Page 38 of A Flame of the Phoenix

He closed the distance between them, and she didn’t have the will to push him away. They were sealed within four walls, and Zaiana let the exhaustion win for a moment of relief.

“It never has been. You know it too, and you need to get yourself together. You’re better than all of them, with and without magick. It does not define you.”

His proximity conflicted her. She fought a certain gravity that pulled them together against an impulse to gain distance. Then guilt. Sinking, dreadful guilt as she pictured another in his place.

“Stop,” she said, anticipating the hand he began to reach up to her.

“Why?”

It kept rising slowly.

She had no answer.

Zaiana allowed his palm to meet her cheek. She didn’t look up. Didn’t want to risk snapping out of the feelings she’d tuned in to, trying to figure them out to grapple control of herself again. If she conquered what this was with Maverick, perhaps she’d be able to fight what weakened her about Kyleer.

So she let him angle her head back as warm wisps of his breath blew across her lips. Then her lids slipped closed as their mouths met. She came alive in ways she did in the face of an enemy, wanting to slay the threat Maverick had become. The adrenaline of battle was addictive.

He was the mirror she couldn’t look away from. The centuries they’d shared, every conflict, transgression, and slip of passion, would always add a new crack to their shared tragic reflection. Because she couldn’t stop attacking, and neither would he.

She kissed him back with the same demand, allowing his body to mold into her against the wall, and her back curved at the trail of his hand. While desire sparked across her skin, it wasn’t without unease in her gut. That swimming note ofguiltthat she was only kissing him to know if she would feel anything.

She did. There was a pulse for him that echoed in the place a heartbeat should be. But it wasn’t enough. For what? She didn’t know herself, and this was a distraction she couldn’t afford.

With a hand on his chest, she pushed him away.

They caught their breath in a matched stare of desire and hate.

“You tell anyone of this, and I’ll make sure to ruin you with the betrayal of who you are to everyone around you,Callen.”

Sharp words, and she watched them cut but didn’t stay to witness the bleeding.

What had she been thinking?

She’d promised never to get close to him again, yet she’d craved it from him. The only thing that had made her stop…was the cruel and punishing emittance of anotherfirmerpulse that wouldn’t stop growing even when the commander was nowhere near.

CHAPTER TEN

Izaiah

Arodent wasn’t his proudest form, but he gave it a try to scuttle to the large room Jakon and Marlowe were all but imprisoned to. Old kitchens, where their sole task was to make Phoenix Blood potions. He couldn’t deny the thought of such a weapon at Marvellas’s disposal made him wary, and he hoped they hadn’t achieved many since Marlowe’s magick wasn’t that strong.

A few guards passed, but he kept close to the wall and dipped out of view where he could to avoid being swatted.

At his destination, he surveyed the gap between the door and the ground. He shifted again into a smaller mouse, but his body still only got halfway. Dammit.

Izaiah tried scratching furiously, but their weak human senses didn’t come to investigate the sound.

A bird it would have to be.

Flying around, he landed on the awkward window frame of the high box windows and started pecking. As he did, he realized exactlywhythey’d failed to hear him. Izaiah threw hisfeeble bird body at the window to create more commotion, and only then did Jakon look, mercifully before he decided to begin undressing his wife.

He was glad they weren’t being thorough in their potion making, but Izaiah wished the human could see his matching sour look. He didn’t want to be here either.

He shifted as soon as he slipped into the window.

“You’re late,” Jakon grumbled.

“So you decide on a quick affair? Unless this is an invitation, which I am not opposed to?—”

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