Page 48 of Dying in Flames (Reborn 4)
Croy
I had feltthe minute that Maya had marked Anani.
Where I’d had a connection with Maya before, I hadn’t with any of the other men, but once she marked him…it flooded open completely. I could feel the bond between our group expanding out.
My entire body jolted as everyone at the table tensed. My eyes had snapped up to where her bedroom was, the open balcony letting out the gorgeous scent of her desire, something I could have normally handled. Something I could have normally at least attempted to ignore.
Except this time, I could feel something was wrong.
It wasn’t anything to do with them, or her health… No, this was something different. A sense of dread that began to invade every inch of my body caused me to stand. This was something more, something unnatural, and I hadn’t hesitated to sprint inside the house, the others following, clearly experiencing the same premonition.
My wolf nearly forced a shift, sensing the innate danger as well.
There was a coolness to the house that hadn’t existed before, and when I reached the bedroom door, I flung it open to find her beautiful bedroom bathed in moonlight. Everything moved in slow motion, Maya’s breath turning to vapor in the now freezing room as Anani kept her behind him, searching the space for the threat we all felt.
Any heat and power that had come from the connection was almost immediately drowned out by this…this darkness. I tried to move forward through the door, but it was too late. The darkness was here.
The shadows solidified into something that had unadulterated terror filtering through me. Terror for my mate as I let out a vicious growl that echoed through the space. It didn’t stop the shadows from turning completely solid, ignoring the group of us that were completely frozen in place, staring in horror at the man walking out of them.
I had been around many powerful people in my life, but this type of power wasn’t shifter, and it sure as hell wasn’t witch…this was something far more evil. That was the only word for it. When his gaze fell on Maya, he strode forward. Anani adjusted his angle to further shield Maya and moved them back, his dragon trying to force a shift but unable to.
“Come,” the man snapped as Maya gripped Anani harder. “Now.”
Looking at us and then back at her, the man seemed to come to a decision, and it was one I should have seen coming. His demonic magic lashed out, gripping onto all of us, the group of us unable to do anything but watch as a portal opened up, a void into the darkness.
“Fucking loose ends,” the man spit out, and I felt my body moving forward as all of us—including Maya, who now had tears streaming down her face—were forced towards the portal.
No matter how much we struggled, no matter how much we tried to shift or say something, anything…it was impossible.
As Maya got closer to the void, Anani already having been pushed through, I fought harder, and my head began to pulse and caused me to feel sick. I grabbed Maya tighter as she let out a high-pitched sound through the newly enhanced mental bond, causing all of our animals to react violently. It was her phoenix calling us to action, but it didn’t fucking matter.
This guy had all the fucking power, and the way he grabbed her by the shoulder and forced her to watch each one of us walk through the doorway had me knowing he knew it. The buzzing in my head grew so extreme that my eyes squeezed shut, and blood began seeping out of my nose. An enraged growl finally broke through my lips because it felt like someone was trying to melt my brain from the inside. It obscured everything and left me in a state of stumbling near-unconsciousness.
“Croy, stop! You’re going to kill yourself,” Maya barely got out.
The last thing I could remember was the man sending out another wave of power, a roar of frustration and pain leaving my throat, and Maya screaming. Everything went dark after that, my mate’s cry for help one I wasn’t able to answer…
“Croy?”
It wasn’t the first time the soft, angelic voice had called to me, and my wolf kept prodding me to get up, to pull myself from the depths of unconsciousness. I wanted to curse the bastard, but I knew he wouldn’t be bothering me if it wasn’t important. And her voice was important, so fucking important. The only thing that actually mattered.
Except as I came to consciousness, I began to recognize a myriad of new sensory elements that assaulted me. I could hear the breathing of those around me, smell the scent of moldy water. I could feel cold stone underneath my cheek, and hear the sound of a soft meow somewhere in the distance.Bella? How did she get here?
But she hadn’t been the one calling to me. No, that voice belonged to her mom…Maya. My sugar.Where was Maya?Before I could feel panic over the notion of her being missing, her voice rang out again.
“Croy, please wake up,” she whispered, her voice hiccuping, clearly filled with concern and panic.
I inhaled, trying to figure out where my mate was, a difficult feat because my eyes were nearly swollen shut, but all I could smell was the scent of dragons.
Mainly Marco’s flight, but there were more than that as well. That wasn’t good. Like a glowing beacon, I found the faint rose and ash scent that I loved and forced my eyes to open. Instantly, I could feel that my face had taken a good beating. It wasn’t the first time, but my eyes were so swollen that I could barely see the angelic form sitting across from me.
But she wasn’t actually across from me, because we were separated…by fucking bars.
As my vision cleared, it took me exactly one second to go from relieved to see my sugar to downright fucking enraged. I could see the goddamn bruising on her body from here. New bruises, and not from Lorn.
I surged forward, propelled by my wolf while I ignored the pain that blasted through my body, something snapping in my ankle as it pulled against a shackle. I gripped the iron bars between us and came face to face with my bruised and battered mate, her gold eyes wide and panicked.
All the years of living within human society were ripped away by the base and primal instinct to protect Maya.
