Page 127 of Inflamed By an Incubus

She focused on the fire instead, conjuring images of flames racing over her body, sinking into the heat that seemed to run through her veins as her mind filled with a flickering orange and red glow.

“I would not do that.” The mage placed his right palm to her forehead, his voice a black snarl that relayed his anger to her and only made her try harder to shift, because he didn’t want her to do it. He tossed a bucket of ice on her when he added, “If you transform into a phoenix, your physical body will be destroyed and the only way to return to your current form would be by dying.”

Evelyn couldn’t do that.

Her heart screamed that the curse would trigger if she died.

But the only other option she had was letting this man turn her into someone else.

Both would destroy her.

But one would give her a chance to come back.

She trembled as she thought about what she was going to do, her heart aching at the thought of not only dying but of forgetting Fenix, and the pain she would put him through. She had to do this though. It was the only way to save herself. Sorrow swept through her, muting the fire in her mind, and she reached for the connection that linked them.

Felt only a void where it should have been.

She cursed the spell that surrounded her and stopped her from reaching him when she needed to feel him, needed to reassure herself that everything would be all right. Fenix would find her again and he would break this curse.

They would be together.

Just not in this lifetime.

Evelyn gritted her teeth and steeled her heart.

And surrendered to the fire.

Chapter 38

Fenix slammed into the door and grunted when it didn’t give as he had expected. His shoulder burned from the force of the impact, but that didn’t stop him from barrelling into it again. Evelyn was on the other side. He needed to get to her.

His second attempt to break the wooden door down ended in the same way as his first, with pain ricocheting along his bones.

On his third attempt, the door flew open before he could hit it and he stumbled through it and into the dimly-lit room. Archer. The male thundered along the corridor behind him, closing in fast.

A tremendous sense of power pressed down on Fenix as the glyphs and circles scrawled on the walls shone brighter, rainbow colours shimmering across them. The spell had his senses going haywire as he swung left and then right, seeking the mage. No sign of him.

His gaze snagged on Evelyn where she lay strapped to a table, and his heart clenched as he saw the fire rippling over her hands and blazing brightly around the leather bonds that held her down.

Fenix shook his head and dropped his sword, fear gripping his heart in a tighter fist as not only the flames around the straps grew brighter.

“Stop this,” he barked and was by her side in an instant, his eyes wild as he looked between her face and her hands. Her fear hit him hard, there in her shining gold eyes for him to see as well as feel it in their bond.

“I can’t.” Her fair eyebrows furrowed, her face stricken as the fear he could feel in her grew, mingling with his as he looked at her hands again.

“You have to.” The desperate need to help her had him reaching for her hands and he hissed in a breath as the fire heated his flesh, snatched his hand back and looked at her face again. All of the strength left his voice as he saw in her eyes that she couldn’t stop the shift from happening, a hollow opening inside him as he whispered, “You have to.”

Because he couldn’t lose her.

Not again.

Not this time.

It would destroy him.

He had fallen harder than ever for his mate, hadn’t thought it possible to love her more than he already did but somehow this incarnation of her had managed it. She was brave, strong, and warm. Far warmer than she had ever been. There was a deep and powerful love in her, one that shone in her eyes as she looked at him and then Archer as he came to loom over her.

“Both of you need to get out of here.” She tossed a pleading look at Archer and then her gaze shifted to Fenix and lingered. “Please. Go.”

---