Page 15 of The Phoenix Inheritance

I ignore my brother and finally stuff the pickle in my mouth.

“I get what you’re talking about though,” Warwick eventually sighs after a few sips of malt. “To be honest, I’m hoping to meet the real deal tonight.” At my quizzical look, he adds: “my mate.”

I raise a brow at that tidbit of information. “Really? That sounds very definite for someone who couldn’t stay faithful to one Cerberus dog more than a day.”

The memory makes Warwick chuckle. When he was little he owned a three-headed pet, but switched allegiances so often that our father had to give the creature away due to the rivalry it caused between the poor hounds.

“I just pass time,” he says with a wave of his hand. “But ultimately I want to find my mate. They say it can take centuries to run into that special one though, so I figured I’d make the wait less tedious.”

I nod slowly, my mind still on that pale, almost ethereal figure I spied in the lake while she bathed. There’s no denying Isobel does funny things to my brain. To my heart too. When we kissed I breathed more heavily than if I’d practiced sparring two whole hours, and sometimes the mere thought of her makes my chest feel tight. Could it be…?

No. The mere idea is preposterous. What I’m feeling is merely lust, induced by the fact that she’s the first female I’ve seen unclothed.

It sure was a pretty sight though.

“How do you think you know?” I grunt in a voice that’s a bit too husky to my ears. I clear my throat. “When you’ve found your mate, I mean.”

Warwick shrugs. “I guess you just feel it, is all,” he drawls as he fans out his wings proudly at a passing group of giggling women. “It’s part of our phoenix’s nature. It’s not a matter of knowing. It’s instinct.”

My stomach drops at the reminder of my current state. Uncle Thorsten gave me my refill of potion this afternoon, and I already swallowed half a bottle. Not that it changed anything.

I’m still Dane, as human as I’ve been since the day I was born.

Perhaps I’ll never have a mate, that pure love no mortal can experience. Human love, I’ve been told, is only a feeble copy of the absolute bond that ties two fated beings together. Humans can love someone, but they may also love another. However as far as mates go, there’s only ever one.

And perhaps there’ll come a day when I die, while my father, my mother, Warwick… They will stay perpetually the same, forever reborn from their ashes.

The humiliation of it makes me clutch my glass so tightly I fear it will crack.

“But ultimately,” Warwick continues unperturbed, “I’ve heard the one surefire way to know is when your mate’s in danger. If that person is truly your other half, the phoenix in you will sense the slightest threat, deep inside your bones.”

I let that thought settle in. After words that were relatively deep for my brother, Warwick’s seriousness drops as he casts an appraising glance at the party.

“I think I’ll save myself the trouble of putting every female in this room in a life or death situation though, and go have some fun anyhow.” Pointing a stern finger my way, he orders: “You too. Have fun.”

I’m halfway through an eye roll when a burly man invades my vision.

“Dane,” he utters in a booming voice, “Last time I saw you, you looked like you’d barely hatched out of the egg. Remember?”

My gaze flies to the tresses of snakes piled on his head. The sight gave me nightmares as a child, to my father’s dismay.

“I certainly do,” I rasp with difficulty.

“But look at you now,” the Gorgon King continues, “a proud rooster if I ever saw one.”

The bird analogies don’t sit too well but I let it pass, because arguing with a serpent shifter is never a good idea. Thankfully this descendent of Medusa wears his enchanted spectacles tonight, a recent invention that allows his kind to mingle with other species, or else I would be turned to stone the instant our gazes cross.

“I haven’t come out as a phoenix yet.”

He dispells my concerns with a great sweep of the arm. “That will come, no doubt about it! In the meantime, I’d love to introduce you to my daughter, Amaru.”

I haven’t yet had time to see the young lady in question when a funny feeling settles in my stomach.

This is it. This is what you’ve always wanted.

Because the serpent shifter looks at me like I’m used to seeing people look at my brother. Admiration. Interest. Respect.

Could it be my father is the only one who doesn’t see me that way?

---