Page 23 of Fire Bird

She was so beautiful when she burned.

When we drained her, I saw Ragnor’s light come flickering back. The lust that runs in his veins. The lust for power, and control, and blood. While her body became charred and shriveled in front of our eyes, he remembered our plan. He remembered he wanted to tear her limb from limb, and bring The King back to Earth, and rule over humanity. He remembered just how superior we are, and that we are on the right path.

Because if we weren’t, she would have fought back, wouldn’t she? The Phoenix would have set free her almighty powers and destroyed us.

But the prophecy was wrong. Maybe she could have been powerful if she had the chance, but we stopped her. We stopped her.

Not that I ever paid much heed to prophecies, anyway. Ragnor believes in them but, when I was a girl, my mother told me they were nothing more than the inventions of scared, lonely women who were desperate to prove their worth. So desperate they made up a talent—an ability to see what no one else could. They made themselves vessels of the future and wrote laws which decreed that only they could speak the truth and only they could determine what truth they told and how much of it they revealed.

They allowed the gift of foresight to pass to their male heirs, but only women kept the power of prophecy. It was the one thing they had that men could not take away from them.

They thought they were being clever, imbuing themselves with some kind of almighty power. But then legend became truth, and truth became fate, and fate—sadly—is the most dogmatic master of them all.

The seers refer to fate as a woman. They say things like she has sent us a vision. She sent us a prophecy. But I know better; fate is a man, and he is as cruel a master as any.

I reject fate. I reject prophecy. I reject anything and anyone who tells me that what is meant to be has to be, and that I cannot change it.

We changed it. We looked fate in his burning eyes and declared we would not let him win.

Ragnor believed in the prophecy. He believed that a pathetic half-blood child could destroy us. Even when she lay burning in front of us, I felt him waiting for her to open her eyes.

But she didn’t.

She is gone.

It is time for Him to return, and time for Ragnor to put down his pet human and play his part.

* * *

“Eve?” Ragnor’s footsteps shake the floorboards as he strides through the mansion. It is a dark place now. Blood stains the walls. Quite literally; I am not imagining it. Wolves being wolves, fights are inevitable. Especially when they’ve been doing nothing but drinking and fucking for days. Celebrating the end of The Phoenix.

Although I hear him calling me, I don’t reply. He knows where I am. I’m in the professor’s study. I like it here. Words dance out of his books and into my head, and paint pictures that dance in the fire of my mind. I like the desk, too. Big and sturdy. Like him—the bear.

I’ve only known one other bear shifter in my lifetime. A huge, scarred, brown bear from a colony near Jasper. He fucked like he fought; hard and unrelenting. I was sad when I killed him, but only for a little while.

By the window, which frames a pretty picture of the fountain and the grounds in the pinkish-orange sunlight, I hold up the vial.

It has been hanging around my neck ever since we filled it with her blood. Ragnor tried to snatch it from me—because he doesn’t trust that I will be strong enough to resist it.

“This is my last and greatest test,” I told him, gripping it tight and feeling the energy pulse through the glass and into my palm. “I will keep it safe until He needs it.”

“Fine, but it’s on your head if you fuck this up, Eve,” Ragnor growled.

I’ve barely seen him since then. He’s been stalking up and down the halls of the upper floors, waiting for his human to recover and service his needs.

“Eve?!” He is bellowing now.

I hum to myself and turn the vial upside down, watching the congealed blood drip slowly down its sides. I moisten my lower lip. The black veins that decorate my face pulse with hunger. One taste, just one…

I screw my eyes shut and clench the vial, then I slip its chain back around my throat and tuck it into the neckline of my dress.

“I will be strong for you, my King.”

The door to the study clatters open on its hinges. “Those fucking hounds of yours have escaped again. Don’t you have a spell that would—”

“My babies cannot be controlled by spells,” I laugh, shaking my head. “They are not from our dimension, Ragnor. They are hell beasts, demon dogs, evil in canine form—”

“Alright,” Ragnor waves his hand to shut me up, “just make sure they don’t stray into town again. We can’t have them drawing attention to us. Not now.”