Out of the Ashes (Maji 1)

“Nova,” he mumbled. “Do not cry.”

“Why not?” I asked, sniffling. “I have no idea what the hell I’m doing, Ezah. I know leaving Kol is wrong; it’s cruel to abandon him when we’re mated for life … but I felt so hurt, so angry over his decisions. When I feel those emotions, I run. Running is all I know … it’s the only fucking thing I’m good at.”

“He lied to me so easily,” I continued with a shake of my head. “How can he truly expect me to believe I’m his fated mate when all he does is lie?”

The craft suddenly lurched.

“Ezah!” I gasped. “Are you sure that you can fly this thing?”

“This is very important,” Ezah almost growled as he tapped on the control panel, stood from his chair, moved over to me, and placed his huge hands on my shoulders. “When Kol is intimate with you, or just standing close by looking at you. Does something happen to his face?”

I raised a brow. “His eyes glow.”

Ezah sucked in a startled breath then stumbled back away from me like I had the plague, and during his stumble, he lost his balance and plonked right down onto his behind, drawing a wince from me.

“Are you okay?” I asked, unsure why I was concerned for him.

“What have I done?” he said, aloud.

I blinked. “You tripped and fell. It’s not that big of a deal. You’ll be okay.”

“We must return to Ealra right this—”

“What?” I cut him off as I tried and failed to jump to my feet because of the damn grabby chair. “No! You said you’d bring me to Terra.”

Ezah got to his feet and stood to his full height of hu-fucking-mongus, towering over me with ease.

“That was before I learned that you were my brother’s fated mate.”

I slapped my palm to my forehead. “I thought we agreed that Kol is a liar?”

“He cannot lie about being your fated mate when the glow in his eyes shines bright, Nova,” Ezah said and surprised me by kneeling before me and taking my tiny hands in his large ones. “Please, forgive me. I have committed a crime.”

I had no idea what was happening, but I was confident that Ezah was starting to lose it.

“What crime?” I demanded. “What are you talking about?”

“Taking a Maji’s mate away is punishable by imprisonment but taking a Maji’s fated mate? I will receive death for such an act, and it is no more than I deserve.”

My heart sunk to the pit my stomach.

“No,” I said, squeezing his hands. “No, you won’t be killed. You’re a prince.”

“And I stole another prince’s fated mate away from him,” Ezah replied, the words sounding choked as he spoke. “I thought I was helping him. I thought I was saving my brother the pain of a mate loss. You’re human ... tiny, weak, and vulnerable. It is only matter of time before you die on Ealra, and I do not want my brother to feel the pain that I do.”

I shoved down my instant reaction to defend my species because there was a much bigger problem at stake … Ezah had a mate that died?

“Ezah, I’m not Kol’s—”

“You are this fated mate,” he growled in annoyance. “Our eyes only glow when we find our fated mate.”

I froze, and not because he scared the shit out of me, but because I could see in his eyes that he was telling the truth. It was the same look Kol had in his eyes when he told me I was his fated mate.

“Almighty,” I whispered, feeling like I had been sucker punched. “What have I done?”

“Not you,” Ezah said firmly. “Me. I have done this.”

“Only because I begged you to,” I countered.

Ezah set his jaw. “You begged me because I instilled doubt in your mind about Kol.”

“Not everything you said was a lie, Ezah,” I almost shouted, furious with him for taking the blame entirely on himself.

“What was truth?” he demanded.

“Kol was intended to another and never told me!” I snapped.

“Ah!” Ezah growled with a wave of his hand as he pressed something under the seat of the chair so it released me. “He was never going to mate Keeva, and we all knew it. She did too. She just agreed to be his future intended to get our mother to stop bothering Kol about finding a mate.”

“Wh-what?” I stammered.

“That intention was make-believe, and it was never binding because both Maji did not want it.”

I stared at Ezah for all of two seconds before I flew at him, my arms swinging in rage.

“You made me believe he had a true intention to this female. You made me—”

“I made you doubt your mate, your bond, and your place by his side,” Ezah finished for me as he grabbed my hands, halting them from connecting with his face. “I made you do this, Nova. I was as horrible to you as I could possibly be to a female on purpose. I am truly sorry.”

“But why?” I asked, now crying. “Why did you do this?”

“A mate loss,” he rasped. “I couldn’t bare for Kol to suffer it. I believed because your bond is so new, I could make you leave, and in time, Kol would … move past you. I do not know why I thought of this. I know how matings work, and how unbreakable a bond is, but my worry for my brother made me think irrationally.”

“You’ve suffered a mate loss?” I asked, my throat hurting from crying.

“Not a true one, but something very close,” he replied, releasing my hands from his grip. “My intended female, she was … she was killed by a stealth beast on an outing with me not long after my sister was born, and the pain I feel is as strong as it was the day I watched her die.”

I lifted my hands to my mouth.

“I am so sorry, Ezah. I cannot imagine what you have gone through,” I wept. “I have lost all my family, and I know that pain will never go away, but it does gets easier to bear. But I cannot fathom the thought of losing Kol. I know I’m not Maji, but I love your brother with all my heart. It is why this whole thing hurts so much. I want him to love me like I love him, and not just because this fated mate business means he has to.”

“Nova.” Ezah frowned deeply. “A male’s body does not decide a mating, a male’s heart does. If a male decides to bite a female and give her his essence, it’s because his heart decided it before his head did. The body reacts to what it finds attractive, and the heart reacts to what it can grow to love … You have much to learn about the people, little one.”

Tears streaked my face, and before I knew it, I was hugging Ezah tightly.

“Take me back to him,” I pleaded. “Please. I’ve messed this up terribly, and I need to make it right.”

Ezah gently patted my back. “I will.”

When we separated, Ezah got to his knees and closed his eyes.

“Thanas, forgive me,” he rasped, his head bowed. “I have purposely caused my brother and his female great pain. Pain I had no right inflicting.”

I froze to the spot the second I realised Ezah was praying to Thanas out loud.

“Please,” he whispered. “Please end my life. I only cause turmoil and pain; the people would be better without me. Please, I … I am not a strong male. I cannot live without Kovu… Is she okay? Is she with you? Does she know how broken I am that I could not save her?”

No one answered Ezah. Instead, more tears freely flowed down my cheeks in response to his words as I watched the fiercest Maji I had ever met break in front of me.

“Why are you sp-speaking aloud?” I stammered.

Ezah kept his head bowed.

“I hoped if I spoke aloud, He would hear my prayer clearer.”

My heart broke in two.

“Ezah,” I whispered. “I forgive you.”

He sucked in a breath and looked up at me with misted eyes.

“No,” he rasped. “I do not deserve your forgiveness.”

“Tough shit.” I sniffled. “You have it anyway.”

“But why?”

“Because I relate to you,” I told him.

He widened hi

s eyes. “How?”

“I could not save my family.” I swallowed. “My two cousins were attacked by augmented humans and bled out in my arms, and my other cousin, as well as my father, died of sickness in my arms. Nothing I did saved them, and I believe that Almighty blames me for it. It is why I walked alone for so long in heartache.”

“But you did not cause your cousin’s injuries or make your father and cousin sick.” Ezah frowned.

I blinked down at him. “And you did cause the injury that killed Kovu.”

He shook his head. “I’m a male, Nova. I should have saved her or died trying.”