AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I didn’t bother assisting with the female fae, not when so many of my brothers were looking forward to the fight.
No—I didn’t give a damn about the victory.
The only thing I cared about was inside that cave.
Teris’s hands were planted to the stone beside mine and so many of my brothers as we slammed our power into the rock, commanding Vevol to give us what we wanted. A fierce crack echoed through the forest’s canopy as we focused our magic to open the cave completely, revealing the rest of the females we had failed to protect.
As soon as the gap was wide enough, I abandoned the magic, surging into the cave.
Blood pounded through my body so loudly that it drowned out all noise as I saw my female on her knees, beside North. They leaned over Priel, but a single glance told me that his chest still rose and fell steadily. His coloring was normal, too—so the bastard was fine.
Just poisoned, like the rest of us. And slightly worse for the wear, according to the dried blood on his skin.
With his mate beside him, he would recover quickly.
My Mariah’s eyes lifted to me just before I reached her, hauling her up off the ground and yanking her fiercely to my chest.
I wouldn’t release her.
Never again.
I’d tie the woman to my side for every day of every remaining century we would live through.
She wasmine.
And I’d failed her yet again.
Her lips moved as I stalked out of the cave, shifting and launching us into the sky. I couldn’t hear her—not while the adrenaline pumped through me so ferociously, not while the panic and fear I had felt were still flooding every pore I possessed.
Not when I’d come so close to losing her.
Nine
Mare
I thoughtI had seen Ervo lose control before, but I was wrong. The fury that had possessed him before was nothing like the one that had claimed him now. He couldn’t even seem to hear me speak as he grabbed me out of the cave and took off into the sky.
My fingers were buried in his golden feathers again, but this time, he was on fire. The flames didn’t burn my skin, simply stroking my flesh and warming me completely.
Despite the tension and fear that had overwhelmed me in the cave, I felt calm on his back, flying through the forest with him.
Nothing that had happened in that cave made sense. I still had so many questions, too.
But before I got answers to any of them, I was going to have to figure out how to calm my phoenix down.
My face heated when I realized I’d started thinking of him as mine. But…
Wasn’t he?
He’d never looked at another woman the way he looked at me. He’d never touched one of them. Never pinned them to a tree and told them they were his.
Never lost his shit when one of them was in danger.
So maybe he was kind of mine.
And maybe I was kind of his.
No decisions had really been made on that front, though. Our conversation during the dance party had been a huge step in the right direction, but things weren’t finished. Not even close.
