Page 40 of Heat of the Everflame

It was a reckless kiss, adangerouskiss—and I never wanted it to end.

He tasted of the spice of his fury and the sweetness of his relief. His urgent grip slid to the back of my neck, the burn of his skin against mine searing straight to my core.

“My Queen,” he murmured, the words rumbling against my lips.

“Hello, Prince,” I gasped. “I missed you, too.”

An arrow whizzed past our heads, freezing us both in place.

“Respectfully, Your Majesty,” Alixe shouted from nearby, “perhaps the reunion can wait?”

At her feet, a mortal lay dead with a throwing dagger lodged in his neck. She had stolen his bow and quiver and was firing off arrows at the other archers in the surrounding trees to give us cover.

My gut clenched at the man’s lifeless face. More blood on my hands. More corpses at my feet.

“Are you hurt?” Luther asked, pulling me to my feet.

I swallowed and forced myself to rip my eyes from the dead mortal. I shook my head. “We need to get to the horses.”

He nodded. “Your magic...?”

“Gone. They forced me to take flameroot.”

He glowered and ran for the Sword of Corbois while I sheathed my dagger, pulling the broadsword from its scabbard. Around us, Guardians staggered through the smoke, shouting warnings both at us and about us.

“Alixe,” I yelled. “This way!”

As the evening breeze cleared the haze from the air, the clang of clashing metal took its place. We moved as a trio through the melee, a three-backed beast fighting a burgeoning mob with hate smoldering in every brown eye.

Luther tried to push me between him and Alixe, but I shoved him off. I pounced forward to smash the flat side of my blade against a Guardian’s arm before it could ram a spear through Alixe’s side.

“Don’t kill them,” I begged. “They’re mortals. They’re just angry, they don’t realize—”

“It’s them or us, Your Majesty,” Alixe gritted out. She had a shortsword in each hand that swung in elegant, precise strokes, almost artistic in their refinement. She was the deadliest kind ofdancer, each movement choreographed to leave her audience in ribbons.

What Alixe displayed in grace, Luther matched in savagery. His blows were thunderous, shattering bone with every swing. I’d known Luther’s strength went far beyond his magic, but even without the sparks and shadows at his command, he was a fearsome thing to behold.

“We can’t save them all,” he warned. His voice was as gentle as his rage would allow, sensitive to how deeply he knew this mattered to me. “Not if we plan to get out alive.”

“I know, but—”

I yelped and ducked below the swing of a wooden club, then shoved my boot into its wielder’s chest.

“We are not enemies,” I shouted, unsure which of them I was really telling.

Amid a flurry of swings and jabs, Cordellia strode toward us, sword in hand.

“Call them off, Dell,” I warned. “Let us leave here. No one else needs to get hurt.”

“You know I can’t do that,” she yelled back, unspoken words riding her tone.

I knew she was right. Even if she wanted to help me—and the glare on her face left that very much in question—her people would mutiny before they let us walk away. We were too outnumbered, too penned in. They had the upper hand, and Cordellia could not cede it now.

“Give yourselves up,” she warned, “before one of us is forced to do something we’ll regret.”

But that, I could not do. I was willing to put my own life in her care and risk the wrath of her people, but I would not ask the same of my Descended friends—myfamily.

A club connected with Luther’s hip, knocking him down to a knee. The mortals had correctly pegged him as their biggestthreat, and three of them were raining down blows in quick succession, giving him little time to defend and no time to recover.

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