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Kindle Notes & Highlights
by
Penn Cole
Read between
November 15 - November 17, 2025
“I wouldn’t flirt with you if you were the last living man on this miserable fucking continent.”
“But rest assured, my Queen, when I do kiss you, there will be no confusion. You will know that I have claimed you—and I won’t have any desire to deny it.”
“I’m not a child, Luther, I am a grown woman.” “Believe me, Your Majesty, I am well aware.”
didn’t hate Luther. Against my better judgment, I had begun to genuinely trust him. I was even—Everflame forgive me—enjoying his company. I liked the way he unsettled me, the way he challenged me. I liked that he was a riddle I couldn’t quite solve. I liked... him.
His answer came without missing a beat. “That if a man made you doubt whether his love for you would survive anything, he does not deserve you.”
“What do you want, Luther?” His eyes dragged slowly to me. He held me there like a butterfly cupped between his hands, fluttering against his touch and wondering if he would be my doom. Every hair on my neck stood on end as he turned his lips to my ear, his voice low and rough. “Something I cannot have.”
I had arrived here with a plan to destroy, expecting to find a world full of Remises and Garaths and even Aemonns. I hadn’t expected to find friends.
“If a kiss is the reward, my Queen, I’ll get on my knees for you whenever you want.”
“I don’t care if he’s in the afterlife. If he hurt you, I’ll find a way to make him pay.”
“You’re my Queen. Everything I do is for you.”
His touch was the changing of the seasons, the dead, cold grey of winter thawing and giving way to the colorful hope of spring. The promise of something new, something exquisitely alive.
If the love is true, there’s nothing it won’t endure.”
I was drowning in this man. From the moment I met him, I had been kicking against the current and holding my breath, struggling to get back to the safe, familiar surface—but every look, every touch, dragged me deeper still. I felt the burning of it in my lungs, as real and visceral as if I were plunging into the Sacred Sea itself.
“More than any of the other Kindred, Blessed Mother Lumnos loved the mortals. She never wanted them forced into submission—she commanded her Descended to guard them from harm, not be the cause of it.” He took my face in his hands, cradling it in his palms. “Even before you had the Crown, I felt her urging me toward you. The more I see of you, the more I understand why. She wants change, and she believes you can achieve it.” His thumb brushed across my cheek. “And so do I.”
“You are my Queen, and I am your sword. Point me at your enemies, and watch them fall. Lead this world, Diem, and I will follow you—into war, into death, into the tundra of hell itself.” He took my palm and set it against his chest, just above the patch of unscarred skin that lay beneath his jacket. “You are the fate my heart was spared for. As long as it beats, you will never fight alone.”
When you took the Crown, I swore to be different—to serve your goals, not mine. I told myself that even if you had no one else, you would at least have me. I never wanted to become just another person who wanted to steal a piece of you for themselves.” He let out a shuddering sigh. “And I have failed. Completely, irreversibly failed. I don’t just want a piece of you—I want them all.” His thumb raked across my lower lip. “I want every breath, every laugh, every tear. Every taste of your mouth, every inch of your skin. I want to kneel at your feet, soaked in the blood of your enemies, then
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“You make so many promises, but the only thing I ever really wanted was honesty. And it’s the one thing you still refuse to give.”
“Luther will stand by your side, and he will love you for every single day of it. And he won’t say a word. He’ll spend his entire miserable life protecting your happiness, hoping that someday you finally see him. Not Luther the Prince or the High General or the advisor, but him.”
“If I try to help you, are you going to fight me?” His grip tightened as he leaned down to my ear, his gravelly voice dropping low. “Or will you be a good girl for me again and obey?”
“I would have walked into the flaming heart of the sun itself,” he shot back. “If you are suffering, nothing will keep me from coming to your aid. Least of all something as trivial as death.”
“Perhaps, for the right person, we endure the pain, because the torture of never having them at all is the more unbearable fate.”
“Forgive me. They all need to see it.” “See what?” I rasped, barely able to speak. “Who will come for them if they dare to come for you.”
It was nothing like the kiss we’d shared before. That had been all anger and lust, a battle of tempers bathed in blood. That was an inferno. This was a hearth. Carefully tended over weeks of friendship, the traumas we’d endured, and the secrets we shared. A smaller flame, perhaps, but steadier. Strong. A fire that didn’t burn to consume, but to endure—to keep us warm through the perils of the dark, cold night.
“You have me, Luther,” I vowed. “All of me.”
“I am yours, Luther Corbois. Scars and all.”
“Remember who you are, Diem Bellator.” He clasped the medallion at my neck. “But remember you are a phoenix, too. We do not fear the flames, for the hotter we burn, the higher we fly.” He gave me a final, smoldering kiss, then whispered against my lips. “Burn, my Queen. Glow so bright, the darkness trembles.”
