Omega Phoenix: Provoked

1

Cyra

The roofs of the buildings under me are nothing more than dark grey shapes as I shoot over them, my only focus the Alpha phoenix in the air in front of me.

She doesn’t notice me yet, still focused on Zack and Spence, trying to keep them off her. But the shifters she’s taken with her to attack us have definitely noticed me.

On my right, a dark form speeds towards me, but as I pull more of my energy inside me, the colour of the fire of my wings intensifies, becoming almost white in some spots. I’m aware of the heat of the flames, but it doesn’t harm me, it just makes me angrier than I already am.

I turn my head towards the shifter, some type of gargoyle, and I open my mouth. A ball of fire shoots towards the gargoyle, the ball so bright that it’s almost too bright to look at. The gargoyle quickly ducks out of the way and my ball of fire flashes past them, dissolving into nothing a few moments later. Oh, damn. I hadn’t actually planned to do that, it was an instinct. But it’s still pretty damn cool. Sadly enough, it won’t be useful against the Alpha phoenix…

My pregnancy has made me tired all the time. But right now, I don’t feel any of it. It’s like the babies are giving me extra energy to fight, to protect my family, or maybe it’s because my family is in danger that I can find some extra source of energy. I don’t really care which it is, I’m grateful for it.

After the ball of fire, and the heat surrounding me, the other shifters don’t seem to be in any hurry to attack me. So I fully focus back on the Alpha phoenix, who finally seems to have noticed me too.

Good.

Let’s hope that we can settle this quickly. Because I’m getting really tired of always being on the run and having to fear for my life. Really tired. This has to end.

Fury builds inside me. I can’t believe that the Alpha phoenix would do this, attack us right now, while we were doing an interview on international TV.

Hasn’t she done enough to hurt my family yet?

Hasn’t she put us through enough yet?

Why is she so set on getting me for herself?

So much so, that she’s willing to kill everyone I know to get to me. And I don’t doubt that if she still can’t get me that way, she’ll kill me too, just so someone else can’t have me instead.

And it has to stop. It has to stop right now. I’m going to make her stop, one way or another. I’m not letting her hurt anyone else anymore. Her reign of terror ends here.

This ends here.

Speeding towards the Alpha phoenix, I open my mouth on another screech. To warn Zack and Spence to get out of the way, to tell the Alpha phoenix off, to let out my frustration.

As the distance between us shrinks, I stretch my claws out in front of me, focused on grabbing her. Rip her to pieces in the air. Anything to hurt her, to make her stop.

At the last moment, she jerks to the side and my claws only manage to scratch one of her wings. The fire of her wing licks my claws, but has no other effect on me.

I swoop around, readying myself for another attack. I’m not used to fighting like this, but that doesn’t stop me, not even a moment.

When I turn back to the Alpha phoenix, she’s suddenly close, much closer than I expected her to be. She drops down from above me and I’m too late to duck out of the way.

She grips my shoulder with one of her claws, right where it meets the wing, and pain shoots through my body, setting all my senses on edge.

Fuck.

No.

I try to turn, try to make her let go, try to scratch at her with one of my claws. But she only holds onto my shoulder tighter and brings up her other claw to get a better hold of me.

Then, as I’m trying my best to get away from her, someone slams into her from the side. I get jerked to the side roughly, my shoulder screaming from the pain, and I have to focus to not accidentally shift back. But it’s enough to loosen the grip of the Alpha phoenix, and I finally manage to get out.

The moment I’m out, I’m in a freefall. The roofs of the building below me coming closer at a frightening speed. Fear shoots through me until instinct kicks in and I spread out my wings. The force as the wind catches under my wings and pulls on the wound in my shoulder nearly makes me black out from pain. Fuck.

When I look up, to find out who saved me, I spot Zack a little while off. From this close, I see the bleeding gash in one of his necks and how there appears to be a hole in the skin of part of his wing. Anger flares through me.

No.

No!

They can not hurt my mate. They can’t.

I won’t let them.

I frantically look around, trying to find the Alpha phoenix, and spot her higher up, looking down at us. Before she can decide the next part of her plan, I force my wings to fly me higher as quickly as I can, ignoring the pain in my shoulder. She won’t get away with this.

The fights around us become a blur as I only focus on the Alpha phoenix. Nothing else matters anymore. Nothing.

I need to take the Alpha phoenix out, or this is never going to end. She’ll just keep coming for me, until I put a stop to this. Until I really stop her.

Changing my tactics, I push myself up as fast as possible, making myself as small a target as possible. I’ll do anything, anything to win now.

Shooting upwards, I don’t focus on where I want to hit her, but I focus on the middle of her body. No matter which way she tries to get out of the way, I should be able to reach some part of her like this. I should be able to hurt her. Once I wound her enough to force her to land, this should be much easier.

When I’m close, she tries to dive out of the way at the last moment, but I know that I made the right calculation as I manage to get a hold of her wing. Fiery feathers and some bones snap in my beak, making her screech out in pain.

Only, at the same time, fire shoots down my side and my hip as she rakes her claws down my body. For a moment, I worry about my babies. She can’t hurt them! I can’t let her hurt them.

No!

Now, my focus becomes very narrow. Only one thing left in my mind. I need to stop her. No matter how.

Once I’m above her, I turn around and drop on top of her, my claws outstretched. I manage to grab hold of one of her wings, digging in to make sure she can’t get out, and then I simply close my wings, letting the both of us drop to the ground. It’s a desperate move, but I don’t know what else to do.

Our combined weights pull us down faster and faster, the world around us becomes one big blur. I’m slightly aware of shifters screaming out in alarm, but I can’t get distracted now.

The Alpha phoenix tries to get out of my grip, but I’m not letting her go. Her struggles become desperate in my claws as she realises what I’m doing.

Above us, the sounds of alarm get harsher, anguished, and I have no idea who they’re from, but I also don’t have the luxury to check. How this action will end depends on a split-second decision and I can’t miss it, or this will all be over for good, for both of us.

When the roofs of the buildings are scarily close, I suddenly let the Alpha phoenix go, her forward motion propelling her towards the roof, while I open my wings and manage to soar over the edge of the roof, scantily missing it.

My sight goes white from the pain going through my body, but I manage to stay conscious as I put distance between me and the Alpha phoenix. I’ll take a look at my wounds later, I need to protect my family first.

I glance down, and with a sinking feeling I watch how she has managed to open her wings too, slowing some of her fall. But one of her wings doesn’t look right and she doesn’t really move it. She lands on the roof roughly, the force of the movement making her sprawl in the gravel, fire bouncing around her. But, with a wing like that, she can’t come after me in the air anymore.

Then I glace around me and I feel sick when I see the fights going on. Spence is doing his best to fight off a gargoyle, maybe even the same one who attacked me earlier, and Zack is in hand-to-hand combat in the air with another hydra. The other hydra isn’t as large as Zack, but Zack is hurt and can’t defend himself as well as he’d normally be able to.

This needs to stop. This really needs to stop!

I turn back around and fly down to the rooftop where the Alpha phoenix is standing, pushing her beak against the hurt wing, testing for the extend of the damage to it. For a moment, I almost feel pity for her, the sorry state she’s in.

Then I remember that she wants to hurt my mates, my family, just because she wants to take me as her Omega, and if she can’t have me alive, she’s happy enough to kill me just so that nobody else can have me either.

Which is… That’s just sick. How can anyone think to claim that much possession of another’s life? It’s not right.

The Alpha phoenix looks up at me, her eyes flashing with fury and then she opens her beak, letting out a ball of fire and a loud screech in my direction.

I soar to the side, just barely missing the ball. It’s not that the fire would hurt me, but the force behind it would still push me off-balance, and it’s painful enough to fly in the state I’m in already.

As a reply, I open my mouth and shoot a ball of fire at her, then, a split second later, I soar after it. Hoping to get closer to her so that I can take her out once and for all. The ball of fire in front of me moves fast and I can’t see anything ahead of it. I’m hoping and trusting that I shot it in the right direction and I didn’t just do something dangerous.

I get closer and closer to my target, the roof suddenly appearing underneath me. Almost there.

Then, the ball of fire suddenly seems to fizzle out against an invisible barrier.

Panic shoots through me. Not good.

For a split second, I notice the Alpha phoenix behind the barrier, sprawled out on the ground in a strange position, slowly shifting back to her human form, her fire fading away.

What the fuck?

I try everything I can to not crash into the invisible barrier, but it’s too late.

The crash against the barrier is more painful than anything I’ve ever experienced before. My whole body impacting against something that feels like the side of a mountain, even though I can’t see anything.

I fall on my back on the gravel roof, my whole body hurting now.

While I’m still trying to clear my head, trying to understand what’s happening, I hear soft sounds a little while off. And then two small pricks of pain on my back, and my body goes numb.

What?

What’s going on?

I try to move, try to look around, but it’s no use as the world around me goes dark, until the last thing I can see is the blue sky above me, before that disappears too.

One moment, I was fighting the Alpha phoenix, my body filled with fire and anger, and the next moment, it was all gone. The next moment, there was nothing…

Emptiness.

Darkness.