A Kingdom of Flame and Fury (The Four Kingdoms, #1)

by Whitney Dean

You are about to enter the world of a feisty, bloodthirsty witch and an assassin with a drinking problem—until he becomes addicted to something far deadlier. Her.

But this man. This man. He was Hades himself; I just knew it.

Her name sounded like an answer to a riddle—a riddle that was buried deep somewhere in my mind.

Until this moment, this second, I hadn’t realized that I had been looking for her my entire life.

“Straighten your crown, dear girl. Face those who don’t believe in you with pride in who you are.

“Soul mates and twin flames are rare; they’re destined to be together.”

“Soul mates can be anyone. A friend, a lover, someone you met briefly.”

Raven wasn’t anyone.

“Twin flames are two halves of one soul. There’s an intense connection that can’t be replicated. There’s pain associated with flames, both people mirroring one another. When you find your twin, you...

“Twin flame,” I said. “I think she’s my twin flame.” And if they were such a rarity, I was determined to do nothing but treasure her.

What a good girl.

She would take all of me, because if there was one thing I was certain about in this life, it was that her body was made to be on mine.

She felt like coming home.

“You’re my heaven.” He found my collarbone. “You’re my hell. And I want to burn in you.”

“I have to become your villain, baby,”

Some villains were born, but I would be self-made. I would become a beast of the underworld to protect her. Half-man, half-monster if it meant she was safe.

Shadows inhabited him—shadows I wished to cloak myself in.

But he held secrets behind those gray eyes that I desperately wanted whispered against my skin.

every time he walked away, he took a piece of me with him.

I needed more women in my life to complain to about the men.

“Raven, you could wear a burlap sack, and I’d still want to bury myself deep inside you. Let’s stay in.”

“Baby, being in public would not stop me from touching you.” He yanked me back and pinned me against the wall. “I’ll fuck you wherever I want.”

“I am a decent man, Raven, fuck, a respectful man even, but you’re straddling a delicate line with me right now. Speak of another man in that way again and you will see what happens when my self-control ceases to exist.”

“I’m allowing you to come. Believe me,” he breathed, watching my mouth while he spoke and working me in a steady rhythm, “when I punish you, you’ll know.”

He wanted to drink my darkness. I wanted to drown in his.

And as he lifted his head to look into my eyes, I realized the dungeon was currently holding the most terrifying creatures it ever would—a monster and his little beast.

Maybe I should let him rip me apart. He could carry my broken pieces around with him.

All I could do was gawk at the devil on his knees before me.

how could I kill someone who felt like one-half of me?

He took my heart with him. It was time to see who I was without one.

“I don’t like chocolate,”

Red Flag

“Don’t mind her. She gets lost in her books. In another world.”

“Only men not to be trusted don’t like chocolate.”

No matter how this ended, even if I never earned her forgiveness, I would never leave her. I would become her shadow if it meant I could be close to her.

“You’ve been so desperate to be the villain in her story without realizing she already has one.

“Find yourself, Raven. Don’t let others do it for you.”

Twin flames are reincarnated souls, forever following the other through each lifetime until they can settle into an ultimate release—their final existence.”

“He’s a hunter, Cade. And I, his prey.”

“How does it feel to know that while you were begging to kiss her, she was begging me to fuck her?”

Too many men surrounded me, and I wondered if that why I always had headaches.

“I have to stop relying on others to make me feel whole. I’ve searched for that my whole life and I can’t do it anymore.”

“You always love me best in the dark,” I whispered. “Because you are my light.”

“You said that I put the stars in your sky,” I whispered, “but you are my only star. My guiding star. I need you, Raven.”

Your shadows are mine.”