Page 219 of A Flame of the Phoenix

“You know him?” Zaiana concluded with disbelief.

“The name is familiar,” he said quickly. “Show me, just to be sure.”

Zaiana let the image of him surface, but it wasn’t without the male’s help that it unfolded for both of them to see.

“Shit,” he said, stepping forward, and Zaiana shivered at the panic slipping through the shadows. She was becoming accustomed to untangling what feelings triggered him or herself in here. “What in the Nether happened? Who else was turned?”

She eyed him carefully, not expecting the rush of urgency.

“How do you know him?” It came out as an accusation. Suddenly, she was overcome with the sense she couldn’t trust him.

“Was this your fault? Did you hand him over to them?” he snapped.

Zaiana flinched. “No.”

The smoke shifted at their conflict, circling them. This was the first time she’d truly feared he might turn on her when something dangerous rang through her. Though this was her mind, he was far more powerful here.

“Tell me who else, or I’ll look for my damned self.”

“You swore you would never do that.”

“This is the exception.”

There it was. Everyone was capable of betrayal when their end justified their means.

“I shouldn’t have asked for your help,” she said coldly. “I’ll figure it out myself.”

“To cause more harm than you already have? I don’t think so.”

A weight pressed down around her like a phantom cage. The pressure in her chest expanded.

“Get out of my head,” she warned.

He said nothing, and the anticipation was a helpless sickness as he prevented her from doing anything. She couldn’t push him out—she wouldn’t be able to overpower him.

“You called forme.”

“I won’t forgive you,” she said, slipping her panic. “If you take a single thought without my permission, I will never forgive you. And I will come for you. Don’t doubt I will figure out who you are just to kill you.”

Their stand-off intensified. She had his memory of a particular woodland she could scout for across the kingdoms if she had to figure out his identity. Now she had something else, as he’d let slip that Kyleer was someone known enough to him to invoke such an angry reaction to what had happened to him.

Her thoughts were already trying to piece together more of him, but she needed him right now.

“No one else went through what he did,” Zaiana said. “I’m locked up just like him. You can see that for yourself if you must.”

“Your heart,” he said.

Zaiana’s hand naturally rose to her chest. The feel of it was becoming more tolerable, so she was beginning to forget the new beat she carried.

“I have my lightning again too,” she confessed.

The male was silent. Considering.

“You broke your own chains. Well done.”

She didn’t feel deserving of congratulations when, despite it all, Kyleer had lost.

“Actually, I was put in them for my defiance.”

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