Obsession (Zuko X OC fan fic) Undergoing Edits

15: Burn

My breathing and heartbeat quickened as Zuko left, sharing an apologetically confused glace before he left. I stared up at the Fire Lord as the curtain fluttered quietly back into place. He glared back down at me as well, keeping our eyes evenly steady.

I couldn't help but think about how this was the man who had raised a girl as ruthless and cold hearted as the sadist that was Azula. To create someone like that, there was no way he wasn't just as cruel, if not more so.

He set his fingers almost seductively under my chin. "You're very pretty... it's too bad there isn't a drop of royal blood to your body or else I might exchange Mai for you as Zuko's betrothed... but you are very pretty and I can't have the heir to my thrown taking a servant girl as a bride if he decided he no longer needs to follow the rules when I'm gone... so let's fix that, shall we?" He stood up straight again and walked back to his thrown, although he didn't sit down. "Stand up."

I stood silently.

"Come closer."

I walked so that I was only a few feet in front of the man who may as well be God to me at that moment. I stood straight and stared up at the man, nearly forgetting he was only a mortal man.

"I think you're quite beautiful so I'm sure that Zuko must agree... and we must fix that." The mortal God stared at me from his position on the other side of the low wall of fire. "How do you propose I do that?" He turned away from me.

I felt my breath slow to still while my heart sped to a million miles a minute. "I don't know, Sir..." My voice came out shaky and I realized how quickly fear had set in once I was alone with the most powerful man in the world. I'd never experienced fear to this extent before. I was afraid for my life.

"You don't know..." Suddenly he spun around and a bright ball of flame raced towards my face so fast I had little time to react.

I attempted to dodge only to find he had definitely aimed for my head when the blast hit the left side of my face. A searing pain moved across my skin as the flame made contact but I soon felt nothing as the intensity of the burn grew and my nerve endings were all busted into nonexistence. I fell out of the path of the flame and hit hard on the ground. I felt the tears from the previous pain falling down my face as I looked back up at the Fire Lord from my new position on my hands and knees.

He smiled as he peered down at me. His eyes hadn't changed but the flame that shone in them was bright. Those eyes, the eyes that had made me think of my prince only moments before, were no longer the ones I saw when I remembered Zuko's face. They drew the picture of Azula in my mind and I knew that I was lucky to have dodged quick enough to survive. I stared up in fear at the man I'd just considered as God. He was no God... that was for sure. He was the Devil himself.

"That should do," the devil man said. "Now leave."

I rose from the ground and stepped out the curtain. I reached up to check the now numb damage. My skin was still hot as though it was on fire and it felt leathery. The epicenter of where the blast had hit me was my eye and it spread from the bridge on my nose, which had blocked it from the other side of my face when I flinched away, to my left ear, where it had singed my hair and baked on of my bead strand to my hair for good. My high cheek bones had kept it from spreading very far down my cheek.

Set my right hand against the wall to help guide me and used the left one to hide my face from an approaching soldier. I slipped into a small alcove where I knew Princess Azula's room to be. I knocked on the door.

"One moment..." the princess sounded irritated. She pulled the door open to reveal herself with still perfect hair and a red night robe. "Oh, it's you, Azul. I thought I told you to watch my brother."