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“House, Timber. Please.”
And then he caught fire as he walked.
Shit. She turned and bolted for the house. She reached the door just as a hugewhooshingsounded, and a wave of heat blasted against her skin.
She gasped, and turned around in time to see fiery wings beat the air as he rocketed straight into the sky. Knowing he was a phoenix and seeing him as a phoenix were two totally different things. He was massive, the size of ten of his trucks, and his flaming wings could spread so wide, they covered an enormous length of the sky. A trail of blistering lava followed him, soaking the grass he’d just launched from and burning a crater into the clearing. He went straight up, and up, until she couldn’t see anything but a trail of smoke.
“Oh my gosh,” she whispered to herself in awe as she watched him beat his fiery wings against the air currents.
There was a strange noise coming from the crater in the yard. Timber slowly approached it, trying hard with every step to identify the crackling sound.
When she looked inside the hole, she gasped. Shallow green flames lapped at the dark earth, and shoots of young grass were popping up wherever the green flames touched. The sound was the roots growing and clasping each other under the soil.
Timber pulled her phone up fast and took a picture of it. Heart racing, she turned for the trees he’d healed and strode for them, casting a glance up at the sky.
They were spruce trees, but there were little purple flowers all over the branches. That wasn’t supposed to exist. These type of trees didn’t bloom like this. She took pictures of it, and she could still see the trail of smoke in the sky from Wreck.
She texted him those pictures as a reminder that his animal was okay. That he didn’t need to feel guilty for being the thing he was.
Wreck wasn’t some abomination, as he saw himself.
He was layered and complicated, sure, but he didn’t see himself the way she saw him.
He could heal if he wanted to.
One of the purple flowers fell from the tree. She caught it, and stared at the beautiful thing in her hand that only existed because Wreck did.
That saying he’d recited about the phoenix rising from the ashes, and his belief that it wasn’t like that for him?
She disagreed.
He just hadn’t finished rising yet, and part of her was thankful that she was going to get to witness this part of his story.
Chapter Nine
Timber finished drying the last plate she’d bought second-hand today. They were the old-fashioned kind with print around the edges of the ceramic. This one had little black checkers, and she’d been able to get the entire dish set for twenty-five bucks. It was just missing one of the bowls, and one of the salad plates.
She set it on the stack that sat on the raw-wood shelf that had been empty before.
The girls had brought all her purchases in and piled them in the center of the room for her to rearrange, and she appreciated that they’d done that. She had a specific look in mind for this room.
She’d always enjoyed interior decorating, but she wasn’t allowed to do much to her rental house. The landlord would explode if he found out she’d hung a single picture on the wall, much less paint the walls.
She stood back, looked at the shelf of dishes, and nodded. She turned for the living room and scanned the décor. She’d set the loveseat across from the hearth and it looked mismatched, but like it fit with the end table and worn coffee table. A rug would do wonders for this place. A trio of garage-sale vases sat on the coffee table in different shades of green to match the three pictures of leaves that hung on the wall. Some curtains would do wonders to this place, too. Thank goodness for whoever had covered the open part of the roof with a tarp when they’d been shopping today. She could smell the ozone-scent that said it would rain soon. Shifter senses were probably much stronger than hers. They’d probably known it was going to rain since last week or something.
She rearranged the apples in the wooden fruit bowl she’d found at the garage sale, and knelt down to study the deep scrapes carved into the leg of the table she’d bought. Maybe the last owners had a puppy or something. She could possibly get one of those wood markers and disguise it.
The door creaked open, and she stood in a rush and turned around.
Wreck towered in the open doorframe, head cocked so he wouldn’t hit the top of it. He looked bigger. Fuller. He filled the entire space with the breadth of his shoulders.
He was streaked with soot, nary a stitch of clothing on him, and every muscle was flexed like he’d just finished a big workout.
His abs were more defined with each breath, and his eyes were full of fire. His mouth was set in a grim line, as if he’d never smiled in his entire life.
“It’s okay,” she said.
He dragged his gaze from her to the furniture, to the pictures on the wall, to the little wooden knickknacks she had painstakingly arranged on the mantle of the living room fireplace.
