Page 2 of In the Line of Fire
1
Soleil
Being on the run sucked. I couldn’t go to my parents because then I’d lead the dark practitioners who were hunting me straight to my dad, which would be just as bad as if they caught up with me. Possibly even worse since my mom would be in their crosshairs, too. She was more vulnerable than we were since she was human. Shifters were better equipped to protect ourselves—even against magic. My dad and I more so than others.
But that didn’t mean I couldn’t call my parents. That’s what burner phones were for, something my dad luckily drilled in my head long before I went on the run. I’d taken a few from his stash mostly to placate him, but his paranoia had paid off for me because the phones had become my lifeline over the past few years. Whenever I was at my lowest point—like now—I called home.
My dad picked up midway through the first ring. “Have you been keeping a few steps ahead of those bastards?”
“When I can,” I sighed, flopping back on the mattress to stare up at the ceiling of the motel room I’d checked into a few hours ago. “But they’re not making it easy to stay safe. The coven on my trail must have someone who’s darn good at tracking spells. I’ve been using all of the tricks that you drilled into my head growing up to avoid being an easy target, but they’re still hot on my heels.”
“Maybe it’s time to call in some help from the shifter council.”
I was stunned by my dad’s suggestion. He was the alpha of our family, but my mom and I were the only ones he led because we weren’t part of a flock. We stuck to ourselves for the most part, with the exception of a tiger shifter friend of my dad’s. But they’d drifted apart when my dad mated my mom. I’d never even met the guy, but my dad still talked to him every once in a while over the years. A phone call to an old friend maybe once a year was the grand total of my family’s involvement in the shifter world. My dad avoided shifter politics like the plague, so calling the council was basically the equivalent of the nuclear option. “That seems kind of extreme. Do you really think I should?”
“I’m at my wit’s end here, Soleil. It’s killing me that you’re out there in danger, and there’s nothing I can do to help. There comes a point when this whole damn mess has gone on too long, and I’m not too stubborn to admit that we might have already passed it.” He heaved a deep sigh, and as I squeezed my eyelids closed, I could picture him so vividly in my mind. The crease in his forehead from his furrowed brow. The angry gleam in his gray eyes, the same shade I saw every time I looked into a mirror. His dark brown hair messy from running his fingers through it, which he tended to do when he was frustrated.
Dang, I missed my mom and him so much. Forcing my eyes back open to blink back tears, my sense of loneliness deepened.
“You can only run for so long. All it takes is one slipup, and they could take you away from us forever.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose between my thumb and forefinger. “C’mon, Dad. It’s not as though they’re actually going to catch me. I always have the ultimate escape route that they can’t really fight against.”
“I hate the thought of it coming down to that, knowing how much pain you go through.” There was a thump in the background, quickly followed by a huff of hair blowing into the line. My dad must have been out in the garage when I called because it sounded as though he was hitting his punching bag to burn off some of the anger. “How many times have you been reborn since we last spoke?”
Being phoenix shifters gave my dad and me a huge advantage. Our rare species had an ability that was unique to our kind, making us virtually indestructible. Like the ancient folklore about the giant bird associated with the sun, phoenix shifters had the ability to be reborn again. When killed, we burst into flames and rose from the ashes—metaphorically since it was impossible to predict how far our rebirth would happen from our death. The only way to keep a phoenix permanently down was to pierce our hearts with iron. Otherwise, we were immortal.
We had a few other tricks up our sleeves, too. Phoenixes were some of the strongest shifters in the world, which helped immensely in hand-to-hand combat. We also had fire magic, albeit a weaker form than dragon shifters were able to call upon. Plus, we could regenerate limbs, but the process was almost as painful as our fiery rebirth when we were killed.
But all those advantages came with a serious drawback—witches and warlocks who had turned to the dark side were willing to hunt phoenix shifters to the ends of the Earth. A single feather from one of us could power a spell well beyond a dark practitioner’s skill level. Phoenix feathers were helpful with all kinds of magic, but they were especially useful in healing spells. Dark practitioners would literally kill for the chance to capture a phoenix shifter so they had access to the rare magical properties of our feathers. And I’d somehow managed to land myself smack dab on the radar of a coven full of them. And a powerful one at that.
“Trust me, you really don’t want to know.”
“Once is too many,” he growled. “I think it’s t—”
A soft scrape near the door to my motel room drew my attention, and my dad stopped talking mid-word when I clicked my tongue against the roof of my mouth. He was well aware the sound was a signal for quiet since he’d been the one to teach the code to me when I was young. The complete absence of noise coming from the line told me he’d taken my warning seriously and had muted the call on his end. Tucking the phone into my pocket without disconnecting the call, I grabbed my go-bag from where I’d placed it on the floor next to the bed.
With the backpack strapped into place, I slowly crept toward the bathroom. I’d picked the roadside motel for a few reasons. The run-down place wouldn’t put too much of a dent into my funds. There weren’t many other guests, and the people who chose to stay here were the kind who tended not to ask a lot of questions. But most importantly, the bathroom window was big enough for me to fit through if I needed to run.
With any luck, I’d be able to escape out the back without anyone knowing. Then I could circle around to the front from a safe distance to see if I was overreacting or if the dark practitioners really had managed to find me again.
It was a good thing I hadn’t hesitated. My keen hearing picked up a noise that sounded an awful lot like someone turning the doorknob as I was climbing onto the toilet to open the window. At that sound, I knew there wasn’t going to be an innocent explanation. Kicking my pace into high gear, I hefted myself up and through the opening just as the door swung open. I scurried to the side in the hope that the dark practitioner who’d broken into my room wouldn’t see me. In my haste to avoid the witch behind me, I almost missed the warlock who was waiting outside.
My phoenix pushed against my skin, and the split-second warning was enough for me to avoid the spell the dark practitioner threw my way. I sprung forward, gearing up to do whatever I needed to take him down quickly so I’d be long gone before the witch came around back to join the fight. The warlock was prepared to fight dirty, though. I only got a few hits in before he whipped a knife out from under his jacket. I jumped back several feet so he couldn’t swipe out at me, and he changed the angle of his hold on the grip.
“You’re not getting away from us this time,” he hissed, pulling his arm back to whip the knife at me.
I darted to the left, but he still managed to clip me in the side. Yanking the blade from my flesh, I threw it back in his direction. My aim was true, and the knife nailed him smack dab in the center of his chest. “Give it up already. Your coven is never going to take me alive, and I’ll continue to escape your clutches every time you kill me while trying to catch me. But the same can’t be said for you because your kind only dies once, and today is the last time you’ll ever have the chance to chase me because you’ve only got a few minutes left to live.”
Stepping closer, I kicked out and shoved the blade deeper with the heel of my shoe. When the warlock dropped to the ground, clutching his chest and letting out a low moan of pain, I ran around his prone body. He wasn’t the first member of the coven that I’d taken down, and I felt no guilt over taking his life. Not with how many times they’d killed me over the past three years.
My only thought was escape. I needed to get as far away from the witch who’d been in my room and anyone else who’d been with them. But I only made it about twenty feet toward the woods lining the back of the motel before the throbbing in my side slowed my pace. I kept moving while I dropped my hand to press my palm against the wound. When I made it to the trees, I pulled my hand away and stared down at the blood dripping from my fingers.
Crap.
The flow was heavy, and the pain crashed over me in waves. The warlock may have missed me with that spell, but he had more than made up for his failure by aiming well when he threw the knife. The blade must have nicked an artery because I’d already lost too much blood to survive. I freaking hated when crap like this happened.
“Sorry, Dad,” I whispered as the gray started to seep into my vision, hating that he would hear my death. If I’d ended the call, I could have spared him the anguish of listening to my pain. Knowing I’d be reborn again only provided so much comfort.
