Page 108 of Playing with Fire

“If you don’t kill me, peck me to death, or light me on fire, I have ambrosia. You can have some. You like ambrosia, right?”

The squawks softened to inquisitive chirps. Had ten seconds gone by? I sure hoped so, because if it hadn’t—or my information was wrong—I’d soon become a crispy critter. Bracing for the worst, I released the newborn phoenixes.

I waited.

Huh. I lived. Fancy that.

“Nice baby birdies,” I murmured, fumbling for my pocket so I could pull out the bottle of ambrosia pills. At least I’d been smart enough to put the sedatives in my other pocket, else I’d be playing Russian roulette with a pair of flaming baby birds preparing to molt and evolve into flying cataclysms. “I made these treats just for you, but if you want them all, I need a little bit of help.”

The birds kept chirping, and I felt two small, warm bodies press against my legs.

They didn’t feel very big to me, much smaller than the feathers that had birthed them.

I fumbled with the bottle, muttering curses at my shaking hands and blindness. “Just give me a minute. Turns out if you keep your eyes open doing this, the lights go out.”

The chirps rose in pitch to the peeps of baby chickens.

One of the little bastards pecked me in the shin, and the stone castle blinked back into existence around me as though someone had flipped a light switch. The stone around me had melted, stained black from soot. Pressed against my legs, tangled in the baby blankets, were two birds. One was white with red flames marking her feathers, so realistic I expected it—she—would burst into fire while I watched. The other was red, and its—his—feathers were tipped with the blue-white of the hottest, purest flames.

In their previous life, they had been a mated pair, and in their rebirth, they would remain a family. When they took flight, they would take with them the hopes and dreams of two fathers left with nothing else.

Both looked like they’d been dunked in water and wrung out before sticking their beaks in electric outlets.

Too cute.

Part of me really wanted to grab them both and snuggle with them like I did with Quinn’s blanket and take them home with me. How could anyone get upset with me for wanting to keep them? I bit my lip, fumbled with the bottle’s cap, and eventually managed to pop it off so I could dig out a pair of the ambrosia capsules. Once I secured the lid and returned the bottle to my pocket, I offered one capsule to each bird. “One each for not killing me. I have more for you if you don’t fry me or my friends when you molt.”

My negotiation skills were top notch. I barely resisted the urge to snort.

The little bastards pecked the shit out of my hand in their hurry to gobble down the ambrosia. The female broke her capsule, spilling the golden fluid on my skin, and then went to work licking it up with her surprisingly soft and pliable tongue.

Some of the ambrosia mixed with my blood. I froze, staring while holding my breath. The phoenixes drank up their ambrosia, and they licked at where they’d punctured my skin. A shiver ran through me, and the wounds itched.

Then they closed.

I regretted not bringing a meter. Had I gotten ambrosia in my bloodstream, or had the phoenixes licked it all up first? I wasn’t dead—yet. Would I fall over and die in a few minutes? Would I have a spectacular death, a slow one, or a fast one?

Quinn was going to kill me when he found out, assuming the ambrosia didn’t do the job first.

What did ambrosia poisoning feel like? No one really knew, since victims tended to kick the bucket before they could tell anyone they’d been contaminated. Great. Just what I needed on top of everything else.

The phoenixes stared up at me with black, beady eyes, chirping before opening their beaks in a demand for food. Their infancy wouldn’t last long, but until their first molt, the baby birds were my problem.

Yippee.

“Is it safe to come in yet?” Quinn’s grandfather asked from the doorway.

“One pill each not to kill Quinn’s grandfather.”

Greedy chirps answered me, and I pulled out the bottle and dropped a capsule into the gullet of each of the scrawny demon chickens. “Sure, old man. I think I’m going to name the girl Annie and the boy Peter.”

“The names on the tags.”

I bristled. “Got a problem with it?”

“Not at all. It’s a very sweet gesture. They probably have their own names already, considering they’re immortal phoenixes. They’ve probably been alive longer than most of our family combined. Looks like Kevin guessed correctly. You even survived. Well done. I wouldn’t have liked having to explain to my little grandson I let his wife get herself killed trying to be heroic.”

The phoenixes gave a final chirp before cooing and burrowing into their blankets.