Chapter 32 - Zoe

If I had come from any other family, I’d have freaked out when I marked Henrik and felt flames in my veins. By all other accounts, the marking part of mating should be intense, but it never is described to feel like your blood has been replaced with white-hot flames. But I’m not from just any family. I am a member of the Petridis line. Our mark is a phoenix for a reason. Our family is known for being born in the flames.

Just as I know my parents’ love story, I know the story of their marking. I know they were engulfed in flames when they completed their bond. The fire didn’t harm them, but the room was totaled. There is still a faint smokey smell in that room, even all these years later. I never thought something like this would happen to me. After all, there wasn’t a pattern to when such a thing would happen.

It didn’t happen to Nonno and Nonna when they mated. And there weren’t actual flames when I marked Henrik, but inside my body, I felt them, and I know Henrik felt them, too. Wh