Realm Of Flames (Reborn #3) - M. Sinclair Page 0,3

what I was missing and not being able to justify waking her up to take just that. Because there was an instinct that rode me so much harder than my need to mate with her, and that was the one to take care of her. To protect her.

Which was why I would have to kill anyone outside of our flight that ever heard her soft, sexy moans or caught sight of her silky skin. They weren’t allowed to see or hear the small bit of heaven that I’d been blessed with and live. Honestly, not only was I a possessive bastard, but I knew that if they ever experienced Maya in that way, even in passing, they would try to take her from us. That alone was a death sentence in my mind. Our flight wasn’t perfect, but Maya was absolutely ours, and she had sealed that fate when she had accepted us as mates.

I just hoped that we were enough to make her happy. Most days I felt like we were, but the normal way that I would gauge that was skewed because the things that made Maya happy and were important to her were so different than what I could have been prepared for. I wanted to spoil my mate. I wanted to give her everything that she wanted and more.

If that happened to be ten more kittens, then so be it. As long as she went to bed every single night feeling loved and satisfied, I would give her the fucking world. I just wanted to find more ways to show the woman how much she meant to me, and while I think she knew it in theory, it didn’t remove the urge to do more.

I had the entire Earth realm at my fingertips, and I wanted to show and give her everything instead of being caught up in these goddamn politics that should have nothing to do with her to begin with. I knew the council was in theory a minor inconvenience, but that wasn’t including any of the shit we would have to deal with when we traveled to the Dreki realm.

Although, I really shouldn’t be that surprised by the council or anyone else’s reaction to her. Maya was a phoenix, and I knew some of the council members were from a time when they were more common than rare, rather than the generation we did, where the queen was the only one known to be a phoenix. So of course they viewed their value in a more traditional sense, especially when it came to making more fucking dragons, instead of seeing her as the priceless treasure that she so clearly was. One that they wouldn’t be taking away from me unless they also planned on killing me. An attempt I would have found funny at best and annoying at worst.

My brow dipped as I thought about the biggest issue with all of this. One that didn’t directly affect Maya but could, because if there was something we didn’t know about her species, it could have disastrous effects. I didn’t like being unprepared for anything relating to Maya, and I couldn’t stop thinking about the large question looming overhead.

If phoenixes couldn’t die, in theory, how the hell were they essentially extinct? I hated feeling as though I was missing something, and while Croy and Henry were doing their best to look into it, I found myself getting more frustrated and angry than anything else when it came to the concept of how interacting with humans and their culture could breed such dangerous results. Then again… we couldn’t completely blame the humans. No. There had been other realms and even dragons that had fought over the phoenix species rather than protecting them. Willing to get rid of them rather than to ever share them. Especially since mating with a phoenix came with benefits that I had only learned about in theory, but would sound appealing to the militaristic culture that we grew up in.

Not that I gave a shit about those.

A part of my soul, from the first day I had met her, recognized Maya as completely and utterly ours, so those minor benefits could come or go. It didn’t matter to me, as long as I had her. Trying to explain how it felt finding your mate, though, was virtually impossible if someone had yet to do so. Well, besides the overall feeling of surety. I knew without a doubt that Maya was not only