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My spirit came easily now, like an old friend, and my human form disappeared in favor of the blazing, beautiful phoenix I was always meant to be. I took off into the air in a whirlwind of flame, hoping that my words left an impression on everyone who’d heard them. Yes, I was the phoenix reborn. Yes, I had enough power to fight against any darkness. But no, I would not be their weapon. I would not exist in a cage.
Anywhere he would have gone was taken from him. His home in the castle, gone. His home with his pack, gone. All his power, his authority, his sway in the Council, all gone. Sometimes he wondered if it was worth it, if all this vicious loneliness was worth putting her first, but then he’d feel her heartbeat alongside his own, or feel a jolt of happiness flow through him with a warmth that felt like fire, and he’d know that it was.
The former headmaster had made peace with how his story ended up, but that did not stop him from replaying the time he’d spent with her in his head, trying to identify where he could have been different. He’d been a fool for trying to force his own hand to follow-through with the mission. He’d known who she was the moment she’d strode into his office. He’d known what she was. To him.
Perhaps if he hadn’t been so crass, or if he’d have been more honest. Perhaps if he had spent more time, asked more questions, things could have been different. Even then, there would have been obstacles. Although, he doubted if Prime Academy had ever had a situation like his in the past. What a scandal, a professor mated to a student.
Garoux blinked, trying to wrap his head around what was going on. Either his banishment had lifted, and he was receiving updates from the front, or that particular messenger had just made the worst mistake of his short, dumb life. There was no way the former was true. Shade Clan didn’t make mistakes. Deimos didn’t make mistakes. This singular messenger was an ill-informed idiot.
Still, he trotted back toward the castle, knowing it was the only direction fate would allow him to go. To be on the opposite side of the conflict felt like a dance he couldn’t quite master, but he knew he had to try. If it meant saving her, warning her, being there for her in the ways he wished he had always been, he would try.
She had succeeded in igniting the flames in his heart before she’d ever ignited the flames of the phoenix, and she needed to know. He needed to tell her. Even if it meant a lifetime of proving himself. Even if it meant he became everything he swore he wouldn’t be when he wrongly pledged his life to Deimos. Even if it was the last thing he ever did.
