Page 87 of War of Her Heart

I lay on my bed, covered in sweat. My heart was racing. The last time I looked at the clock it said 9:47, but I couldn’t move to check again.

Every bone in my body felt like it was on fire and every time I tried to move, it felt like I was being stabbed over and over again. I pushed through it and reached as far as I could on my nightstand to try to get the bottle in my hand. I needed to take a pill. This little experiment was going to kill me.

My fingertips touched the bottle but as I tried to grab it, it fell to the floor. I needed help. I neededhim.

“S-s . . .” I tried so hard to say his name, but I couldn’t catch my breath.

He was my only hope. The only one that could possibly hear my cry for help. That was, if I could even get a word out.

My vision started to blur, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before my body gave in to the pain.

“S-Bash,” was all I could say before the world went black.

35

Chapter 35

Sebastian

I heard her. Barely, but I heard her call out for me. I transferred to her room to see her covered in sweat, passed out, and her pills covering the floor next to her bed.

She did it. I couldn’t believe she did it. She listened to me, but something wasn’t right.

I went to her side and placed my hand on her head. She was burning up. I could hear her heart beating, but it was in overdrive. I picked her up and transferred back to my room. The last thing I needed was for someone to show up to her room during whatever this was. I had to take her somewhere no one would come to.

I lay her gently on my bed and used my shadows to push the balcony doors open. The wind rushed in, and I hoped it would bring her temperature down.

I placed my hand on her head again only to feel that she was even hotter than she was moments ago.

“Violet. Violet, wake up,” I said as I shook her. A pit formed in my stomach as I thought about the possibility that I could’ve been wrong. That she really needed those pills.

Her eyes fluttered but she couldn’t respond.

I had to shake off that thought because that couldn’t be right. I just found her.

I couldn’t lose her.

Even with the fear that was growing inside of me, I knew it wasn’t a heart condition. A heart condition wouldn’t cause her body to continue to elevate in temperature. No, whatever this was . . . it was magic.

She lay limp across my bed. I placed my hand on her head again only to immediately pull it off because she was so hot.

“I know you can hear me. I can feel some kind of energy that you’re holding in. You need to let it go,” I said.

Whatever was happening, or whatever those bloody pills were keeping contained, was radiating off of her. Her body may have given up, but her mind was fighting. She was fighting to keep control of whatever was eating her from the inside out.

“Violet. Let it go.”

Her head jerked to the side as she fought an internal battle. Her body tensed and she seemed to be squeezing her eyes shut.

“Violet!” I yelled. “Let it go!”

Her eyes shot open, but instead of the brown eyes I had grown so fond of, they were golden and glowing. Eyes I had only heard stories about.

“Oh fu—”

Violet’s body became engulfed in golden flames that shot out and consumed my room. I surrounded us with a force field to try to keep the fire in my room. No one could know what was happening. I knew at that moment why Violet’s father came upwith the heart condition story and made Violet take those pills. He was protecting her from the world. Keeping the world from finding out that she was something the realms thought they had gotten rid of almost a century ago.

She was a phoenix. Thelastphoenix.

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