Chapter 53
CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE
PHOENIX
Clutching the envelope with the invitation, I make my way through the city towards Daegel’s estate. Vera’s spies cling close to me, which only fuels my frustration further. It takes me longer than usual to lose them in the crowd.
By the time I make it to Daegel’s, it’s already evening. As always, I scale the wall at the back and slip inside his library through the door from the garden side.
I left Vera and Kazh behind. I have no clue what’s next.
Kazh has dropped me as her mentee, I have no doubt.
If she thinks I am unworthy, it was only a matter of time, anyway.
But how about Vera? Will she drop me as her champion, too?
Now that I don’t have the legendary mentor training me?
Everything is unraveling, one threat at a time.
I exhale and shake my head. Later. Those problems will be addressed later. Now, I have another one on my hands.
Daegel sits in the armchair, an open book in his lap. He doesn’t look surprised to see me. Before he can say anything, I snap, “I’m so fucking tired of you trying to force me to drop out and sacrifice my goals and plans for you.”
He blinks. “Phoenix—”
I cut him off. “No. I’m so fucking tired of you lying to me. Keeping secrets. Pretending you do it to keep me safe when all you do is make me look like a fool.”
He rises to his feet. “Never. All I do is to—”
I cut him off again. “All you ever do is to protect me. I’ve heard that before. Fuck you. I can protect myself. I don’t need your protection.”
I love him.
He feels like home.
He’s the enemy.
He’s the man who lies, schemes, and looks the other way when innocent children are sold into slavery for profit.
I shake my head, trying to clear my mind.
I glare up at him. “You didn’t say anything when your father contested my win.”
He steps closer. I push at his chest, but he doesn’t move.
“I couldn’t,” he whispers. “You know I couldn’t. Officially, we’re enemies. They already watched us help each other in the clearing, fighting the dragons.”
I scoff. “So, you’d sacrifice me to protect your precious image?”
He catches my wrists, securing them behind my back in one hand.
Frustrated, he says, “You have to start thinking, Phoenix. You or I alone, or even together, are not strong enough to stand against Caligos. Kitajo couldn’t stand against them with his Order and House Dzuni at his back.
He thought he could, and that’s what got him killed.
If you’d stop for a moment and put your blind ambition aside, you’d understand that.
And then you’d know that my efforts are not in vain. ”
I try to twist away from his grip, but he holds me tight. My wrists hurt. There’ll be bruises if he doesn’t let go.
“So you admit it, then, that even as an Ezkai General you’ll be powerless to stop Caligos?” I spit. “You’re willing to be their mindless puppet as long as your pockets continue to be lined with gold?”
“I’m not saying that,” he says, darkly. “Don’t put words into my mouth.”
His words only fuel the fire that burns inside me.
I shake my head. He’s just like King Francis.
“Let. Me. Go.”
He doesn’t.
The fight drains something out of me all at once. I tug helplessly at his grip, breath shaking.
Everything hurts.
Everything is wrong.
All of this—him, me us—feels like a lie.
“You keep saying you’re trying to protect me,” I whisper, voice cracking. “But all you ever do is push me farther away. Lie. Hide things. Treat me like I’m too weak to handle the truth.”
His jaw flexes. Something sharp flickers in his eyes.
“Phoenix—”
“I don’t even know who you are anymore.”
Something breaks open in me at that admission.
Daegel sees it the moment it happens.
Before I can step away, he cups my cheek with his free hand and pulls me into a kiss.
Harsh. Consuming.
Wrong.
A wave of sharp desire punches through me. I hate that it does.
I bite his lip. He hisses and pulls away. Red paints his bottom lip. He slowly drags his tongue over it.
He tightens his grasp on my wrists and growls, “Why do you always insist on fighting me?”
I pull back enough to breathe. “Because you’re being a fucking asshole.”
His eyes darken further. Something in his gaze shifts. I’ve never seen him like this before.
Suddenly, I understand…
He’s losing control. Of me, of this, of everything. And he hates it.
He crushes his mouth into mine. A copper taste fills my mouth when he pries my lips open and slides inside.
I’m so furious with him, I want to fight him. Claw his eyes out. But the anger and rage only fuels the untamed desire my body feels. It’s disorienting.
My body and mind are not on the same page.
Daegel’s lips are harsh, just as his hands are, as he pins my wrists behind my back and grips my hip so hard it hurts.
“Daegel—” I try, but my voice breaks.
I need a break. I need him to pause, to give me space to breathe.
This doesn’t feel right.
“This won’t fix anything,” I say against his mouth. “I fucking hate you right now.”
His eyes are dark and deep as the ocean in the night. “You know damn well you don’t hate me. You still love me. And you’re mine.”
He growls the last words, possessive and primal. There’s a new kind of darkness within him, one I haven’t seen before.
It scares me.
I gasp when he rips my leather jacket away. It flies through the room, and before I know it, he pushes me down onto the plush rug on the floor. He removes his leather jacket and then rips my pants off, too.
“Daegel,” I say, propping myself up on my elbows.
He doesn’t listen, consumed by the need to claim me. Roughly, he pushes my legs apart and settles between them.
His weight on top of me is familiar, and it makes my core tickle with the need. But the way he handles me sparks anxiety inside my chest.
It eases when he brings his lips to mine and kisses me as if he needs me just as much as he needs oxygen to live.
His fingertips trail down my shoulder and arm until he reaches my hand. Our fingers weave together and he pulls my hand up and pins it above my head. I arch my back, and my aching breasts push against his hard chest.
I hate the way my body reacts to him.
I don’t want this.
Not like that.
Without breaking the kiss, he finds my other hand and pins it above my head, too. My head is dizzy.
But I can’t help the resistance that rises inside me. So, once again, I catch his bottom lip between my teeth and nip it. With a hiss, he retreats.
Two hot-as-coal obsidian eyes pin me with a dangerous stare. “You’ll drive me out of my damn mind, princess.”
“You’re being an asshole right now.”
He plants a soft kiss on my neck, then grazes his teeth along the sensitive skin there. I try to pry my wrists from his hand, but his grip is ironclad.
“Don’t you dare leave a fucking mark,” I say, voice full of threat.
The tip of his hardness slides up and down my folds, and every time it glides over my clit, it sends a spark of pleasure up my spine.
My body betrays me.
Against my neck, he whispers, “Your body tells me you want this, even if you’re angry with me right now.”
I scoff. The sound is replaced with a gasp when he aligns the head of his cock to my opening and thrusts inside with force. My fingers curl around his hand, nails digging into the back of his palm.
I pant between his powerful thrusts.
Daegel releases a sound that’s a mix between a moan and a growl as he buries himself deep inside me, and then retreats almost to the very tip in one slow roll of his hips. My toes curl, the heat curling low in my stomach against the anger I feel in my chest.
My body and my mind are not on the same page, and it kills me inside.
How can I be so angry it feels as close as hate while still feeling this pleasure?
When he thrusts inside, it’s a statement.
He’s laying his claim on me, the physical proof of his earlier words.
You’re mine.
I can’t help the sounds that escape my lips, not when he slips a hand between our bodies and lazily circles his thumb against my clit.
His lips are against my ear. “What happened that made you not want to be with me anymore? Is it that scumbag I sent after you, Jax?”
Jax’s name on his lips is like a curse.
I can barely concentrate on his words, the pleasure that builds inside me, the tension that’s ready to snap at any time now clouding my thoughts.
“What?” My question is breathless. “Jax has nothing to do with—”
My words are cut of with a moan when he changes the pace and rhythm of his thrusts to one that I love most.
One that always gets me off.
“Fuck you,” I cry out, starting to shake.
“I doubt he knows how to fuck you like I do,” Daegel whispers roughly. “How to make you moan, gasp, and tremble through one orgasm after another.”
Just as he thrusts inside me again, the tension that’s been building in me finally snaps. I cry out as my orgasm crashes through me, making me tremble like a quaking aspen.
“You see, we fit together so well,” he murmurs against my neck. “Stop fighting it. Stop fighting me.”
Daegel rolls his hips slow and steady as I ride the wave of pleasure until I finally come down from the height of it. With one last thrust, he tips over the edge too, filling me up.
Daegel hovers above me, face unreadable. There’s no tenderness in it.
I roll my head to the side, breath uneven.
The room is quiet. Too quiet.
Ice settles in my bones.
I swallow the lump forming in my throat. It feels like something inside me just broke. Unrepairable.
I want him off me. As far away as possible.
Finally, he sighs. “Tell me what thoughts are mulling in that pretty head of yours.”
“I want to know the truth.”
His jaw tightens.
I force myself upright. My chest is tight. Everything inside me hollow.
He’s still inside me.
“You say you’re not Caligos,” I say, voice steadier than I feel. “That you don’t know everything. But how much do you know about your family’s business?”
A small frown appears between his eyebrows.
I push on. “Are you aware that your family is kidnapping children, drugging them, and selling them?”
He looks startled. Or pretends to.
“That’s the first time I’m hearing about it. I swear.”
I search his face for truth. I don’t find any.
I don’t believe anything about him anymore.
“I don’t know who you are,” I whisper. “I don’t know the man who keeps claiming he loves me, but keeps treating me like a precious toy.”
His voice turns quiet. “Phoenix, it breaks my heart to see you look at me like that.”
The words are soft.
But they feel like a trap.
“This was a mistake,” I say.
Me coming here.
Letting him use my body as a way to fix what’s unfixable.
Allowing him to lie to me for so long.
Finally, he gets off me. I scramble to my feet and look for my clothes.
“You won’t avenge your family if you’re dead,” he says, watching me dress.
“At whose hand?” I snap. “Yours?”
He simply glares at me.
I shove my arms into my torn jacket. “From the start, I admired your ambition and how self-assured and accomplished you were. It’s a shame to see that all of it was a lie.
I may not have the honorable reasons of becoming the Ezkai General, and I’m sure there would be more devoted champions who would serve Ekios better than I ever will.
But at least I’m not a fucking coward and a puppet. ”
I don’t wait for his answer.
I don’t look back as I slam the door shut behind me.