“You’d be dead. This is a stand-off. You have just as much to lose.”
“Don’t tell me what I have left to lose,” Corbin snarled, his cultured manner dropping away to reveal the seething hatred beneath. “You have already taken everything from me. I did the impossible, I bound the Phoenix, I was a god. You cannot imagine what it is like, to hold such power only to have it ripped away. I want it back. I will have it back.”
Corbin fell silent. His breath rasped in Blaze’s ear.
“And if I cannot,” the warlock added, after a moment, in much more his usual measured, controlled tones, “then I will take everything from you. I will teach you what it means to be empty inside, to lose what you hold most dear. You cannot hide from me. You cannot run. No matter how long it takes, I will kill your mate.”
Rose struggled out of sleep, pulled by a persistent, nagging feeling of wrongness. She felt cold, despite the blanket carefully tucked round her. The space next to her on the bed was empty.
“Blaze?” she said, jerking upright.
She relaxed a little as his mind brushed against hers, soft and fleeting as a kiss on her forehead. Nonetheless, something felt…off. He wasn’t far away, yet his presence in her soul was dim and subdued, like a banked campfire.
“What’s wrong?” She sat up, glancing at the bedside clock. It was mid-morning. Golden light filtered through the closed curtains. “What are you doing?”
He didn’t pause in gathering up their few possessions. “Packing. I talked to the concierge. There’s a flight to London in a few hours. He helped me to book you a ticket on your card.”
“What?” Rose flung back the sheets, suddenly wide awake. “But we still haven’t worked out how to sneak you onboard the plane!”
He zipped up the suitcase, his back to her. She couldn’t see his face. “I’m not coming.”
She scrambled out of bed, glad that she’d been too tired to get undressed. She grabbed his arm, trying to pull him round to face her. He resisted, shoulders hunching, not looking at her. His muscles were like iron under her fingers.
“Blaze. Blaze.” She didn’t have a chance of moving him against his will. She ducked under his arm instead, popping up on the other side so that they were face to face. She lifted her chin, refusing to let him evade her glare. “What’s going on?”
For a moment he just looked at her, expressionless, mouth set in a flat, unreadable line. She reached for him down the mate bond, but she might as well have stretched up to try to catch the sun. She could still feel him, still see him, but she couldn’t touch him.
Then he let out his breath in a sigh. His arms closed around her, gathering her close. His head dropped to rest on hers.
“Corbin called,” he said into her hair. “He knows we’re here.”
“So?” His heartbeat thrummed through her body, rapid and agitated. She stroked his back, trying to calm him. “We already knew that he could track us.”
“He made threats. Against you. Rose, I have to hunt him down.” Blaze pulled back, hands on her shoulders, holding her at arm’s-length. “As long as he lives, you aren’t safe.”
“He was trying to scare you, Blaze. It’s just another trick to try to split us apart. He can’t touch us as long as we stay together.”
Blaze shook his head, his mouth twisting in agony. “I can’t protect you. Not by staying at your side. Rose, Corbin still doesn’t know who you are. If I…if I stop him from tracking you magically, he won’t be able to find you.”
Rose blinked. “You can do that?”
“I can. I worked out how, while you were sleeping.”
Blaze didn’t look like a man who’d found a way out of a trap. His expression reminded Rose of the people she’d seen fleeing the raging wildfires—numb, blank-eyed, clutching a few irreplaceable treasures tight in their arms. Abandoning everything, to save what they most loved.
She gripped his arms, hard, fingers digging into his taut muscles. “Blaze, what aren’t you telling me?”
His chest jerked with a spasmodic, painful catch. “It…it will hurt you. Terribly. But just for a moment.”
She couldn’t help flinching away from him. “Not my swan! Don’t take my swan!”
“No!” He looked horrified, as though it hadn’t even occurred to him that she might think he would burn her animal. “That would change you, who you are, your very nature. I could never do that.”
“Then what are you proposing to do?”
His eyes squeezed closed for a second, as if in pain. “I can’t explain it. There isn’t time, the taxi will arrive any minute to take you to the airport…please, Rose. This is the only way I can keep you safe. Trust me.”
Our mate, her swan whispered in her soul. He is our mate. We need to be with him.