Page 66 of Phoenix Falling
“Well?”
The barked word jolted through my body, startling me out of my contemplation. “What?”
Heavy footsteps charged toward me—Sun, bearing down on me, his face hard, eyes even harder. I backed up quick, skirting the couch to put it between us.
“What did you say?” I asked to give myself time.
Sun stopped at the edge of the sofa, his narrowed gaze lit with silver fire. “Who. The hell. Are you?”
I tried to swallow. My dry mouth made it impossible. “I’m Rissa.”
“No!” Sun’s body was vibrating with rage. “Who are you really?”
“Sun.” The grim reaper appeared behind him. “Let me handle this.”
Sun’s growl sounded rabid. I glanced around frantically, searching for escape. As if they could sense my intention, the rest of the men spread out slowly, forming a barrier that kept me in place.
“You saw her before, Sun,” Cale said, sneering in my direction. “She’s Risk. How she’s Risk, I don’t know, but she is. We all saw it.”
At the compound. Of course they’d all seen it. And then something had happened—I’d hit my head.
My hand came up of its own volition, searching that spot on the back of my skull that felt like it had been smacked with a sledgehammer.
“How did you do it, Rissa?”
I looked into Sun’s eyes, felt the searing glare as it swept over my body, and a matching heat began to flame in my gut. Deliberately ignoring him, I faced the hooded one. “Where am I?”
“Don’t!” Sun took a threatening step in my direction. “You talk to me, got it?”
“I’m not a dog to be commanded, Sun. I’ll talk to whomever I please.”
The grim reaper shot a hand out and gripped Sun’s arm.“Don’t tease the monster,”he said in my head.
“I’m not teasing; I’m dead serious,” I said aloud.
“Answer me!” Sun roared.
So I did. Squaring my shoulders, I swallowed down my fear and faced the creature that had been my lover head-on. “You want to know who I really am, Sun?”
“Yes, I sure as hell do.”
With a quick thought I pulled on my Risk glamour. A collective gasp filled the room.
“What makes you think this isn’t me? It’s who your warriors know me as. Cale.” I flicked a disdainful glance in the blond’s direction. “Arik. They know me very well.”
Murderous fury flashed across Sun’s face.
“I don’t think I’d remind him of that just now,”the hooded one said.
I’d remind him of a lot more than that. I let the glamour drop. “Or maybe this is me. Your Rissa.”
“You’re not mine!” Sun snarled.
Pain hit me like a load of bricks.That’s not what you were saying last night.“Of course I’m not. You don’t even know who I am.”
Sun broke free of the grip holding him then. Two steps forward and he had me. Another two and he slammed me into the wall. “Who. The fuck. Are. You?”
For the first time ever, in my entire history since I’d found my gift, I dropped my glamour completely. Even unconscious, I never bared everything—protecting myself was too ingrained, too automatic—but now I held nothing back. I let them see it all, see me as I truly was. I felt Sun recoil, his hands dropping from my arms.
