Page 43 of Palingenesis

Nodding, Morgan leans close. “A bird made of flames that burned this whole town to ashes almost two hundred years ago.”

My breath feels shallow, too shallow, and I ask the one question burning the forefront of my mind. “Why?”

He slams another shot, near breathless when he answers. “To find his mate.”

Chapter 23

Shannon

I note that Morgan hadn’t said lover.

Or boyfriend or girlfriend or simply partner.

Mate.

The kind that lasts a lifetime, maybe even many, and wields an undying connection between two souls.

A tethered string between hearts.

Animalistic in its intensity, undeniable in its essence.

The words rolls around in my brain, echoing over and over.

It’s not until I find myself standing in the center of town, staring up at the marbled jaw of Ilios, that I register the scar. It cuts down his brow and below his eye, softened only by time.

He burned the town in 1829; collapsed the mines in 1941.

And now … he wants me.

It’s unfathomable and yet, I respectfully brush aside the trinkets and offerings left behind to make enough room to stand on the ledge. It’s just a short wall that surrounds him, elevating him, and it’s not nearly close enough to the stone-cold eyes I’m desperate to speak into.

Shuffling my feet around, I hone in on the crumbles atop a napkin that should have blown away in the wind by now. But it sits there, the broken cookie missing, and my jaw jumps with its clench.

This is ridiculous, but I’m desperate.

With no way to call for him, the real him, I climb up the statue of my tormentor until I’m level with his face.

Deep set eyes stare back, the stone cold against me as I hook my legs around his waist and cling to the solid strands of his hair to hold myself steady.

For a moment, one ever so brief, the organ in my chest stutters at the proximity. The intimacy of wrapping my body around another and feeling stiffness against me.

But it’s the same feeling I’d have if it was any body between my legs. My attraction doesn’t begin or end with some god-complex toting, red-headed fable of some backward town that’s desperate to explain the events of the past.

He’s just a made up legend.

A man with an ego.

“Fuck you,” I grind out. “You don’t own me or this place.”

And then, I spit right in his stone face.

I watch the glob roll down his smooth cheek, cresting over his cupid’s bow to gather at his bottom lip.

Nothing happens.

I don’t know what I expected, but all I feel now is humiliated.

My ears burn as I glance around, somewhat hoping I’ll see him lurking on the street like last time, but instead I find several townspeople looking on in horror.