The Phoenix Prophecy: Nova

It’s a ten-minute drive from the lake to Kole’s bar. I make it in eight. I park my truck out back, facing the woods, then let myself in through the kitchen. The body of the bar is silent, dark; closed up for the night.

“Kole?” I try the back room, my gaze catching on the desk. We’ve had some good times on that desk. Or, should I say, over that desk?

“Up here.” His low growl of a voice comes from upstairs. The apartment he used as his own before he finally gave in, admitted he needed roommates, and moved up to Mack’s mansion with Luther and me.

The apartment has been empty for months. Ever since Luther ended his ‘acquaintances with benefits’ arrangement with the barmaid who rented it. Turned out, she thought they were a lot more than just acquaintances. When he told her — in true Luther style — that he could barely remember her name, she broke up with him, quit, and moved out. It was spectacularly dramatic, although Luther barely even blinked when she poured a glass of neat vodka over his head. Slick bastard just licked his lips and smirked at her.

I take the stairs two at a time. Usually, I shut off my senses when I’m here; even when it’s empty, the bar is sodden with memories, thoughts, and feelings that press down on me. Swallow me up.

Bars and churches are the same. My nemeses.

As I reach the top step, I make a decision. It’s bad manners to snoop on your friends’ inner-most thoughts, but I need to know what’s waiting for me. So, I open the gates in my head and let it all in.

The usual swirl of feelings fills me up quickly. In a matter of seconds, I experience the emotions of every person who’s stepped over the threshold of The Solar Cross since yesterday. I let them settle. But then, searing like a flare through the night sky, there’s something else. Something bigger.

Wheels.

I brace myself on the walls, reaching out both hands and pressing them into the stairwell on either side of me. It’s been three years since I felt this coming off him.

The Hunger, he calls it. And it’s an appropriate name.

For three years, he’s buried it. Controlled it. It comes close to escaping sometimes, and that’s when we usually end up at the lake. When he’s trying to beat it back down where it belongs. Lock it up. Seal it in tight.

As I stand here, willing myself to move, its strength almost knocks me to the ground.

It’s gnawing at my insides. Scratching at my skin. Pounding in my temples.

Blood. Blood. Blood. Blood. 

The word circles my brain. Grows thick on my tongue. A metallic taste fills my mouth.

I’m breathing quick, shallow breaths, trying to slam the gates closed again when I hear him. “Tanner?”

His voice brings me close enough to the surface to pull the veil back down.

It’s gone. The hunger is gone.

At least, it’s gone for me. For Kole, it’s still there. Which means one of two things. Either he’s fallen off the wagon — some deadbeat vamp slipped him a vial — or someone has triggered him.

Someone. Some human. Cut their hand. Bled all over the floor. Sent him wild with hunger.

I’ve told him before he should ban them from the bar, but he’s always insisted he can handle it. Maybe, just this once, the Viking’s wrong.

I take the last few steps slowly, then push open the door at the top. My eyes lock onto Kole. He’s sitting in the tall armchair by the window, hunched forward, hands clenched as if he’s praying. Moonlight illuminates the dips and curves in his shoulders.

He looks up at me.

“What happened?” I ask, staying in the doorway. He doesn’t look high. His eyes are normal. So are his lips.

Kole nods in the direction of the couch.

Shit. There’s a woman on it. Her arm hangs limp at her side. Her hair, like a silver halo, fans out beneath her head. Her eyes are closed.

“Kole, what happened?” I repeat, walking slowly toward her but keeping my eyes on him.

“I found her.” He stands up, takes a step forward, then stops. “She passed out in the street.”

“She’s human?”

“Must be.” He breathes a heavy sigh, then clears his throat. “She must be injured. Bleeding from somewhere because I’m…” His words catch. He doesn’t show weakness. Not to me. Not to anyone. But he’s struggling to stay strong.

Before I kneel down to examine her, I turn to catch his eyes. “It’s okay. I’ve got this. You should go.”

“I’m all right.” He rubs his beard with his palm.

“No, you’re not.”

“Just check her over.” He gestures to the girl. “Help her.”

I tilt my head and try to decipher the look on his face. There’s something different in his voice. Not just the hunger; something else.

But whatever it is will have to wait until later.

I fold my legs and kneel in front of the couch. I take her hand and feel for her pulse. Strong. Not thready.

She’s wearing a long brown trench coat, buttoned up to her neck, white sneakers peeking out from the bottom of it. I conjure a small white light and cast it, searching up and down her body. A body that, even through her coat, is curvaceous as hell.

I shake my head. I’m a nurse, for fuck’s sake. And I never think about patients like that. Especially not unconscious patients.

“Well?” Kole is pacing up and down by the window.

“No signs of blood, but I need to get her out of these clothes to examine her properly.”

Kole makes a sound that’s almost a laugh. “Course you do.”

I ignore him, reach out, and move my hand to the back of her head — the most obvious place to find an injury that would have caused her to bleed and pass out. But as I make contact with her, she stirs.

I sit back. Kole’s energy is coming in waves from behind me.

Her eyes flutter open. For a moment, she stares at the ceiling, then she turns her head. She has long, thick eyelashes and the most mesmerizing eyes I’ve ever seen. One is an almost copper shade of brown and the other is sapphire blue.

She blinks slowly. Then, as if she’s suddenly realized she’s in a dark room with a guy she’s never met before, she springs upright, backing into the corner of the couch, wrapping her arms around her legs.

I put out my palms and smile gently at her. “It’s all right. You’re safe.”

Her eyes are wide. “Who are you?” Her voice is like honey.

I stay kneeling. “I’m Tanner. I’m a nurse.” I look behind me at Kole, who’s standing silhouetted by the window like the scary fucking Viking he is. Simmering with frustration. “My buddy found you in the street. He called me to come check you out.”

I stop, wince at the accidental choice of words, then correct myself. “Check you over.” I smile at her again. “Check you over.”

She doesn’t react to my mumbling, just looks past me at Kole. As she drinks him in, she inhales sharply. Her chest rises. I take my eyes away from it and look at her face instead.

“Are you hurt?”

She tilts her head at me. “No. I don’t think so.”

I pat my own head then gesture to hers. “Did you take a bang to the head?”

“No,” she says, uncurling her arms from around her knees and sitting forward a little. “No, I’m okay.”

“You passed out,” I tell her.

“I think I’m just tired… or hungry. I haven’t eaten since…” She trails off.

“Hungry?” Kole’s voice makes me jump. He steps forward out of the shadows, staring at her as if he wants to devour her.

Unfazed, she nods at him. “I had a long journey. I didn’t eat properly today. My own fault.” She pauses, looks from Kole to me, then her shoulders droop and she shivers a little.

“Where was this long journey from?” I ask, trying not to sound too much like Mack or Luther interrogating a suspect, but, at the same time, acutely aware this woman is hiding something from us.

She bites her lower lip. She’s studying my face. “I…” She winces. “It’s complicated.”

“Okay. Let’s start with something simpler.” I hold out my hand to shake hers. “I’m Tanner.” I glance over my shoulder. “That’s Kole.”

She looks down at our hands. Her delicate, smooth fingers are wrapped around mine. “Nova,” she says. “I’m Nova.”

“Hi, Nova.” I take back my hand, then add, “You’re human?”

She blinks at me and shuffles uncomfortably. I hope she hasn’t heard Kole’s throat rumbling. “Yes.”

“We’re not.” I smile and flick my hand to re-conjure the light.

Her eyes widen.

“We’re mages. You’re in Phoenix Falls. There are a lot of us here.”

She nods slowly. She’s transfixed by the light. “Phoenix Falls. Yes, I knew that.” She pauses, then puts her hands into her pockets and says, “I ran away. My boyfriend—I guess he’s my ex-boyfriend now—tried to hurt me. So, I left. I got on the first bus that turned up. It brought me here.” She takes her eyes from the light and looks at me instead. “I didn’t bring anything with me. No clothes. No phone. Just some cash.” She laughs a small, nervous laugh. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”

“He’s got a trustworthy face,” Kole says.Copyright Nôv/el/Dra/ma.Org.

Staying focused on Nova, I clear my throat and try to swallow down the anger bubbling away in my gut. I know Kole’s feeling the same; we don’t tolerate men who hurt their women. “Your boyfriend… did he hurt you? Are you bleeding?”

“Bleeding?” She looks confused. “No.”

“Okay, well, maybe I should examine you just in case?” There is no possible way I can say that without it sounding pervy — especially because my brain has gone into overdrive picturing her peeling that big brown coat off and showing me what’s underneath — but she has to be bleeding or Kole wouldn’t be in the middle of a hunger-fueled meltdown. Maybe she’s hurt and doesn’t realize it.

“No, thank you. I’m fine, really. But I wouldn’t mind some water?” She touches her finger to her throat as she speaks.

“Tanner?” Kole hasn’t moved more than a few feet from the window. “Can I talk with you outside for a moment?”

I nod and stand up. “Sure.” To the girl, I say, “Nova, we’ll be back with your water. Hang tight.”

In the stairwell, Kole pulls the door closed behind us and grabs me by the shoulders. I think he’s going to kiss me, or turn me around and fuck me up against the wall, because his entire body is so tense it’s like he might explode at any second.

But he doesn’t.

Instead, he says, “Something is going on here. Who the hell is she? What the hell is she?”

“She said she’s human.”

Kole shakes his head darkly. “She’s more than that. I can feel it. I haven’t reacted to a human like this in years. Especially one whose blood seems to be firmly within her veins.” He sucks in a deep breath and lets go of my shoulders. Scraping his hands through his hair, he closes his eyes. “Something’s happening to me, and it started when she set foot in this town.”