Aderyn grunted as she hauled Fenix into a deep, dank area that came and went, flowing in and out of focus as he struggled to remain awake. Her fear seeped into him through their bond, a tangible thing that drove him to reassure her, to steal that emotion away by somehow healing the gaping hole in his side that was leaking blood.
Probably leaving a trail of it for someone to follow.
His beautiful mate adjusted her grip on his shoulders, fisting the black leather jerkin he wore, her claws piercing the material. “Stay with me, Fenix.”
She sounded desperate, her usually light voice strained with fatigue and fear, and he reached for the connection that linked them, needing to soothe her.
“That trick is not going to work this time.” She huffed and grunted as she dragged him into a large cavern and paused to look around. He stared up at her and wanted to curse when she kept wavering in and out of focus, a blur of spun gold and violet one moment and clear the next. She glanced down at him, worry in her pale eyes that almost matched the colour of her hair as it swayed away from her purple leather corset. “This will do.”
She eased him down onto his back and he grimaced as his side blazed. He needed to get a look at the wound because it felt as if someone had punched a hole clean through him. The surrounding area felt cold, the chilly air in the cavern sucking the heat from the blood that continued to pump from him. He was losing too much.
Aderyn eased to her knees beside him and looked him over, the worry in her golden eyes growing as her fine eyebrows furrowed. Those eyes darted to meet his. “We need to help this close.”
Fenix swallowed hard and shook his head, because if she did what he thought she was going to do, then he would pass out and he needed to remain awake. He needed to be here for her, in case the mage came after them again.
“Should not… have… killed her.” Every word was a struggle as he pushed them from his lips and he hated the way her expression shifted, her emotions changing with it.
He didn’t want to hurt her, but it had been a mistake to kill the wife of the mage, a female Aderyn had befriended and believed able to help her find a way to reopen the gateway between this world and the one of her phoenix kin—a portal that had been sealed shut for centuries. He could understand the betrayal had wounded her and part of him couldn’t blame her for how she had reacted. He had felt how crushed she had been when they had discovered the female had wanted to lure Aderyn into a trap, gifting her husband with the power contained in Aderyn’s phoenix blood.
But killing her hadn’t been the answer.
The mage had come after them because of what Aderyn had done.
Fenix gazed up at her, seeing how much she still hurt because of the betrayal, that pain hidden beneath the worry she felt for him. He cursed the mage’s wife, the less reasonable part of him—the part ruled by his instincts as her fated mate—wishing he had been the one to make her pay for how she had treated Aderyn.
His kind, beautiful Aderyn.
If his female had one flaw, it was that she always saw the good in people and never the bad.
He supposed his flaw was that he too often saw the bad in people and not the good.
The corners of his lips twitched at that.
Fate truly had made them for each other.
Aderyn leaned over him and claimed his lips, tearing a low groan from him as hunger surged and he felt her strength pouring into him. He greedily devoured what she offered to him, savouring her kiss as he fed upon it, part of him trying to hold back his own needs so he didn’t hurt her while the rest of him craved more, demanded he take everything from her. She tasted of heat and spice, a hint of smoke and love. He wanted her to break this kiss while at the same time he never wanted it to end.
A warm haze rolled through him, fogging his mind as his incubus nature rose to the fore and attempted to steal control. He relished the feel of her lips upon his and how strong she was—strong enough to withstand him even when he was starved, maddened by a need to feed. A weaker female would have been killed by him in the throes of his hunger, when he was mindless and vicious in his pursuit of the pleasure that would feed him. Not his Aderyn.
His mate had brought him back from the brink more than once, feeding him well enough to leave him sated for weeks, surrendering herself to him and giving him more than sustenance. She gave him pleasure too. Something he had never truly felt with anyone other than her.
She drew back and feathered her fingers down his cheek, concern shimmering in her eyes as they shone with flecks of amber fire and her brow furrowed. He mourned the loss of the feel of her touch as she sat back and glanced down at his side, her expression growing sombre.
“I am sorry.” She gave him that look, the one that said this was killing her but she was going to do it anyway, was going to go against his wishes and deal with the wound. “I cannot let you bleed out.”
Was it that bad?
He moaned and grimaced, his lips pulling taut as he tried to sit up and get a look at the wound the mage had dealt him when he had struck him with a glowing orb of blue magic that had poured lightning through Fenix’s veins. Pain blazed through him, stole his breath and ripped an agonised bellow from him that echoed around the cavern as he sank back against the damp stone ground. He struggled for air, his heart labouring as he fought to remain conscious.
Aderyn pressed her right hand to his shoulder and leaned over him, and he had the feeling she was doing it to keep him in place. She smiled softly.
“Look at me, Fenix.”
He shifted his gaze to lock with hers, cursed her in his mind when he saw the apology in her pale golden eyes and knew in his heart it wasn’t only because she was about to hurt him.
“Do not,” he croaked, desperation flooding him, making him restless as a need to stop her from doing something so reckless and dangerous seized him.
Her smile wobbled.
Heat blazed across his side, the firelight chasing over the sculpted planes of her face as she gazed down at him, as tears lined her eyelashes.
Fenix tipped his head back and screamed as the scent of burning flesh reached his nostrils, choking him. Every inch of him was on fire, on the verge of turning to ashes.
Darkness rolled up on him and he fought it, desperately clung to consciousness, aware that if he passed out then no one would be here to stop Aderyn from doing something foolish.
But he wasn’t strong enough to hold back the rising inky tide and it swallowed him.
The sound of water dripping in the distance roused him from the dark embrace of sleep.
Fenix groaned as awareness slowly returned, his senses gradually coming back online. His side throbbed at the same tempo as his heartbeat and he swallowed thickly, his mouth as dry as ash.
“Aderyn?” he husked, willing her to respond as the haze of pain and sleep cleared from his mind and he remembered what had happened.
Only the plip-plip-plip of water answered him.
He gritted his teeth and rolled to his right, away from his injured side, and opened his eyes. Everything was blurred. He rubbed at his eyes, clearing the salty grit from them, and tried again. A cave greeted him. Dark. Damp.
Empty, save for him.
“Aderyn?” He tried again, louder this time, hoping she was somewhere nearby and would hear him.
Only he couldn’t sense her.
His connection to her was weak, like a fragile strand of spider silk that could snap with the gentlest of touches.
Fenix got onto his knees, grimacing as small chips of basalt bit into them through his black leathers and jabbed his palms. He scanned the cavern again, aching to see Aderyn, to know that she was safe and hadn’t done something reckless.
Even when he knew in his heart that she had.
She had gone after the mage, still believed he knew the way to open the gateway, that he was the key to succeeding where she had failed so many times before.
He needed to get to her.
He needed to stop her before it was too late.
He pressed his hand to his left side, the hole in his black jerkin so large that he could fit his entire hand in it. The skin beneath his palm was puckered and sore, tender to the touch, but it was healed.
She had saved him.
Now he would save her.
His beautiful mate was headstrong and obsessed, driven by her desire to reunite with her people, and while he couldn’t understand that, he could understand the need that blazed within him—a desire to reunite with her.
He pushed onto his feet, collapsed back to his knees as his legs gave out, and then tried again, refusing to give up. He was healed and that meant he was moving, going after his female. There was no way in this world or the mortal one that he was going to let her face the mage alone.
Drystan would kill her.
Or worse.
He would use her as a source of power, slowly destroying her by stealing her blood to fuel his magic and his immortality.
Fenix couldn’t let that happen.
He made it onto his feet and turned slowly, not trusting his legs. His senses reached out around him but he still felt nothing—no trace of Aderyn—so he focused on himself instead, summoning his strength.
And teleported.
His knees buckled as his boots hit the uneven black ground and his head spun as he tried to look around him, the strange dead garden of the obsidian stone house wobbling in and out of focus.
A scream blasted through the air.
His heart squeezed.
“Aderyn.”
His head whipped to his left, towards the small two-storey house and he teleported inside, stumbled and slammed into a wall. The scent of sulphur and smoke hit him, laced with the tinny smell of magic, and he pushed off, staggering along a wide hallway towards his mate. He could feel her there, ahead of him somewhere. He clenched his jaw as his head turned again, gripped his side and pushed onwards, refusing to let the weakness invading him stop him from reaching her.
His mate needed him.
Another scream cut him to his soul.
“Aderyn!” he bellowed and teleported again, grimaced as he landed on his hands and knees this time and his vision tunnelled.
He was pushing his luck.
He sucked down a breath.
Froze as the scent of blood hit him.
“Aderyn,” he whispered and lifted his head, wanted to roar in fury as he spotted her.
The white-haired mage held her by her throat, colourful glyphs swirling around his hand and her head as she struggled against him, her legs flailing a few feet off the ground. Her boots caught the flowing hem of the black robes the mage wore, each frantic kick knocking the material away from his leathers.
Panic seized Fenix’s lungs as he sensed her weakening. His gaze darted over her and stopped when he found the cut on her neck.
Crimson dripped from it, but rather than flowing down her chest to seep into her violet leather corset, those droplets rose into the air, slowly lifting upwards until they reached a point just above her head, where they gathered into a rippling sphere.
“Let her go.” Fenix pushed onto his feet and grimaced as his right leg gave out and he staggered sideways. He grunted as he hit a heavy wooden bench table and sagged against it. His side blazed as the mage turned cold red eyes on him.
Malice filled them, fury so dark and deep that Fenix swore he could feel the male’s rage.
Drystan slid Aderyn a look.
She screamed, throwing her head back as her body contorted, as another cut appeared on her chest and began to spill more crimson.
“No.” Fenix lunged for her, desperate now. “Let her go. She—”
“She killed my wife,” Drystan snarled, his face blackening as he angled it towards Fenix again. “And now she wishes to kill me.”
Fenix shook his head. “She only wants to open the gateway.”
The mage spat, “Lies. She wants me dead. All her kind do. I lived a peaceful life. I had all I needed… meant to live with my mortal wife for the rest of our days and then pass on as she did.”
His face twisted in vicious lines as he cast a black look at Aderyn where she struggled in his grip, her movements weaker now.
“And she took that life from me.”
Fenix gritted his teeth, anger surging through him too now. “Your wife was luring her into a trap. She meant to gift you with Aderyn’s blood to make you live longer!”
“I will not hear your lies. My sweet Cyra wanted to do no such thing. She was happy as we were.”
Fenix didn’t think she had been. Drystan’s sweet Cyra had spoken of immortality, had seemed desperate and wild when Aderyn had realised what she had intended to do to her and had turned on her.
“Cyra wanted her blood. She wanted to be immortal and she thought you could make it happen.” Fenix growled those words, feeling as desperate and wild as Cyra had been as he looked at Aderyn and saw her fading. She was losing too much blood. If the mage stole much more of it, she wouldn’t be able to resurrect. “Let her go.”
Drystan opened his hand and dropped her.
She hit the ground hard, slumped onto her side and didn’t move. Fenix hurried to her, his heart lodged in his throat as his senses locked onto her. She had to be all right. He couldn’t live without her. Didn’t want to.
He sank to his knees beside her and pulled her onto her back, so she was resting with her head on his thighs. “Wake up, Aderyn.”
The mage stared down at them and Fenix struggled to keep his focus on her as her eyelids fluttered. Her pale golden eyes opened, a glassy quality to them that he didn’t like as she struggled to lift them to meet his. He stroked her cheek, wishing he could give her strength as she could give it to him. If he could, he would drain himself to the brink of death to save her from it.
His eyes misted as he gazed down at her, as he fought to believe that she would make it through this death and that the mage hadn’t taken too much precious blood from her. Her power was in that blood and if the mage had stolen too much of it and she died—
“She will die,” Drystan said. “There is no way of stopping that now.”
“Shut up.” Fenix kept his focus on his mate. “Come on now, sweetheart. Do not do this to me.”
Her eyes slipped shut and his chest constricted.
But then they fluttered open again.
“I loved as deeply as you do, and that love was ripped from me.” The mage came to loom over him and Fenix looked up at him, that tight feeling growing in his chest again as he saw the darkness in the male’s red eyes.
The need for revenge.
Fenix shook his head, silently imploring the male to leave her alone, to leave them both alone.
“I will ensure she does not come after you again. Please. Let her live.” Fenix’s brow furrowed as he gathered Aderyn closer and crossed his arms over her chest in a protective gesture that he knew was futile. If the mage wanted to get to her, he would. Fenix wasn’t strong enough to stop him.
“Oh, she will live. As will you.” The white-haired male raised his hand and closed his eyes, muttered words in a foreign tongue that had the hairs on Fenix’s nape rising and charged the air around him.
Tiny sparks of electricity skittered over his arms and he shook his head as Aderyn moaned and tried to curl up into a ball.
The mage crouched and reached for her.
Fenix batted his hand away and glared at him.
Locked up tight as the male’s crimson eyes collided with his.
Fenix unleashed a frustrated snarl when he tried to move and found he couldn’t. Damn this mage. He tried to yell at the male, to make him leave her alone, but his mouth wouldn’t cooperate.
All he could do was watch as the mage pressed his palm to her chest and continued to mutter something over and over again.
The mage’s red gaze lifted to meet his.
Blazed like fire as the static charge in the air grew stronger.
Aderyn disappeared.
The mage rose to stand before Fenix, his gaze never straying from him, burning like an inferno but as cold as ice.
“I condemn you both. Her to die and forget you if she ever recalls her love for you. You to forever chase her ghost, desperate to make her love you again.”
Drystan turned his back on him and strode away. He disappeared before he reached the door of the room, but his words lingered in the icy air.
“Enjoy your eternity.”