Page 91 of A Flame of the Phoenix

The most intoxicating scent filled her nostrils enough to slip her focus.Blood.It wasn’t like the craving she’d battled all her life from humans. This was sweet and metallic, with just a hint of bitterness. It made hersalivate, soshe had to swallow hard. His blood was…

She stilled in the warmth that wrapped around her from behind. In her moment of distraction, he’d used his Shadowporting to once again compromise her, pressing her back to his front. Her eyes fluttered closed only for a second before she snapped them open in bewilderment at herself.

His scent encased her, starting to drown her senses and subdue her fight.

Foolish, childish, weak.Her cruel mind tore her apart.

“I should kill you,” he said, a warm whisper across her ear. It was twistedly seductive.

“Then what are you waiting for?” she breathed.

“For you to fight back. You’ve allowed me ten seconds longer than I expected before you use that stunning lightning.” His hand around her middle tightened a fraction. “Where’s your storm, Zai?”

Her storm.It was gone. Even Kyleer knew it to be an integral part of her, and now it was gone.

“I don’t need it to fight you.”

“Hmm…” His low murmur skittered along her jaw.

The warmth of him contrasted with a cold breath of metal against her throat.

“What did you do to my brother?” he asked.

Zaiana laughed bitterly. “That fool orchestrated everything himself.”

“Is he working for Marvellas and Dakodas?”

“The fact you have to ask that really shows how little you trust your kin. It’s no wonder you’re all flailing in this war.”

She hissed at the sharp sting of the blade almost cutting her flesh with his added pressure.

“As if you aren’t the one with no allies—not true ones. You don’t even know where you stand anymore.”

“Don’t I?”

Her teeth slammed together against the slice at her throat she had to take from his blade, but with her spin, one hand lashed around the commander’s wrist, twisting, and his cry was music to the cold being she became. In her second breath, she freed her own dagger at her waist and hooked a kick around the commander’s knee, aided by the slip of frost. It brought him down. The sharp point of Magestone pinched into the bulge of his neck as she stared down at him with a promise of death.

“Impressive,” he said though a clouded exhale. “But more effort than you should have needed to use.”

His prod at her methods flashed a white anger that made her angle the length of the blade to his skin, and Zaiana leaned in closer, leveling their eyes.

“There are over a hundred ways I can kill you. I would never be so predictable, so you may never know which one will finally come to claim you.”

“You can’t follow through,” he taunted. The note of hurt in his tone wouldn’t be heard by anyone else. And she felt it like the hot brand against her frozen heart.

She said, “There is still fun to be had. You haven’t seen the best of them yet.”

Kyleer’s eyes narrowed, and he was admirably fast to grip her wrist, hissing at the piercing of his skin as he stood. But it washis Shadowporting she was too slow to detect before it engulfed them both.

She gripped his hand around her throat. Not because it choked her, but because it was the only purchase she had, save for her toes on the edge of the rooftop she leaned off. The wind whipped annoying strands of her unbound hair over her vision. They were very high.

“I’m tiring of this dance,” she said.

“Show me,” he said.

Her brow furrowed in annoyance. “What?”

“The best of your ways to kill me.”

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