Beauty in Ashes (Phoenix Rising #7)- Harper Wylde Page 0,1

into the eyes of my other mates, Barrett, Donovan, and Cayden.

“I love you all,” I told them with a smile as they caressed me.

Ciarán tossed me into the arms of my bears, making me squeal and laugh. “Then let us worship you, mate, for all the time we have.” I was definitely not fool enough to say no to that kind of offer, and I let them take me, pleasure washing away my worries as we all exhausted ourselves once again. For tonight, the future didn’t matter. For tonight, there was no war, no plots, no debts owed. Tonight was for myself and my mates, and I was going to enjoy every moment of it.

One

Nix

Sending people an invitation to their death took self-centered, passive aggressive behavior to an extreme I never would have believed existed. I tapped the embossed card against my head, leaning back in my chair as I stared down at the elegant script scrawled across the thick paper.

“You ready, sweetheart?” Damien rumbled in my ear, and I angled my head to look up at him with a sigh. His dark eyes searched mine, but he didn’t push, waiting for me to reach out to him rather than tearing at my mental walls to dig for my thoughts and emotions.

I held out my hand for his, tugging him down for a quick kiss. “Just waiting for you,” I murmured, before pushing to my feet and setting the card aside. Nerves gnawed at my stomach as Damien led me from the room and toward the prison we had set up.

It had been two weeks since our stronghold had been invaded by Birdman carrying this invitation to our so-called demise—not to mention dropping a bomb on all of us by claiming I was Stepanov’s daughter. A shudder raced across my skin, and my Phoenix screeched both her denial of the possibility and her fury at the hybrid who had invaded our sanctuary.

I had expected him to attack, to lash out with the poison he had used on me before, but he had simply settled into a seat and waited for us to read the invitation before we dealt with him. He hadn’t fought, hadn’t spoken, had simply allowed himself to be bound and taken hostage without complaint—not that he had much to complain about really. We weren’t cruel like they had been to me. Theo had taken blood samples and scans of the other shifter in an attempt to figure out what he was, but we hadn’t tortured the man—we didn’t need to, not with Damien. Or at least that was what we’d first believed.

Damien had tried over and over to search the hybrid’s mind, to question him, with no success, much to his frustration. “I still don’t like this,” Killian muttered, stepping up beside us as we walked.

“None of us do,” Damien replied shortly. “But she’s the only constant in his mind. If I can’t find something I can use as a focus, I can’t search him.” A grimace worked its way across his handsome face, and I stroked my hand down his arm.

“Hey, it’s okay,” I soothed, reaching out my other hand to repeat the gesture on Killian, trying to comfort both my mates. “You’ll all be there, right?” I reminded them. “Nothing’s going to happen.”

“I don’t understand his mind.” Damien’s eyes were slightly unfocused, though his feet never faltered in their path. “It’s like I’m looking at the minds of multiple people at once, and none of them are whole or stable.” I squeezed his hand, encouraging him as he tried to sort it out. Theo, Ryder, Hiro, and Joshua were waiting for us outside of the sealed rooms that served as our prison, and I offered them a smile, unwilling to interrupt Damien’s train of thought to greet them all.

“So he’s insane.” My blunt bunny didn’t pull any punches, especially when it came to his family’s safety.

Damien made a noise in his throat. “I’m not sure he’s sane, but I can’t say he’s insane either.”

“What do you mean?” Theo asked, adjusting his glasses even as he ignored the lock of dark blond hair that fell over his forehead.

“I was inside Ishida’s mind,” Damien began, reaching up to rub his temple. “I’ve been inside the minds of others once they have shattered. That’s exactly what happens—they truly shatter, like a mirror against stone. His mind is nothing like that. I’ve never experienced anything like it.”

“You mean he’s like Ciarán?” Ryder mused, running a hand through the purple