“He’s going to get away!” Hayley cried out.
Virginia caught Dai as he tried to surge forward. “No! It’s too hot, you won’t make it!”
The magical fire burned white-hot, so intense that their shadows stood out stark and black behind them. The flames curled and writhed like a nest of snakes. They stretched unnaturally, forming a dome, completely enclosing Ash and Corbin.
For a moment, Rose saw Ash’s face through the inferno. He was looking right at her, as if nothing else e
xisted in the world.
He was her mate. And she knew, knew, that he would never hurt her.
“Rose, no!” Connie screamed.
Too late. She was already running, flat out, dodging their attempts to grab her.
Without hesitation, she hurled herself into the flames.
Chapter 24
Time slowed. Through the inferno and the red agony hazing his vision, he saw Rose leap. She seemed to hang in mid-air, as if taking flight. Her expression was as serene as her swan, calm and still and utterly unafraid.
Her eyes locked onto his. He could look through them straight into her soul. Perfect love, perfect trust. Even after everything he’d done.
They were mates, and nothing could ever keep them apart.
He threw himself against the binding, barely feeling the bite of the runes. The flow of power reversed, surging back into his veins.
“No!” Corbin howled.
The binding was just a fraying thread around his soul. Distantly, he could sense Corbin pulling frantically at it, but the warlock’s leash was powerless in the face of the mate bond.
Ash reached out. His love wrapped around Rose, shielding her from the fire. The flames rippled around her, parting easily, harmlessly.
He caught her outstretched hands. Her fingers intertwined through his.
The binding stretched, strained…and held.
Rose stared down at the blood-streaked runes, mouth opening in horror. She gripped his hands harder, as though she could physically yank him out of the warlock’s power. He could sense her trying to reach him down the mate bond…but there was nothing for her to grasp. Just cold ash, where there should have been a link between their souls.
He could enfold her in his power, but she couldn’t reach him in return. And without her power, her strength, he couldn’t break free of the binding.
Behind him, Corbin started to laugh. “Oh, you fools. You poor, poor fools. Now you’re both mine.”
Corbin made a swirling gesture with one finger. A glowing collar appeared around Rose’s neck. Her hands flew to her throat, eyes widening in panic.
Fire rose in his soul—but the warlock’s will clamped tighter around him. Though the binding was frayed almost to the point of breaking, it still held him. He fought as hard as he could, but the moment of shock had shattered his control. Power drained away from him, gathering in Corbin’s hands.
“That’s better,” Corbin crooned, sounding amused. The warlock turned away, raising his hands again to sketch the lines of a portal. “I’m not hurting her. I’m just bringing her along…as surety for your good behavior.”
Distantly, Ash was aware of roars and shouts coming from outside the dome of fire covering the three of them. Shadows moved on the far side of the flames—Dai, Chase, Griff, John, Hugh, all desperately trying to find a way through. But they had no equipment, no gear, nothing to protect them from the intense heat.
He couldn’t make a path through the fire for them as he had for Rose. Though she’d loosened the binding almost to the point of breaking, he couldn’t calm himself enough to calm the flames. Not when she was in such terrible danger…
The Phoenix raged in his soul. His chest was filled with its incandescent fury, so strong that the strained binding could barely constrain him. If he could just stretch it a little further, enough to burn Corbin—
He couldn’t. Even the weakened binding wouldn’t let him harm the warlock. It trapped his fire within the confines of his body.
And he realized there was one thing he could burn.