The Songbird & the Heart of Stone (Crowns of Nyaxia, #3)

by Carissa Broadbent

He didn’t seem like the type who went to his knees easily, goddess or no.

Oraya and Raihn were on the balcony, but they weren’t looking at me anymore. They were standing nose to nose, laughing softly at words meant only for each other. She looked at him like he was a question answered. He looked at her like she was the only one worth asking.

“We all have ghosts in our pasts, Iliae. We can’t give them the power to define our futures, too.”

And there was nothing more dangerous than a sin that felt right. Nothing.

“It is an injustice, Mische, that this is what you got when you asked for love,” he murmured. “This isn’t what love should feel like.”

I wanted it like I wanted the sun. No—like I wanted blood.

“I won’t let you die here because you’re too ashamed to live, Mische,” he said. “You are so much more than this. And it would be a waste to throw all that magnificence away—for what? Because the sun told you to hate yourself? No. I won’t allow that.” I won’t allow that. So simple. I appreciated that about Asar. He liked to set wrong things right.

To be a vampire was to be only a few steps away from an animal, driven by carnal hungers. I’d let mine out of the cage tonight.

“I do not even need to haunt you, lover,” her voice echoed. “I am the least of your ghosts. Let them consume you.” The last thing I heard was Asar’s shout. The last thing I saw was Ophelia’s face, tear-streaked, as she dragged me down.

The space between us was an executioner’s blade—thin as a hair’s breadth, and yet, the difference of an eternal soul. The lush curve of Asar’s mouth twisted. The muscles of his throat flexed. He started to pull away. But my hands fell to his shoulders. I traced the muscular lines of them, to his throat, his chin. I was so sick of wanting. This isn’t what love should feel like. “Show me what it should feel like,” I whispered. The blade fell. My sentence was written. We crashed together into beautiful damnation.

“Do not be afraid of death, Dawndrinker. Make death afraid of you.”

“Welcome to the underworld,” Vincent, dead King of the Nightborn, said to me. “I hear we have some work to do.”

HOLY FUCKING SHIT