Marked in Flames by Carrie Ann Ryan

Author:Carrie Ann Ryan [Ryan, Carrie Ann]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Carrie Ann Ryan

Chapter

Eleven

Jade

My back hit the hard ground with a resounding thwack, and yet his hands on my hips, on my shoulders, took the brunt of it somehow. Even in this craze, the three parts of him fighting for dominance and control in a haze of fire and torment, he was still protecting me.

Because that was Steele.

The Enforcer who refused to let anyone in, to let anyone see who he was, yet threw himself bodily to protect everyone in his care.

That was what had attracted me to him the moment I saw him, when he had come to find Cruz and Dara all those months ago. The moment we’d looked into each other’s eyes and known.

Oh yes, I had known in that instant he could be mine. I wasn’t a shifter. It wasn’t as if I could sense a potential bond that didn’t yet exist that the moon goddess had chosen him for me.

No, there was something else inside me, a fiery ember that screeched for its other half.

I didn’t get that future. I hadn’t gotten it when I was rejected the first time. And I wasn’t going to allow myself to go through that again. And yet, in that instant when he held me and crushed his mouth to mine, I knew there was no other choice.

To save him, I would give him part of myself.

Because I was the firebird. I was magic and fire and earth and danger. I held within me a beast of my own. A monster that no one who knew of it spoke of. I could control the fire of demons. I was born that way, and I would die that way. I held no drops of demon blood within me. I wasn’t a hybrid, I wasn’t of hell. But my power was the counter to hell, though not everyone could see that. Not everyone would believe that.

So I kept it hidden. Because to control it was to let go of part of myself. And I had always vehemently refused to be that.

When I nearly died all those years ago, almost taking Sawyer with me, we had grown close because of it. I taught Sawyer to protect himself with spells, using his own innate human magic—his soul—to protect himself.

He wanted to protect me, to protect our people, but it hadn’t been enough. He hadn’t had enough within him because he wasn’t meant to protect everyone, which was why he became an Aspen.

So many choices, so many chances, all culminating in this moment—Steele’s mouth on mine, and my inevitable surrender.

He pulled back, looking at me with wide eyes. I could see the human, this was Steele. But when he blinked it was the wolf, gold and menacing and scared. His wolf was so scared.

And then it went gray, the hybrid, the monster the demon wanted to unleash upon the world and send to start an apocalypse.

This was the beginning, but wouldn’t be our ending.

I gripped his face, keeping him steady.

“It’s okay. You won’t hurt me,” I lied.

Because Steele would never physically hurt me.

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