"So Caleb is interesting," I had made it as far as the palace doors when I encountered Brae coming out through them with a retinue of guards, including the other male Protector, Cameron.

"You met Caleb?" Brae looked shocked. "Is he here? Does he want to speak to me?"

"No, he's back at home." I gestured to the new clothes I was wearing. "Peace offering. From Jasmine. Although now I think she hates me again."

He ran his hands through his already haphazard hair; he looked terrible. I didn't think he had been sleeping properly.

"You told her then?" he asked.

"I had to. I couldn't keep it from her. She was apologising-again-for abandoning me and talking about how we were sisters." Frustrated flames flared in my fingertips, causing a couple of the guards to tense. I felt an icy chill run down my spine as a result of Cameron's alertness. Brae gave a brief wave of his hand, trying to reassure them of his safety. "I couldn't take it," I added.

He sighed. "I'm heading out to the hospital; I want to check in on Casey and Alana. Would you like to come with me?"

"I might do if I knew who Casey and Alana were."

Brae looked concerned. "The children you helped rescue the other day, who were trapped under the rubble. The doctors say they're both recovering well, but I would like to see for myself... I'm not sure anymore whether people are telling me the truth, or telling me what they think I want to hear."

I nodded. Brae had enough to contend with at the moment, without preoccupying himself with a couple of Arcan kids. I ought to go with him, just in case it transpired the doctors had been lying. "Sure, I'll come. I'm dressed for the cold now, so I might as well keep putting up with it!"

We walked a little way along the deserted Arcan streets before Brae spoke again. "So Jasmine didn't take it well then?"

"She tried to; she gave a really good show of not caring. She even tried to pretend that she had moved on-she told me that she'd kissed Tristan!"

"What?" I studied Brae's reaction carefully. He didn't look jealous-just concerned.

"She said that she and Tristan kissed, last night," I continued.

"Well, last night," he started, looking weary, "The Brizan Head Protector broke into the castle and tried to murder Jasmine. Tristan killed him."

"What the flames!" My eyes widened in shock. Jasmine hadn't said anything about that!

"Tell me about it-if there isn't enough going on already." He put his head in his hands, his shoulders slumped.

"How did he manage to get in? I mean-"

"If he can get in, Cinaer probably could too? Yes I've already thought about that. I'm not sure you're safe, Roxy. I'm not sure either of you are safe."

I laughed. "I don't think Jasmine needs protecting-I'm shocked she needed Tristan to kill a Brizan off. Those powers of hers are pretty amazing. If I was looking for a bodyguard, I know who I'd be asking... If she was talking to me, anyway."

"Well that's a shame," Brae said, his fingers brushing against mine for a moment before he took my hand in his. "I was rather hoping that you'd let me protect you tonight. It was the only upside I could see to this whole disaster."

I laughed and we came to a stop as I leant across to brush my lips against his, revelling in the coolness of his skin, the icy touch of his nose on mine. I didn't mind the cold if it was with Brae.

"Well isn't this cosy," an all too familiar voice drawled behind me.

I jumped out of Brae's arms, wheeling round. Flames already blazed in my hands.

"Cinaer." Brae stepped round me swiftly, practically pulling me behind him. "Guards! Take him down at once; use whatever force you deem necessary." Brae turned his head to face his men, but the street behind us was eerily deserted.

"You really need to keep a closer eye on your men, Air Head. I took them out some time ago, but you were too wrapped up in your romantic drama to notice."

"Cameron?" Brae called out uncertainly.

"What's wrong, Air Head? They weren't really offering much protection anyway..." Cin could boast all he wanted, but I knew it was Cameron's safety Brae was concerned about, not his own.

"What have you done with them, Cinaer?"

"Oh don't worry. They'll be perfectly fine in a few minutes, with the exception of some very bad headaches. I don't need to take up much of your time."

"What in the air are you doing here?" Brae demanded, desperately trying to take back control of the situation.

"It doesn't matter!" I snapped. "It just means that I get to kill him that much sooner." I was poised, desperate to attack, but Cinaer dodged the ball of fire I sent at his head with ease, smirking as it faded into the distance.

"Now, now, Roxy. Play nice. I see they took you off your leash." He looked at Brae. "You'll regret that pretty quickly-far more hassle than she's worth this one. It's so much easier when she's... under control."

I lunged at him, desperate to strike, to hit, to draw blood. I would kill him before I let him talk about me like that.

"I really wouldn't do that if I were you, Roxy." His voice oozed out, soft and smooth like honey.

My feet froze in their tracks, refusing to take another step towards him.

"Release her!" Brae demanded. The wind around us picked up dramatically. A huge chunk of concrete flew from the ground and launched itself at Cinaer. He dodged, but slightly slower than last time and the stone scraped against his shoulder.

"Save your breath, Arcan. This is between me and Roxy."

"If you think I'm going to stand back and watch-"

"Oh no," Cin cut across him. "I'm making this a private conversation." He thrust his hands out in front of him quickly. I tried, desperately, to throw myself towards him, but my feet were still glued in place.

A torrent of flames shot straight at Brae, but rather than hitting him directly, as I expected, they rose in a high ring; blocking Brae in and obscuring him from view.

"What the flames is wrong with you, Cin?" I screamed, still unable to move towards him. I could go backwards though, away from him and towards Brae. I could put the flames out myself before they did any damage. They were hemming him in. He must be baking. Suffocating slowly.

"Don't help him, Roxy." Cin's voice was still honey soft.

"I hate you!" I screamed at Cinaer, tearing at my hair. "I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!" I knew that getting the words out wouldn't help Brae, or myself, but it felt good to say them.

Cinaer only grinned. "You think I like you any better? The perfect Helian Princess, always getting her own way. The King's favourite little Protector. Even when you betrayed your Realm, he loved you best."

His eyes blazed dangerously.

"And it didn't change after you left. He started to ask questions... Difficult questions. Between them, Vincent and your father managed to put enough ideas into his head to point the finger at me. He was going to send me away! Back to Kalme; practically exiled from the Capital.

"He called me into his study one afternoon to tell me. I was just, so, mad." He rolled his eyes sarcastically as he spoke, throwing his arms in the air, as though asking for forgiveness, leniency. "I saw red. I lost it. So I grabbed the ceremonial dagger that hung above his desk-you know, the one that your father gave him when he married your mother-and I stabbed him with it!"

He laughed, dark and dangerous and began to walk towards me, his gaze locked on to mine like I was something he wanted to eat. I was horribly conscious that every second Cinaer wasted gloating brought Brae closer to the flames. Closer to death.

"Why are you doing this?" I asked, my voice coming out barely above a whisper.

He stopped, a footstep away from me. I could feel his breath hot on my cheeks, so different to Brae's. "It was your fault he had to die. All yours. And you're to blame for what I had to do next too. See, there was no way I was going down for regicide. I needed someone to take the fall for it: someone who mistrusted me anyway; someone who was also blocking my route to the throne. Given that it was your father's dagger, it wasn't difficult to do. I just had to Control a couple of guards to make them witnesses, then play the avenging Protector, out for vengeance after his King's wrongful death."

"And I'm sure my mother was only too happy to help."

He laughed. "Oh no, Firefly, by this point, your mother was getting on my nerves too; so I let her go down with him." He paused, smiling wickedly.

"Of course, I still couldn't take the throne for my own. For that, I need you." He spat the last word, his eyes flickering dangerously. "So I told the Realm that I would rescue their Princess and restore her to her 'rightful place'."

He stopped, regarding me thoughtfully.

"The really tragic part about the whole thing is that we could have been such a good team, Roxy. You can be so incredibly bad when you want to be. It's your very best quality. You can make any situation fun. I don't know why you're trying so hard to fight against your most basic instincts, to try and be something that you're not. I know that this isn't you," he said, gesturing around us. "And you know it too. I don't know why you're pretending otherwise. There's no place for you in their world, for your special brand of mayhem. We could have been so very perfect together."

"I am nothing like you."

"Oh?" His eyes glinted. "You really are. It's sad that you don't see it, that you're fighting against it."

"So what's the plan now?" I spat. "Kidnap me, force me to marry you, then try and convince me that I'm actually an evil monster? Thanks, but I'll pass; you can just kill me now."

He came even closer, pressing his lips to my ear lightly in a way that made me shiver with repulsion and fear. "Not yet. I don't think that you've suffered quite enough. I came here to deliver a warning. I have troops positioned around all of the major Arcan towns, all of those 'sanctuaries' Brae's people have fled to. If he doesn't deliver you to me, on the summit of Mount Austri, at 6 o'clock in ten days' time, I will slaughter all of those innocent, simple-minded people.

"You see, Roxy, you're still wrong about him. He may think that he cares about you now, but he will care about his duty, his people, even more. And it will be so much more fun to see the look on your face as he leads you towards me in chains than it would to take you now. Besides, we both know that it would be far too easy for me, and where would the fun be in that?"

He took a few steps back, looking at me with evident glee.

"Now then-in the spirit of making things fun-in a second I am going to release you from both of my Controls, giving you a choice. You can either lunge at me and try your very best to kill me-although I doubt you'll be successful-or you can save your precious Arcan Prince, who is only seconds away from some very serious burns." He grinned again.

"Oh, Roxy. My darling, hopeless, Roxy, I release you!"

It felt as though a weight had been lifted from my feet.

I didn't even look in Cinaer's direction-I knew that if I did it would make my decision even harder. I couldn't bear to see him standing there, an easy target.

Instead, I turned to the flames encircling Brae. It would take too long to put them out myself.

I plunged straight into the middle of the fire. My vision was hazy from the heat. Brae was hovering in the midst of a small circle. No. He was standing. It was just the effect of the heat on my eyesight. Flames flickered inches away from his skin on either side, panic on his face.

I focused on absorbing the heat in my little patch of the inferno, sucking away the flames from the air on either side of me. I felt my chest heat up with the force of the blaze.

I held out my hand for Brae and he took it at once, allowing me to pull him out of the flames and onto the safety of the street.

The space around us was empty. Cinaer was long gone.

"Come on," Brae said, his voice weary. "We need to go back and find Cameron."

{Chapters with Cin in are my favourite; he's so much fun to write. I should probably give him his own short story at some point... What do you think? And what about Roxy's decision? Was she right to save Brae, or should she have taken the opportunity to take Cin down? Please vote and comment to let me know what you think!}