”

A vegetable course arrived and conversation waited until the servers were out of the room again.

“So, this all could have been avoided if I was a normal young lady and had dated and flirted my way into a match long before this.”

He smiled, “Your hardship has become my good luck.”

Elly grimaced; it wasn’t exactly her idea. She had a dream of normal and it passed her by. Now, she was dealing with the hand forced upon her.

“I do not enjoy the pain you have suffered, but it has increased my likelihood of finding you until here you are. Each event where you appeared and saw me strengthened your attachment to the personal aspect of the phoenix.”

She wrinkled her nose. “That would explain it. When I was a teen, I felt something lodge inside me, but it took me years to pin down what it was, precisely. I did a lot of research, but I only managed to get the most vague outline of what a phoenix really was. I couldn’t look into the mage archives because I didn’t want to send up any red flags.”

“Do you feel stronger?”

Elly flexed her fingers. “You could say that.”

With her index finger extended, she aimed at a candle on the far side of the room. “Bang.” She flexed her thumb and the candle flared to life.

Terric looked surprised. “You have that much control over it?”

“Just a little bit of fire, but being an air mage means that delicate control was the focus of my training. I am actually pretty good.”

She smiled brightly as dessert arrived.

Her companion was still trying to get over the control she had over her tiny bit of power; it showed in his rough-hewn features.

With a quick look around, she took the flame from the candle and called it to dance on her palm. She juggled it from palm to palm and finally let it absorb back into her skin.

The dessert was a ball of dark chocolate mousse with fresh fruit and slivers of white chocolate. It was very nice with the dessert wine that was served.

“I haven’t had this much wine at a meal in a very long time.”

“Why not?” Terric blinked in concern. “It is the highlight of every meal and your metabolism is not affected by it.”

“Oh, because we don’t have the money for it. It is an unnecessary luxury.” She twisted her lips.

“If you were on your own, you could soar free, you know.”

“I know that. I also know that my mother sacrificed by taking on two jobs, working weekends and going without until we were old enough to go to work ourselves and chip in. We all had to change because one man got bored with his vows.”

He winced. “I suppose it left you with an ill disposition toward men.”

“No, just a little problem with blind trust. It has to be earned now.”

The server returned and removed their dishes, signalling an end to the meal.

Terric walked her back to the car, kissing her lightly before he tucked her in next to a stack of books. Date one was over.

Elly wondered what he had planned next.

She had stayed up late into the night reading up on the great love of the dragon and the phoenix. They crossed every cultural barrier and tens of thousands of years. The phoenix appeared in every species, every bloodline, and there was always the dragon waiting for her.

Elly fell asleep, and her soul flew back ten thousand years, finding the one thing that the books always left out. She had to die.

Brushing her teeth was a herculean effort. Her hands kept shaking. Elly repeated to herself that it was only a dream, but she knew differently. Every myth of the phoenix referred to the death and rebirth, but Terric had neglected to mention what she had to do.
Maybe he didn’t know?

She went through the motions of the day, trying to keep herself blank. It was Friday, and if she wanted to go through with joining to Terric, she had to pull the phoenix out and take her place as a creature.

When she dropped into the car at the end of the day, her driver gave her a toothy grin. “You look like hell, miss.”

Tualion’s voice showed his concern. It wasn’t often goblins cared for mages, but he seemed to be interested in her health.

“I am just tired. Where to tonight?”

“The same restaurant. The dragon owns it, so it is the best place for him to see you. It is also a neutral location.”

“Wonderful. I can be cranky and no one can see me.”

“I don’t think you can manage cranky. Mildly irritated, perhaps.” Despite the conversation, his driving was smooth and deliberate. He wove them in and out of traffic without any difficulty.