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“The same one where you doused me, Elliott, and Mabel, yes. Anyway, he could tell I was a shifter but didn’t mention ituntil we got close to the forests. Then he started telling me about some shady things going on at the military base. He wasn’t sure what they were doing, but he knew that it involved people with abilities.”

“Wait, I thought you said that that’s something that companies have been trying to exploit more recently?”

“No, companies and the military have been trying to weaponize abilities for at least a millennium. It’s only recently that they’ve moved into experiments that destroy the people with abilities. Somewhere along the way, they’ve lost their minds because by destroying people with abilities, they destroy the abilities. They can’t be harvested.”

“That should be obvious.”

“Fools never learn. Anyway, your brother went out trying to figure out what they were doing to people who ‘graduated’ from the program. The next thing I knew, he was dead.”

“Do you think they knew about his abilities?”

“I doubt it. Humans don’t seem to realize it isn’t just women, so they probably never even considered that he could be capable of anything beyond being a soldier. And they didn’t think he was particularly good at that.”

“I’m sure he was amazing! How can anyone talk about Evan like—"

Phoenix put a hand on her as she was getting more upset while struggling to put on a pair of pants. “Astrid, he wasn’t a fighter. He was amazing at most things, but Evander wasn’t a fighter.”

“No,” she said and stopped struggling. “He really wasn’t. I have no idea why he chose the military.”

“Evander told me that he’d had a fight with your father, and he joined out of anger.”

“That doesn’t seem like Evan.”

Phoenix smiled at her. “Oh, he had a temper. I think that he hid it from you pretty well. Or maybe I just saw a side of him that was a bit bitter after fighting and seeing people die. I know the things that were being done to women upset him, too. I’m pretty sure that was because he was afraid you would be found and dragged off. He talked about you a lot, you know.”

Astrid dropped the pants and walked over to Phoenix. Placing her head on his chest, she said, “I miss him. All of these years later, and I really miss him.”

Phoenix hugged her. “I do, too. And we always will.” He stepped away. “But right now, we need to get moving.”

Astrid looked at him, then nodded. “Right. Right. Hold on, I just need a few seconds to finish.” She sat on the ground and slid both pant legs up at the same time. “Do you know what happened to him?”

“He tried to enter one of the company’s facilities after hours. I don’t know exactly what happened—I’m a civilian who had no business with that project, so I wasn’t told anything. It was enough for me to know he was dead, and by the time I was done grieving for him, things had changed. The military covered up his death because they didn’t want to lose the potential. It did cause a serious rift between the military and the company, though, and it’s really only in the last couple of years that they’ve tried to mend that relationship, I think because of the potential exposed by the Mora experiments. Until that happened, there really wasn’t much of a threat since the military didn’t trust the company.”

Astrid felt her anger starting to bubble up, but she worked to keep it under control. The best thing to do was to act, not rage someplace far removed from the problem. “Ok. I’m dressed.” In the back of her mind, she was thinking about work and how she needed to let them know, but Astrid quickly dismissed evenopening her mouth about it. If she had to apologize, then she would—right now, what mattered was staying close to Phoenix.

He moved over, easily lifting her off the floor, then said something loudly to the room at large. There was a rumbling, and suddenly, the ceiling started to open above them. “Does the whole thing open?”

“It has to. This is part of the ring of fire. If there’s an earthquake, I have to get out quickly.”

“How on earth could you—"

Her question was quickly answered as Phoenix shifted into his dragon form. “Oh, right. That’s handy.”

The next thing she knew, he flew them out of the mostly destroyed room and into the sky.

Chapter 13

Avenging Angel

The feel of the wind against Astrid’s body was terrifying, mostly because she had no control over what was happening. That had never happened before. Closing her eyes, she leaned forward on the broad back of the most splendid creature she’d ever seen and focused on the feel of him under her. His movements were smooth, and he didn’t do anything that caused her discomfort, but Astrid couldn’t ignore the fact that she was moving through the air with nothing between Phoenix and a long fall to her death.

When she felt him touch down on the ground, she was more than ready to get her feet back on land.

She wobbled a little, and Phoenix gripped her shoulders. “Are you ok? Are you having a bad reaction because of the electrical currents?”

“No, not at all. I’m feeling rather thankful to be on the ground.”

He looked at her. “I wish I could offer to let you stay here and—"