Page 223 of Heat of the Everflame

Listening.

Praying.

Hoping.

Chapter

Forty-Five

“Let her sleep.”

A voice stirred me from my dreams. Dreams of battlefields and swords and trees of fire. Dreams of blue-grey eyes and glowing gold hearts.

“We should wake her up.”

A different voice. Lily’s voice.

She was sniffling.

No—sobbing.

“She’s going to be furious we didn’t wake her when it happened.”

Eleanor’s voice this time. She was huddled behind me, her hand draped over my hip.

But there was a second hand, broad and strong, burrowed beneath my hair and resting flush at the back of my neck.

I felt Luther’s chest beneath me, his skin markedly cooler than I remembered. I listened for a heartbeat, but all I could hear was Lily’s weeping, all I could feel was her shuddering body.

“She hasn’t slept in two days.” Alixe’s voice. “She’ll find out eventually. Let her rest while she still can.”

Dread sank like a stone in my chest. I cracked my eyes open a sliver to see Taran curled up at the foot of the bed, sleeping. Alixe stood just beyond, rubbing her face, while Zalaric and Teller dozed in chairs behind her.

My focus slowly rose to Lily. She was sitting up, staring at Luther, an ocean of tears flowing down her reddened cheeks.

I slammed my lids closed. I couldn’t bear to see the truth yet. I needed a little longer here, safe in the darkness of my denial.

“She needs to know,” Lily said. “We have to wake her.”

“She’s already awake.”

That voice...

That voice.

I knew that voice. Ifeltthat voice. It rumbled beneath my cheek, its timbre coating my skin like a warm, heavy blanket.

I sucked in sharply. The hand on me twitched, then its thumb stroked a slow line down my neck.

My eyes shot open—and I saw skin. A broad expanse of it, bronzed and olive-hued and marked with the ridges of a long-healed scar.

A scar... and nothing else.

My gaze locked with Lily’s—and through her tears, shesmiled.

Slowly, so excruciatingly slowly, I lifted my head and turned it upward. A pair of bright, pale eyes were waiting for me, their corners crinkled with joy.

“Hello, beautiful.”

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