Page 44 of Phoenix Burn

Then I felt it. A pulsing surge of energy.

Familiar.

And with that thought, I was with her. Merged with another that I knew all too well.

I was caught up with them as I flew through the raging wind. Thrusting and tightening, threatening to explode.

No. My beast insisted he couldn’t have her—that she was MINE. I fought with myself, my body aching, but although they brought me right to the brink, I needed something more to carry me over.

Xumi had twisted me into something I didn’t want to be.

Rage and despair warred within me, surging from within until I screamed it into the storm.

The awareness was fading, and in desperation, I searched for it. Dove toward it, chasing the unraveling dream—but the darkness rose, and took me with it.

Time passed.

My first true awareness was of scent. Powerful, it wove its way into my spirit and soul, and fastened its hooks in deep.

My memory supplied another—a pure, citrus aroma that made my heart pound and, for a few precious moments, pushed the other away. But the powerful cloying smell was both from past and present, and it was pervasive.

I struggled to hold on to the memory of bicolored eyes, with a determination borne of desperation. But the harder I clung, the faster it slipped through my mental fingers...

Meanwhile, the cloying scent grew stronger, permeating every cell, ratcheting my body to a state of rigidity that was painful. And terrifyingly familiar.

Dragon pheromones. No matter what my brain insisted upon, my body, and the beast that resided within it, were helpless in their grip.

They were a vital piece of the reproductive process. Something the Dragona secreted when she was on cycle. It drove male beasts mad with lust. My own experiences with it were somewhat more warped.

As I swam back to awareness, my heart thundered with panic. I was upright, held by metal at my wrists, ankles, and neck. I didn’t need to open my eyes to determine that. Because I’d been here before.

“I know you’re awake,” a sultry voice purred. A talon danced along my thigh, digging in enough to penetrate the scales. I kept my face stoic, but my gut twisted, and my body—

My damned body, still inspired by my dream about Anna, leaped to attention, and I shuddered.

Xumi.

Haki had rescued me from this fate. And he’d put me right back here.

Could I blame him? The bitch always got what she wanted. And she’d held his pregnant soul mate captive to get to me.

“Open those pretty blue eyes for me, Talakai.”

I gritted my teeth and complied.

Xumi inhaled—rising on her tiptoes to push her scantily scaled breasts within an inch of my face as she blinked at me.

She was, on the surface, beautiful. Her hair was the color of the sky after sunset—black streaked with dark turquoise. Her scales glimmered green over her shapely figure, and they matched her eyes. A deep green that reminded me of algae upon a stagnant pond.

Or a swamp. Fetid. Rotten. Her true self, if you looked deeply enough. They gleamed at me, and in them I detected both anger and triumph. “Welcome home, Talakai. I’ve missed you.”

I was suspended over a deep pit in the metal floor, and she had, as always, hung me to her height level, allowing her to grope every inch of me. The chains that bound me ran on tracks that enabled her to efficiently move me from one area of the room to the other. I knew from experience that it gave her full control over me, as well as access to the many different apparatuses.

I glared at her. “Did you send Kala back to him?”

Xumi blinked. “I always honor my bargains,” she stated. I kept my face expressionless, but relief coursed through me as I read between the lines. In the Dragon world, Haki and I were underworld scum. The Dragon Empire, on the other hand, wasn’t something to mess with, and holding Kala would have brought them breathing down Xumi’s neck. I might be here, but my friends were not. And for that, I was grateful.

“You should have known you could never evade me,” Xumi stated. “My spies are everywhere.”

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