Iron Flame (The Empyrean, #2)

by Rebecca Yarros

Turns out, falling in love with someone only brings that blissful high all the poets talk about if they love you back.

Because love, at its root, is hope. Hope for tomorrow. Hope for what could be. Hope that the someone you’ve entrusted your everything to will cradle and protect it. And hope? That shit is harder to kill than a dragon.

“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.”

“Like a moth to a damned flame.” The lament slips from my mind, into our mental pathway. He’s gravity, pulling me back to him by the force of his existence.

How is it possible to both love someone and loathe them all in the same moment?

Dragons do not answer to the whims of men.

As complicated as our connection is, it’s also undeniably simple. He’s the horizon, and nothing exists beyond for me.

Words are just as capable of eviscerating someone as a blade, and he’s a master.”

“This is a war,” Xaden continues. “People die in wars. So, if you’re asking if I’d rather your people die than mine, then obviously my answer is yes. It’s foolish to think we can save everyone. We can’t.”

Everyone thinks most Riders cadets die from dragon fire. Truth be told, it’s usually gravity that gets us.

“There’s nowhere in existence you could go that I wouldn’t find you, remember?”

do. I’m sorry if you expect me to do the noble thing. I warned you. I’m not sweet or soft or kind, and you fell anyway. This is what you get, Violet—me. The good, the bad, the unforgivable. All of it. I am yours.” His arm wraps around the small of my back, holding me steady and close. “You want to know something true? Something real? I love you. I’m in love with you. I have been since the night the snow fell in your hair and you kissed me for the first time. I’m grateful my life is tied to yours because it means I won’t have to face a day without you in it. My heart only beats as long as yours does, and when you die, I’ll meet Malek at your side. It’s a damned good thing that you love me, too, because you’re stuck with me in this life and every other that could possibly follow.”

“I want you feral.”

It just gets better, hotter, sweeter, until there is no world outside him, no existence beyond us. All that matters is the next thrust.

my stomach flutters with nervous energy. No, that’s apprehension. Nope…nervous energy. Whatever it is, I’m glad I skipped dinner.

I’m the menace everyone thinks Xaden is. He might be a weapon, but I’m a natural disaster. And I’m done letting everyone around me suffer because I can’t get my shit together.

I fucking hate being disadvantaged by ignorance,

Think. I have to think. But fuck, all I can do is feel. Anger and envy pound through my veins with every heartbeat, strangling logic until I’m nothing but rage.

“She wants you for your name.” “I know.” He braces his hands on the arms of the chair and leans in, brushing his lips over mine. “And you love me in spite of it. That’s one of the many reasons I will always choose you.”

“Right there. Those gasps. That’s what I hear when I wake, already hard for you.”

I need to fuck her, to flip her over the arm of this throne and drive into her, but I can’t. I need her nail marks in the wood, need her cries filling this whole fucking house, need her knowing what I can be for her—anything and everything she needs. She’s heaven in my mouth. Flawless. Mine. And she’s almost there. Gods, yes, her legs are shaking, her walls are fluttering around my tongue. I love her so fucking much.

“It’s already snowing up the pass. I bet we get seven inches tonight.” “Maybe more if you’re good.” A corner of his mouth lifts as he cuts into the cake with the fork. “You’re making dick jokes?” I brace my hands on the top edge of the wall. “You’re talking about the weather.”

I’ll say one thing for dragonfire. It kills quickly.

Nothing kills powerful, unshakable love faster than opposing ideologies.

“Because I let you live long enough for us to fall in love,” he says. “Without that deal, gods know what I would have done in my need for revenge. Ask me why I don’t regret it. Ask me about the first time I saw you. Ask me about the moment I almost killed you despite the deal and decided not to. Ask me why. Ask me something! Fight back like you would have done last year before I broke your trust. Stop being so scared of the answers or waiting for me to give them to you. Demand the truth! I need you to love all of me—not just what you decide to see.”

I know there’s a thin line between devotion and obsession, between cowardice and self-preservation, and I’m walking it when it comes to you. I love you so fucking much that I ignored every warning signal last year, and now half the time I don’t know what side of that line I’m standing on because I’m too busy looking at you to watch my own feet!”

“How am I supposed to really love you if I don’t know you?” I can’t, and I think we both know it.

“We will settle matters of emotion after matters of life.”

I’m quickly learning it’s possible to love someone and not want to be with them at the same time.

“You’re capable of hurting me in ways I’m not sure you’ve even begun to fathom, Violet. I might be skilled enough to land a death blow, but you alone have the power to fucking destroy me.”

“I love you,” I whisper. “You could throw my entire world into upheaval, and I would still love you. You could keep secrets, run a revolution, frustrate the shit out of me, probably ruin me, and I would still love you. I can’t make it stop. I don’t want to. You’re my gravity. Nothing in my world works without you.”

This battle began in the wardstone chamber, and we’ve already lost. We just happen to still be breathing.

“I love you. The world does not exist for me beyond you.”