Page 160 of Flame and Sparrow

A shiver of uncertainty crept down my spine, but I managed a nod.

He took a moment to decide where to start. “I’ve been thinking about the question you asked,” he finally said. “How does it end? And I still don’t know the answer, but I just…I need you to know that I’m not the same as I was in the beginning of this. When I realized you were truly unaware of what your sister had done—that your kind were using you in hopes of completing whatever rebellious plans she’d started—something inside of me…broke. Because you are more than a pawn. I realized that within moments of meeting you, and I cannot understand how the ones you consider your allies don’t see the same thing.” He dropped my hand and paced the length of the hilltop as he spoke, occasionally pausing to summon more flames and fling them at the heavens.

I stayed rooted to my spot. The moment was beginning to feel like a dream, a hallucination I was afraid might shatter if I moved too much.

“That day I took you to see my siblings’ memorials,” he continued, “when you asked me if I thought a peace between our kind was possible…The idea struck me as strange when you said it. Ridiculous, really. But I haven’t been able to get it out of my head ever since. It made me remember something the God of the Shade told me soon after I ascended.”

I swallowed hard. “Which was?”

“That fire destroys. But it also forges. I chose my own mark and magic when I ascended, and I swore I would hold to what that upper-god told me, but in truth, I’ve left out the forging part—unless you count the glass, the memories I keep trying to rebuild and replay in my mind.” He stepped back to me, letting the flame he’d been summoning in his palm extinguish into smoke that rose and twisted between us as the wind caught it. “Then you came along, and the more time I spend with you, the more I find myself wanting to do more than just burn it all down. I can’t explain it, but I—”

I stopped him with a kiss.

I didn’t realize I was doing it until my lips were already against his, the electricity from our touch shocking me back to awareness.

I started to take a step back, startled by my own boldness.

He grabbed me and pulled me against him once more, wrapping my body in a tight embrace, crushing his lips so completely to mine that I forgot where I was for a moment.

We pulled away no less than a minute later, breathless, promise and heat sizzling between us.

He threaded his fingers through my hair, holding me still as he leaned in again, almost touching his forehead to mine. “I’ve missed you these past days. I’ve worried about you every damn second. Everything around us feels like it’s moving toward chaos, and I should be focused on keeping order and solving problems, but for some reason all I can think about most of the time isyou. It’s maddening.” His grip in my hair tightened, sending a bite of pain and a tremble of pleasure through my scalp. “So fucking maddening.”

“I’m sorry I’ve been avoiding you,” I whispered. “I’m sorry for…everything.”

“It doesn’t matter.” His eyes fluttered shut as he leaned fully into me, pressing his face into my hair, breathing me in.

My hands came to rest on his chest again, right over his heart. Warmth pulsed in the air, and the stars he’d scattered seemed to shine more brightly, with every pounding beat of it.

“It doesn’t matter,” he repeated in a whisper, lips sweeping over mine. “Just tell me you’ll stay. Tell me you’re mine. At least for tonight.”

I reached up and traced the strong line of his jaw, my hand and voice both trembling with anticipation. “I will. I am. And after tonight…”

“We’ll figure that out when we come to it.”

I started to ask how—I couldn’t help myself—but he stopped me with another feather-light kiss that quickly grew deeper, hungrier, lasting several seconds before he pulled back, letting his teeth catch my bottom lip as he went.

“I love your mind.” His laugh was low and rough, as though he was using it to suppress a growl. “Your endless wondering and interrogating.” Another brush of teeth against my lips. “But right now I need you to stop asking so many damn questions and just let me kiss you.”

I stopped.

Mostly because he had used the wordlove.

His mouth crashed back to mine. I let go of all my questions as he sank deeper into me, his tongue pushing in and dancing against mine, his hands tangling in my hair and clothing. My touches soon mirrored his—eager and desperate to unravel him, to touch every inch of skin I could.

As I unbuttoned his shirt, he slipped a hand around to the small of my back, cradling me as he dropped to his knees and eased me down along with him.

The grass was luxuriously soft, crushing easily beneath me, but he still slipped the cloak from my shoulders and spread it out behind me like a blanket. There was no need for the garment’s warmth anymore; the air teemed with his aroused power, heated to the point of near-sweltering. There was a fire building in my blood at the same time, blazing so intensely that I encouraged him to keep going until he had stripped away all but my thin undergarments.

I had a brief moment of self-consciousness reclining there, almost fully naked, on the hilltop; any of the gods or their servants might have stumbled upon us.

Then Dravyn shrugged his shirt off and tossed it aside, and I decided I didn’t care who saw us—I only cared about digging my nails into the ridges of his muscles and feeling his warm, hard flesh pressed flush against my own.

I pulled my camisole over my head and added it to the pile of our discarded clothing. He watched me moving in the light of the fire-dotted sky, and I couldn’t help feeling beautiful beneath his admiring gaze, all my scars and uncertainties, all the imperfect dips and curves of my body glowing beneath the stars he’d hung for me.

Our eyes met, and he lunged toward me like a man starved, pinning me against the ground, bracing an arm on either side of my body and leaning down to kiss me, engulfing me in his heat, his strength, his magic.

I traced the strong lines of his back with my hands. Wrapped my legs around him and tightened, pulling him in closer, harder, drawing a deep groan from his lips.

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