Page 47 of Heat of the Everflame

I gave the slightest nod, and his hands carefully came to rest on the sides of my face, holding my gaze to his.

“The war isn’t just coming,” he said, “it’s here. The battles have already begun. People are going to die—that’s unavoidable.”

“I know,” I whispered. “I just don’t want them to die because of me.”

“But they will, Diem. There will be blood spilled by every side. Some of it will be at your command, some may be by your own hand. And you can mourn them—youshouldmourn them—but you cannot carry their deaths on your shoulders.”

“You did,” I shot back weakly. “I’ve seen how you blamed yourself for the half-mortals you couldn’t save.”

Pain shadowed his features. “Yes. And it ate me alive. It turned me angry and hollow for a very long time.” His fingers grazed my cheek. “I will not watch that happen to you.”

My despair over the mortal’s death mixed with the bone-rattling chill of hypothermia’s early stages. The cold, the fatigue, the despair—it had all become one jumbled fog I couldn’t see my way out of.

A violent shudder worked its way through my limbs, and Luther’s jaw clenched. He took my hand and tugged me into the hollow of the tree. Taran was already asleep and snoring softly, but he’d folded his cloak and set it by the opening.

Luther pulled me into the dark blindness of the shadows. He slipped his hands beneath the hem of my tunic, his fingertips pausing on my icy skin. “May I undress you?” he whispered.

I managed out a quietyes, and he wasted no time. He peeled the drenched linen over my head, then used the clean side to swipe my bloody palms. He removed my footwear, then loosened my waistband and slid the scratchy trousers down my legs. His touch turned even lighter as he tugged away myundergarments, taking care to keep his movements brief and deliberate.

When I was naked in the darkness, he came around behind me and unbraided my hair, tenderly combing it with his fingers to loosen the strands.

After a few moments of rustling, to my surprise, a thick sweater dropped over my head, hanging loosely off my frigid bones. The fibers were exquisitely soft, like no knit I’d ever felt before. It was already warmed with body heat, and it filled my nose with Luther’s woodsy, peppery musk of cedar and moss.

More rustling followed, then Luther’s hand brushed against my ankle, guiding it up and through a ring of gathered fabric, and again with the other leg. His knuckles grazed along my thighs and hips as he pulled up a pair of breeches, the supple leather like velvet against my skin. A pair of warm socks covered my feet, and a heavy overcoat settled on my shoulders.

“Luther,” I said softly. “You can’t give me all your clothes. You’ll freeze.”

“I have Taran’s cloak. I’ll be fine.” He ran a hand up my arm and over my shoulder, clasping around the back of my neck. He pulled me in and pressed a kiss to my temple. “Lay down. I’ll be back soon.”

I wanted to argue, but my legs had other plans. I barely made it gracefully to the soil before collapsing on my side, curling into a ball, and letting my eyes flutter closed. At the edge of my consciousness, I caught Luther and Alixe whispering just outside, but the steady rumble of Taran’s snoring was a strange lullaby that dragged me into sleep’s depths.

Sometime later, I was roused by a warm body curling up behind me. A heavy arm draped protectively over my side, and I clutched onto it, groggily pulling it tighter. A second arm looped beneath me, then around me, until I was enfolded into a hard wall of muscle.

He spoke quiet words in my ear. Though I was half-asleep and too drowsy to retain them, they pushed my fears to the fringes of my mind and filled me with calm.

His heat seeped into mine, and mine into his. For the first time since my coronation, I was warm, and safe, and content.

Chapter

Twelve

“Come on Alixe, let’s wake them up.”

My eyes cracked open to the thump of a heartbeat beneath my ear and two familiar voices arguing in hushed tones.

“Leave them be, Taran. The past two weeks have been hell on them both. You know Luther’s barely slept.”

“It’s nearly midday. I want to talk to Queenie and hear what happened.”

“Her Majestywill tell us when she wakes up.”

I heard Taran’s low grumbles. “Why do you get to decide?”

“When the Queen is asleep, Luther’s in charge. When they’re both asleep, I’m in charge. When all three of us are asleep, you’re in charge.”

“If the three of you are asleep, then there’s no one left for me to be in chargeof.”

“Exactly.”

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