Remi turned to leave, but saw something out of the corner of her eye that drew her attention.

Lord Sookie was surrounded by flames rapidly making their way towards him, his circle of safety growing smaller and smaller by the second. His eyes were wide and desperate, and his mouth was moving as if he was shouting, but the flames were so loud in Remi's ears that she couldn't hear him.

Remi glanced down, and grimaced up n seeing that her makeshift body armour was gone in small patches.

And yet, she couldn't just let a man die.

He was swaying on his feet by the time Remi got to him, hardly conscious at this point. He'd probably inhaled too much smoke.

Throwing her arm around his shoulder, Remi forced more energy out of herself. She had drained herself. A wave of dizziness washed over her, causing her to sway on her feet, much in the same fashion as Sookie was doing. They almost crumpled to the ground, but Remi managed to right herself and drag him forward.

Fortunately, he didn't weigh much more than her, and yet her arms felt like they were about to fall off as she pulled him from the flames.

"Guess I owe you, princess," Lord Sookie mumbled out with a forced smile, his eyes nearly closed.

Her body hurt so much that she wasn't sure which parts of herself were truly on fire, and which were simply burning from exhaustion. Her energy was hardly covering her anymore.

Everything around Remi was a blur, and she fought to stay conscious.

She didn't remember much of what happened in the next few minutes, but as soon as she saw the sunlight, she collapsed. Her legs simply couldn't hold her or Sookie up any longer.

She felt her body hit the flight of marble stairs on the outside of the building hard, and as she rolled down the stairs like a sack of potatoes, Remi heard her elbow pop out of socket when it hit the edge of a hard stair the wrong way.

The burst of pain made a wave of darkness overwhelm her senses, sending her into the black hole of unconsciousness.

———

As frantic thoughts began to pull Killure back to consciousness, he blinked. The sky above him was a blue blur, and he had to blink a few more times before his vision cleared up and sharpened.

He leapt to his feet, eyes searching the crowd. He could tell he'd been stepped on a good number of times, and the thought caused him to scowl deeply.

Anger coursed through his veins, and he felt like ripping out the throats of every person he saw. A nasty headache was splitting his head in half, and all these people couldn't help but make noise.

As he looked at the burning building before him and watched it collapse in on itself, Killure couldn't make sense of what had happened.

He'd been sure she was trying to kill him. His brain should have been crispier than meat roasted above a flame after she'd put the chip on his head, and yet he felt fine—other than a ferocious headache.

He could vaguely recall feeling like something gentle entered the confines of his mind right before the chip latched onto his forehead and sent its tendrils into his mind.

A startling thought struck Killure like a slap on the face.

Had she . . .

No, she couldn't have. Such a thing had never been done before.

He took a startled step back upon realizing that his master had saved him, his lips parting in surprise.

She'd released him from his contract to her by disrupting the connection between them, and protected his mind from becoming damaged.

And for the life of him, he couldn't begin to fathom why.

Why she would try to save him, why she rushed into a burning building—prepared to die—in order to save a bunch of idiots who she didn't even know.

Nothing his master did made sense.

And he still hadn't begun to process the fact that he was now his own man—free to do as he wished.

Free.

Killure had never allowed himself to even imagine the possibility before. When he witnessed most of his people burn alive, and everything they'd worked for be destroyed, he'd wanted to die.

When he was first forced into slavery by the human man who had captured him as he mourned the loss of his people, Killure hadn't put up a fight. He'd subjected himself to the terrible treatment he received because he knew he was worthless, and guilty.

He'd never protested, no matter what happened to him. And even though his masters had beat the fact that he was no longer his own man, they hadn't needed to. He wasn't going to try run or escape—there had simply been no desire to stay alive left within him.

And then when he became a slave to her, and she told him that he had worth, and treated him like a normal human being—someone of value, he hadn't desired to be free. He'd always put up walls to protect himself from believing her words and getting his hopes up, but he was content none-the-less.

He was content to remain her slave for the rest of his life. No one had ever looked at him the way she did. No one other than her had ever shown concern about his well-being, or took care of him. He'd never felt anything other than bitterness and guilt and anger, but she brought out something different in him.

There was new something inside of him —something that made him want to make her smile. He'd always surmised that it was the bonding between them that the chips had created. The idea that his emotions were being controlled by the chip infuriated him, so he always tried to get on her nerves whenever possible. It was always pretty easy.

And now freedom had become a reality. His reality.

He was no longer anyone's slave.

He could do whatever he wanted to do, and go wherever he wanted to go.

And yet, when her body fell down the stairs of the Surflux Plaza like a rag doll, blackened by smoke and smelling to burnt skin, onto the grass below, a foreign emotion sawed at his chest, causing something reminiscent of concern to rise up.

Something within him wanted to race over to her and make sure she was okay.

He noticed her twin cousins force their way through the crowd and reached her burned and battered body, and the faint hue of blue fade away into non-existence.

Killure shook his head. The urge to go to her was a temporary effect that would go away in a few days. That time he'd felt oddly warm inside—right after she'd saved his life—and kissed her by the pond—it had to be a result of the bonding as well.

The bond between them had been severed, and there was no longer a connection. He didn't need her, and she sure as hell didn't need him.

Killure extended his wings and leapt into the sky.

He would fly far, far away, and never look back on her, or his past.