Page 59 of Dying in Flames (Reborn 4)
“Do you know what makes them special?” one asked, tilting his head.
“What’s that?” Sweat was breaking out on my skin as my stomach turned. This was going to be bad, I just knew it.
She flashed a smile. “The scars don't heal. They leave a mark.”
* * *
Anani
Fuck. This was so fucked.
I thought I could hear Maya screaming, but my entire body was messed up because of these cages and the drain on my magic. I broke into a tremble as my dragon roared inside of me, feeling chained down, unable to break out of these constraints. What the hell was going on right now? Why couldn’t I feel her? Better question, how did we get out of it? My breathing went fast as I felt phantom pain go through me.
“Why the fuck would she do that?” Sai demanded, trying to sit up. Ledger put a hand on his chest, which was enough to level him back onto the ground.
“Because she thinks this is her fault. She’s taking the goddamn blame,” Marco hissed and hit the side of his fist against the iron bars, making the entire thing shudder. There had to be a way out of this damn place, even if it meant doing it without our magic.
“I shouldn’t have let her go.” Ember shook her head. “That was my fault.”
“It’s not your fault,” I said immediately, feeling bad for the kid, who had the same haunted look in her gaze that Maya had when she’d first come to us. It wasn’t just her, though—it was everyone in these damn cages.
“What do they normally do?” Henry demanded, clearly trying to gauge how bad it was going to be when Maya came back. I could tell he was attempting to be clinical, but our bond was filled with pain, and the ringing of screams in my head had me nearly slamming my skull against the iron bars.
“I heard them talking about a new shipment of knives from the Demonic realm,” one of the little dragons said from two cages down.
Fuck. That was bad goddamn news.
“We need to get out of here,” Atlas said, looking like he was about to lose it. “We need to get all of us the fuck out of here, because it’s only going to get worse.”
“I can’t feel my connection with her fully,” Croy admitted, his brow crumpled.
“You have to break the wards around the room,” Ember offered, drawing all our attention as she curled further around Bella. “The spell is cast on the outside of the door, but it can be broken. I heard them talking about it when they had to repair it one time.”
I exchanged a look with the others as a sense of agreement went through our bond. We were going to get the fuck out.
Then something occurred to me.Where the hell were these kids going to go after, and how had they gotten here in the first place?
Turning towards them, I spoke in a soft tone, hoping to not freak them out. “How did all of you get here?”
“Born here,” the older girl offered. “The rest of them were hunted. They shot down the phoenixes who live near the mountain range. It was where a lot of them were born. That was how they got the little flight as well.”
That was so fucked up.
“We need to try to get the spell broken before the guards come back,” Croy said. “Once she comes back, we are fucking leav—”
The door swung open to reveal the man who took us from our estate earlier, his eyes going towards Maya’s cell before freezing and looking at all of us. “Where the fuck is she?”
Marco’s voice was low and dangerous. “You know exactly where she is. The guards fucking took her.”
He disappeared. The bastard was just gone, leaving the door open to the dark hallway ahead of us, taunting us as I caught sight of the faint traces of magic from the ward that surrounded the space.
“Let’s get the hell out of here,” my brother bit out.
“You can't just go for it like that—the wards are super powerful, especially with your power drained.” Ember stated firmly.
She was right. If we could shift, we could wreak havoc on this place, but I felt as if I was at possibly one quarter of my normal strength. The idea of shifting seemed impossible, which was exactly their intention.
“Is it the spell draining the magic?” Henry wondered out loud.
