Page 4 of Inflamed By an Incubus

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.”

Chapter 1

Eight Deaths Later

It had been that dream again. Fire. Shadowy figures. The feeling that she was burning up and about to explode into flames.

Evelyn tried to shake it off as she sipped water from her violet bottle, each cool drop of it quenching her thirst and feeling as if it was lowering her temperature. She nodded to a few of the men and women she passed in the bright corridor on the third floor of the sprawling building in the heart of London, not stopping to talk to the ones she had worked with in the past.

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