Page 57 of A Flame of the Phoenix

“What?”

“Care,” he snapped. “Don’t care, Tynan. It only adds resistance to the blade you keep aimed at my chest.”

The dark fae’s lips firmed. Disappointment weighted his stare, and Izaiah’s hands fisted. His magick hummed in him to shift. Though he couldn’t be certain if it was to kill the threat in front of him or to flee from it.

“You don’t need to worry about that,” Tynan said. “You’re attractive, I’m bored—that’s all this is.”

Tynan set his book on the table as he made to leave.

Impulsively, Izaiah lashed out for Tynan’s wrist as he passed. Their eyes met, and Izaiah warred with himself over letting go…or giving in to the tension straining between them. They couldforget the past few minutes—all it would take was closing that distance to forget the world in the heat that blocked it all out. But every time the air cooled again, reality became a more punishing force.

“Having a still heart…does it make it easier to pretend you feel nothing?” Izaiah asked.

His heart beat faster in their silence. As if it were compensating for the absence of Tynan’s.

“No,” he said.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Zaiana

Zaiana found the wicked Malin, chasing pent-up frustration and anger she was desperate to release. At the notes of a familiar voice, she halted the urge to barge into the drawing room she’d followed his disgusting scent to.

“All I’m saying is, you have the people’s loyalty right now. If they find out you’ve been slaughtering the strong and loyal forces of your warriors and generals simply because they were wary of a new reign, you’ll lose the trust you gained from them,” Tynan said.

“You’re giving me a nothing of fucking use,” Malin responded with cold exasperation. Then he seemed to calm. “My father would say I was destined for the crown he couldn’t have. But in order to be worthy of it, I couldn’t be weak—I had to show I was just as powerful in both my ability and my status to be better than Agalhor.”

“Your uncle seemed to care for you,” Tynan said carefully.

“Until he found a new candidate to give away what was rightfully mine,” Malin seethed. “Do you know how humiliatingit was to watch all my centuries of building and waiting and proving myself be dismissed so easily when hisdaughterknew nothing—nothing—of what it took to lead?”

Zaiana could sympathize with the prince in that moment. She didn’t want to, but it was impossible to ignore the unfair hand that had switched the moment Faythe arrived.

“Then he left me,” Malin hissed, but there was a wavering to it. A note of pain that made it clear he meant his father.

“Death isn’t a choice on a battlefield,” Tynan said. He had more patience with him that she did.

A pause of silence passed. “I don’t think he died,” Malin said, barley a whisper of confusion. “I searched endlessly for his body. The things I saw from that battle that they say claimed his life… I was willing to look at any shredded body I could to find him. He was the brother of the king, yet no one kept track of him? And Agalhor—” Malin huffed a resentful sound. “It spoke volumes when he called off the search and declared his death without finding his body after only two weeks.”

“You think he’s still out there?”

“No. I mean, maybe. Never mind,” Malin grumbled. “It makes no difference to anything anyway. I doubt even after all I’ve done it would have been enough for him.”

“Did you always want to be king?”

Malin didn’t answer right away. She was beginning to think he never would.

“Want is a word of fantasy.”

Zaiana slipped into the room, immediately targeting him, and the prince straightened from the composure he’d let slip in Tynan’s presence. For a second, there was a broken child slumped in that seat, elbow propped on the red velvet side, with fingers digging into his temples like it would stop the battering inside his head. Until the ice froze in his eyes and his features cut to steel, ready for war against her.

Her mouth quirked, only to gain the tightening of his jaw. He knew there was nothing he could do that would make her afraid of him. Malin Ashfyre would never win her fealty, even if Dakodas herself demanded it of him.

“What do you want?” he bit out.

Zaiana’s fingers traced over the long mahogany table, deliberately lingering the suspense of her presence. She noticed the few empty vials in front of him. The prince had been consuming Phoenix Blood at an alarming volume. The whites of his eyes were turning red at the edges, and he appeared as if sleep had evaded him for weeks with the dark circles under them.

“Don’t tell me you forget your debts, little prince,” she said.

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