Page 210 of A Flame of the Phoenix

“Where?”

“They’re glamoured. Hidden.”

“Why?”

“Because they could take them from me, and that would be as good as death for me.”

He contemplated her words. “Did they do this to you too?”

“No,” she whispered. “I was born this way.”

“Then why do they imprison you?”

Zaiana didn’t know what to do. How to begin to explain everything. He had to remember.

Maverick remembered.

Though finding out what it took for him to remember filled her with hopeless despair.

She neglected his question. “I’m sorry they did this to you.”

He weighed her sympathy, and she watched his guard rise against it. It was the wrong thing to say.

She wasn’t the person he needed right now, butGods,that hurt. Not caring was easier to live with. Zaiana wanted to be the right person for him, but she was already failing.

“I don’t remember anything,” he said.

“You were Transitioned to dark fae. Not many survive it, but you did. You have people counting on you. Those who love you.”

She couldn’t bear the distance in his moss-green irises. Then, realizing the color of them…

“Your eyes aren’t black,” she said, more to herself as she puzzled over his unique Transition. All the fae who had become dark fae by the same ritual had lost the color of their eyes. Maverick’s had been a brilliant cobalt blue the first day she’d seen him.

Kyleer frowned. “Should they be?”

Zaiana looked around her cell. Finding a rock, she swiped it up. “Come here,” she said, holding out a hand.

He hesitated before obliging, glancing between her and the rock warily.

“This will just be a sting,” she warned before cutting his skin.

Kyleer hissed, yanking his hand back and staring at her incredulously. Zaiana was too distracted by the crimson that beaded from the shallow cut, sliding over his tanned skin.

Not black blood either.

She didn’t know what it meant. What he was, if not dark fae. Then why had his memories been stolen? That reminder brought back her despair, but she wouldn’t stop trying to help him gain them back.

Zaiana said, “It’s not going to be easy, figuring this new life out, but you’re alive.”

“I don’t know if I want to be,” he confessed.

“I do.” It slipped from her mouth before she could stop it. “I want you to be.”

Zaiana was riddled with nerves and vulnerability. All her life spent shunning such emotions was now her ultimate downfall as she became as fragile as glass.

“Did I…care for you?” he asked.

“Maybe. I think you might have been starting to.”

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