Page 167 of Phoenix Rise

Not talking to anyone at the moment. He’s in a dodgy proper funk. But he’s here.

He washere. When I’d given up hope of ever seeing him again. And with his arrival, my pain had coiled in on itself, like a snake grabbing its own tail. Still there. Waiting. But my beast was alive, surging against my control. Matt reached through the link, feeding it with his own energy, helping me to contain it.

Looking past the long neck and narrow head, I saw a break in the trees. The plateau from my dreams. And I knew, with certainty, that was where he was taking us as his wings folded, and he descended.

He touched down. Not softly, like I had seen him do before, but with a thump, like he had on the path. His talons skidded across the rock.

He was, indeed, in a dodgy proper funk. But I’d take him any way he wished to come.

“Gets off,” Talakai said. I’d have taken it as an order, but his angst pulsed through his energy.

Come on, Angel.Matt grabbed my waist. I couldn’t have managed to let him go on my own. My hands scrabbled to stay on the scales as Matt pulled me away. And panic surged through me.

Not from me. From Talakai, through Matt.

Dammit.Before the Dragon had left, I’d been prepared to do anything to help him heal. Climb any mountain. Take my time to work him through what had been done to him. To reassure him that he was safe.

But now? Now I didn’t have a hope of holding back. I was half-crazed, my power on the fringes of my control.

I was on the verge of becoming a monster. And he’d already been ripped apart by one of those...

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Talakai

I wanted to flee.

But that wasn’t entirely true. My wings spread to take that first downsweep, but instead, my traitorous body steppedtowardAnna as Matt pulled her away.

She had her hooks in my soul.

Her mental scream had blasted into me as I soared two thousand feet in the air. My last flight before leaving, or so I’d thought.

But that cry had swept clear through me. Pain. I’d never felt such pain, not even beneath Xumi’s vicious claws. And before I’d even grasped who it must be from, I’d folded my wings and dropped to the path.

One look at her tormented face, with the desperation reverberating through the link between Matt and me—

I really was a stupid Dragon.

I also wasn’t a happy one. As I carried them toward the plateau, the cold, logical Guild assassin battled with the reawakened faces and voices. Insisting I drop Matt and Anna on the ground, and then leave.

But by the time I landed, I already knew I wouldn’t. Because her scent folded around me, and the beast that lived within her called to me with its siren song.

Anna slid off me, looked up with her beautiful eyes—and said, “Shift for me, Talakai.”

She didn’t even have to use her power on me. The words barely passed her lips, and my body yielded. Immersed in her scent, I was already rock hard—enough that shifting to human became an excruciating and difficult experience.

Which, for me, fed into the whole vicious cycle.

By the time I stood before her as a human, I knew I was lost. I’d been fighting this battle ever since I first saw her in my dreams. And now, my lust was laced with panic—not of what she would do, but that she would do it, and find me lacking.

Matt had cruised through my mind, but he hadn’t seen the darkest depths. The long list of innocents I’d been forced to slay or leave bereft. If we did this—Anna would see their faces.

She would know that I was a monster. And that didn’t touch what Xumi had done to me. How twisted I’d become. Surely, Anna would be as disgusted by it as I was.

Yet as I stood before her, I sensed the hand of Fate at work. That no matter how I squirmed to escape, I would end up here.

At her mercy.

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