Enflame (Insight #6)(78)

He let go of me once he felt me lose my struggle. “We didn’t make him as weak as we wanted, but we did take some of his power away. That will help tomorrow.”

“You’re sure?” I asked, looking up at him.

“He would not have sent his army otherwise.”

Landen appeared at that moment. He nodded once to Phoenix. Apparently that was his cue because he vanished at that moment.

“What the hell is going on? I’m sick of all of you popping in and out. It’s making me dizzy.”

That made him smirk. As his dominant stare glanced over every part of me, looking for some kind of damage, his pride and relief told me he was amazed by what I’d accomplished during that spell.

“He went after Charlie.”

“Who, Phoenix?”

“No, Xavier.”

“What?”

“She’s fine. They’re all fine,” he assured me. Something was different about him. His pupils were wide again.

“Something happened to you,” I said, almost to myself.

He let a wry smile reach the edge of his lips. “Charlie let some...well, some energy out, and I was kinda standing there. It’s weird...it’s like my insights are more than feeling now, like I can literally see what I feel.”

“Why did she let out energy?” I asked, raising my brow, prepared to rip him into shreds for putting that girl in danger.

“She’s fine.”

“Apparently, she wasn’t at one point. Why are you keeping me in the dark?”

He reached his hands for my waist and pulled me closer to him. “I have to…we need her to live out her fate.”

“So I’m a weak link?” I asked sarcastically. “I will meddle or something? You seem to forget that I am the reason they are here, that I was the one that barged into their home and gave them no choice but to come with me. And days ago, I promised Nana I would keep them safe.”

“And a great queen knows the power of carefully placed delegation.”

“I didn’t delegate anyone to take care of them. I don’t trust anyone to do that for me.”

“You don’t trust me?”

“Well, yeah.”

“All right then. I took care of it. They are no worse than when they walked into this night.”

“Fine. I want to see it with my own eyes.”

“Brady is going to lead them home to Chara. We’ll wait here until he does.”

“Then we’ll go with them and talk this out.”

He smiled sinfully. “When we began, what was the one thing we always wanted, fought to get, ran away to find?”

“Time alone.”

He nodded once. “Let them have that right now. You know they need it.”

As I stared into his eyes, I felt his truth and his honest intent. I guess he was right. It wasn’t fair to put them through this night, then keep them up all night debating it only to go right back to war tomorrow.

Silence took over for countless minutes as I paced the string and fought the urge to step into the passage and see if they were okay with my own eyes.

“Since when are you scared of heights?” he asked in a lighthearted tone.

I looked up at him like he was insane. “There was, like, an insane amount of floors, people—ghosts, whatever—everywhere. I felt like I was going to fall.”

“So it’s falling, not the heights that bothers you?”

Before I could answer or ask him what was up with the small talk, Charlie and Draven emerged from the passage. They couldn’t see us from where they were. The haze was blocking us. I waited for the others to come through the string, but it was just them along with Brady.

I judged every emotion coming from them. No matter how hard I tried, I could not piece together what they went through tonight. Every emotion was present. But Landen was right: they wanted to be alone.

“Where are the others?” I asked him.

“Still partying?” he said with a grin as he shrugged his shoulders.

“Well, we are going to wait right here until they come through so I know they are unscathed, too.

“Sorry, we have other plans,” he said as he crossed the string and pulled me to him.





Chapter Sixteen


A whisk of warm air surrounded us and I felt my body soar blindly in his arms to an unknown destination. When I focused my eyes, I could have sworn we were standing on the moon itself. Stars were all around us.

Gently, he turned me in his arms so I could take in where we were. Before me was an open room. Torches that were a few feet apart outlined a large oval room. There was an elegant round table shrouded in a white sheet, adorned with two dishes covered with silver tops, and a few small candles were burning in the center. Off to the side of the room was an ivory bed...at least I think it was a bed. It looked like a massive swing anchored to the point where beams connected the room. Lace curtains outlined the bed, making it look like a little piece of Heaven that would guide you into blissful dreams. Across the floor were red rose petals, and gentle symphony music was playing.

The reason it felt like I was standing in the sky was that there was no roof. Only wide beams, and no walls at all. It was as if this place were perched on the top of a mountain or something. Below, hundreds of feet below, I could see twinkling lights. At first I thought they were distant homes, but then I realized it must have been water, that the ocean was reflecting the detailed, starry sky.