Free Rise of the Phoenix (Return To Avalore #2) by Elianne Adams Page A

been the one to be slighted? It was all she could do to breathe even now when she thought back to the day she left Avalore. It hadn’t been easy, and it certainly wouldn’t have been what she would choose for herself.
    Unable to face another day without joy, without hope, she had sought the Elders’ assistance in naming her mate. Back then, it had made perfect sense, but looking back, she saw it for the act of desperation it was. She’d been so excited when she’d found out Evan Mayfield had been named as her predestined mate that she hadn’t thought anything of following when the Elders sought him out to tell him the news. They had found him in the royal gardens, still weak from his injuries from a recent battle, conversing with one of his men. How Evan or even the Elders failed to see her standing not twenty feet from them with so few people about that overcast day, she would never know.
    His reaction to the Elders’ announcement hadn’t just hurt, it had gutted her. He had groaned and dropped his head so low his chin might have touched his chest. “I can’t be joined now. We are so close to finding Rhiannon. Damn it, not now…” She repeated the words that had played thousands of times in her mind since that day. She had never heard of a male refusing his mate, not once, until then. It had torn her heart to shreds, leaving her soul to bleed. And so she had left Avalore, but only because he had no desire to be joined.
    “Sound familiar?” Try as she might, she could not keep the pain and bitterness from creeping into her voice.
    His eyes widened, and he huffed out a breath. “And so you decided to leave without a word to me or anyone else.”
    “Yes.” Her gaze never left his. He was furious, and hurt, but so was she. “You didn’t want to be joined. You told them you wouldn’t, and so I did what I needed to do. I left.”
    His jaw clenched. “You didn’t think it wise to speak to me, or at least eavesdrop for the entire conversation?” A pale yellow sheen flickered on his skin, and then it was gone, making her wonder if she had seen it at all.
    “I’d heard all I needed to hear.”
    “You hadn’t, otherwise you would have heard me agree to be joined.” The cold steel in his voice chilled her to the bone.
    She rubbed her arms, chasing the chill invading her. What difference did it make? He might have agreed, but it wasn’t what he had wanted. “I saved you from having to worry about me while you searched for your sister.”
    “Like hell, you did.” He growled.
    “What’s that supposed to mean?”
    “It means, little spitfire, that I spent months searching all of Avalore for my lost mate instead of looking for my sister.” He winced with every step as he approached. “I combed the entire city. I scoured the northern territories for even a hint of where you might have gone, but it was as though you’d never existed.”
    Was it possible he had wanted to be joined? It couldn’t be. She had heard him, heard the frustration behind his words. Swallowing past a lump in her throat, Brienne tilted her chin and looked Evan in the eye. “I did what I thought was right. What I thought you wanted.”
    Jaw clenched, he took several long breaths before shaking his head and turning away. “I need to finish healing my leg before we go back to Avalore.”
    Go back? She couldn’t, at least not until she finished what she had started three years ago. She would see him safely to the border, but afterward, she had to get back to her pack. “I’ll take you there, but I can’t stay.”
    His shoulders stiffened, and a soft growl resonated between them. “Why?”
    The pain behind that one little word made her want to weep. She had hurt him when she’d left Avalore, and she was hurting him now. Did she dare tell him the truth? Would he understand her need to help the Erritrols?
    When he faced her again, the firm set of his jaw and determined look in his eyes gave her courage. He, of all people, understood