DEFY series: Behind the Scenes

IGNITE scene from Damian's POV pt. 1

**Spoiler Alert** This is a scene from the end of IGNITE. If you haven't read it yet, there are major spoilers! 

Damian

IGNITE bonus scene

The pounding on my door would have woken me - if I'd been asleep. It opened just as I whirled from my vigil by the window to see a young sentinel panting and gesturing for me to follow him, the two guards on duty outside my door that night right behind him.

"Your Majesty, quick! At the gate!"

I didn't need to hear any more.

Alexa.

I hurtled past the sentinel, and my guards, my blood roaring in my ears as I sprinted through the palace. Even running as fast as I could it felt like a lifetime had passed before I reached a door to let me outside. She'd kept her promise, she was back - she was alive.

The black expanse of night turned the palace grounds into a writhing morass of shadows as I searched for her. I spotted a group of people by the gate, and I rushed forward, straining to hear Alexa's voice.

Instead, it was Lisbet's voice that echoed through the courtyard.

"Jax!"

I only paused for a half-second and then continued on, a sharp relief beating in time with my lingering fear. I never should have doubted her. She'd returned and she'd brought Jax.

But as I drew closer to the gate and the indistinct bodies began to take form and shape, my relief crashed back down into terror. There was Lisbet, kneeling on the ground, holding a small boy in her arms - Jax. My half-brother was struggling against her hold, though, fighting to get free. Two guards hovered nearby...and no one else.

Alexa hadn't come back after all. And neither had Rylan.

I stumbled to a halt, a rising terror turning my body to ice once more. How had Jax returned by himself - where was Alexa?

I hadn't even realized I'd spoken out loud until Lisbet turned to me, her eyes filled with confused tears and the same fear that threatened to choke me, drowning all hope.

"I don't know what's wrong with him. It's like he doesn't even recognize me."

A guard spoke up. "He stumbled out of the forest like he was in some sort of trance, Sire. There was a Dansiian trailing behind him, but he's already been taken for questioning."

I nodded at the guard just as Jax noticed me standing there and his struggling turned almost violent, twisting and fighting to get away from his mother.

And his eyes - the eyes we shared - were blank.

"Let him go. He's being compelled." It was frightening to see him acting that way and it was the only thing I could think to do.

The minute Lisbet dropped her arms Jax rushed over to me and gruffly announced, "Rafe has what he wanted."

As soon as he finished his message the blankness left his eyes and tears filled them instead. "Damian?" His voice was suddenly so small, he was trembling and sweat beaded his brow.

I knelt down and gathered him into my arms. He was so hot - it had to be a fever. "He's sick," I said to Lisbet over his head and she nodded.

"Mama?" Jax twisted in my arms and when he saw - really saw - his mother this time, he broke into sobs and rushed into her arms.

I watched them with a strange kind of detachment, with relief but also a cold numbness. He'd been compelled to come back, to tell me that Rafe had what he wanted. He must mean Alexa.

"Don't give up hope," Lisbet said as she motioned for a guard to come forward, reading my thoughts so easily I wondered if my sudden despair was that plainly visible. "Take him to my rooms, I must get to work on him right away," she instructed the guard. Jax whimpered, but Lisbet quietly reassured him that she was coming, too, and he nodded, falling silent as the guard lifted him into his arms.

As the guard walked away, Lisbet lingered, still looking at me. "She's skilled and strong, Damian."

I didn't respond and after a moment, she sighed and turned to follow after her son.

I stood there in the darkness, feeling somehow hollowed out and yet full of rage all at once. I wanted to tear the earth apart, I wanted to fall to my knees and cry, I wanted to go back to my room and fall asleep this time and wake up and find out that Alexa had never left me - that I had never agreed to let her and Rylan go out into that jungle.

No. If she were dead, I would know. I would feel it somehow.

I refused to give up hope, not after everything we'd been through - after how far we'd come.

"Your Majesty, might I be of service in any way?"

The guard's question startled me and I realized I'd been staring at the wall, lost in thought. I made a quick decision. "Yes, actually."

***to be continued...