Forever Burning (7 page)

Archer let a disdainful chuckle escape his lips.

It caused Tate’s attention to focus on him. “And you.” Again, Tate pointed a finger. “Stop being such a dick. We will get Scarlet back. It’s not something you need to face on your own. So you can stop behaving like a child and man up.”

He took turns looking at both men on the ground.

“Can we let you up now? Will you behave like adults?”

Archer nodded, and when Heath lifted his weight, Archer sat up slowly, wiping the blood from his nose and split lip.

Dimi was still puffing out air, his demon form close to taking over, but he sat up and kept his distance from Archer.

Tate dipped his head, and his shoulders relaxed a bit. “Good.”

The others stepped back from where they’d been hovering, waiting for the fight to start again.

“We’ve debriefed you, Dimi. Now, we all need some rest so we can face these problems with clear heads.”

“Agreed,” Heath said. “We’ve been up too long and fighting too hard. Zane, when you get up, meet me in the library so we can start finding some answers.”

Zane nodded. “Sure.”

“Give Trinity a call,” Dimi rumbled. “She might know something more about phoenix lore than we do.”

“I’ll do that,” Sophia volunteered.

“We meet back here tomorrow evening and see what we’ve found out.” Tate turned and walked to the door. “Get some rest, and I’m not asking—I’m
telling
.”

Chapter Seven

Pacing like a caged animal in front of the windows, Scarlet fought the sense of frustration that crawled through her bones.

“You are going to wear out the stone if you keep that up,” Ath said from her bed near the window.

Scarlet stopped and turned to Ath. “I’m sorry. I don’t know what’s gotten into me.”

“The moon is full tonight,” Kell explained, and Scarlet drew in her breath.

That was what the restlessness in her body was.

“We haven’t been allowed out of the building the entire time I’ve been here, so how are they going to let us change and run?”

“They aren’t,” was Ath’s succinct reply.

“What?” Scarlet gaped in horror at the thought of being locked up.

Two women opened the massive double doors of their bedroom and stepped in, which interrupted Scarlet’s query.

“It is time,” one spoke in a throaty voice.

“Time for what?” Scarlet was sick of taking orders from this bunch, and she was ready to rebel in a big way, but a warning look from Ath made her shut her mouth with a snap.

Ath seemed to be trying to convey that now was not the time for them to act.

Forcing her impatience into a mental box, Scarlet tried for an outward show of composure.

“Come, lie on your bed. We are going to put your animal at rest for the duration of the moon.”

The urge to argue was tantamount to undeniable. Her Lycan wanted nothing to do with someone shackling her in any form. It wanted to run. It missed Archer’s wolf with a sharp ache that matched Scarlet’s longing for her werewolf, and it wanted to run to escape that ache.

Got news for you...don’t think that plan will work,
Scarlet told her wolf, only to have it respond with a roar of denial.

Scarlet suspected one of the women heard her inner creature’s roar, because she tilted her head and her eyes flashed emerald green.

Be quiet.
Scarlet breathed deep, hoping to quell her beast’s objections.

“Come and lie on your bed,” the woman repeated. The other women in her room had each lain down on their backs, looking like a little row of coffin-bound corpses as they closed their eyes.

“What are you going to do?” Scarlet asked, but then moved towards her bed.

“Nothing that will harm you, child,” the second woman spoke, sounding as motherly as her words made her seem.

“We will put you to sleep for the duration of the moon. That way, your beasts will be harnessed.”

Scarlet felt a flash of a plan develop. “You mean everyone in the building goes to sleep during the full moon?”

The motherly phoenix chuckled, and it was a warm sound.

“No, dearest. Only those phoenix that are governed by the pull of the moon.”

“There are some that aren’t?” Scarlet sat down on her bed, taking her time so she could pull some answers out of these women. She had the kernel of a plan forming in her mind.

“Yes, some of us have animal forms that aren’t governed by the moon, and those are the ones that stand guard while the rest sleep.

Damn, there goes that plan.

Scarlet admitted momentary defeat, and lay down like the others, closing her eyes.

“Sleep well, dearests.”

Scarlet heard those last words before she drew herself down into a deep sleep where her wolf ran through her dreams.

Scarlet woke refreshed as if she had slept for a month, not a night. Voices in a quiet argument had woken her and she stretched, then sat up.

“You can’t show her that,” someone hissed.

“Yes I can. She’s our ticket out of here, Angelica, and I’m sure I don’t need to remind you that if you don’t get out of here soon, you are going to find yourself bred and fat with some thrope’s spawn,” Ath hissed back.

Scarlet cleared her throat. “I don’t mean to be rude or anything, but you were arguing about showing me something.”

Angelica threw her hands up, and stomped off to the other side of the room.

“You have awakened.” Ath smiled broadly. “Good, do you feel refreshed?”

Scarlet gritted her teeth at the formality of Ath’s speech, then plastered a smile on her face. “Had weird dreams.”

Dani snorted. “That would be the fever.”

“Fever?” Scarlet asked with a frown.

“Scarlet, I have a question to ask you, and you have to be completely honest with me, okay?” Ath moved closer to Scarlet’s bed and sat on the foot of it.

“Okay, ask and I’ll answer honestly.” Scarlet was frowning again. She had a feeling this was leading somewhere serious, and that she wasn’t going to like the question.

“Were you and Archer together?” The words spilled from Ath’s mouth in a rush.

Scarlet’s frown deepened, drawing her brows down. “Yes I told you that he saved me from the enforcers. That’s how we met—”

“No…” Ath let it trail off and paused for a breath. “Were you and Archer…Intimate?”

Scarlet felt her cheeks turn red. “What has that got to do with anything?”

Kell and Dani walked closer to the bed. “We suspect that Archer is your
Wolf
.”

Scarlet was confused and it must have shown because Dani supplied an explanation. “We think Archer has mated you, that you are his
She.
”

“What makes you think something ridiculous like that?” Scarlet remembered Archer talking about his
She
being someone else. She recalled the jealousy she felt because of it, and was even more embarrassed that these women thought that she might be Archer’s mate.

“Whatever Archer and I did or didn’t do is beside the point. I’m not his mate, and what makes you think that, anyway?”

“The fever,” Dani said with a shrug.

“There we go with frigging fever talk again. Can you lot spit out what you are trying to say and get it over with?”

They ignored her for a moment. “Which side would it be?” Ath asked.

“Left.” Kell nodded. “Yes, on the left side if I remember our studies right.”

“Can I check something quick, Scarlet?” Ath asked, and Scarlet frowned but before she could say anything in reply, Ath pulled the left shoulder side of Scarlet’s robe down.

There was a collective gasp amongst the women.

“What? What’s there?” Scarlet peered down to try and see, but she couldn’t see anything. She got off the bed and walked through the closet to the bathroom until she faced the bathroom mirror. She leaned in closer to make sure her eyes were not deceiving her. There was a small black symbol just under her left collar bone. It looked like a tattoo, but Scarlet knew she’d never had a tattoo done. Why hadn’t she noticed it before?

“Did the other phoenix do this to me while I was sleeping?” she asked the women who had trailed after her into the bathroom.

“No,” Ath answered. “It’s a rune. It’s a word.”

“What does it say?” Scarlet leaned over the basin to get even closer to the mirror.

The women were quiet, so Scarlet turned to look at them. “What does it say?”

Ath was the one to answer her question. “It says,
Archer of the Lycan
.”

Scarlet felt her jaw unhinge as she was shocked into momentary silence. “How did it get there?”

“Archer put it there when you mated, silly.” Dani grinned. “Must have been really good, if you don’t remember him marking you,” she added.

Scarlet remembered him telling her to listen to him, that he had something important to say, but she’d been so mindless with need at that point, she didn’t pay much attention.

“Does this mean…”

“That you are Archer’s
She
? Yes. You are mated to Archer of the Lycan.”

“And it explains the fever.” Angelica added from the doorway. “You will have to show her.”

“What do you mean, Angelica?”

The woman turned and walked out of the bathroom.

“What does she mean?”

“The phoenix sent to fetch you wasn’t using her brain.” Ath shook her head.

Scarlet was about to demand some answers when Ath spoke again. “A mated pair cannot be separated for long, or they will both deteriorate, getting ill to the point of death.”

“Unless the bond is broken, and it’s obvious that your bond to Archer is strong,” Kell interjected.

“So, what you are telling me is that I had a fever while I slept because I’m getting sick? And I’m getting sick because I’m separated from Archer?”

Ath nodded. “That’s exactly what we are saying. Seeing him in the rift helped a little, but we have a way that you can contact him and speak to him. That will stave off your illness a little longer.”

Scarlet’s heart sped up at the mention of being able to talk to Archer and for a moment, she forgot everything she’d just been told.

She wanted to speak to Archer so badly that her chest constricted with anticipation at the thought of being able to hear his voice. She wanted some explanations, too. Why had he lied to her about his
She
? Why had he made her his mate without even asking her? He’d put her life in danger—no, screw that. He’d bound her to him without so much as a
can I
? Her longing to talk to Archer morphed into anger at his high handedness. She belonged to no one. He’d had no right to mark her.

But you love him, so this is good.

Her inner voice had a point. Scarlet amended her anger to a mild pique. Okay, so she had the guy she was in love with, abs, that was good, but every girl wanted the fairytale or a proposal, at least? She was right to be angry, and he was going to spend a lot of time making it up to her. A
lot
of time.

“Calm down, Scarlet.”

Ath’s voice snapped like a rat trap in her ears. Scarlet looked down and saw her hands were aflame.

“Anger will do you no good now. It’s been done. I know you are the type of person who wants to have their own will, but the truth is, in our world, there is always someone trying to steal your will. You got lucky.”

“Lucky? How can you say I got lucky?” The fire climbed up her arms.

Ath stepped even closer to Scarlet and she was angry. “You found a Lycan male who cares enough to make you his. That means you are his to protect and he is yours to protect. We don’t have that luxury.”

Scarlet could see the tiniest flames peek from Ath’s fingertips.

“We get bred by whoever the council decrees will breed us. There is no love in our lives, and once our children are born, the council takes them away from us—all for the good of the race. So, to use one of your terms,
suck it up,
and deal with it, because you got lucky.” Ath stepped back and seemed to reach for her composure. She smoothed her robes with the palms of her hands and spoke again. “Now, did you want to speak to your
Wolf
, or would you rather sicken and die before we can get you back to him?”

Scarlet felt a sense of deep shame, and she hung her head. “I’m sorry, Ath. I never realized.”

The other woman reached out and pinched Scarlet’s chin between her thumb and forefinger, lifting Scarlet’s face. “It’s okay. We all wig out now and then, but I had to get you back, because we are depending on you to save us from this place.”

“We want our freedom too, Scarlet,” Kell agreed.

Scarlet took in a deep breath and nodded. “Okay, show me how to talk to that stubborn wolf. I’ll wait till I’m face to face with him to give him a piece of my mind.”

Ath nodded and turned, leading the way back to the dormitory room.

“I stole this mirror last week. I had a feeling we would need it,” Kell said, looking back over her shoulder as she went to her knees next to her bed and reached under it for the mirror.

“Where did you steal it from?” Scarlet asked.

“Remember when we were in etiquette class?”

“Yes, how could I forget?” She hated the classes they had to attend, but she hated the etiquette class the most. It was boring in the extreme and she kept getting told about her way of speaking. In Scarlet’s opinion, if the
teacher
didn’t like the way Scarlet spoke, then she shouldn’t ask her to answer any questions.

“Yes, have to agree there, but I asked to be excused for the bathroom. I stopped in the flame hall and liberated this.”

Kell pulled out something that was swathed in material. She sat back on her backside and crossed her legs, pulling the object into her lap.

Kell started to unwrap the item and Scarlet saw that it was a mirror encased in an ornate ebony frame. “You stole
that
mirror?”

“This is a special mirror. We can use it to communicate with the other side.”

“Like a two way radio?”

“Exactly.” Kell patted the floor next to Scarlet. “Come sit.”