Page 31 of Ruling in Flames (Reborn 5)
“Okay, now I’m nervous,” I whispered to my mom once everyone was seated and looking at me expectantly. I began to feel better as I looked at my mates and Az, all of whom were staring at me with confidence and affection that was echoed through our bond. Even Eleven, who was sitting away from my brothers, gave me an encouraging smile, and I realized that these people cared about me. Even though everything I had to explain was complicated and surreal, I instinctively knew they would believe me.
“Let’s start from the beginning,” Henry suggested. “After we left the realm.”
I nodded and let out a shaky breath before I began.
“When we came back from Dreki, Pastor Malcolm was waiting for me.” I took another deep breath, steeling myself for the explanation of who he was. When we’d visited Dreki and I’d first met my parents, I hadn’t been ready for this discussion, but I couldn’t put it off any longer. “Malcolm is someone who I thought was my father until—”
A savage growl came from one of my dads, and I offered a slight wince. “I know, it’s bad. But he was the reason for all of this. He was the one who shot me down and kidnapped me. He was the one who encouraged Tina to torture me, the one who locked me up in our church’s basement—”
My voice hitched, and I tried to recenter myself, focusing on the far wall so I wouldn’t get caught up in their reactions. “Of course I didn’t know at the time that he was a witch—he just told me I would eventually help their church. So when Tina, the woman pretending to be my mother, told me he died, I was honestly thankful. Until I realized she was essentially abducting me again, taking me across the country to Washington with her creepy boyfriend Jed.”
“Jed’s dead, and so is she,” Marco assured my parents.
I let out a small breath. “That was when I met them”—I nodded to my mates—“and things got way better. Well…I guess I did die that one time, but that was the night Jed and Tina died as well.”
“Shouldn’t have happened,” Sai rumbled.
“I also wasn’t telling you how bad everything was,” I whispered to Sai before looking back towards the group. “Anyway, after that we realized that Pastor Malcolm hadn’t died, because he literally showed up at my job.”
“You have a job?” one of my dads growled, and I had to keep myself from smiling.
“Yep, at a craft store. It’s super fun.” My mom made an amused noise, but I refused to get sidetracked. “He kept telling me that he wanted to take me back, and that was when I realized he knew I was a phoenix. It wasn’t until later, when he used magic to lure me out of the house, that we realized he was a witch—it was also the first time I’d shifted that I could remember.”
“Oh, you shifted a ton when you were little,” Pele pointed out. “In fact, you spent most of your time shifted when we let you.”
I smiled at that, wishing I could remember those times better. “I didn’t know anything about the supernatural world. I just knew that I healed whenever I bled.”
“Did that happen often?” My mom’s voice sounded choked.
I nodded and intertwined my fingers, looking down at my boots before continuing. “So we realized he was a witch, and Croy helped us figure out why he would want me and how it would fuel his coven, and it was right around that time that we came to visit the Dreki realm.” I smiled at all of them. “Where I realized I had an entire family I didn’t know about.”
“So how the hell did we end up here?” Con demanded, despite trying to keep his voice soft.
“When we returned to Earth and came out of the portal, we realized councilwoman Anna had forced councilman Larry to redirect the portal to open on a cliffside—all with the goal of kidnapping Maya,” Atlas said. “I tried to explain it in the letter, but honestly it was a bit of a fucking mess.”
I nodded in agreement. “Pastor Malcolm was saved, which we learned later was because of Ry,” I said, omitting Az’s involvement with it, which I had to assume was how he had disappeared so easily before Marco could kill him, “and we managed to escape and go home. The young flight you sent is still with us—which, by the way, they’re safe with a local pack of shifters.”
My mom nodded, looking relieved.
“We thought that it was over at that point, that Malcolm had been scared enough to stay away for at least some time…” I sighed. “We didn’t expect him to work with Ry, and his men caused a massive distraction at the event we were at, and I was nearly taken.”Again, glossing over anything to do with Az…“So we decided to leave town and went to France. When I marked Anani, my magic must have done something—”
“It sent out a signal,” Az said, looking directly at me. “I informed them of my involvement.”
Oh, thank the Maker.
“Right, it sent out a signal, and that was how we got captured by Ry until Az sacrificed himself to get us out. Then Az, Anani, and I were killed.”
My mates were tense, everyone hanging onto my every word, as I let out a shaky breath. “When we woke up, we were in this weird dream-like place… At first I could see Az and Anani, but I couldn’t talk to them—we were separated by this weird barrier.”
“Maker,” someone muttered, most likely one of my dads, who sounded very stressed.
“It gets even weirder,” I admitted. “After a minute, the barrier got darker and I was forced back towards the center of it…and that’s when he appeared.”
“He?” one of my brothers asked.
“He.” I nodded. “I don’t know his name. I don’t know anything about him…well, except that he seems to think I play a big part in our realm, as in Earth realm.”
“What the hell?” Ledger murmured, sounding confused.
