"Things moved fast after meeting Nora and the pack. Her mate, Floyd, hated my guts from that first moment. I think he could feel I was a threat to the bond he and Nora had. He mostly avoided me though and I avoided him as much as possible."

Azura drank some water and stared at the window in Dr. Jensen's office. "The pack was kind to me. They trained me to fight, gave me a second house, and a few friends. Nora and I got to know each other better every day and it was apparent something was going on between us, some kind of bond we couldn’t explain but was getting stronger."

"Hmm... Did Floyd know from the beginning about your bond?" Azura had piqued his interest when she had started talking about the connection between her and Nora. He sat up straight, leaning slightly towards her.

"No. Nobody did. We only found out about it much later, but I do suspect he felt something like what we had felt. Professor Sloan helped us with figuring out what it was and we eventually came to the conclusion that Nora and I shared an ancient blood-bond. A blood-bond can eventually grow even stronger than a mate bond, thus making me a threat to Floyd's connection with Nora."

Nicolai got up and started pacing around the room. There was so much more than he had expected to this young woman. The loss she felt from losing Nora still had to be gigantic if they really had shared a close blood-bond. He had read about it. It was described as losing a part of yourself when the other perished and it could drive you crazy. Most of the time it ended with suicide.

"How long ago did Nora die?" As he asked the question he could feel her emotions spike. Nicolai tightened the grip he held on her, easing the pain she felt and taking the edge off the anger he felt building up within her. She remained silent for a moment, looking away before her eyes connected with his.

"A year? A year and a half?" Azura shook her head. "I honestly...don't know... It devastated me, heck look at me! I left soon after, been traveling around aimlessly since then. Days are muddled together, months overlap. It all feels like the same and..." She choked on her own words. "I don't know when it was that she died... I just...can't remember when it was..."

Dr. Jensen took a stronger hold of her emotions, eased and guided them as if manipulating her whole presence. She was losing it and if he wouldn’t help, she’d close herself off completely or worse...

His ability to mold the emotions of people was a gift. He knew some Vaims like him thought of it as a curse but he had learned to fully control his talents. He needed to touch people to really form a bond, to be able to pry into their system before he could fully access it.

When he felt her calming down again, Nicolai spoke up again. "A blood-bond is never activated without a reason." Dr. Jensen carefully pried. "They are made and can lay dormant for over hundreds of years. There had to be a reason for you and Nora to start feeling the effects."

Azura nodded and swallowed hard, sadness clearly visible in her expression. "The rising of the Phoenix."

Nicolai stopped and turned towards Azura. A mix of surprise and questioning came across his face. "You two were bound by a Phoenix?" Azura just nodded at him.

"So the fires near Greenwood... The rumors, they’re all true? And you and Nora were there?"

Azura could barely answer. Her throat had dried up immediately when they started talking about this.

"Yes." She wanted to say more but she couldn't. Tears had filled her eyes as a feeling of defeat and failure washed over her. She took one last breath and looked at Nicolai. "We killed it..."

Nicolai stared in shock as she looked him straight in the eye. Her blue gaze had changed in an instant from insecure and scared, to a cold-blooded killer. Her voice had dropped and sounded cool and calm. For an instant, there was someone else sitting in the chair.

As quickly as it had appeared, it disappeared, but his grip on her emotions had been slipping. Dr. Jensen placed his hands on the desk and stared down. Azura was shaking, her foot tapped restlessly on the floor and her hands trembled. A drop of sweat gleamed on her forehead. He noticed she was fighting to breathe as if something was choking her. The balding man watched intently as Azura seemed to focus on one specific point of the desk while seemingly fought a battle with her own body.

"Azura..." He quietly inquired. She hastily looked up at him with a small bit of hope in her eyes. "Phoenixes never die."

The glimmer of hope was gone in an instant.

"What do you mean?"

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He softened his voice. "Like I said. A Phoenix...never...dies..."

She tightened her eyes and gritted her teeth together before she snapped. "Yes, I heard that! But what are you implying? That Nora died in vain? That everything was for nothing?"

"I... I don't know... Not yet at least." He replied meekly, a bit taken aback by her fierce reaction.

Dr. Jensen had lost control of her and could not catch hold of the emotions again. He watched her every move as she got up, toppling the chair over in which she had been sitting, and circled around the room, the way she clenched her fists and her pacing told him she was furious. Not directly at him he hoped, but at the situation. She was like a ticking time bomb and he had to calm her down somehow. But if he were to cut the wrong wire, the consequences would be devastating.

Azura headed for the wall and unleashed her frustration on it. Her right fist collided with the cement surface, hard. A loud crack could be heard in the room and she groaned as she crouched down. She hugged her hand in pain as tears streamed down her face.

A comforting hand took hold of her shoulder, she didn't look up but calmed down when hearing his voice. She knew he had lost his grip on her emotions a while ago, but it seemed he had gotten it back as soon as she had punched the wall. She didn't fight it now. She needed it.

"Crying over actual pain is so much easier than over your feelings, isn’t it?" He helped her up and sat her down in the chair while he examined her hand from a distance. "You're in luck, you're a fast healer."

Azura stretched out her hand and closed it again repeatedly. The pain had subsided already, some blood on the knuckles the only proof she had just smashed it into a rock-solid wall. She sighed and grabbed a tissue to wipe clean her wet face. The outburst had made her feel empty but it wasn't necessarily a bad thing. She placed her hands on the desk but kept her eyes down.

"Nora died while we attacked the Phoenix. It was what we were meant to do, but I didn't want to do it at first, I hated violence and fighting. If I could, I always avoided it because I scare myself when I do engage."

"Why are you afraid of yourself when all you’re doing is defending yourself?"

"Because I enjoy it, and I have trouble holding myself back. I kill too easily. Seeing the other bleed gives me satisfaction, tasting the blood makes my head rush and leaves me wanting more."

They had started talking as if nothing had happened before. Dr. Jensen let her take the lead, not pushing her even though he wanted to know more. The situation was a delicate one and she was talking freely, but that could change in an instant.

"After talking with Professor Sloan and Andreas, the Alpha of the Greenwood pack, Nora and I knew we had to fight. The Phoenix would otherwise destroy everything. It would grow stronger and stronger with everything it destroyed until the time it could engulf the earth. That would take some time of course, but by then it would have attacked us, and it would be unstoppable. Nora and I did what we had to do while the others kept the other attackers at bay. It was what the blood-bond was telling us to do. We never expected to emerge out of there alive."

"Other attackers?"

"Yeah. With every bad event that’s about to happen, you have even worse people willingly supporting it. We were not the only ones who knew of the rising of the Phoenix. There was this...cult...of some sort. They wanted the Phoenix to destroy the world because they believe it would cleanse it and let it be reborn like the Phoenix itself. They were also the ones who had attacked the college months earlier in search of every bit of information they could find about the Phoenix. They had sent a small group to cause a distraction while the others ransacked the library and offices. The small group didn't survive."

"How so?" He knew what she was hinting at. Nicolai had already heard and talked about the attack with Lucas and his father when they had returned, but he had never learned of the real cause for the attack, and now he realized they’d all been wrong about the real reason.

Azura smirked and Nicolai saw that spark again. That relentless side of her. He could see it in the way she sat in the chair, how she moved and how she acted. She sat more upright, her eyes challenging him. Confidence radiated from her every move but he could tell it wasn’t truly her. Not as it seemed.

"I killed them." The cold harshness had returned to her voice.

Dr. Jensen was relieved the presence was not as strong as it had been before. He hoped it was because she was able to tone it down a little. That would definitely be something he had to work on with her. Without a doubt, she could be a dangerous adversary to someone, it was also the reason he did not want her to show herself to the rest of the city just yet. That would mean certain death to not just her, but several others as well.

"It almost cost you your life," Nicolai remembered Lucas talking about it but decided against telling her that he knew about the events.

"I didn't care. They had killed Charlie, my boyfriend at the time. When I saw him slumped against the wall with the bullet between his eyes, I stopped caring about myself. When one of them threatened to hurt and rape Nora right before my eyes, I snapped."

Dr. Jensen kept quiet. He did not want to lose his grip on her emotions again and it was getting harder to control them. It had been enough talking for one day he decided.

Azura slowly calmed down again and seemed lost in her own thoughts. He left her alone for a few minutes while slowly letting go of her emotions. When he felt the moment was right, he got up.

"We'll be working on that temper of yours in the coming few sessions Azura. I need you to be able to control it before you dive deeper into your traumas. If you're able to control yourself more properly, it will be easier to deal with your other problems. Plus...It's safer for me."

He laughed as he spoke the last words and gave her a friendly pat on the back. Azura opened her mouth to say something but just shook her head in disbelief. "I'll see you soon, Dr. Jensen."

"Please, call me Nicolai."