35. Chapter 35
35
Chapter 35
Sebastian
I heard her. Barely, but I heard her call out for me. I transferred to her room to see her covered in sweat, passed out, and her pills covering the floor next to her bed.
She did it. I couldn’t believe she did it. She listened to me, but something wasn’t right.
I went to her side and placed my hand on her head. She was burning up. I could hear her heart beating, but it was in overdrive. I picked her up and transferred back to my room. The last thing I needed was for someone to show up to her room during whatever this was. I had to take her somewhere no one would come to.
I lay her gently on my bed and used my shadows to push the balcony doors open. The wind rushed in, and I hoped it would bring her temperature down.
I placed my hand on her head again only to feel that she was even hotter than she was moments ago.
“Violet. Violet, wake up,” I said as I shook her. A pit formed in my stomach as I thought about the possibility that I could’ve been wrong. That she really needed those pills.
Her eyes fluttered but she couldn’t respond.
I had to shake off that thought because that couldn’t be right. I just found her.
I couldn’t lose her.
Even with the fear that was growing inside of me, I knew it wasn’t a heart condition. A heart condition wouldn’t cause her body to continue to elevate in temperature. No, whatever this was . . . it was magic.
She lay limp across my bed. I placed my hand on her head again only to immediately pull it off because she was so hot.
“I know you can hear me. I can feel some kind of energy that you’re holding in. You need to let it go,” I said.
Whatever was happening, or whatever those bloody pills were keeping contained, was radiating off of her. Her body may have given up, but her mind was fighting. She was fighting to keep control of whatever was eating her from the inside out.
“Violet. Let it go.”
Her head jerked to the side as she fought an internal battle. Her body tensed and she seemed to be squeezing her eyes shut.
“Violet!” I yelled. “Let it go!”
Her eyes shot open, but instead of the brown eyes I had grown so fond of, they were golden and glowing. Eyes I had only heard stories about.
“Oh fu—”
Violet’s body became engulfed in golden flames that shot out and consumed my room. I surrounded us with a force field to try to keep the fire in my room. No one could know what was happening. I knew at that moment why Violet’s father came up with the heart condition story and made Violet take those pills. He was protecting her from the world. Keeping the world from finding out that she was something the realms thought they had gotten rid of almost a century ago.
She was a phoenix. The last phoenix.
Violet had eighty years of fire that was bottled up inside of her all coming out at once. If I didn’t keep it contained, it would burn my realm, and everyone in it.
Nothing mattered to me as much as she did, but I knew if word got out about what she was, a war would come that I wasn’t prepared for. Not when I was fighting a war within my own realm right now.
I kept the force field up and watched as the fire hit the dome around us and came back towards us. The energy pushing out the flames had created a cyclone of fire that tore through every object and piece of furniture in my room.
If it wasn’t for the shield of protection that I kept on myself, I would be a pile of ashes like everything else in my room.
I could feel my power draining exponentially fast as I fought to keep the force field. Her fire was so strong that it was taking everything I had to keep the flames from breaking through.
I had been so careful about using my power since I started losing it, but I didn’t care now. All that mattered was protecting her. And protecting her secret.
I knew that if she didn’t stop soon, she would break through the force field. She was strong, and I was growing weaker by the second.
“Violet,” I said as I panted to catch my breath.
I had to get through to her.
“Violet, I need you to stop.”
My shield was starting to wear away, and I felt the burn on my cheek as her flames tore though.
I was losing it.
“Please, love.”