Liam sang and my jackal rose to the surface. I wanted to shift, but we’d come to an agreement. He came out when it was appropriate.
“Ah, fuck,” Adrian said, running away from us.
His clothes exploded into red and gold flames as he turned into a golden bird with long, red feathers. He flew a little like Lucian did at first, but he made it over to where Radames and Lola were lying. Adrian shook his feathers and sparks fell onto their prone forms.
Headmaster Mykene said phoenixes had fire, but it was supposed to be the eternal flame that brought balance. We also knew jack shit about phoenixes since Adrian was the only one anyone knew about. Sagefeltlike this could work, so I believed her.
And Sage was right. Adrian’s fire completely obliterated their bodies in seconds. There was nothing for them to come back to and no one could put them back together again. They were ash and Morgana summoned a wind to scatter it.
Was it finally over?
“Sing Adrian back to human again and then I say we all get drunk at the Winter Solstice festival,” Ivar said.
“Uh, Adrian is going to need clothes because he burned his.”
Ivar just smirked.
“Adrian doesn’t care about that and neither does most of campus.”
Yeah, I guess not. We waited, and no one came back from the dead.
The first thing we did was go back to our dorm room so I could shower. I was coated in Edwin’s blood. Morgana had gotten my phone out of the locker room. Now that the adrenaline was wearing off, I definitely needed better food than what I was getting while I was kidnapped.
The guys wouldn’t let me shower on my own. They refused sex because they knew I needed to eat, but they wanted to wash me and they were so reverent.
“Seeing you covered in the blood of your enemy was the sexiest thing I’ve ever seen,” Liam said.
“I tend to agree,” Khalid said.
“Very,” said Lucian.
“You didn’t have to get violent,” I said stroking his cheek.
Because my vampire hadn’t really wanted to do that, but my plan required it. The plan went totally ass up. Liam was supposed to sing them into a coma and then Adrian was going to burn them. Lucian was backup in case anything went wrong and then everything went wrong.
“I wanted to after they took you.”
“I was pissed I didn’t get to be involved, but when you made them fight each other, there was a certain poetry to it,” Liam said as we stepped out of the shower.
Khalid started toweling me dry while Lucian handed me warm clothes. Edmund had only given me his shirt, and I was freezing the whole time. It felt like I was finally warm again. It had, apparently, snowed while I was underground. It didn’t snow a lot back where I was from.
When we bundled up and got to the festival, it was similar to Samhain minus the orgies because of the snow. There were bonfires and people were cooking. Darian blurred up to us and Saffron wasn’t that far behind. They were both holding drinks.
“Before we give you these drinks, does that mean you won?”
“Yeah. Sage was a total badass. We just need your grandmother to find out where their original bones are from Fairy for Adrian to take care of.”
“She’s on it and has a lead. The Fairy elders want to meet all of you. If they can get the person who took the bones to be honest about what’s going on in Fairy, some of us might be able to go home. A lot of us consider this realm our home now, but we’d love to see the homeland. There’s a bunch of us who can’t pass here who would love to go back if they can.”
“I’d miss you if you went back,” I said, hugging her.
Because Saffron had been my friend from day one. She handed me a pink, sparkly drink and Darian handed Lucian something that had to be blood.
“Come to the fairy table. We’ve got food and drinks for the rest of you.”
Khalid was eyeing the shifter table. He wasn’t going to touch the pig they were roasting, but there was plenty of other food. I squeezed his hand.
“Go. We can meet up by the bonfire.”
