Page 221 of A Flame of the Phoenix

Zaiana knew the patience of a precise kill. The patience of revenge. This… She didn’t know this kind of patience that wasnot to harm but to cherish. It terrified her. She couldn’t see an end to how long she was willing to wait for him.

“You shouldn’t,” she said, a note of panic slipping through when their lips came shy of meeting.

“Do you want to?”

“Yes.”

He needed nothing more.

Kyleer kissed her, and it was like the world didn’t exist anymore. Not her revenge. Not this cell. Just them in a slow, searching connection like nothing she’d known before. Didn’t know it was something she would crave for him, yet she wanted him to take his time with every piece of her. To see things she couldn’t show, and she would do the same for him. As long as it took, she wanted to give him the time.

Her mouth opened for him, and he kissed her deeper, gripped her tighter, like he was trying to find himself in her, and when that didn’t come, passion took over.

Zaiana cursed the awkward position of the cell bars that refused the demand her body craved to be so much closer. His hand trailed up her thigh, but he couldn’t pull her to him. Her hands threaded and tightened in his hair, but it wasn’t enough.

They seemed to realize they wouldn’t get what they wanted. Kyleer pulled away first, staying close, and she delighted in his rugged breathing. Her leg had slipped through, and he didn’t let her go, keeping it hooked over his and beginning an idle caress of her thigh.

“Any luck?” she asked.

“Still no pictures,” he said. Kyleer took her hand in his scarred one, mapping the lines that marred them both. “But I feel…alive with you. Something tells me my past made that difficult.”

“I never got the chance to find out every name that stood by and watched as that happened to you,” she said, resting her headto the stone, perfectly content in their tangled closeness. “But if I don’t die taking down Marvellas, I will find them all.”

“You can’t defeat her yourself.”

Zaiana huffed a laugh. “You really don’t remember anything.”

“I don’t mean you’re not capable,” he said, turning more serious than she was in the mood for.

What they’d created felt like a sphere of shelter from the cruel world she was to face. She wasn’t ready for it to shatter so soon.

“Don’t concern for me,” she said.

“I can’t do that. With or without memories, I know I can’t.”

“Listen to me, Ky.” She tried to maintain the composure that threatened to waver to get him to listen. “They’re going to come for us, and the only way either of us survives is to not think of the other. If there’s a moment for you to kill them and flee, you take it, and you don’t think of me. Past this cell, I won’t think of you.”

She was a lie with skin and darkness with bones.

Kyleer drew a long breath. “Good.”

Still, he didn’t take the hand from her thigh or gain a fraction of distance from her. They had to live in each moment, not thinking of the next minute or hour that could turn them to enemies once more. He had to remember everything for his friends, but once he did, he wouldn’t want her the way he did now.

So Zaiana joined him in this moment, letting the silence welcome the fantasy that this was it. Him and her. This moment was a glimpse of belonging that could never be.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

Zaiana

They came for Zaiana.

Nyte wandered ahead of the three guards who trailed behind him. They obeyed his command to stay back while he approached her gate, unlocking the door to her cell.

Zaiana studied him closely, recalling what she’d requested of him the last time he was here.

Nyte grabbed her, causing Kyleer to shift closer to the bars that joined their cells. He did so for show, as he was playing the role of the vicious Captain Daegal. Too well. She hissed to his fingers digging into her biceps as he leaned in close.

“You’re not going to like the answers sending that message brought back.”

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