The Final Battle (Living in a Pack Book Three)

Chapter Three: Fire Birds

The Gryphons dropped us off at the bottom of the mountain. They'd offered us rooms to spend the night but we had to keep moving. We settled for a meal and accepted a ride down the mountain from them. Once you get past their terrifying size they were actually pretty nice.

"So, where to next?" Dan asked as we watched the gryphons disappear into the mountain once again. Dylas reached into his pocket and pulled out the wrinkled and torn piece of paper that contained the list of supernatural creatures our group had been tasked to hunt down. Dylas' eyes lit up as he read the next thing on the list.

"Phoenix." He grinned and looked around.

"As in giant flaming birds?" Theo asked rather dejectedly.

"What do you mean 'giant flaming bird's'" Cameron mocked Theos upset tone. "Pheonixs are awesome." Theo dramatically pointed to the small white ears that rested atop his head.

"Arctic fox shape shifter." He stated flatly. "I like cold. Me and heat don't really mix well." I nodded in agreement at that. As much as meeting a Phoenix would be awesome, I wasn't exactly looking forward to it.

"Ohh right, yeah sis your mate is afraid to even be in the vicinity of a little bit of heat." Cameron teased and grinned wickedly. Theo twitched his ears in slight amusement but his face kept up it's pissed of expression. I noticed that his hair was slightly darker then it used to be. I grinned as I remembered that Theos hair color changed with the seasons just like an arctic fox. The forms of arctic fox shifters changed with the seasons but Theos hair did as well as he was more in touch with his animal side as I was. I wondered when the rest of our friends would notice. I shook the thoughts from my head and looked at Dylas.

"So where we going this time?" I asked curiously. Dylas frowned at the paper.

"It just says italy and that's it." He said in confusion. "That's not really much to go on."

"Do you think maybe we should call up mom and dad?" Sasha suggested. Dylas nodded and Sasha pulled out her phone and quickly dialed up her parents. She wandered off a few feet away probably looking for better service. I sat down in the snow and waited for the phone call to be over. A few minutes later Sasha came strolling over to us.

"So what's the sitch?" Cameron said in his best Kim Possible expression. Which to be honest was absolute shit.

"So apparently, Phoenixs are even more hard to track down then gryphons to the point where the closest they could find on their where abouts is italy and that's about it." Sasha explained giving a sarcastic thumbs up. "Isn't that lovely."

"So what your saying is we have to run around italy and try and track down giant flaming bird's that the majority of the world things are nothing but mere legends?" I asked raising an eyebrow.

"But that could take forever." Dan exclaimed. "We legit do not have the time for that."

"We have a week. If we can't find them within that time frame we have to move on to the next species on the list." Sasha informed.

"Where do we even begin?" Nate growled in frustration.

"I don't know, Rome? It's the capital afterall." Sasha suggested.

"Wait wait, what do you purpose we do when we get there? Run around Rome looking under rocks? How exactly are we going to find them." Theo asked shaking his head. "This one's just not possible you guys."

"Dad suggested asking around for legends maybe I don't really know, maybe we'll get lucky." Sasha muttered, attempting to defend her parents decision but clearly not happy either.

"Well we better get going then if we've only got a week to do it." Theo muttered. "Heat and a wasted week while a war that could end the world looms ahead. Just our luck." He shifted and ran ahead. Amber sighed and shifted too, heading after her mate. Dylas glanced sideways at me but I just shrugged.

"Its not my fault he gets only child syndrome sometimes." I explained nonchalantly

"You're an only child too." Dylas said staring hard at me. I grinned at him, mischief dancing in my eyes.

"And I'm ten times worse then Theo, you just haven't seen that side of me yet." I shrugged again and shifted, taking off down the slope. I heard Dylas growl under his breath and I laughed to myself. Not long after he was running along behind me in wolf form.

●●●

A couple hours later we were on a plane headed for italy. All I could think about was how my first trip to Italy was to track down a flock of fire covered birds. Flock? Murder? Herd? What does one call a group of Phoenixs?

"What are you thinking about?" Dylas asked curiously.

"I was just wondering what someone would call a group of Phoenixs." I answered smiling at him. He snorted in amusement at that comment. I laughed and lid my head against his shoulder. After a few moments he asked me softly.

"Are you sure you're okay with tracking down these Phoenixs?"

"Why wouldn't I be?" I answered back tiredly.

"It's just the heat. I don't want you to over heat, I know you really hate it."

"I'll be fine." I whispered my eyes slowly drooping.

"You'd better be, I don't know what I'd do if I ever lost you. I love you."

"I love you too." I mumbled.

"Iris... if we survive this war, I want us to..." I never heard the rest of his sentence. I'd already fallen asleep.

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It's finally out, I know I'm like way over due on this one but things kept coming up, and I just had zero time to write because of them. That's all over with though and hopefully there won't be any more distractions in the future. Until next time...

-Polar