Page 90 of A Flame of the Phoenix

“You’re still in there,” she whispered. “You have to be.”

Reylan let her go, only to grip her jaw, and she whimpered at the vise grip.

It’s not him. It’s not him.

She’d wanted him to shapeshift back, but now she was glad for the disguise that soothed her heart.This is not Reylan.

Yet every time he searched her eyes, a glimmer of hope sparked that he would push through the poisonous influence of the ruin and Marvellas.

“Your lack of self-preservation is astounding.”

He pushed her head against the wall again, and her vision blackened around the edges with the sharp pain that ricocheted through her skull.

“In every realm and in every time,” she breathed. A promise he’d once made to her.

His grip on her jaw slackened, and Faythe would have crumpled to the ground were it not for his arm that snaked around her. Reylan’s cold stare never changed, but his head canted thoughtfully. Curiously. As if she were a puzzle he was trying to figure out.

Faythe hissed when his fingers slipped through her hair and touched the gash at the back of her head. His brow flinched, and he pulled his hand back, examining her blood coating his fingers. His nostrils flared, and his breathing deepened.

Her mate, her Reylan, would never harm her. She thought, just for a second, that realizing the injuries he’d caused her would snap him back.

It didn’t.

His tongue touched a sharp fang in his mouth, and his chest heaved. He’d never drunk from her before, but the wildness in his look told her he didn’t have the restraint or the consideration not to right now.

“If injury won’t make you come easily, this will,” he said.

“Reylan, wait?—”

She got no other words out before his head angled to her throat and his teeth pierced her flesh. The initial burst of pain seized her body tightly against him. The shock made her frozen prey in his arms.

Faythe had imagined this moment many times. She’d long craved it. But not like this.

Though the pain subsided, there was no pleasure to follow, only numbness, as he took her blood against her will. She didn’t fight him. He drank and drank and wouldn’t stop until she fell unconscious.

There were worse ways to greet the inevitable darkness, she supposed. He groaned against her throat, pulling her to him tighter, and she let her mind pretend this was happening under other circumstances. Being held in Reylan’s arms this way was acruel, deceptive safety, but she was so tired of yearning for him that she didn’t care.

She’d found him.

Faythe stared up at the midnight sky, so beautiful and full of stars. She’d always thought his irises captured them so she could bathe in the glittering beauty even in the daylight.

He took more and more and more of her blood, until she let herself sleep in his arms.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Zaiana

Zaiana couldn’t shield herself from Faythe’s blast. Helplessness tightened her chest, and her arms rose feebly to brace herself.

Light magick didn’t hit her because shadows stole her.

She was saved from the brutal strike, but the moment her feet felt ground again, she was slammed against a wall. Her eyes flew open, met with equal fury in moss-green irises that lashed her with punishment.

He was a weed of weakness she should have exterminated the last time she had the chance.

With his body caging her to the wall, her survival instinct kicked in. When she twisted her wrist, held by him, Kyleer hissed before loosening his grip on her other hand, enough that her elbow angled toward him, jabbing into his chest. Ducking, she pulled her blade free, turning on her knee. The swipe of Nilhlir only cut through starry shadow.

Kyleer reappeared behind her, and though his ability made it a challenge to track him, she focused on the drum of his heart.She rolled to avoid his attempt to grab her again, kicking out her foot, but he took her ankle. She used him as an aid to twist onto her hands, reaching for another small dagger in her belt and throwing it in her handstand. It struck his thigh, and he cried out, releasing her again, and she cartwheeled back to standing.

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