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  Rachel had thought Phoenix was a big man, but he was a dwarf in comparison to this…this giant. That was the only word Rachel could think of to describe the immense naked man standing in front of them. Looking from Phoenix to the wolf, she measured the difference between the two and estimated the wolf/man at seven feet tall. His skin was almost as brown as his pelt, and laced with scars. Thick muscles bulged on his body. There was a slash across his cheek that carried fainter slash marks next to it, but didn’t mar his features.

  Another wolf also shifted, this one female. Picking up a bundle on the ground, she hurried forward and pulled out a pair of shorts and a T-shirt for the behemoth. He donned them without taking his gaze from Phoenix. Somehow, his dressing seemed like an insult.

  “Elemental,” the wolf said, and the clipped words left no doubt he meant to be insulting. The words were followed by a growl, one echoed by the other wolves. The clearing filled with the low hum. “You are not welcome here.”

  “Your welcome is not needed, Fenley.” Phoenix said. “Your were-cubs attacked my mortal. It is my right.”

  The rest of the wolves assumed human form, and the crunch that accompanied the transformations echoed in her ears. The ones who attacked her had to be among them, but she could not pick out the culprits. Even if she had been alert and not in a fugue state the night before, she doubted she would remember anything except terror.

  “She is no mortal.” Fenley’s voice rose on a yip. “She is dangerous.”

  Phoenix said nothing. His hand squeeze warned her to stay silent. In truth, her mouth was so dry she wasn’t sure words could have formed anyway. The giant man folded his arms in front of his enormous chest.

  The standoff continued for a few minutes, with neither large man moving, just staring at each other without blinking.

  Fenley dipped his head. His skin rippled and tufts of fur poked out, as if he was barely controlling his wolf. His nails alternated between human nails and the beginnings of claws, and there was movement under his face. He drew a deep breath, and the wolf vanished.

  “I accept your claim, but the woman is unsafe. You must know what she is.”

  If Phoenix knew, that was news to Rachel. What was she if she was not human? The idea, which would have seemed outlandish yesterday, didn’t seem so strange now. The echo of Phoenix’s flame answered a deep compulsion in her. What would it be like to control fire?

  She could feel emotion coming off the other wolves. Their glares and barely concealed snarls let her know she was not welcome here. She dared to look at one briefly and saw the same anger, hatred and odd fear that she remembered as if in a dream from last night.

  Do not show emotion.

  “She is my concern.”

  Out of the corner of her eye Rachel could see a slender boy with a shock of black hair move fractionally forward. With his free hand, Phoenix pointed in the pack’s direction. A fireball erupted out of his hand and landed near the boy, setting the grass and the leaves on top of it ablaze.

  Cool.

  The wolf yelped and began stomping at the flames. The others watched as the boy put the fire out with his feet. Dark hair fell into the boy’s eyes as he gave Phoenix a baleful look and then slunk into the group of people. Singed leaves now joined the forest smells. The burned smell in the air was familiar. Rachel’s hands itched.

  Neither Phoenix nor Fenley had moved. Finally, Fenley blinked, and there was a hint of yellow in his eyes. The werewolf alpha shook his head.

  “We have had a cordial relationship these last seven years, Phoenix. But make no mistake, this is our city. It is time for your Challenge, and we want no part of it. That is between you and the Demonos. This woman is connected.”

  A mix of emotions danced across Fenley’s mobile face. The woman, who appeared to be his mate, blinked slowly. Rachel recognized the gesture as something JT would do.

  “Char and burn. You are correct. Challenge is upon us. However, it has nothing to do with Rachel.”

  “Char and burn?” Rachel asked. “Is that a Phoenix thing?”

  His lips twitched.

  “It’s a me thing.”

  Deciding it was one of those things, like her old guardians saying “what the tarnation”, Rachel let it go.

  The female spoke for the first time. “Are you sure your Challenge has nothing to do with Rachel?”

  Insects and birds chirped. The leaves on the sturdy trees rustled, and the sun glinted through their branches. Rachel’s pulse was pounding so hard she was sure the others could hear it.

  Part of his Challenge? What were they talking about? She needed to find out, and fast. Once again her palms itched in a sensation so fierce she wanted to throw them up and…what?

  Phoenix inclined his head at the female, a seeming sign of respect. “Perhaps it does, Brienne. That makes her that much more important.”

  Once again a person slid forward, apparently thinking his movement could go unnoticed. A primitive part of Rachel recognized this one as one of the aggressors in the attack last night. Fury surged inside her.

  The person’s teeth elongated to wolf canines, and he moved closer. Rachel’s hand shot out. Something wanted to erupt from it. The tips of her fingers felt as if they were going to melt. A small flame gleamed across her nails before it faded. He snapped at her, and she reacted, sending out a weak bolt of fire, thin and orange as if ultraheated. Rachel’s flame singed along his flank, sending werewolf jeans smoldering. His yip of injured surprise was loud, a howl of fear more than pain.

  The entire assembly froze. Rachel’s mouth dropped open. Heat still scorched across her fingers. It felt familiar, as if she should have always been able to do this. She turned her heated palm up, not sure what she expected to see. A hole or a ray gun, perhaps, winking out from flesh that had just shot fire at a werewolf. There was only the rapidly fading flush that had been there a minute before.

  Fenley growled, baring his teeth. Rachel’s gaze shifted from the werewolf she had singed to Phoenix, who was appraising her with a curious light in his eyes.

  “Leave my wolves alone, Elemental. She is not human. Take your Challenge and your woman elsewhere. This is your free warning.”

  “Rachel…how?” Phoenix asked, his eyes focused on a point beyond her. Blood pounded in her veins, matching the banked flame lurking inside. A force was trying to push its way to the surface and surge to life. It was familiar and strange at once.

  She turned her other hand up and it seemed normal. It was just flesh over bone, as human as the rest of the people she had known up until yesterday. Now it felt like it wasn’t part of her, like she was outside all of this. Was she slipping into another fugue state? No, she decided immediately, it wasn’t that. Her body tingled from head to foot, like she had been shot full of vitamins. Her heart wasn’t even beating fast. She should feel upset or anxious, but there was nothing but relief, as if a thing that was struggling to get free had finally asserted itself.

  “I don’t know,” she admitted.

  He seemed to have expected that answer.

  “We will find out.” She wasn’t sure if Phoenix’s words were a promise or a threat.

  “I appreciate the warning, Fenley, but you are mistaken. This could be the answer. She could be critical in saving the humans.”

  To her surprise, Fenley laughed, a long, booming sound. “You are assuming we want the humans to be saved.”

  Chapter Four

  Rachel didn’t know why Phoenix had handed her the keys to the Mercedes SUV. The large, high-priced car felt enormous, too high and too wide. Rachel gripped the wheel tightly, afraid she was going to clip the other cars on the road. He hadn’t struck her as the type of person who would want another to drive his car. Phoenix seemed lost in thought, his mind seething behind its shield. The vistas changed quickly as she drove.

  “I should have known,” was the only thing he h
ad said since they got into the car. After a few attempts at small talk, which were met with single-sentence replies, Rachel fell silent and concentrated on driving, although her mind was still wandering.

  “Brakes. Now.” Phoenix’s voice was loud in her head.

  Rachel stomped on the brakes and the expensive car immediately shuddered to a halt. Less than a foot away was a white car, half in and half out of the concealed driveway, its front end in the road. A loud horn sounded.

  The portly man inside the older Honda was glaring at her and waving his fist, unheard oaths issuing from his thin lips. She could feel anger and hatred pouring off him as he continued to shout. There was something behind him…as if his face were a mask. A faint outline of horns showed above his head, and there was a red tint to his skin.

  Shaken, Rachel looked at Phoenix, but he had his eyes closed and was mouthing words. The hefty man continued to shout. He appeared to be getting ready to leave the car and confront them, judging by his hand on the door. The image of another face was gone, replaced only by the man.

  “That car wasn’t there a second ago,” she said, although in retrospect she couldn’t be sure. “It came out of nowhere. Didn’t it?”

  Phoenix opened his eyes, and there was an angry look on his face. “It wasn’t there a second ago.” Flames flickered against his skin.

  As the door of the other car opened, tendrils of smoke appeared from the cabin. Rachel would have thought it was steam, but it was too thick for that. The man smacked his hand on his car hood. There was a voice in her mind that she recognized as Phoenix’s.

  “Leave. Immediately.”

  The stocky man jumped. With a look at her as if memorizing her, the man stepped back from the SUV and ran back to his car. He shook his hand as if it was burned and yowled, glaring at them. Putting the car in reverse, the strange man disappeared back up the driveway.

  Rachel waited until she had maneuvered around the empty space and departed before trusting her voice to words.

  “What is going on?”

  Phoenix had closed his eyes again. Opening them, he gave Rachel what she could only term a sympathetic look. “Minor demon. There are many in the city. They don’t usually act alone, or during the day. Haures is responsible.”

  The world tilted crazily, as if she were Alice and this was the looking glass. San Francisco, which had previously seemed like a pretty safe place to live, earthquakes aside, now seemed filled with unseen menace. She didn’t know who or what Haures was, but she didn’t like the sound of his name.

  “Her name,” Phoenix corrected.

  She opened her mouth to speak, but Phoenix held up his hand.

  “We are not safe. There is much that needs to be explored. We must get back to the house.”

  Rachel’s cell phone rang. Rachel saw the number and flinched. “It’s work.”

  She didn’t want to answer it. She wanted to let it go to voice mail, but Phoenix gestured for her to pull over. “Take the call.”

  * * * * *

  Rachel’s face fell rapidly as she talked to a person he deemed to be from human resources. It was obvious what was happening. The question was why? This woman, this half-breed of whatever kind she was, had to be linked to the upcoming events. But just as with his Challenge, he didn’t have enough information to fit the pieces together yet.

  She hung up and said nothing, starting the car again. Her fingers were white on the steering wheel as she drove toward the house on the hill.

  “What was their excuse for firing you?”

  Rachel darted a glance at him, let out a sigh and said nothing.

  Patience was a virtue. He had read it somewhere. He counted to ten and backward three times, trying to control his rising temper, before she spoke.

  Rachel cleared her throat. “They made up lies, but the truth was they’ve wanted to get rid of me since I started blacking out. I must have left work early yesterday without knowing it. So they fired me. It’s crap.”

  It made things simpler, but he had enough experience with women to know that she didn’t want to hear that. “I know.” He resisted an urge to reach over and take her hand, feel her skin against his. Would it be hot or cool? He hoped for hot. He wanted something reassuring to say but had little comfort to offer. “They’re scared.”

  She kept driving, nursery rhymes echoing through her brain and obscuring her thoughts. He caught snippets of fear, of failure and of uncertainty.

  She pulled into the expanse of driveway and opened the garage door. Finally they were in the two-car garage, empty of everything except the car. The usual yard tools, ladders, boxes of unneeded supplies were nowhere in evidence. The garage was as clean and new as the day it was built.

  “I don’t have family and friends,” she said. “I know some people, casual friends mostly from work. I’m from Wisconsin. When I was eighteen, the people whose foster home I lived in told me to get out and never come back. They had done their duty, I figured, and wanted nothing more to do with me. There’s something inside me that keeps people away.” She studied her hands. “What happened out there, Phoenix? What did I do?”

  “They sensed the strangeness in you.” He meant both her foster parents and the wolves. “You are not human.”

  “Wouldn’t the wolves embrace that? They’re not human either. Why would they be scared of me?”

  “I don’t know, Rachel.” He would find out.

  She had fire in her. No wonder she had appealed to him. Fire called to fire, and she was without question a fire being. His urge to protect her fought with the need to explore her, to discover what she was and revel in it. And also run screaming from her. He knew what had happened last time he embraced the flame.

  “Am I a dragon?” she asked and shuddered.

  Phoenix flinched at the word and then tried to smile. “I doubt that very much. If you were dragon, you would know it. They don’t play well with others and they are protective of their own.” Whatever she was, why wasn’t her clan helping her?

  Her eyes went unfocused. He saw controlled fire around her but not burning her, and Rachel by the dancing red and orange, laughing.

  A memory? A fantasy? Or both?

  “Who or what am I? What is the strangeness in me? What is the fire?”

  The connecting door to the house yawned open and a light beckoned beyond.

  Phoenix pivoted and Rachel jumped when the bass voice echoed through the garage.

  “You big, dumb bird,” the voice said, and Phoenix recognized the air Elemental. He let his shoulders relax. “What the hell is going on?”

  * * * * *

  A figure appeared in the doorway.

  “Come,” Phoenix said to her. “Come meet Griffin.”

  He went to the person. The men embraced like long-time friends, but still men—arms and upper body only.

  “Good to see you.” Phoenix pounded the as-yet-unseen man on the back. All Rachel saw were a pair of tanned hands covered in blond hair and the outline of a sneaker.

  Then Phoenix pulled back, beckoning Rachel in. She hurried through the door, wanting the protection of the hilly residence. It was only when all three of them were safely inside that she turned to the second man.

  She was facing another Elemental. This one was as stunning if not even better looking than Phoenix. He was tall but not as tall as Phoenix. At a height she estimated at six foot two, he was two inches shorter than the other man. Straight dark-golden-blond hair hung past his shoulders. One long, thin braid snaked down his back. Wings poked around the sides of his body, their butter-yellow feathers appearing as soft as Phoenix’s. Classically handsome features spoke of a Northern Italian or European heritage. Wearing a black cloak, he reminded her of the characters in the TV series Highlander. All he needed was a sword.

  There was something different about Griffin, but not in the same way Phoenix was differ
ent. She caught a glimpse of cat…no…of something unique to Griffin, lurking under his surface. Now that she knew how to look, she could see the otherness in him, as well as an overlay of the striking man she saw.

  “Please tell me the other Elementals are average, or ugly?”

  “Scusi,” said the new blond. “We’re all fantastically good-looking. And modest.”

  “Rachel, this is Griffin. He’s the air Elemental.”

  Even as they shook hands, Rachel tried to remember what the Griffin stood for. She filtered through every mythology class she’d ever taken before she remembered. Griffins were half lion, half eagle, she thought, and were supposedly exalted creatures. They drew the chariot of the sun, at least in legend.

  Well, he was blond. It was fitting.

  She let her gaze run over his entire body. His nose had a faint hooked quality, and he moved like a lion.

  “Shouldn’t you guys have to wear something that says you change into mythical creatures?” Her smile took the sting out of her words. “Nice to meet you, Griffin. Meeting not just one but two Elementals, beings I’ve never heard of, and getting chased and confronting a pack of werewolves and other nonhumans has certainly livened up my week.”

  Griffin shook his head, the blond locks flying. “I liked women better when they had to obey their lord and master,” he said with a smile that wasn’t quite sincere.

  He seemed more hard-edged than Phoenix, a little rougher. Shouldn’t it have been the reverse, if the legends were true? Griffins were noble beasts and the Phoenix bathed in fire.

  “You haven’t learned how to shield properly, have you, carina?”

  “Give her a break, Griff. It’s been less than a day. She’s had a lot to handle.”

  Rachel slipped away from Phoenix. Her head had started to pound, but she wasn’t sure if it was from the effort of trying to take all this in or a simple need for more coffee. “I’m sure this isn’t a social call, so don’t let me get in your way. Griffin, can I make you some coffee? Or don’t griffins drink coffee?”