“He’s decent,” I say, amused, and Luciana cautiously opens her eyes again.
Dane self-consciously adjusts the blanket around him, scowling at both of us, embarrassed and angry by the situation.
“Come on, let’s get this over with,” he huffs, and stalks from the room.
I help Luciana to her feet. A spark runs through my arm, and I fight not to jerk backwards as she stands. I’m suddenly very aware of just how close she actually is, and she looks up at me. There’s heat emanating from her body, and part of me just wants to lean in and…
“Warwick!” Dane calls from the other room, irritated.
I cough awkwardly and step backward. Luciana looks at me, her eyes dark and intense, before she sweeps from the room, leaving me with little choice but to follow her.
Dane sits stiffly on Luciana’s couch, and I feel the same relief that I had felt when he had first opened his eyes. I had known, of course, that he would return to life. It was just what we did. But that didn’t mean I was unaffected by watching him fall as the bullet slammed into him, or by the blood that had covered him and the ground around him.
I mentally shake myself. I can think about all that later. For now, I just need to focus on Luciana and what we need to tell her now.
I join Dane on the couch and Luciana sits in an armchair and stares at us.
“So?” Luciana asks, finally breaking the silence. She gestures to the two of us. “What the hell just happened?”
“We’re phoenixes,” I tell her.
I expect some disbelief or even amazement. Perhaps even humour until she realises that we’re actually telling the truth and not joking around. I’m not prepared for the way her eyes light up in comprehension.
“Human phoenixes?” she asks, awed. “My father said they were incredibly rare and almost extinct.”
“How do you know of phoenixes?” Dane demands.
“My father apparently made it his life’s work to track down and save many different species of mythical creatures,” Luciana says, sitting back. “He once looked after a cat phoenix, which disappeared not long after he brought it into his care.”
Dane and I look at each other, startled. Two years ago, a cat phoenix had suddenly joined us and slotted right in with her own kind. Had she perhaps come from this farm, sensing that there was a place nearby where she would fit in better?
I glance back at Luciana. Suddenly, the presence of the Peryton makes far more sense. She must have several other animals that I didn’t see that day.
“And you inherited everything?” Dane asks, a bite in his words that tells me that he is definitely not sold on trusting Luciana.
“Yes,” Luciana says with a grimace. “Not that I knew anything before I came here. I lived in Brazil before this, though I travelled all across the world with Doctors Without Borders.”
That explains her accent. And ties in with her claims that she’s a doctor.
“What did you do with them?” I ask, interested.
“I was a toxicologist,” she explains. She shakes her head. “Anyway, why are you guys in Mundaring?”
“Hiding from Supernaturals and Hunters,” I say.
“Warwick!” Dane hisses.
“What?” I demand. “It’s a bit late to keep things hidden, now.”
“What are Supernaturals?” Luciana asks, looking between us.
“Supernaturals are a sort of hunter that captures, tortures and enslaves beings like us,” I say. “Unlike Hunters, who just kill us for pride.”
“But you guys can’t die, right?” Luciana asks, frowning.
“We can, but there’s only two ways to do it,” I say, ignoring the glare Dane is boring into the side of my head. “Through the claws of another phoenix, or from a dagger magically imbued with the poison from a phoenix’s claws.”
Part of me knows that this is stupid. But there is something that has drawn me to Luciana from the moment we first met. I cannot deny this pull, and I find that I don’t want to.
“Poison?” Luciana asks, interested. “Is there an antidote to it?”
“Not as far as we know,” Dane says.
There’s a thoughtful look on Luciana’s face. I’m amazed how well she has taken all this, after her initial shock. Perhaps it just hasn’t completely sunk in yet. If I was Dane, I would be suspicious; I can already see the way his eyes are narrowing at her.
But I can’t bring myself to distrust her. I’m not sure why. But, as I watch her, her mind obviously racing, there is not any part of me that worries about her motives.
It takes me a moment to realise what is happening. My breath catches in my throat and I fight to keep my face straight as my heart pounds while Luciana asks Dane more about the poison, much to his annoyance. One of the first things we learnt, as young phoenixes, were about mates. We all knew that there was only one other in the world who would be able to draw us in, body and soul, and we would know almost instantly.
Luciana, I slowly understand in shock, is my mate.
Dane is going to kill me.
Luciana
It’s only after Warwick and Dane have left that the shock I’ve managed to keep at bay finally swamps me. I slump down into my armchair, staring unseeingly at the unlit fireplace, a beer hanging loosely from my hand.
Phoenixes, poisons and people coming back to life… my mind is spinning with it all. I can hardly believe any of it is real.
But I know it is. I’ve seen the impossible every day since I came to this farm. My neighbours turning out to be human phoenixes probably shouldn’t be so much of a shock. It isn’t like I would have ever known if this hadn’t happened. They’re incredibly good at hiding themselves.
And, from what they told me, they would have had to be. They didn’t say much about their pasts, but it was clear, from the way that their expressions twisted as they spoke of the Supernaturals, that they had had run ins with them in the past. Had they seen someone die by poison?
I don’t know how long I sit there, thinking. But, as the night gets deeper and I know I should think about at least trying to get some sleep, I hear a hard knock on the door.
I glance at the clock, wondering if I had just imagined. It’s after midnight. It’s crazy that everything had changed so much in just a few scant hours. The knock comes again, and I stand warily, putting my empty bottle down with the other two I’ve consumed. Just recently I had had poachers come onto my property to steal my animals, and try to shoot me when I interrupted them. A knock on my door after midnight surely can’t mean anything good.
I almost don’t answer it. But then there’s a third knock, this one sounding more desperate, and I remember what Dane and Warwick said about being hunted. Were they in trouble?
I crack my front door open, tense and ready to grab the fire poker sitting against the umbrella stand, and then throw it open when I see Warwick there.
“Warwick,” I say urgently. “Is everything alright?”
My mind is still geared for fight after the evening that we’ve just suffered through. And Warwick looks wretched, though he tries to smile.
“Sorry,” he says. “I can’t sleep.”
Not in trouble then. I relax and frown. So why was he here and not at home, looking after Dane?