Page 154 of Phoenix Rise

He’s still on the other side of the gate, helping with the cleanup.

“Is it safe for Talakai to come here?” I asked Cara.

Her eyes flashed. “Like to see them try to take him now. He saved those towns.”

That isn’t a yes,Matt noted.

It’s probably the best we will get, though,I mused.If we can talk him into coming back here at all.My heart throbbed as though it were tearing in two. Or, perhaps, three. It told me that if he’d intended to come back to me, he already would have.

I blinked to clear my eyes when two familiar forms wound their way through the chaos. Cass hovered very close to Eli, who looked a bit pale even for a Bellati, and he had a new, vivid scar running through his eyebrow that extended back into his hair.

“Are you all right?” I asked.

“Am now. Was really wild out there. Got nailed by one of that Torshin’s sardding blasts,” he said. “It just about took me out, and one of my brethren tried to finish the job.”

“Had to save his skinny ass,” Cass explained.

“I would have been just fine,” Eli objected.

Cass rolled his eyes. “Of course.” But the way he wrapped an arm around his mate spoke volumes.

“Anyway, now I have a scar,” Eli finished.

“It’s sexy.” Cass waggled his eyebrows, and Eli looked pleased. His expression altered as he looked behind me, and I glanced around to see a tall, broad-shouldered form striding through the carnage.

Nikolai.

“How’s the Perditor doing?” Eli asked in a lowered voice.

“Holding his own,” Cara commented, but her brows dropped.

Lucas trailed along behind Nikolai, and his green-ringed eyes focused on Cara. “Nikolai didn’t believe Aria that you were okay. He needed to see for himself.”

The big Bellati’s eyes flared brightly as he scanned the Watcher. “I believed Aria,” he corrected. “I just didn’t believe Cara.” He looked to where the dead Watchers lay, covered in white shrouds. “How many did we lose?”

“Three,” Cara’s voice was hardly above a whisper. “Four more are seriously injured.”

“Were they all from Isobel?” he asked.

She nodded. “Galeran is an insane genius, and psychopathic to boot, but Isobel and her bloodpower...” I’d never heard such rage in Cara’s voice before. “She is no longer a Watcher. She is something else now. And she pulls on the power of a coven to boost her own.”

“Sorceress,” Cass hissed. “Like a Torshin.”

“She is far more powerful than I thought she would be.” Cara shuddered. “And that bloodpower is deadly to us. I don’t know how she can even wield it.”

“She can’t kill me,” Nikolai rumbled. “Maybe it is time you admitted you need me on this.”

Cara shook her head. “No, Nikolai. It isn’t worth the risk.”

“I am stronger now,” he insisted. “More in control, with Aria and Lucas’s help. You need me to take her and Galeran out.”

Cara straightened. “It is not something I can consider at this time.”

For a moment, I thought Nikolai was going to disagree. Darkness drifted across his silver eyes, and his hair stirred, lifting from his shoulders. Wisps of black fog lifted off his skin, and through my mind, red lightning danced.

Strewth,offered Matt, stepping even closer to me.

I raised my chin and faced my brother. Mybrother. “Until Sebastian can get us the location, we are back to square one, anyway,” I pointed out. “So it’s a moot point.”

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