Free Dances With Demons - A Phoenix Chronicle Novella by Lori Handeland

ashes. That wouldn’t kill him but it would hurt like hell. More importantly, his rising from the ashes, just like the being that had caused them, would reveal to Megan Murphy the truth.
    Quinn Fitzpatrick wasn’t human. No matter how much he might long to be.
    Liz’s gaze flicked back, narrowed. “Quinn.” She snapped her fingers in front of his face. “Got no time. Megan?”
    “She’s safe.”
    “I didn’t come all this way when I’m in demons up to my ass so that I could leave without seeing for myself.”
    Why had she? The last he’d spoken to her shit had happened, and she’d had no time for him or Megan. Which meant it was very deep shit indeed.
    Her gaze lit on the bedroom door, closed, and as it was the only door in the place, it didn’t take a neurosurgeon to figure out where Megan was.
    She strode in that direction, and Quinn bit his lip to keep from telling her not to. One did not tell the leader of the light not to do anything. Unless one wanted to become ashes.
    Quinn didn’t. Not yet.
    Besides, he wore all his clothes. Just because Megan didn’t would prove nothing. If he was lucky, Liz would see her friend was breathing and leave. He’d worry about explaining himself later.
    Liz opened the door, and everything stilled. Quinn’s hair stirred again, but this time it tingled, as did every hair on his body. The very air seemed sucked from his lungs, the room, the earth. A snarl rippled around the room.
    Quinn rushed forward. There was no reason for Liz to be so furious unless—
    His gaze landed on the bed and he blinked. He was both there—all tangled up in her—and here. How could that be?
    “You are a dead man,” Liz said.
    “I know. Just don’t kill me until she’s safe.” He met her eyes, which blazed like blue neon in the night. “No one will protect her like I can.”
    “That’s protecting?” She nodded at the bed where he and Megan slept on.
    “No one is closer to her than I at this moment.”
    “Max,” Megan murmured.
    He stilled as agony flared.
    He could be at her side from now until forever, he could make love to her until she slept in his arms over and over again. But she would always love another.
    Liz looked quickly away, but not before pity flashed in her eyes. He deserved it.
    Quinn beckoned, and Liz followed him through the living room and out the still broken back door and into the moon- shrouded garden.
    “I’m dreaming, aren’t I?”
    “What do you think?”
    “You’re a dream walker.”
    “I’m everything,” she muttered.
    Quinn didn’t know much about his mistress. He’d heard she was a sexual empath; she absorbed the supernatural abilities of others through sex. Not the easiest way to save the world, one Quinn didn’t envy, which was probably why he was a minion and not the boss.
    Liz Phoenix had become leader of the light upon the murder of the previous leader, her adopted mother Ruthie Kane. She’d been thrown into the fight against evil, against doomsday, without time to prepare. Bad things had happened, but she was still fighting. Eventually she would win.
    She had to.
    While he hadn’t known she had the power to dream walk—the ability to stroll through the dreams of the one with the answer to her most desperate question—he did know what it took to do so. One had to hover between life and death.
    “Where are you?” he asked. “What happened?”
    She waved away her mortal wound or terminal illness as if swatting a gnat. “I’m too far away for you to help, and what happened doesn’t matter.”
    “Liz,” he began.
    “At last. It only took my imminent demise to get you to call me by my name.”
    “How imminent?”
    “Damn imminent, or I wouldn’t be in your head.”
    “What do you need from me?”
    Her lips curved. “I didn’t know I needed anything.”
    “Yet here you are.”
    In Quinn’s dream. Which meant he was the one with the answer she needed badly enough to dream walk. But what was the question?
    “Megan.” Her