Page 5 of Phoenix Fated (The Phoenix Guardians #4)

JACKSON

“ W hat did you call it again?” Dustin asks me as I work the tip of the nail into the hinge binding his wrist shackles together.

"Omega," I say.

"Omega," he repeats. "And only an alpha can get us pregnant? Why?"

"I don't know," I mutter. "It's like a rank, I guess. And just so we're completely clear, this thing just suddenly popped up inside of me after I got dropped into this world. What happened to us was some immaculate conception shit. There was no 'alpha' involved, alright?"

He nods.

"It's a miracle I didn't completely lose my mind during the month I was alone in the woods. Watching my belly getting bigger every day was like something out of a damn horror movie. How did you manage?"

Dustin stares right through me. I feel his hands shaking through the shackles.

"Hey, hey, it's all good," I tell him. "Forget I asked. You survived, and that's what matters. We shouldn't be here, but we are, and we're alive."

"Here is a lot better than where I came from," Dustin says with a small, but surprisingly defiant voice.

The holding pin finally pushes free from the hinge, and I snatch it before it hits the wood floor.

"Done," I say, breaking the shackles off Dustin's wrists. "Alright. You ready to get out of here?"

"Yes."

"Good."

I have a plan.

Dustin has given me a crucial piece of info—there's a way off of this thing.

I was dragged aboard via an extending rope ladder dropped over the side when the ship was hovering at very low altitude—impossible for us to use unless we just so happen to be flying over a pit filled with down feather pillows—but Dustin was taken aboard in another ship, a smaller vessel that we've nicknamed "the buzzer" because of the noise Dustin says it makes.

All we have to do is find this thing...and figure out how to make it work. No problem.

I crawl quietly to the door. Just like on the shackles, its lock is archaic and takes just a few seconds to figure out how to break it. I put my eye up to the key hole. It's a hallway. I can't see if there's a guard.

The nail in my palm is like a railroad spike, except smaller. Roughly forged, thick as a pencil on one end with a taper to a point, and five inches long. The worst description if you're talking about your dick, but pretty awesome when it comes to a stealth weapon.

Keeping my eye to the hole, I slowly maneuver the latch and crack the door, waiting to see activity on the other side. Nothing. I pull the door open and peek out, keeping my head low. Clear.

"Stick close to me," I tell Dustin. "If we encounter a threat, and let's assume that will happen, then get your back against the closest wall or behind cover. That will limit angles of attack."

"Okay," he says. "Um, Jackson? What if they come from both sides?"

"Just stick close to me. Hand on my shoulder, so I know you're there."

We enter the hallway, cramped and dimly lit by flickering oil lanterns hanging from iron hooks stuck into the wall planks. A mouse pokes its head out from a hole and scurries along the floor away from us as we proceed forward to the T junction at the end of the hallway.

They'd brought me in from the left, but Dustin in from the right. I can retrace the left pathway in my mind, all the way back to the top deck. The right path is a blank, but that's where we have to go. Into the darkness.

The pulsing beat of the ship's engine, or whatever it is, gets louder as we approach the junction.

I press my right palm against the wall and feel the growing vibration.

I peek around the corner. Another empty hallway, but this one has several open passageways along it.

Lamplight glimmers from the first entrance, and I freeze when the shadow of a wolfman plays across the wall.

Slowly, carefully, I slide up to the entranceway.

I can just make out two voices now, growling and yapping over the engine noise.

Dustin's fingers dig into my shoulder. I motion with my palm—" Quiet, relax.

" He only squeezes harder. He's shaking in fear.

I drop to one knee and peek around the frame. There are four armed wolves sitting at a table inside what looks like a storeroom. Along two walls are slanted racks with three levels of terra cotta jars sitting on piles of straw, secured with lengths of rope tied around their slender necks.

Dustin shrinks to the floor with his eyes squeezed shut. He's breathing hard and muttering something I can't hear.

Fuck. This would be so much easier if it were just me.

I take a deep breath, and the twinge of frustration settles for the moment. Not all of us are built to be warriors, nor should we be. I'm afraid too, I've just learned to hide it better.

But if this guy gets us both killed...

The wolves laugh about something. One slams his palm repeatedly on the table, cackling with laughter. Their conversation is finished. One stands up— and looks directly at the door.

I pull back and nearly fall onto my ass. Jesus Christ, did he see me?

I can feel the thump of their steps through the wooden floor, and the groaning scrape of a chair being moved. I try to push Dustin back, but he refuses to move. He's frozen in place, clutching my shoulder and the back of my shirt.

I see the wolf's profile in shadow on the wall, his ears perked high. Then I hear him say, "I think my eyes are playing tricks on me."

Double fuck.

Thump. Thump. Thump .

The heavy footsteps grow closer. I flip the nail in my fist to a jabbing position. The best chance I have is to stay crouched and take them by surprise, but son of a bitch, going up against four hostiles like this is going to require a goddamn miracle.

The wolf's shadow shrinks into focus as he nears the entranceway. My mind races through the possible scenarios of how this could play out, and I realize that none of them can end well.

There must be a way out of this. All of my training, experience and instinct , is telling me to look harder and find the one little piece that I'm missing.

I see McScott in my mind's eye, staring at me as enemy suppressing fire peppers the cinderblock wall we're sheltering behind.

"Bird!" he shouts. "Do me a favor and sort this mess out, yeah?"

I turn away from the memory—and then I feel it, a little pull inside of my chest and my fingertips, just like the tug of a fridge magnet getting close to a piece of metal. My powers. There's material I can control in that room.

The terra cotta jars.

I reach out with my powers, recalling the tedious hours I spent practicing in my hideout, manipulating rock, clay and soil into different shapes and forms. I don't know why, but the jars are not as easy to control, maybe because they're not raw material.

They're heavy and dense, but I can still feel them. All I need to do is get one to move...

And then I do it. Something shatters from inside the room.

"Fuck! The wine!"

"What the hell did you do?"

"Nothing!"

I grab the collar of Dustin's shirt and haul him after me as I dip past the door, snagging a glance at the chaos inside.

The guards are all desperately trying to plug up the bottom of one of the jars as red wine flows over their hands, drenching their clothes and the floor.

Then the hole completely crumbles apart, and the entire contents gush out everywhere.

Fuck yeah.

We hurry to the end of the hallway, which becomes an elevated walkway crossing through a large room. The noise is intense. It's like a huge subwoofer thumping its lowest tone. My eyeballs are vibrating.

I pause for a moment to check the corners.

There are two ladders on either side of the walkway going down about fifteen feet to an area below.

Above, the intricate framework of the ship is exposed, spearing outwards from the ceiling into the walls.

There's a mural painted all along the length of the wall, but I don't take time to look at it.

My attention is on the thing at the center of the room that looks like a big stone pizza oven.

No guards, probably on account of the noise.

What is that thing?

I glance back at Dustin to make sure he hasn't melted into a puddle. He's also focused on the pizza oven. He looks at me questioningly. I shake my head. My guess is as good as his.

We walk to the center of the platform. There's an opening on one side of it, shimmering with a strange light.

It's definitely some kind of furnace, just like the big boilers they used to use to power trains and steamships.

Except here there's no coal, no steam, no heat, just that chest thumping, brain melting sound.

But no, there's something else. There's something weirdly familiar about the light coming from that thing.

Looking at it makes my skin crawl, and yet I'm drawn to it.

The closer I get, the more the sound intensifies around me, and the light is pulsing along with it.

The rhythm feels wrong, like a heartbeat going backwards.

That feeling. It's like the same as when I use my powers. Same spot, same sensation, except...twisted, somehow.

Moving closer to the opening, I can see what's making the light, and my stomach turns.

Feathers. Dozens of feathers suspended in some kind of crystalline structure, and they pulse with each thrum of the ship's furnace, their light draining away only to slowly fill in again, like they're being wrung out and squeezed of all their essence.

My god , they're beautiful, and somehow, I know exactly what they are.

"Phoenix feathers. These are fucking phoenix feathers." My voice is immediately eaten by the surrounding noise. I know Dustin can't hear me, but it doesn't matter. I'm pretty damn sure he can feel exactly what I feel. It's a part of him, just like it's a part of me.

A cold weight settles in my stomach.