Heat of the Everflame (Kindred's Curse, #3)

by Penn Cole

His quiet strength had been my calm amidst the chaos. The faintest brush of his hand could center me when I was lost and catch me when I was falling.

“Don’t you dare mistake compassion for lack of courage,” he growled. “Anyone can slaughter their enemies. Hate is easy—it’s mercy that requires the greater strength.

To the rest of the world, he looked blank and impassive, but I recognized the temper within.

He believed in me, right down to his marrow, in a way I’d never believed in myself. He was my rock. My cove. My sword and my shield. My guiding light and my calming dark. My Prince. My love. He was my everything.

But if this was a cliff, we were jumping off together, hand-in-hand, ready to face our fates as one.

“Show me your worst, my darling, and I’ll show you how far my love can go.”

This powerful, intimidating man, this force of nature, this fearsome warrior—reduced to a panting, speechless beast by just my touch.

my walls had turned from stone to flimsy parchment, and my heart had been falling, tumbling, plummeting into a love so deep no other man could ever hope to reach it. And I didn’t want them to. I was his. Wholly, inescapably his.

If I wasn’t so obliteratingly overjoyed, I would have burst into tears at how much this meant to me. That he knew me well enough to understand. That he cared enough to make the effort. That he was selfless enough to give me this when I knew what he really wanted.

Love. It detonated in my chest. It destroyed me, reduced me to bone and ash. It rebuilt me, a bird of flame and passion. Love, like I’d never felt. Love, like I’d never believed myself capable of feeling. Love, like I didn’t think existed but in storybooks and dreams.