Prologue: Phoenix

***This is Book Six of the Elemental Dragon series. References will be made to events that happened in previous books without being fully explained here. While this book can be read as a standalone, it is recommended that you read the series, starting with The Arena.***

Every time I’m called to rise, I choose a human who is worthy. One whose heart is pure. One who is kind and loving. One who values the life of others and is willing to give their lives to protect those around them. It has to be a human with these attributes because, while I always rise again, my humans do not.

Over time, I’ve realized that when I’m called, there is always a human who stands out to me, one who calls to me in some way or another. This time, when I felt the call to rise, it was Emmi who called to me.

She was an orphan, someone who never had a family, but who always stood up for the underdog. She was the one who would walk through the forest and help the creatures who were injured or trapped. They responded to her, as they would have to me, with trust and affection.

I joined my soul to hers just as she was taken hostage by the mutated hybrids. They weren’t true hybrids, and their distorted bodies were a testament of the torture and experiments that they had suffered. But their hearts and their minds had been cruel before they had been taken by the scientists, and that didn’t change when they got away.

At first, I thought that I had been called to battle against them. With Emmi taken, I had a front row seat to their cruelty and twisted nature. They aren't natural, maybe they never were. But when they began injecting their Komodo Dragon venom into Emmi and others by biting them, it had pushed away my ability to rise. It shouldn’t have. As a Phoenix, I am the strongest of all creatures, even stronger than the dragons of old.

But this venom wasn’t natural. It was harsh, full of chemicals, and mixed with other creatures making it hard for me to come forward and rise.

Then, I hadn’t expected Emmi to fight me. Maybe it was because of what the others did to her that she thinks that my presence is making her crazy, but I need to rise, and she won’t let me. She fights me and at first, I didn’t push too hard, not wanting to hurt her. But when the group who saved her was attacked, harpoons launching, dragons screaming in pain, elves unable to control their earth element, and shifters burning and crying out in pain, I knew I had to force the shift.

Because she fought me, everything around us burned. The fire, my fire, couldn’t be contained. I had screamed in frustration, angry that I couldn't shift without killing her. But then he was there. My mate. My Sunshine.

He calms the fire inside me, the frustration that comes from fighting with my human and when she passed out, I’d reveled in the feel of his arms around me, letting him extinguish my fire along with my frustration.

I can tell that he’s not quite human, not quite dragon, and not quite elf. He’s a lovely combination of all of them, with a deliciously earthy scent that soothes the fire in me. I haven’t always been lucky enough to find my mate when I rise. Sometimes, I’ve found him in the middle of the battle that ends my human’s life, so I barely get any time with him. But, that is preferable to never meeting him at all during the short time that I'm alive. This time, he’s been here with me almost since I came forward. It’s an incredible feeling to have him so close already.

When I felt my Sunshine’s sorrow, the horrible, painful sorrow of so many around me, I was able to push forward. Since Emmi was unconscious, and because I didn’t have to fight her, I was able to open my eyes and come forward. I was in my Sunshine’s arms and everywhere around us, dragons, shifters, and elves were crying.

My Sunshine told me that a dragon gave his life to save his rider. A noble act of pure love.

As my Sunshine and I are talking, Emmi wakes and I gently take over her mind. This time she doesn't fight me, possibly because she's still exhausted, or possibly because there is no anger in me, only a desire to help. This is why I’m here, one of the reasons anyway. I know this little dragon doesn’t have to die, not when the power of the Phoenix is resurrection.

I watch as the earth dragon pulls heat from the center of the earth, burning his son’s body and then the air dragon lifts his ashes into the sky. Emmi sits back in her mind and watches while I collect Iniko’s ashes from the sky pulling them to the area where my fire burned. The area that is now hot enough to hatch dragon eggs.

While the others grieve, I take his ashes and pull them into the glass that was created by my fire. I seal his ashes and his essence into the shape of an egg. Then, I watch as the ashes begin to regrow and reform, coming to life again.

As I pulled his life force into the egg, I saw how tragic his life had been. This poor little dragon had suffered so much, suffered in so many ways that he deserved to have a new life, to start over.

I don’t remember resurrecting a dragon in my past lives. In times of war and battle, many dragons died, and many gave their lives for their riders. But most of their riders also died when their dragons did. So, I never felt the need to bring them back. But this time, this little dragon needed to be disconnected from everything in his past. Everything that had caused him pain I pulled from his life and his mind. He will not remember the pain of the laboratory where his dead body was reformed. He will not remember the pain of the cruel hybrids who whipped him mercilessly to try and claim him. And he will not remember giving himself to a woman who was not his and gave herself to someone else. I pulled all of that, leaving him only with his parents and his brother who will have a very different relationship with him in his second life than they did in the first.

“I will see you soon, Iniko,” Emmi whispers.

Emmi has seen what will happen. She may not understand it, not yet. But Iniko will rise again.