Page 13 of Ruling in Flames (Reborn 5)
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AZRAEL
I had never expectedto findmon lapin.
I had never fucking expected any of what had occurred in the past week. I’d assumed these past few weeks would’ve passed much like others, a monotonous stream of time that blended with the centuries I’d existed in this plane of reality.
Instead it seemed the Cosmos God had a much different plan in store for me, and I wasn’t positive how I felt about it.
Well…that wasn’t completely true. I knew how I felt about it, how strongly I felt about it…but I wasn’t positive I’d come to terms with it, if that made sense.
When Malcolm came to us two weeks ago requesting access to the rumored power that Ry had, wanting to fuel his line of magic for his coven, I nearly laughed. That would’ve been a feat on its own because I couldn’t even remember the last time I’d actually laughed before today. Even Ry had seemed amused…until Malcolm said that he would provide us with a powerful phoenix in return.
Unfortunately, that had caught Ry’s attention, which had meant work for me.
It had seemed like a fairly simple job. Anna, the Dragon Council member who was working with Malcolm, would portal the targets in question back to a location where the phoenix could be easily captured. All I had to do was oversee the process.
Well, until everything went to hell and I realized several things at once. First, our phoenix wasn’t a normal phoenix but a Blue Phoenix, which was a level of power Ry instantly caught onto because of his ability to see my actions and keep track of me. Secondly, she was surrounded by a group of vicious predators that slaughtered the witch coven to keep her protected. And third, that Maya was…something I had never experienced before, and it had nothing to do with her magic.
From the singular moment I had first experienced her, I knew something was remarkably different about Maya. There was such a strength and intensity to her features paired with a glowing light of softness that seemed to cradle those around her. I wanted to be in that light, but I’d been in the dark for so long I hadn’t thought it was possible.
Suddenly my simple mission to hand her over to Ry was nothing compared to the assaulting need to protect her. The way my chest imploded, nearly knocking me to my knees from where I stood in the forest, made it clear that something had fundamentally changed inside of me—Maya hadbrokensomething inside of me.
I nearly let Malcolm die at one of her mates’ hands because I suddenly hated the threat he posed to her. At the last minute, I had remembered that Ry was there watching from the background, so I saved the bastard, transporting him right away to ‘The Master.’What a stupid fucking nickname.Every time I had to say it, I felt like clenching my jaw until it shattered. But it had been so long I’d started to feel apathetic towards it.
Apathetic towards my entire situation.
Following the incident, I’d been ordered to stay, to watch over Maya until we came up with a plan. I’d done so willingly, watching from the background as she left her somewhat safe home and went to do something as simple as Halloween costume shopping. I wished I’d never experienced that though, because immediately Ry, whose fixation on her had grown to the extreme, was suddenly hellbent on going to the event and finding a way to scare her into leaving their safe haven in Seattle.
I had never expected his people, a group of mindless idiots who followed me around, to work directly with that bastard Lorn. A growl nearly escaped my throat at the thought, absolutely furious that I hadn’t been able to stop him sooner. But the minute I’d realized his intention…well, I figured the situation was best handled on my own. I had slaughtered the piece of shit, peeled his skin from his body, and ensured that he felt every moment of it.
It had appeased none of my guilt.
I nearly growled at that, feeling such a strong sense of pain and guilt that she’d ever been put in that situation. There weren’t enough punishments I could put myself through to fix my momentary lapse of judgment when I’d been focused on the chaos Ry’s men had caused at the party rather than Lorn’s side of the mission. There was nothing I could ever do to atone for it.
“So should we fly? How far would it be to walk?” Maya asked, pulling me from my thoughts as I met her golden gaze. I wasn’t positive if it had to do with being reborn or not, but the woman was luminescent right now. Her skin was a golden hue, and the way she moved around was ethereal in nature.
“The mountaintop isn’t far,” I pointed out, nodding to my left. “Maybe a mile or less that way.”
“Oh, that’s not bad.” Maya flashed me a smile and moved in the direction I’d pointed. Before I could stop her, not knowing what possible threats we faced in these woods, Anani took the lead, and I offered him a nod of understanding. The hostility that had existed between the two of us—understandable, considering the situation before—seemed lessened. It was possible that it was simply for Maya’s sake, but either way I was thankful for it.
I didn’t want to make an enemy of her mates, especially considering the bond Maya had formed with me.
The bond…I didn’t even know what to think of the bond. Well, that wasn’t completely true.
I’d already made a lie of omission tomon lapin. I hadn’t told her what type of connection our sacrificial bond was, exactly. I hadn’t told her how we had bonded on the soul level—a mate bond of the purest kind.
How did I explain that? It wasn’t a bond that should even exist, a bond between a creature of life and a creature of death. How did the Angel of Death gain a creature of light in its life?Apparently by sacrificing his immortality.I knew she’d gotten flashes of my past because I’d gotten ones of hers, and the fury I felt at her mistreatment had made me see red. It nearly made me want to resurrect those fuckers that had hurt her so I could kill them again.
There was still one left, though, one that I could make pay—Malcolm.
Guilt slammed into me once again as I considered that I had hand-delivered her to Ry because of the bastard. Then again, when Lorn had scared her and she’d gone right to France, I’d been given no choice in the matter. She’d completed her mating bonds, and that type of power couldn’t be ignored. It was either that or he would send a team in, and I was positive those sadistic fuckheads would’ve hurt her.
None of that excused what I had done, and no apology would be able to fix it…but she had been alive and unharmed upon arrival.
Well, until now. I didn’t know if we were alive right now—I had no idea what the fuck we were.
My gaze ran over Maya’s curved waist as I fought the urge to draw her back into me. The most frustrating part was that I knew she would melt against me. Maya wasn’t shy about what she felt and how she expressed it, and I fucking loved that.
