Page 3 of Inflamed By an Incubus

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.

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