More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
He takes my mouth just like he did the first time, wholly, completely, like he’s given himself permission to be reckless and he’s going to make the most of it.
I slip my fingers between the buttons of his flight jacket and hold on to the fabric like we can solve every problem in the world if he just stays in this room with me.
“We were beyond the wards, but I didn’t reach for any form of power because even in that state, I knew it could take me back to day zero, and day zero doesn’t give me you. I clawed my way back to myself and left.”
“I’m not ignoring my fate. I know there will come a point in time where I’ll become more it than me.” He swallows. “But as dangerous as hope is, you’re right—I have to fight for this. I think I’m stable for now, and I know it’s only day seventy—”
Our tongues twine, our hands roam, and everything outside this room slips away, overpowered by what really matters: us.
“If I loved you in the way you deserve to be loved, I’d ignore that you’re the only form of peace I’ve ever known and put a thousand miles between us because stable still isn’t whole.”
“I decide what I deserve.”
Mine. All mine.
“I need you to give me the one thing you love breaking.” I force my brain to work through the haze of lust he’s creating. “Control.” “Control.” He nods.
“It’s disturbingly hot, actually.”
“Our door,” I correct him. “I choose you. I choose whatever risk this brings. I see every part of you, Xaden: The good. The bad. The unforgivable. That’s what you promised, and that’s what I want—all of you. I can handle myself, even against you if I have to.”
For both war and love change souls irrevocably.
“Need” isn’t a strong enough word for the way I’m feeling, how desperate I am to hold all of him.
“My power, my body, my soul—it’s all yours.”
If it’s fight and die or don’t fight and die, we’d rather fight.”
“I love you more than this city. Do not die defending it.”
“I love you. Stay out of the clouds, off the ice, and come back to me whole.”
“Most of us have family here, so fight like it.”
“I can’t tell leadership to make decisions faster.” I settle into the wet saddle, then buckle the water-laden strap with quickly cramping hands. “Then perhaps we need to make our own decisions,”
But how can it be too much when I am the very thing I wield?
“I don’t need you to be anything but who you are.”
You always say that you chose me, but I stood in front of you on that Threshing field. And I would do it again.”
“I love you and I want you to feel complete,” I tell her, and she slowly meets my gaze. “I want you happy and safe and thriving. I want you to live.” My voice breaks. “Even if it’s not with me.”
I exist for Tairn, but I live for Xaden.
“I’m so sorry.” Sympathy fills Mira’s expression. “But not sorry enough to lose you to your grief. You just have to start by getting up.”
“I can kill him if you prefer,” Xaden offers, raising his scarred brow. “And give him another opportunity to fake his own death?” Mira scoffs.
“Everything else will wait.”
“Then here’s the question.” He grips the side of the tub and searches my eyes. “Do you need me to take care of you or kick your ass? I’m fully capable of and willing to do both.” “I know it.” My lips press into a tight line. I want him to take care of me, but I need him to kick my ass, and need beats want every time.
“She said the heart that beat for you—or within you—would do the wrong thing for the right reason, reach for unspeakable power, and turn dark.”
No wonder my signet is pretty much all-or-nothing. Tairn doesn’t do anything in half measures, and neither does his power.
“I didn’t lose her. She left.”
I love sleeping next to Xaden at night and waking up to the feel of his mouth on my skin in the morning. I love how uncomplicated we are here, and really love that General Aetos isn’t lurking around every corner, looking for a reason to make us miserable. But mostly, I love that Xaden seems more like himself in the last few days. He’s still icy in moments, but he also carries an air of peace and purpose, and for the first time, I don’t just dream about our future here. I can see it.
An ache unfolds behind my ribs. That’s why Xaden is so peaceful, so driven here. He’s putting the pieces in place, training his replacement. He’s accepted a different future than the one I envision as I walk these halls and continue following every possible path to a cure.
Gods, I love that arrogant, wicked, sexy little smirk.
“Yes.” He slides his hands into his pockets. “But I’m not embracing the fall, if that’s what you’re thinking. I won’t give up a single day I have with you. Not without a fight.”
“How long are you going to let them fight?” Brennan asks, glancing at Xaden. “Until my tactician gives me a plan that doesn’t make me choose between objectives,” Xaden answers. “The volume of their delivery doesn’t make their points any less valid.”
“There are worse things than dying.”
“Choice determines our future. Melgren’s only seen the outcome of one path.”
“Make a different choice, get a different outcome,” Garrick suggests. “They’ll have to live with themselves, so let them make their choice, too. Gods know we did.”
“In all the years we’ve known each other, fair isn’t a term I’ve ever heard you argue.”
“You are our lightning wielder, and while your life may not matter more than other riders’, your signet does. You are the weapon and will have to learn to accept the sacrifice of others in your name if you want to win this war.”
“First thing to learn about us is that we’re careful with our words. And the second? We also lie.”
“Pull from the excess you feel in me, and push to the deficit in him. You’re not a weapon of destruction. You’re not venin. You’re the artery power chooses to flow through. You’re life.”
Weird. There’s no mark at the back of his neck like he carries on his palm. There hadn’t been one on Dain’s wrist, either.
He kisses me breathless, and for just that second, time doesn’t matter. My heart races, and I wrap my arms around his neck, pouring everything I feel for him into my response. It’s chaotic and desperate and over far too soon.
I force myself to cut off all thoughts of the others and step into the headspace where I am no longer a sister, a friend, or a lover. I exist only as a rider, a weapon.
“So stubborn. It must be killing you, realizing you don’t have every answer, aren’t the solution to every problem.
“Then let us be menaces,”
She has the advantage of being clear of the wyvern’s claws and teeth, but agility has always been her biggest asset, not strength.
We’re down three, but the strength of the squad is in the whole, not the individual.
