Diamond in the Rough - Vivienne Savage Page 0,27

smile.

Rosalia stepped forward into the epicenter of the burning flame. This time she felt it, and the pain washed over her all at once in a single agonizing wave. It was a pain that she felt from within and tore a violent scream from her throat.

“Rosalia!”

He couldn’t get to her, and she knew she’d die on the platform.

The flames weren’t simply burning her. They were pulling her apart into a million pieces. Every fiber of her being was atomized to cinders.

10

Flames of Glory

Before his eyes, Rosalia became a living torch. Her agonized wails echoed over the stone and sent his heart into a panicked rhythm. His blood thundered as he rushed for her without knowing what, if anything, could alleviate her pain. Then, as quickly as it began, the flames self-extinguished and left behind only a blackened husk bearing her ashen features dotted with scarlet embers. Each individual piece, each bit of Rosalia flaked off, and then nothing remained as the ribbons of what had been her shimmered through the air and circled him in a whirlwind.

The jewel, his mate, and every shred of hope they’d brought to the mountain appeared consumed by the flame, yet something remained that felt alien and powerful. A sense and a presence.

Don’t panic.

Xavier breathed. It was too early to panic, and the sensation of her was all around him in the air and infused with the flecks of ash. Her warmth remained.

Refusing to believe she was gone for good, Xavier told himself it would be a tale for their children one day. A story of their mother’s heroism and their father’s stupidity, titled something along the lines of How Things Can Always Become Worse.

Children. It was a nice dream to cling to, giving him faith that Rosalia would return and that this sudden immolation wasn’t the end. She’d return with the gemstone.

She had to.

Distracted by watching his mate become a living human torch, Xavier nearly overlooked the sound of crackling fire to the rear of him. Before he could spin to face the sound, a white-hot jolt of pain cut through his shoulder. The blade that pierced him grazed against bone and came perilously close to severing the tendon.

The sudden assault staggered him forward a step, nearly bringing him to his knees. Heat was at his back, a creature unlike anything he’d ever seen behind him. The fire wraith seethed with hatred, fury burning in two glowing white specks within a face that was once human. The blade twisted, digging in deeper before being wrenched free. Pure instinct launched Xavier into movement afterward. He ducked forward then rolled to the next side, dodging the next swing of a flaming volcanic glass blade.

Blood seeped through his shirt and trickled down his back in a steady pulse, a blood vessel no doubt nicked by the attack. The creature gave him no time to tend the injury, already upon him with swift and brutal strikes he couldn’t parry, lacking a weapon in his hands. With one spell, he crafted a magical shield and surrounded himself with a dome of protective magic. It did no good. It popped, no stronger than a soap bubble against a creature fueled by hatred for the man who killed it.

Until that moment, Xavier hadn’t truly believed in Gehenna and doubted whether a realm of the tortured and damned truly existed. Seeing the wraith changed that. Where it walked, molten pools remained.

Scrambling over the rough and unforgiving rock abraded his palms. As an elf, he was fragile and no stronger than the average human man. Without magic, he may as well have been a mortal.

At its core, the elemental burned harsh as the lava below them, and were it not for his draconic blood offering a measure of resistance, as it had during the boarding house fire, he would have become tinder just from standing so near to it. Small blessings. On one hand, being a dragon was all that saved him. On the other, the magical bond connected between killer and wraith meant that for all of his might and strength, he was powerless.

“You did this to me,” the elemental accused, voice the garbled sound of crackling flame.

The perpetual odor of burning flesh hung around it in a noxious cloud, its core a tightly compacted man-shaped briquette, all that remained of the human it had been. In its black hand was a smoldering sword made of the very volcanic rock they stood upon.

Xavier swore under his breath while putting distance between them.