Page 1 of Ruling in Flames (Reborn 5)
1
ANANI
I’d never givenmuch thought to how I would die.
There had been plenty of times where I hadwantedto die, but I think I’d always assumed it would be either at my father’s hand or during a mission with my flight. Preferably the latter—at least then it would be with a band of brothers who cared about me. Who would mourn my loss if any of us survived the dangerous tasks we’d been assigned.
This, though? I would’ve never expected to die like this.
My vision began to flicker around the edges as I stared into the anguish and pain-filled gaze of my mate. This was pure hell.
I wanted to be strong for my peanut. I wanted to remove the fear from her eyes.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t—I couldn’t do anything but reach for her as a horrible tar-like burning sensation ran through every nerve ending of my body, causing me to want to roar out in pain. But I couldn’t even do that because my dragon and I were paralyzed by the assault on us, the magic swarming our senses in an onslaught as the chaos of the room became a distant buzzing. Easily ignorable—the entirety of my world narrowed on Maya.
Nothing else mattered. Only her.
I thought I heard someone roar out my name—maybe my twin—but it didn’t matter because the flicker at the center of my chest, the one that kept me alive, blew out. Every single ounce of my life force extinguished at once.
I didn’t know how else to describe what happened next other thantranscendence.
One moment I was in my body, and the next I was being blasted through space and time, a cold energy—nearly invigorating—washing over me. I felt stunned, a prisoner to the vacuum-like pull, both my dragon and I watching in horror as we left our mate and our flight completely unprotected and at the mercy of the vicious shifter called a ‘dragon god’ by some of the prisoners.
A monster who was possibly killing the people I loved.
I bellowed out in pain, my dragon rattling the cage inside of my head as the noise echoed there—but nothing came out of my mouth. The vacuum that we were traveling in was completely silent.
Then realization slammed into me, panic seizing up my chest as I recognized that the space around me was like a warped tunnel, pushing me towards a pinpoint of light at the very end.Holy fuck—I was dying.This was the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ bullshit.
Almost as if summoned at the thought itself, a wall of blue flames appeared in front of me, bringing everything to a complete and utter halt.
I hung suspended in the air as the tunnel reacted aggressively against the magic trying to block the path, growing constrictive around me, a wheezing sound leaving my throat from the pressure on my ribs. It felt like my eardrums themselves were going to burst, and I closed my eyes, expecting the worst.
Then I was dropped.
I groaned in pain as my body fell through space, my back hitting against a solid surface. Thatwas going to leave a fucking bruise.
Unless I was dead.
I refused to believe I was dead, though. I couldn’t be dead—I wasn’t ready to leave Maya. We had immortality to live out together, and I didn’t want to leave my flight, the only true safe haven my brother and I had ever found.
My head spun in a toxic twist, my brow furrowing at the idea of Ledger thinking he’d lost me. I couldn’t imagine losing my twin. The moment would gut him, and I fucking hated that.
No, I absolutely refused to accept that I was dead. Something had stopped me from truly dying.I wasn’t dead.I would hang onto that thought as long as necessary.
“Good, because you’re not.”
My eyes snapped open. I found myself looking skyward, except it wasn’t a normal sky—no, this was painted in a watercolor palette of red, orange, and pink. It wasn’t a sunset, but it almost felt like one outside of the blazing midday ball of fire I could see out of the corner of my eye. My skin wasn’t overly hot, though, and as I sat up, feeling more than just a twinge of pain from the hard fall, I looked around, realizing that I was in a large grassy plain surrounded by hills. There was nothing else as far as the eye could see.
Where the hell was I?
“Anani.”
The woman’s voice had me turning my head, everything coming to a full stop.Well, obviously Iwasdead and she had no idea what she was talking about.
“You’re not dead,” she repeated, staring back at me from where she sat a few feet away.
Seeing her nearly fucking broke me, as a pain-filled sound came from my throat. “Mom?”
