Page 65 of Red Dragon’s Flame

“It doesn’t talk, exactly.” She sat down on the tattoo bench. Mikah picked up Devon and took her over to the couch. The others ranged themselves around the room.

Michelangela went on, “I don’t think it speaks our language, or really even understands how our brains work. It was more like impressions and images.”

“So what was it trying to say?” Emon said. “Best guess.”

Michelangela frowned, thinking. “It’s worried about Devon. It’s trying to protect her, but it has to leave.”

“Did it say how soon?”

Michelangela shook her head. “Not right this minute or anything, but soon. The impression I got was… maybe a few days?”

They all looked at each other uneasily. “Did it say why?” Mikah asked. “I mean, is there a way to ask it not to go?”

Michelangela bit her lip. “I don’t think it has a choice. I got the image of it going up totally in flames, and ashes raining down.”

“Fuck,” Brock said. “It’s what Tyr said about it having to renew itself. It’s getting ready.”

“Yeah,” Michelangela whispered. “It doesn’t want to hurt Devon, but if it’s in her when the renewal starts, I think she might die. And if it leaves…”

She’ll die anyway. No one said it, but they all knew. It was all Mikah could do not to shake the phoenix and beg it not to go.

“What about afterwards?” he said. “Did it say what it will do then?”

She shook her head. “She said—she said it was the last time, I think. Like, she won’t be able to rise again? Or maybe not unless she mates. I’m sorry—it really wasn’t clear what she was trying to tell me.”

“Great. I don’t suppose anyone knows where we find a male phoenix?”

They all looked at each other.

Michelangela was biting her lip again. “Um. That part actually was pretty clear. I’m sorry, Devon.”

“For what?”

“She said the Allohim have her mate.”

Emon said what they all were thinking. “Fuck.”

Emon got on his communication ball to call the Greystones. While he was talking, Mikah had a low-voiced conversation with Devon.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” he asked, tilting her chin up so he could see her eyes.

“I’m fine.” She cupped her hand around his cheek. “Really. The pain went away when she went back inside.”

Mikah shook his head. “I was afraid she was going to leave you.”

Her eyes darkened. “Mikah…”

“Don’t say it.”

“She has to go try to find him. Her mate. And even if she does find him, if she mates with him, they’ll probably take the babies captive. But if she doesn’t, she might die without being reborn, and that’s the end of her line. Maybe the end of all phoenixes, for all we know. Isn’t there anything we can do to help them?”

She spoke louder than she realized—everyone in the room besides Emon stopped talking.

Maddie, sitting next to Zak, put her hand on her stomach. She was pregnant, Devon remembered suddenly. Maddie said, “Zak, we can’t let those awful creatures take the phoenix’s babies.”

Mikah thought about Devon having his baby, what he would feel like if he knew it would be born to be used by some evil creatures for their own ends.

He’d kill them.