Glow of the Everflame (Kindred's Curse, #2)

by Penn Cole

“I should put all four of your heads on a pike for treason. I just assaulted the Queen, and you cowards stood there and watched me do it. The next time someone lays a hand on her and you don’t kill them where they stand, I’ll carve out your eyeballs and feed them to the fucking hounds. It doesn’t matter if it’s me or the Regent or Blessed Mother Lumnos herself. Do your damn jobs and protect our Queen.”

Once upon a time, I had been a person of happiness and joy. I’d laughed as deeply as I’d loved. I’d made lighthearted jokes instead of cruel insults or threats. I’d been patient and compassionate, quick to forgive. This woman I had become now... I despised her. She was strong, undeniably so, but in all the wrong ways. Strength could be fueled by love just as easily as hate.

“They want us to feel small, Eleanor. They want us to be quiet, be predictable, be unimportant, behave. Then they make us think we deserve it. But I think they’re just terrified we’ll stop listening to them and start listening to each other. And do you know why they’re so scared of women like us?”

“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.”

“Or maybe you prefer me in muddy pants and a borrowed tunic.” “Only when it’s mine.”

“That if a man made you doubt whether his love for you would survive anything, he does not deserve you.”

Taran nudged my leg with his knee. “You like it, right?” Luther sighed. “Just say the word and I’ll hang him upside down from the rafters.” “Not again,” Taran moaned.

“There is only one person in this realm who has proven themselves worthy to be my advisor, Eleanor, and that’s you.” Luther bristled. “What about me?” Taran said, pouting. “I could advise on... I don’t know, something.” “Drinking,” Aemonn drawled. “Sleeping around. Being useless.” Taran grinned. “Exactly.”

“Unleash, my Queen. Show this world what it means to Challenge Diem Bellator.”

“Luther,” I whispered. “My Queen,” he breathed.

“Diem? It’s Eleanor—” “And Taran.” “—are you alright in there? Do you need anything? Maybe some food, or chocolate, or—” “Or whiskey?” “Remind me again why I brought you.” “Because I’m fun. Hey Diem, is Luther in there? Are you two doing something naughty?” “Blessed Kindred, Taran, stop!”

“Come on, Queenie,” Taran said with a sly grin. “Don’t you want to get all hot and sweaty training with me and Lu?” I raised my brows at Eleanor and Luther. “Is he always like this?” “Yes,” they groaned in unison.

“If a kiss is the reward, my Queen, I’ll get on my knees for you whenever you want.”

“It takes a lot of work to make me look this presentable.” “No, it doesn’t.” He crossed the room and batted my hands away, deftly untangling the clip and setting it aside. “You forget the conditions I’ve seen you in. I know how easily your beauty shines through.”

“What must I do to prove myself to you?” he breathed, sounding as desperate as he was furious. “Break from House Corbois, if you wish. It changes nothing—I will still serve you. Appoint every soul in the realm as your advisor but me. Marry your mortal. Worse, mate yourself off to that snake Aemonn.” His gaze turned dark as a moonless night. “Exile me from the realm. I will serve you from afar.”

“I don’t care if he’s in the afterlife. If he hurt you, I’ll find a way to make him pay.”

“Wait a minute, are we doing training shirtless?” Taran’s voice echoed across the dungeon. He bounded down the dungeon steps and ripped his tunic over his head to reveal a tanned chest rippling with more muscles than I knew a person could have. “Bless the Kindred for that.” Alixe paused on the stairwell as she took in me and Luther standing half-naked and chest-to-chest, my hand clasped in his. She quietly assessed us. “I can take the big dumb oaf and come back later.”

“It doesn’t matter. My place is with you. Wherever that leads.” His fingers curled around mine. “Whatever it costs.”

“You’re a Corbois, Diem,” he murmured into my ear. “Embrace your phoenix. Rise from the ashes, and burn bright once more.”

“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.”

“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 worship your body until you scream my name.” His hands slid to my hips and tugged me closer. “Yes, Diem, I want to serve you—in every way a man can.”

“I want to burn alive in that fire in your eyes. I want it to melt me down and forge me into the weapon you need me to be. I want to stand by your side for the rest of my life, and I don’t need you to marry me and make me a fucking king to do it.”

Strange, how armor could be both a shield and a cage, keeping the arrows out while trapping the monster in.

“When are you and Luther going to put all of us out of our misery and fuck each other already?” “Taran,” I choked. “Descended men are bigger than mortal men, you know. In every way. One night with Lu, and you’d forget that mortal’s name. Shit, you’d forget your own name.”

“He’ll wait for you, you know. It’s going to destroy him, but he’ll do it. He’ll sit back, and he’ll watch you marry that mortal. He’ll defend you to the entire realm while you put a crown on that jerk’s head and let him parade around calling himself King for however many decades he has left. And when he dies, Luther’s going to hold you while you mourn. Even if it takes you centuries to move on. And Kindred forbid, if you have children with that man, Luther will be there for them too, as the best uncle they’ve ever had. And when their mortal father is gone, Luther will step up and love them as if they were his own.”

“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.”

“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.”

“Well, Prince?” I teased. “Do you like it?” His eyes roamed downward, but didn’t quite make it past my lips. “Beautiful,” he said quietly.

“Perhaps, for the right person, we endure the pain, because the torture of never having them at all is the more unbearable fate.”

He traced the edge of my jaw. “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.” Then his lips were on mine.

Both misunderstood, for although we often ran from the shadowy unknown toward the clarity of day, the light could blister and burn just as the dark could shield and soothe. It was in the meeting of the two, the dusk and the dawn, where peace was truly at its height.

“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.”

“Burn, my Queen. Glow so bright, the darkness trembles.”

“I can do this,” I said quietly. “I am Diem Bellator. Daughter of my mother Auralie. Chosen of my father Andrei. Protector of my brother Teller. Healer, warrior, and Queen.” My chin rose, my voice growing louder. “I can do this.”

Luther gazed at me like I was the embodiment of hope fulfilled. Like I was the answer to every question he had ever asked, the harmony to every song he’d ever sung. He looked at me like I was the sun and the moon and the stars, all the light in the world, shining a path for him out of the lonely dark.