Page 4 of A Flame of the Phoenix (An Heir Comes to Rise #6)

CHAPTER THREE

Izaiah

I zaiah drifted through the halls with confidence despite the many dark fae tainting them. One hand in his pocket, he didn’t care to give any of them his attention.

These halls closed in with judgment, eyeing him like a traitor, but he blocked that out too. He was no stranger to the feeling of being outcast, and he didn’t surface the urge to defend himself to anyone observing his actions.

On time, Jakon rounded the next corner. Izaiah knocked the human’s shoulder, turning to him with an unfazed smirk, while Jakon blazed.

“Watch yourself,” Izaiah warned.

Jakon paused, debating whether or not to engage. He didn’t, and Izaiah relaxed, not dropping his arrogant swagger down the rest of the hall.

Now he was heading to the king’s study.

Over the weeks, he’d attended meetings with Dakodas, listening in on tedious outlines of the city and their new defense measures. Of course, he never expected those meetings to divulge anything of real secrecy that could be used against them.

His goal was to appear compliant. Irrelevant, so they’d ease up on the close watch they were keeping him under. It was working—slowly.

He couldn’t fathom Faythe’s grief and was somewhat surprised she hadn’t stormed back already, healed physically and furious in her vengeance. He shouldn’t have doubted her. While she was often hotheaded, and he feared the world for what could become of her wrath, she was also smart. Reylan wasn’t here, and her being caught on Marvellas’s terms would waste the subtle advantage they still held to counterattack.

The only real twist of guilt in his gut was the occasional times he wondered what Kyleer thought of him. Reflecting on his impulsive, secret decisions, he came to realize his brother’s opinion was the only one that could truly impact him.

He shrugged off the notion. It only served to distract him.

Izaiah had been watching the shift of court closely. How the new false king, Malin Ashfyre, was unraveling to the most frighteningly unhinged he’d ever seen him in his desperation to fit into the crown he’d stolen. Faythe’s human friend, Reuben, was near delirious in his search for the ruin, and Malin only added pressure to whatever influence Marvellas had plagued Reuben’s mind with, as though possessing the ruin would prove Malin worthy, and people would yield once and for all.

In his boredom, watching the prince’s downward spiral had made Izaiah very curious. He was a male with a desire for power, but it was like there was something more. Something hidden. So he’d made it his own risky trial to scour places he never would have been able to before. With the disarray and lack of order, he thought he might never get another chance.

Nearing the king’s study, Izaiah shifted into a black panther. He quite liked to frequent this form. The powerful jaw and lethal claws made tearing through bodies like tearing through a field of wheat.

He kept to the shadows, spying the two guards posted outside the place he wanted access to. Izaiah growled low, and they snapped their heads toward him. He eased out, lips curled back over his teeth, braced low in a predatory stalk.

It was enough to get them to back away in fear, unsheathing their blades. They might have tried to challenge him, but Izaiah pounced with a roar that sent them scattering with cowardly shrieks.

Izaiah shifted back to his fae body outside the study door, chuckling to himself. They made it too easy.

He dipped into his pocket for the key Jakon had slipped to him expertly in their collision. Marlowe had made the copy he’d asked for.

He sauntered inside, observing the miracle that it wasn’t a wreckage like the other rooms of the castle. Many parchments littered the table, but one caught his attention from the name scribbled out angrily in black ink.

Faythe’s legitimacy.

Malin should have all but signed his own name under it from the bitter, childish act.

Angry little prince.

It didn’t matter. There would be several other copies in existence.

Izaiah sighed lightly, treading quietly with the awareness the guards could return to their post at any minute, likely with others, alerted to a wild beast roaming the halls.

He opened various drawers and filtered through boring court documents until he came across a locked chest. Izaiah had become rather skilled at lockpicking from his time in the mines. He and Reylan would evade the patrols to get extra food and water to pass around to those far weaker than them.

Inside the chest, he filtered through the more important decrees within it. Another of Faythe’s legitimacy, one of Agalhor’s marriage to Liliana. He was surprised to find Malin hadn’t torched the whole chest to ash. At the very bottom, Izaiah found the bastard’s name on something at last.

Malin’s legitimacy.

Izaiah could relate to him for his lack of parents at least. Sometimes Izaiah wished he could tell the easy tale of his parents both dying before their time, rather than the tale of abuse and abandonment, but he didn’t think of his past at all. It was vaulted. A side of him he didn’t ever want to touch again.

He skimmed over the name next to Ashfyre that had annoyingly been smudged over with ink. It was no secret Agalhor’s brother had died near the start of the war, though a body was never recovered. His name wasn’t known to any of them. Malin’s mother, however… Interestingly, she’d died first.

It made his betrayal to Agalhor far worse when he’d practically raised his brother’s bastard.

He stilled. Read the document again. Then he lifted it next to Faythe’s legitimacy document. He was no expert in these things, but he knew someone who might be able to confirm or deny his suspicions.

Izaiah leaned against the desk, scanning the words again and again as though they would reveal something new about Malin he could use.

Mumbling sounded outside the room. Izaiah swore, folding and pocketing the documents, before dipping behind the door as the handle turned.

When it closed again, he lunged, but his intruder was swifter than he hoped.

They caught Izaiah’s wrists, and he was spun around and slammed, his back to the wall.

“Pathetic,” Tynan snarled.

Izaiah’s mouth curled. “Or purposeful.”

He twisted his wrists, gripping the dark fae’s and earning a curse as he maneuvered, swiftly switching their positions.

“Still no guards?” Izaiah observed, since they hadn’t come charging in at the commotion.

“When I heard of an oversized black cat, I wanted to hunt it myself.”

Izaiah reached, twisting the key in the lock. “Good.”

Their mouths collided, as hateful as it was passionate. Both of them despised the desire they craved, but like all drugs, they were hard to resist once within reach. And fuck , was this one insatiable.

There was something thrilling about the forbidden. Delicious about the taste of an enemy. It was a war with feelings as knives, not knowing who could take the most cuts. Bleeding and bleeding, until they were both sure to fall.

Tynan’s hands knew where to touch and where to squeeze. The hand Tynan slipped between them wrapped around his throat. Izaiah battled for that dominance. Tynan hissed with the drag of Izaiah’s claws up his chest, shifting to his preferred black panther form and growing lethal nails that spilled his skin with dark ink.

“Hardly fair,” Tynan muttered.

“But you like it,” he said thickly.

With a primal growl, he pushed Izaiah back, slamming him against the table. It was so deplorable where there were, but neither of them cared. Finding a moment out of sight wasn’t easy.

To everyone beyond, they were perfect enemies.

“Want to tell me what you were doing in here?” Tynan growled against his lips, undoing the buttons of his jacket.

“Want to tell me where they’ve taken Reylan?”

“I’ve told you, I don’t know that.”

Tynan helped him out of the sleeves while untucking his shirt.

It was all Izaiah had to keep his intentions plausible. He’d stuck to that excuse for his reckless roaming since the dark fae had first caught him rifling through the drawing room four weeks ago. It was the first time they’d broke. The maddening tension that had built between them while he’d been captive in the cells months ago couldn’t be contained any longer, and that day was one Izaiah thought about. Often.

“You’re going to get yourself killed,” the dark fae promised.

“Hmm,” Izaiah mumbled, brow pinching at the lips Tynan dragged across his bare, toned torso. “I wouldn’t be doing this with you if I didn’t think that.”

Tynan’s brown eyes flicked up from halfway down his body.

Gods , he was a devastating sight. With dark blond hair, which he’d fantasized running his fingers through too many damn times, and irises that lured him in with a mere flash of attention.

“I won’t be your savior if that happens.”

Izaiah chuckled. “Trust I won’t shed a tear even if you’re the one to wield the sword.”

That caused Tynan to straighten, arms trapping him against the desk.

“What are you hoping to achieve?”

Izaiah groaned, tired of the talking, and reached to grab a fist of Tynan’s shirt.

“Are we doing this, or are you choosing to be loyal to your side and rat me out?”

Conflict furrowed Tynan’s brow, but he folded out of his shirt. “I am loyal to Zaiana,” he said firmly.

Izaiah’s teeth dragged over his bottom lip as he felt up the hard contours of Tynan’s abdomen.

“So while she is unable to give orders in her…current state, she can’t command a thing,” Izaiah said.

Zaiana had been mostly unconscious all this time, and too sickly in the moments she was awake enough to drink. She had people concerned for her, Tynan being one of them. Maverick being the worst.

Tynan gripped Izaiah’s throat again. The fight waging in his eyes twitched the ache of his length. The anticipation drove him nearly to the brink.

“Make no mistake—should she order you dead, I won’t hesitate.”

“You’re a male of commitment,” Izaiah said. “Now fucking commit.”

The flash cutting across Tynan’s features was the unleashing of that pent-up battle, and Tynan’s fingers hooked around Izaiah’s waistband before he dropped to his knees.

It would have been poetic, if twisted, to say he’d taken the risk of staying with the dark foes for Tynan. A person who could be his. He tried to imagine war in his name and burning the world for him.

But that kind of love…Izaiah didn’t think it existed in his heart.