Chapter 44- Deal

AMBROSE

It was an effort to look away from her as I worried, but I turned to look up in time to see a dragon circling above our heads. My whole body went rigid to see it, recognizing the green right away and knowing it was Nova’s father. He flew in low, shifting seamlessly into a man as he was gliding above the ground to continue on two legs like he was walking all along.

I looked around myself as he came up the stairs, Sequoia was grinning but her eyes looked terrified and Covyn looked like he could curl into a ball with his tail between his legs. The disgraced alpha looked conflicted, like he was meeting his idol but he expected it to go badly. Only Ellion and Daley had no idea who he was, but I’m not sure that was an asset with him.

“Put her in the tub!” The disgraced alpha called out into the phone, his nervousness morphing into something foul.

I watched the men dragging her towards the bathroom as she begged me in my mind ‘do not make a deal, do not leave here without me. Promise me!’ It wasn’t something I would do even if I could speak to her as well.

“What are you doing?” Balthasar sneered, looking over the disgraced alpha like he was a turd on the sidewalk. “I have no quarrel with you.”

“I want a deal,” he said passed a grin, “but I don’t want any of your funny loopholes and open ended sentences.”

Balthasar’s lips curled like Nova’s had earlier, and with it I could see that she looked so much like her father when they thought of deals. My eyes returned to Nova, feeling the phantom ache of her pain. I could see her sitting in the tub through the open bathroom door and hear her teeth chattering. Balthasar turned to look into the room as well and frowned.

“Ice bath.” The two words from his mouth held an indescribable amount of disgust. “You must be from a long lineage of hunters to know something so specific and archaic.”

“Doesn’t leave a mark on that beautiful skin, but just as good as torture for a phornix. I gotta say, her not being able to shift made this a lot easier. They’ll pull her out if we have a deal, so do we?”

“You’ll barter for us too, right?” Sal demanded, but he was freaking out, nearly hiding from Balthasar behind the bathroom door.

“Of course.” The disgraced alpha replied casually like it didn’t matter either way.

Balthasar rolled his eyes outlandishly. “Fine, whatever. Give me your wrist.” His gruff voice held it’s own world of indifference.

They held wrists and both of them closed their eyes. I grew more tense every moment that Nova was in pain and wished I could get to her. I could feel her emotions and knew she was worried I would make a deal anyway, despite her plea. This didn’t improve as the aching in her bones turned to a greater pain that had her body screaming.

Nova wasn’t sitting calmly anymore. After begging for them to let her out didn’t work she started pulling and thrashing against them. I could hear the water splashing through the phone that now rested on the banister and Nova yelling. Each second that passed made me more desperate to get inside and I started clawing and pounding at the edged of the door to get in.

ELLION

Everyone was a mess, with me and my darling Daley standing off to the side feeling completely useless. Balthasar, apparently, was locked in what we were to understand was acocia, or finding acocia. Covyn was standing in a panic with Sequoia gently rubbing his arm to calm him down while looking equally as panicked as we listened to Nova’s struggle through the phone. Spencer was beyond listening to anyone and trying to break into the room, which the rest of us already knew to be impossible.

When Balthasar released the other man’s wrist his face was a firm line but the man was grinning ear to ear. “Drown her,” the man uttered, smirking the whole time. “They can’t do anything to hurt us.”

“No!” Spencer roared, watching in horror with the rest of us as the men pushed her shoulders beneath the water, before turning toward Balthasar with a new determined look and we heard Nova crest the water andscream‘no’.

Daley squeezed my hand, both of us not sure what to do if he tried to make a deal or offer himself. Nova would be heart broken to come out of this without him to go to. I’m not sure it would be something she could survive. I know it wasn’t something I could have survived in her place.

Covyn snarled and stepped in front of Spencer before he could get too close. “I want to make a deal, my wolf for her phoenix.”

Balthasar began to grin. “I’ll take that deal.”

He moved toward Covyn and reached his hand out toward him, but Sequoia gasped loudly and moved between them, grabbing his wrist instead.

“I’ll give my leopard for his wolf,” she said quickly and her other hand wrapped around his, forcing his to clasp her wrist. “You owe me this Balthasar.”

His smile faded as his other hand moved to wrap over her hand like he meant to pry her hand free. When their fingers met he sighed instead and pat the fingers gently. Their eyes met, and he just nodded.

Meanwhile, Spencer had tried to attack alpha Clark, but couldn’t come within striking distance of him and snarled at the invisible wall while the man laughed. Covyn tried as well, followed by me, with the same results.

The splashing and gasping through the phone was a terrifying reminder that Nova was still in danger and we couldn’t do anything. My head whipped toward a sharp intake of breath in time to see Covyn dashing to catch Sequoia before she fell. He was calling her name and checking her for injury but she just raised an unstable hand to the window.

“Watch,” she whispered.

Through the window we did as told. The sounds of splashing and the struggle died down and the unease around us started to rise. Then one of the men shouted in pain and we could see blood running down his arm, but couldn’t see what happened.

A large amount of water hit the floor and we could see Nova crouched there, coughing and sputtering as the other men rounded the tub heading for her. Her head jerked up to look at us, her red hair looked like it was frizzing out around her face, drying with some internal heat, and her eyes glowed maliciously. One minute she was there, under attack, and the next there was only fire.

The whole bathroom was engulfed in flame with Nova at the center and men were yelling and screaming around her. The sound of their pain quickly garbled out as the microphones in their ear pierces melted and died, but we could still see it. Vaguely, their shapes ran around the bathroom and rolled on the floor but their flames could not be extinguished.

Balthasar was cackling now, a big grin spanning his face like a proud father at a child’s graduation. I watched him for a moment, seeing a tear roll down his cheek, and realized that this time apart had hurt him just as much as Nova. He seemed seconds away from applauding, barely restraining himself from jumping up and down while he forgot there were others around.

Spencer was staring at the room, clutching his chest, and I wondered what your mate suddenly getting that much power felt like. His hand pressed to the window and he was softly whispering her name over and over. Whatever it felt like, it didn’t erase nearly as much of his worry as I thought it would.

I figure came out of the bathroom covered in flames. It took several second of them walking for me to recognize the sway of Nova and her hips. The flames in the bathroom started to die down as she walked away from it, but her eyes were still glowing and unfocused as she came towards us. Her steps were slow and measured, but I couldn’t tell if it was through her trying to control her animal or because she was afraid she’d scare us.

Her head moved to the side as she noticed the alpha Clark and I watched him shiver. As she took another step he leapt off the balcony and shifted to run, but the second he touched the ground he burst into flames. Balthasar tore his eyes off his daughter to glance over the edge and smirk.

“Note to the wise, if I deal sounds too good - it is.” Balthasar chuckled again. “I said that no one here could lay a hand on him, and he would get all the riches and power he wanted, on the condition that he never set foot on this land again. I guess he forgot that part.”

His body was reduced to ashes in seconds and, like he was a phoenix, only his body was affected by the flame. I was so distracted and satisfied in watching a terrible wolven leave this plain that I almost missed the dull click of a lock. I turned in time to see Nova opening the door and Spencer rushing to her, despite her still covered in flames. Then I watched in complete aw as everywhere he touched and kissed the flames went out.

“My angel, oh Goddess my angel,” he cooed, kissing up and down her neck, meeting her lips in the middle and continuing down the other side.

His arms enveloped her and squeezed her tightly to him even as Balthasar roared behind him. Nova returned her own shrieking bird sound to her father, but it quickly turned into a soft warbling sound almost like a cooing pigeon as she nuzzled her nose into Spencer’s neck. Daley was squeezing my arm and I looked down at my little love as she winced. When my eyes returned to the true mates Nova was sinking a mouth full of sharp keratin fangs into Spencer’s neck.

He groaned lavishly, his hand moving up her back to the back of her head to gently stroke her hair as she bit him. Her eyes were closed, completely focus in him until Daley let a soft whimper free and her glowing eyes darted open to us. Her eyes got wide and she slowly removed her teeth from his neck, licking the skin gently when she was free and looking around.

“Father.” The word was a breath followed by a wince that didn’t seem to go anywhere.

She was expecting the same pain she had when he arrived, the pain that followed her interacting with her family despite her banishment. A smile spread over her face and Spencer slowly put her feet back on the ground. Their lips met and she held his face in her hands for a moment before she took off towards her father and jumped into his arms.

He wore a polished suit that seemed to shimmer green in the light like his scales, but all that polished exterior vanished once his daughter was in his arms. He wrapped her up completely, a few silent tears running over his cheeks.

“My jewel,” he whispered, holding the back of her head in one hand and hugging her tightly to him with the other.

Father and daughter united at last.