Iron Flame (The Empyrean, #2)

by Rebecca Yarros

is the valley above Riorson House, heated by natural thermal energy, that is its greatest asset. For there lie the original hatching grounds of the Dubhmadinn Line, from which two of the greatest dragons of our time—Codagh and Tairn—descend.

“Garrick Tavis. Xaden Riorson.” Captain Fitzgibbons’s voice carries over the formation as he reads from the death roll. “Well, this is awkward,” Xaden calls out. And every head in the courtyard turns in our direction.

“Touch me and I swear to the gods, I’ll cut your fucking hands off and let the quadrant sort you out in the next round of challenges, Dain Aetos.”

“If you don’t, I’ll take personal offense. She made her choice, and it wasn’t you. It will never be you. I know it. She knows it. The whole quadrant knows it.”

“If Solas comes near you again, he knows I will devour his human whole and let him rot within me while his heart still beats, and then I’ll take the eye I so graciously left him.”

Dragons do not answer to the whims of men.

“Even the smallest dragon does not answer to the most powerful of humans, which you are not.”

In the years after my father died, I forgot what it felt like to be loved. Then I entered the quadrant and became the monster everyone needed me to be, and I never regretted it. But then you gave those words to me, and I remembered…and nearly lost you, too. I’m striving to be better for you just like I promised, but I need you to know that monster is still there, screaming to use every ruthless part of me to get your words back.

“Gods, look at you. You are all I’m ever going to want. Just you. Just this. Just us.”