Fury of a Phoenix (The Nix Series Book 1) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Chapter Twenty-Six

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Chapter Twenty-Nine

  Fury of a Phoenix

  The Nix Series Book 1

  Shannon Mayer

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons dead or alive are purely coincidental and not intended by the author.

  Copyright © 2017 by Shannon Mayer

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law. For permission requests, write to the publisher, addressed “Attention: Permissions Coordinator,” at the address below.

  Hijinks Ink Publishing

  Box 512

  Qualicum Beach, BC,

  V9K2L8 Canada

  www.hijinksinkpublishing.com

  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Afterword

  Acknowledgments

  This book would not have been possible without the encouragement of a very good friend. I had lost faith in the writing process, in the words and the character because of one person’s opinion, and this good friend reminded me why I write. She reminded me that it was my story to tell, and that one opinion did not control my destiny. Thank you, Denise, for helping me get my legs back under me, and kicking me in the ass when I needed it.

  Chapter One

  The world slid sideways as the truck lost traction on the snowy hill, and there was nothing I could do to stop the momentum, not even if I’d been in the driver’s seat. Bear—my sweet boy— reached across and grabbed my hand with his much smaller one, his fear a tangible beast between us, his brown eyes wide. “Mom?”

  “Dad’s a good driver.” I looked him in the eyes and gave him a smile. “It’ll be okay.”

  Something shuddered underneath us as the truck careened faster and faster down the long hill. I clutched his hand tightly.

  It would be okay.

  Time slowed.

  A flare of magic rippled around the truck, dark green and vibrating with a life of its own.

  What fresh hell was this?

  The question for me was not if I’d die of intense anxiety, but exactly how long it would take for the burning heat in my face to actually cause the rest of my body to spontaneously combust. Sweat dripped down my sides and clung to the inside of my long-sleeved sweater, and that sweat was probably the only thing keeping me from truly overheating. My hands itched to touch the grip of a gun to help me find my center.

  Justin put his hand on my lower back as he guided me through the throng of people. “You’re doing great, sweetheart. Just keep moving. These are our friends and neighbors. These are our kind of people, you know that.”

  I nodded, knowing there was more to the words. These were normals. Not a single supernatural in the bunch, which should have soothed me. Well, that wasn’t entirely true. There was one, but she hid it well.

  Still, the crush of people on me was hard to take. Not because I didn’t know them, but because I knew the truth of human nature.

  Normals or otherwise, human nature was an ugly beast.

  Of all the people in my life—and not that there were many anymore—I trusted three. Justin. Bear. Zee. If nothing else, my past had taught me that trust was too easily given, and even easier to cast aside when the right deal came along.

  A woman drew close with enough hairspray holding up her bouffant that the intense scent of Aqua Net curled through the crowd and up my nose long before I could see her. Princess Bouffant called out to us.

  “Oh my gee-osh, you got her to cah-m! How lovely!” She drawled out her words in a pattern that had me fighting to keep the smile on my face. She was an abnormal, though of what flavor I wasn’t sure, and didn’t really care. The differences in her were subtle. She tried to cover up her scent with the Aqua Net, and the way her eyes darted with heavy amounts of makeup. Every abnormal was a little different in their tells, but they all had a smell that was part animal, part magic.

  But that was not my business anymore.

  I bit back the snotty retort that hovered on my lips, then caught Justin’s wink out the corner of my eye. The grin on the side of his mouth was all it took for me to follow his train of thought.

  “Perv,” I whispered and gave him an elbow.

  “Get your mind out of the gutter, Bea.” He pinched my ass, and someone called to him.

  “Justin, we need to talk.” One of our neighbors waved him over. He gave me a pair of raised eyebrows in a silent request to leave me, and I rolled my eyes. “Go. I can deal with her. Make sure he isn’t wanting to use our pastures again.”

  Here she came, the only abnormal in the bunch.

  Goddamn it. I steeled my spine. I could do this. I’d handled tense, uncomfortable situations before. Hell, I’d dealt with shit that was beyond intense since I was a kid. But Zee and my other tutors had never trained me to deal with someone like Mary-Ellen Mayberry and her insatiable need to try and squeeze every, last drop of my past out of me.

  Her hair was backcombed so she gained at least an extra three inches in height to her barely five-foot-five frame, which put her on par with me. She waved both hands, cheery as always. “I am so glad you came tonight, Bea. This time of year, it’s good to be with our loved ones.”

  I kept the smile pasted on my face while I struggled not to bolt. Crowds were a bad place to be, a bad place to find yourself if you were looking out for someone else. Like a child who could disappear in an instant. Like my boy.

  The grin held on my lips with great effort and I spoke through it carefully. “I’m so sorry, Mary-Ellen, but have you seen my son?”

  She splayed her hands against her chest. “That precious boy of yours is upstairs in the rumpus room playing video games with the other kids. Don’t wor
ry,” she took a step toward me and pressed her hand to my forearm like tiny sharp talons, “we don’t allow any violent or inappropriate games in our home. Movies, either, so you have nothing to worry about.”

  “Of course not.” I fought to keep the words polite. Just because she irritated me, just because she was an abnormal didn’t mean I had to be a bitch to her. “Even so, I don’t think we will be staying long. We have a long drive back out to the ranch, and I have mares due to foal soon.”

  Only a slight exaggeration, the mares weren’t due until spring, but she didn’t know that.

  Mary-Ellen’s smile dipped. “Oh, that’s a shame. Shoot, we were even going to have Santa come in and hand out some little gifts to the kids. We hired him specially for tonight.”

  She waved a hand at the big pane glass window that looked out into the yard, directing my gaze. True to her words, there was a man dressed in red with a big fake beard stuck on his face and a bag over his shoulder. He loitered around the vehicles, waiting for his signal to come in, no doubt. Every step he took had a slight sway to it, like he was drunk. God, a drunk Santa. Fabulous.

  I opened my mouth to thank her and decline staying longer when the lights in the house flickered. A nervous roll of laughter went through the visiting friends and neighbors. My right hand shot to my lower back, clutching the small knife handle I kept there, always, no matter where we were. A ghost of green light touched the edges of the window, there and gone before I could be sure of what I was seeing.

  “All day that’s been happening.” Mary-Ellen blew out a rather un-ladylike snort, but my eyes were not on her. The movement of the crowd, the sudden intense feeling of being watched roared up my spine like a spider scuttling along wooden floorboards.

  Magic, and those who used it, were not my friends. I tolerated Mary-Ellen because she tried to be as normal as possible.

  The lights flickered again, then came back on fully, this time with no green addition. The other normals barely seemed to notice the second flicker.

  I had to be seeing things. It wouldn’t be the first time my paranoia got the better of me.

  I took a slow breath in and out, but that did nothing to the sudden sense of foreboding that filled my belly, and it took effort to let go of the blade handle, my fingers unsticking from it one by one.

  Leftovers of a past that never fully let me go still hovered at the edge of every day and on the cusp of every nightmare. Rationally, I knew nothing was going to happen to us here in the middle of Wyoming at a Christmas party with a bunch of teetotaler Mormons. There was no way my past would ever find us here.

  The magical world didn’t like the interior of the country, which was why I’d chosen this place. A mantra began to roll through my mind.

  We were safe.

  I’d broken free, and for over a dozen years, I’d stayed that way.

  But still, there had not been a day in the last twelve years I didn’t look over my shoulder at least once. That I didn’t wonder if I heard an unfamiliar vehicle roll down our long driveway, if someone new moved into Jackson Hole, someone that had come looking for me.

  That a flickering of lights and an image of green aura didn’t make me tense all the way to my asshole.

  Twelve years wasn’t enough to erase the past and the demons I’d left behind.

  Before I could stop her, Mary-Ellen slid her arm around mine. “I hope you know we would love to have you and your boy come visit when Justin is away next month. Maybe you could come for dinner after church?”

  She steered me through the great room with the vaulted ceiling toward the kitchen at the back of the house. I tried to find Justin in the crowd. At 6’6”, his height normally gave him away, but he was off somewhere, no doubt talking about his next skiing trip coming up. Or still dealing with the pushy neighbor. That was more likely.

  There he was. He turned and caught my eye. Again, both brows raised almost to his hairline. Our silent question for each other. Was I okay?

  I pursed my lips and gave him a single blink. I was okay, and glad he was checking.

  “Well, thank you. I’ll think about it.” I said the words with zero intention of ever coming back to Mary-Ellen’s on my own. It wasn’t that I didn’t like her. Or that she wasn’t kind and generous.

  More of one of those ‘it’s me not you’ conversations that I just didn’t want to have. I’d seen Mary-Ellen break down once when she talked about her son going away for two years as a missionary for their church. Not only was it uncomfortable to watch, she’d found the nearest woman and clung to her long after I left the scene.

  Then there was the whole ‘I know magic exists and you want to act like there is no such thing even though you are abnormal’ conversation that hung between us.

  Emotions were not something I understood, except when it came to my boys. That was different. They were the first ones who showed me what real love was and had helped me understand that I could have it in my life despite everything I’d done.

  “Lovely, that’s lovely. Maybe we can have the missionaries here, too, if you don’t mind?”

  Oh, shit.

  I cleared my throat to cover the muttered curse on my tongue before I spoke. “Of course not, but we are quite busy with the horses, you know. It’s a busy time of year.” I tried to get her hand off my arm, carefully, without hurting her. She was having none of it, her long fingers digging in harder. Staking her claim on me. Damn it all.

  “Of course.” Her smile never wavered, but her eyes took on an edge.

  My own edge pushed to the surface and I locked eyes with her. A staring contest was not something she was going to win with me.

  She’d been trying to save me and Justin since she met us. Nicely, of course, plying us with food and friendship, but always there was the undertone of us being heathens. And her being better than us. If she’d known who I really was she’d have probably tried to kill me, rather than feed me.

  There was a moment, half a breath, where she held my gaze as I let the emptiness in me well up, the blank space that only my boys and their love made go away.

  Inside my head the sound of people was replaced with the white noise that preceded the pop of a silencer, the thud of a well-placed bullet, the drip of blood from a wound, the hiss of a monster dying.

  As quickly as that, she blinked and looked away, swallowing hard. “We’d just . . . Bear is such a sweet boy, and he reminds me of my boy gone on his mission—”

  I got my arm free with a hard yank. Normally, I try to fit in and all that shit. It was a harder gig than one might think. But I was done playing.

  Clearing my throat, I searched the crowd for Justin for a good five seconds again as I softened my tone as much as I could. “Look, Mary-Ellen, I know you mean well, but honestly, we aren’t interested in your church. No matter how sweet Bear is.”

  “Of course, of course!” She moved so she was in my line of vision again. But to the left of her in the crowd was a familiar messy head of hair. He came up to my chest, his hair a deep black that held the colors of the rainbow when the sun hit it right. A sweet rush of relief flowed through me at the sight of him.

  As if the flickering lights had been an ominous foreboding, like the start of a horror flick, and seeing him was a ray of light dispelling the shadows, and my innate suspicions.

  I shook my head at the thoughts running through my mind. Stupid, I was being stupid and paranoid and I didn’t need to be.

  I held a hand out to Bear, calling to be heard over the steady thrum of noise. “Bear, come here.” My son would be a lifeline in a sea of bodies that I wanted to get away from so badly, my skin itched. Being a loner was not something I’d been able to change from my past, one of the few things.

  Though to be fair, the rest of what I’d changed had been superficial, allowing me to hide in plain sight, as it were.

  A man bumped into me, sloshing punch onto my cowboy boots. The smell of his cologne, Old Spice, hit me almost as hard. He didn’t even apologize, just kept
on walking through the crowd, the sway in his step making me think he was drunk.

  My jaw tightened, but I reined in my anger. It was just punch, after all, and would wash out.

  The thing was, none of these people knew how close they walked to death. How close they walked to me.

  If they did, they would have either prayed for me, or gone running in the opposite direction.

  Bear bobbed and weaved through the last few feet of the crowd between us, oblivious to the tension between me and Mary-Ellen, for which I was grateful. I had shielded him as much as I could from who I really was, from a past that would swallow him whole if I wasn’t vigilant.

  The monsters would come for him, if they knew he was mine.

  He flashed a smile up at me. “What’s grooving, Mama?”

  I tugged him to me, slinging my right arm over his shoulder, leaving my faster hand free at my side. “Drop the second ‘g’ if you want to be cool, little Bear.”

  He laughed and gave a half-hearted effort to pull away from me. I bent down to his ear. “I need your help for just a minute. Do you mind?”

  He brightened immediately. Help was the magic word for him. He was everything I could have wanted in a son, and then some. How I’d gotten him, after all I’d done . . . that much I would never know.

  “Yeah, sure, I’m your guy.” He grinned up at me, dimples showing in the layer of baby fat he still held on his cheeks.

  I laughed, and the irritation and need to escape eased a little as he lit up my world, and for a moment the flood of people, the anger, the intense need to run, slid away.

  “Oh, that makes me think of Deacon.” Mary-Ellen burst into tears behind us. Deacon was her boy who was still on his mission for another year yet, and I took that as our cue.