Taken by my mate

Spencer

“FfOood!” Evadiene cheered, rushing to the seat and sitting down. She moved to take a big bite of bread and hesitated. “Sequoia?”

The cat jumped from my lap and moved towards Evadiene, shifting back to a woman as she did. She picked up the plate and smelt it deeply and thoroughly. I watched her turn the plate in her hands, and then do the same all over again.

“Where does the dress come from?” Ellion asked, and Daley smacked him.

“Unlike you shifters, I’m an animal with a human form. You snap and break into position, my transition is magical, so why wouldn’t I want to appear with clothes… -It’s clean,” Sequoia replied finally, going to confirm the door was firmly locked before dropping the weighted curtain that aided in noise drifting into the halls, but with the new doors I doubted it was needed.

“You think I’d poison you?” Covyn snapped, standing straight up by the bed.

“Technically no,” Evadiene garbled out around a mouthful of bread.

“So why have your pet check?” He continued, eliciting a hiss from Sequoia who was lifting and moving a large chair to sit beside Evadiene.

“Do you know how many people have found out what I am and then decided to test it?” She asked.

Sequoia cringed, “too many.”

“And it will take time to regain my strength. I won’t recover so fast the next time. I could be ask for a month.” Evadiene handed her a bit of chicken from her plate. “Sequoia is not my pet, she is my confident, my baby, my best friend..” Evadiene looked at her. “She is the only one I can be close to without putting them in danger…”

“I’m her familiar,” Sequoia interrupted around her own mouth full of food.

“Coy!” Evadiene scolded.

She gestured her hand towards us. “What? I’m hoping one of them would have asked, but that one is my secret, not yours. I’m just trying to speed things along.”

Evadiene huffed but returned to her food. The only one not eating was Covyn, his plate sitting untouched on his bed while he watched her. I had seen how much she usually left behind, but she had nearly cleared her plate which was substantial even with Sequoia taking a second bit of chicken.

She frowned at the empty plate and set it back down on the table. Then she looked around the room, making eye contact with everyone, and sat back in her seat.

“You’re not human,” Covyn said finally, after a painfully long minute.

She shook her head.

“You let me believe you were human when you weren’t!” He yelled but she didn’t flinch, probably already feeling that he was going to speak aggressively.

Evadiene looked just as mad as he did. “I never let you believe anything, you made that assumption…”

“But you’re a phoenix?” He continued like she hadn’t spoken. “What does that even mean?”

Sequoia was hissing through her teeth and Covyn growled back at her. In a second the woman had morphed into a leopard and roared in return, sitting on the floor at Evadiene’s feet.

“It means that I am a very rare magical creature, bound by strict rules,” she replied softly, stroking Sequoia’s head to calm her.

“How old are you?” Daley asked from the window, intrigue lacing every syllable. It was clear she was so far away because Ellion was worried.

Evadiene quirked a smile. “How do you measure your age when you were around before anyone cared to measure time?”

Daley’s eyes grew wide with wonder but my mind was rewinding to earlier in the day. “So when you said you were practically there when coding or cars was invented…”

“Same land mass,” she interrupted, “but I wasn’t actually there. I didn’t have an interest in such things back then.”

I smirked. “You were trying to tell us all the time weren’t you? How many other hints did we miss?…”

I drifted off but before she could answer Covyn cut in. “Why not just say it?”

“She can’t,” I said for her. “I was trying to tell you earlier….”

“I wasn’t talking to you!” He boomed. “I was talking to her-,” he pointed a finger at her and then turned his attention back to her, “-why didn’t you tell me anything?”

Evadiene stood up, stomping towards him, and standing on a different chair to look slightly down on him. “Because you never fucking asked! All you had to do was fucking ask me! But every time anyone else tried to ask me anything you shut the questions down.”

She was seething now, chest heaving and fists looking like she wanted to hit him. “You told me that a mate is meant to complete you, to be everything you need and are not? Well you must be dumb as fucking rocks to need a mate who knows everything and not see it! Really Covyn, with everything else that’s happened, you still can’t ask the right questions.”

She clutched her head suddenly and collapsed in pain, and I almost thought Covyn wouldn’t catch her. From the look on his face, it seemed as though he wasn’t sure he was going to catch her either. Her body crumpled in on itself and Sequoia was there as a woman once more to push Covyn’s hands away.

“You need to be more careful,” Sequoia whispered. “Speak slower so you can feel the mistakes coming, don’t forget the corpse.”

Evadiene flinched at that but nodded, still holding her head. She went back to her seat and soon after Ellion and Daley drifted over.

“Is this like the curse you mentioned in the woods? Anguish if you say the wrong thing?” Ellion asked.

“Asking the right questions is a requirement for her to give certain answers,” I filled in before someone else could interrupt me. “We were able to talk briefly earlier. I tried to tell you,” I said, turning to Covyn, “but you commanded me to stay quiet.”

“Why can’t you say anything without being asked directly?” Ellion asked, moving to sit in a chair now with Daley.

“Old magic, old rules,” Daley whispered. “There’s power in a name, just like there’s power in words. To be what she is, as old as she is…. So few even still exist.”

Evadiene sat, staring at her empty plate and her stomach gurgled loudly. Alpha sighed, and relaxed considerably before he came over and set his plate in front of her. He then moved to another one of the chairs to sit with us.

“Have mine. I’m not hungry,” he muttered.

“It’s okay,” Evadiene said hurriedly but her stomach roared again and Sequoia handed her the plate directly. “Thank you,” she said instead.

“You’re more hungry than usual,” Alpha said and she nodded. “Right, not a question. Why are you so hungry now?”

She smirked slightly holding up her plate. “You ate this much to maintain your strength from shifting all the time. I came back from soot, and… I don’t know, how long was I asleep?”

“Asleep?” Alpha gaped. “You burst into flame and were reduced to ash!”

She looked at him with her brows pinched together. “Yes, I sustained enough injury to kill me, and I’m a phoenix. So I reduce my body to the most manageable state of our births, and sleep until my body can recover.”

“It’s been a long time since you’ve needed to,” Sequoia interrupted. “It wasn’t long. You were reborn in under ten minutes, I didn’t even have time to move you somewhere safer.”

Evadiene nodded, looking down. “It has been a while, hasn’t it?”

She returned to her food, her stomach in protest that she hadn’t satiated it yet. Sequoia receive some more chicken, and begrudgingly some bread.

“Tell me about the corpse,” Evadiene said after a moment of no one speaking.

Covyn perked up. “Yea, between you and that I don’t know which thing was weirder. It was one of Alpha Stone’s men, they died in a rogue ambush along the way, but when we went to bury him he shifted and started to fight us.” Evadiene dropped her fork. “What does that mean?”

She stood up, moving to the bathroom with her fork to rinse it off as she said softly, “Caius is here.”