Page 10 of Shrine of Fire

“Good girl,” Hashir said hoarsely, petting my arm. He pressed against my back, purring, and the weight of him was a blessed relief.

I drifted for a while, letting myself float on bliss. When I became more aware of myself, though, I realized I was still laying on top of Aki, and Hashir was on top of me.

Aki didn’t share the bed with us the entire night we’d last spent together, and he could only handle being touched at certain times.

I looked up at Aki. His eyes were closed, and his breath was even too.

He opened his eyes and looked down. Warm brown eyes looked at me, with something like affection. “I’ll come with you. You’ve convinced me.”

“Glad that’s sorted.” Hashir shifted, still knotted inside me. “Let me know if we need to give you a refresher though.”

“Will do.” As I looked at him, I saw when the muscles along Aki’s jaw began to tense, and he looked at me.

“Right, sorry.” I shifted so he could climb out from underneath me.

I barely suppressed a whine. Judging from Aki’s face, he knew what I was feeling, though.

“It’s not you.” He stood up, the candlelight illuminating the hundreds of scars on his body. “It’s too much sometimes.”

I let out a sigh. “I understand that, too well. It’s okay.”

I had no business making him feel like he owed me something anyway. Aki brought us a blanket and pillow, got dressed and then slipped out of the room.

Hashir nuzzled my neck. “You’re good?”

“I’m great.” I sighed.

It was the truth. My body was sated.

But it couldn’t last. Nothing did. I would dream of my pack dying and wake up with my pillow soaked in tears.

I tried to hold onto the joy and happiness because it was destined to end.

After saying our goodbyes at the Omega Sanctuary, we got ready to leave for Ember Island.

Normally it would have taken us two weeks by boat, if the weather was good, but at the bottom of the Omega Sanctuary was a gate. It connected to all the Shrines, and we’d used it to travel quickly around the world to stop Yvenna.

In a winding basement room of the Sanctuary there was a secret chamber with a massive stone archway. As I approached it, I felt no less awe than the first time I saw it. Each stone had a different rune carved into it.

Hashir stepped forward and touched the bottom left stone. All of the runes lit up with the same blue light as the anastasis boxes. The anastasis boxes connected the Shrines to the spirit world. For a thousand years, they had created an impassible barrier between the mortal realm and the spirit realm.

In the future, each of us who became bonded to the Shrines would be able to use our own bond to the Shrine to act like a gatekeeper and allow magic to flow back and forth.

The gates helped us travel faster than normal, but we couldn’t use them often, and didn’t want too many people to know about them. Once we reached Ember Island, we wouldn’t be able to hide our location as well.

Hashir gestured at Aki. “I know you want to go first.”

Aki stalked forward. The entire circle of the archway lit up with blue light. The delta stepped through the arch like a doorway and disappeared.

Stefan stared. “I wondered how you got to Ember Island and back so quickly.”

“We needed to be fast,” I said. “We’re going directly to the Shrine of Everlasting Fire.”

Stefan stepped gingerly through, and I followed my betrothed.

Disorientated, I kept moving forward until Hashir pulled up the rear. He leaned down and touched a rune at the bottom of the archway, and the gate stopped glowing.

I looked around. The room was heavy black basalt stone, the air humid and still.

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