Page 25 of A Flame of the Phoenix

She should be afraid, like the terror she’d felt with the King of Rhyenelle’s invasion. But she wasn’t. This male wasn’t targeting her memories; he didn’t seem to care to dive deeper when his power radiating through her warned he was more than capable.

“I want you out of my mind,” she said. Only then did a trickle of fear ease though her. If she provoked him, she didn’t know how to cast him out. His power was as dominating as the king’s, perhaps even more powerful, and she knew she would lose in here.

She didn’t know how to protect herself.

“I can help you.”

“Why would you do that?”

Everything came with a price.

He took a long breath, swirling fingers that shifted the dark mist.

“Maybe I like the challenge.”

On the tip of her tongue, she wanted to demand he show himself. But maybe she preferred not having a face to this presence. Without it, she could pretend he was only a ghost of her own conjuring, not a real person trespassing in the most private place.

“Why don’t you search my thoughts?” she dared to ask.

“Why would I do that?”

“To gain some advantage? To make me fear you or force me to help you?”

“What has happened to you to make that the first assumption about anyone you meet?”

She cursed the sting that pricked her eyes at the question.What happened?Zaiana could almost laugh.

Her emotions were too volatile and exposed in here, and suddenly, her defense was rising, wanting to cast him outbefore he didn’t have to reach for a damn thing to get to her vulnerability.

“People want power—it always requires an upper hand.”

“Not always,” he countered. “What about gaining it through respect and loyalty?”

“Values that can be overthrown in a second,” she said firmly. “They can be betrayed, and you wouldn’t know until you were staring into the eyes of the one plunging a dagger into your chest.”

“That is a fair precaution,” he agreed, pacing a few steps. “But I believe there are bonds we can forge that will make such a fear not a lone burden. You become a force of many who would protect each other against anyone who threatened them.”

Zaiana tucked her knees to her chest. She didn’t fully agree with his poetic notions, but she was intrigued about him.

“How do I know you won’t just kill me in here?” she asked.

“Because our first lesson will be how you would stop me,” he said. “Deal?”

Zaiana was cut with memories of Agalhor. The helpless way she’d been overpowered while he’d feasted on the darkest parts of her. How he would have killed her within the prison of her own mind.

This space, it was so furious and ugly. Part of her didn’t want to spend another minute here. She would rather never awaken in her subconscious again. The only way she knew how to survive against herself was to never confront the demons that lived between the cracks.

“I have nothing to gain from this,” she said.

Her cheek met her knees. So tired.

“There’s something detached from you. Your ability, I assume.”

Of course he would know that.

“I’m not searching your thoughts for it,” he added quickly, perhaps picking up on her rising defense. “But I can feel it.”

“Is it…gone?”

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