Chapter Sixteen

They lay in bed together the rest of the afternoon, making love again, and solidifying the fragile new bonds between them. Stone continued to show her new heights to which he could drive her passion, and for her part, Diana began to tingle in every part of her being. It was a gentle buzz at first, but as they lay together in the aftermath of the best sex she’d ever had, she started to feel distinctly strange.

Her vision flared again, into the shiny energy patterns, but this time, it wasn’t painful. Maybe she was getting used to it?

Unable to stay still any longer, she got up and padded into the en suite bathroom. She splashed cold water on her face and cleaned up a bit in other ways, but it didn’t help. The itch under her skin grew wilder, and fire started licking through her veins. Outside the small window in the bathroom, she could see that it was much later in the day than she’d thought. The sun was riding low on the horizon, sunset truly coming on in all its glory, painting the desert in reds, golds and oranges.

“Everything all right?” Her lover’s voice came to her as if from far away, but she registered the warmth of his presence behind her as she stood, transfixed, at the window.

“I need…” She shook her head and tried again. “I need to be out there,” she told him. “I need to feel the last rays of this day’s sun on my feathers.”

 

Feathers? Had she really just said feathers? And did she even realize what she’d just said?

Damn.

“Okay, love,” Stone crooned to her, lifting her in his arms and walking as fast as he could to the back of the house and the door that would lead…either to a beautiful destiny…or his deepest despair.

He pushed the handle downward with the edge of his hand and kicked the door open. Then, they were outside, in the heat of the dying day. Hopefully, that would be the only thing dying tonight.

Stone sensed her crisis was near. Whatever the trigger, her phoenix wanted out, and he sensed it was about to show itself in a big way. He only prayed their new bonds were strong enough to bring her back once she’d tasted the freedom of flight.

Stone set her on her feet on the patio behind his house. He liked to sleep out here in his wolf form sometimes, so the area was tiled and kept neat. She’d be okay barefoot, as long as she stayed to the patio area.

She wore only his discarded shirt, which she’d thrown on when she’d headed for the bathroom. He’d liked that little show of modesty. And he liked even more that she’d covered herself with his scent. That meant something special to shifters. Especially wolves.

“The sun is setting,” she whispered, leaning back against him as he looped his arms loosely around her waist.

They were both facing the setting sun. She was watching it, as if the brightness of its rays could do her no harm. Stone was watching her, knowing she held his future in her hands. All would be decided within minutes, he reckoned.

“You want to chase it, don’t you?” he asked, knowing he’d never voiced a more important, or difficult, question.

Slowly, she nodded. “It calls me.”

He released her and moved around to stand in front of her, momentarily blocking her view of the setting sun. He had to get through to her before she took off. He might never see her again after, and if so, he wanted her to know… So much. Too much to say in such a short moment out of time.

But he had to try.

“This is a big step, love,” he said quietly, holding her gaze. He could see flames leaping in the depths of her eyes, and he knew she was close to becoming what she had always been meant to be. “Just please remember that I’m waiting here, on the ground, for you. I want you to come back. No. I need you to come back. My life would be forever incomplete without you.”

Water filled her eyes for a short moment but was quickly burned off. “I feel the same about you, Adam,” she whispered. “But I really have to…do…something…right now.”

As he watched, her entire body clenched, as if in pain. He knew first timers had a hard time shifting sometimes. It was up to him to show her the way.

He kissed her forehead and let her go completely. “Watch me, Diana. Let go and come with me as I let the animal spirit take control for a moment. Don’t fight it.”

He stepped a short distance away, still holding her gaze and let the wolf come. He was already naked. He hadn’t bothered to dress after rising from the messy bed.

He let the magic take hold of him and felt an answering rise in hot, phoenix-flavored magic coming from Diana. Stone let the wolf take him, but he stopped in the half-shift battle form when it looked like Diana was having a hard time giving over control of her body.

“Let go, Diana. Let the firebird merge with you,” he advised, his voice tinged with the rough rumble of his wolf in half-shifted form.

That seemed to do the trick. The phoenix energy burst free in a blinding flash. Stone had to look away, and when he was able to look back, the woman was gone. The firebird trailed streamers of bright orange fire as her talons clattered against the tile of his back patio. Then, she launched herself into the sky.

Stone let the wolf take complete control, finishing his shift and raced after her as fast as his four legs could carry him. He was Alpha. He was swift. But she was born to fly, and she sped toward the setting sun, chasing it around the world. Halfway across Pack territory, Stone stopped running, allowing himself to trot more easily on a dirt road that only Pack members used to get to some of the more remote homes in their territory.

Fearing the worst, Stone stopped and sat, howling for his mate, praying for her return.

 

The freedom was amazing! She was flying. She was really flying! And the sun was taunting her, sinking on the horizon, daring her to chase it. She flew as fast as her magical feathers would take her, guessing she might look like a bright orange streak across the sky to anyone who could see magic.

But she didn’t care. All that mattered was the sun. It was leaving her behind. Running away relentlessly while she chased behind. She had to catch it! She had to catch up.

Nothing mattered but her race with the sun. She wanted so much to bask in its warmth, to join with it and burn in its fiery flames.

Then, she heard a wolf howl in the distance. Faint, but unmistakable. It sounded so sad. So wounded.

What? Her human mind was puzzled.

The wolf was sad. She wanted to go back and comfort it. To tell him she’d never leave him behind. But the sun…

The firebird wanted the flames, but Diana decided that her firebird half was a bit on the nutcase side. Burning up in the sun? Forget that nonsense. The sun would rise again tomorrow, and she’d see it then. For now, Adam was sad and she suspected she was the cause of his upset. She had to fix that. She had to fix her mate. Her human side and her newly discovered animal spirit agreed. The mate was paramount. His happiness was more important than her own.

Wheeling in the sky as if she’d been born to fly, Diana retraced her path, back toward her waiting wolf.

 

She found him, not where she’d left him, but on a dusty road miles from the tiled patio from which she’d arisen. It didn’t matter. All that mattered was that he was howling in pain, and she knew, in her heart, she had caused it. She had to make it right.

Circling down from above, she spiraled closer to her mate. She hadn’t realized she’d climbed quite so high. Were there any limits to how high the firebird could fly? She’d have to test that later, but for now, she wanted the Earth beneath her feet and her mate in her arms.

She realized quickly that he’d run after her. He’d covered all that distance on his wolf paws. He must be really fast to have made it so far in what had been only a few minutes. Or was it hours? No. Minutes. The sun wasn’t down completely yet. It may have felt like longer, but it was only about fifteen or twenty minutes in the mundane world.

Good. She’d hate to think she’d prolonged her mate’s unhappiness.

She wanted to call out to him but didn’t quite know how. She opened her beak and a trilling whistle came out, unlike anything she’d ever heard before. Adam must’ve heard it though, because he looked up suddenly, pinpointing her progress as she spiraled down over him, getting closer and closer.

His howling ceased, and he rose to all four feet then shifted in a burst of golden-green magic to his two-footed human form. He stood there, tears making tracks down either side of his face that he didn’t bother to hide. Gloriously naked. Watching her.

Oh, my. When the Mother of All picked a mate for someone, She sure knew what she was doing. There could be no more handsome man in all the universe. No more caring and thoughtful a partner to share her life with. No other for Diana, but Adam. Her man. Her mate.

She wasn’t sure how to land, but she trusted the firebird to know what to do as she spread her wings in a final glide. She set her talons down on the dusty dirt road, a few feet away from him. He was smiling, and she wanted to be human again, so she could run into his arms, but she wasn’t sure how.

“Don’t over-think it, my love. Just let the animal spirit take a backseat and let the human part of you take over. You know what to do on an instinctual level.” He coached her gently as she tried to do as he suggested.

After a moment of effort, she gave up trying and just let it happen. A few seconds later, she felt the magic break over her like a wave, and then, she was standing—not on talons, but on her own two feet.

And she was naked. Well, there was nobody out here but the two of them, so she supposed it didn’t matter, but…

“How in the world are we going to get back to your house?”

He started laughing, and she followed suit as he pulled her into his arms, embracing her as if he would never let go. Joy and laughter united them as did the bond between their souls that had come into being that afternoon. Just in time.

“I heard you call me back,” she whispered when the laughter faded and they were just standing there, hugging.

Her cheek was pressed to his chest, against the reassuring rhythm of his heart, and one of his arms was around her waist, while he stroked her hair with the other hand, his chin resting gently on top of her head. They fit together perfectly. As if made for each other. Which she was now convinced, they had been.

“I’ve never been so afraid in my life that you wouldn’t hear me and wouldn’t ever return,” he told her, bare emotion filling his deep voice.

“As long as you breathe, Adam, I will always return to you.” She leaned back a bit to look into his eyes. “I love you.”

“You do?” His expression seemed hopeful, which filled her with the same emotion. “I mean, I figured, in time… But I already feel it, so I guess it’s possible you do too.”

“Feel what, exactly?” She favored him with a squint that teasingly told him of her impatience to hear the words back.

“I love you too, Diana. I didn’t know it could happen so fast, but then, I’ve never found my mate before. I love you more than life itself, and I’m not sure I would have survived had you chosen to follow the sun.”

Well. He couldn’t speak much plainer than that. She rewarded him with a kiss, moving both arms up to tangle her fingers in the short hair at the nape of his neck.