Fearless (The Powerless Trilogy, #3)

by Lauren Roberts

There are very few reasons for a meeting between two cloaked figures in the dead of night. Unsurprisingly, the list is as short as it is unseemly. For some, it is love. For most, it is lust. Lust for money. Lust for purpose. Lust for revenge. But in some cases, it is love that first spurs these lusts. Or rather, the loss of it. Though these odd contradictories are rare, they are consistently tragic.

An Ordinary who somehow survived their Purging Trials, committed treason, killed their king, and is still standing here before them, alive against all odds.

Damn the pretending. Damn the hiding. Damn everything but him and us and this moment where I need him.

“And if we wish for our great kingdom to remain, we will welcome Ordinaries back into it.”

I thought I’d known torment until it wrapped around her finger. No, torment is tangible, and it gleams atop her tanned skin. I stare, unblinking, at the symbol my brother slid onto her finger. It is binding. It is infinite. It is my undoing. A laugh threatens to slip past my numb lips. It’s not as though she hadn’t promised to be my ruin, hadn’t already become my demise. She is the single most destructive thing I have ever desired, and yet, it is the diamond on her finger that will destroy me.

In love with a girl I’d have bowed to long before she became my queen.

I’ve been nothing but willing when it comes to drowning in those ocean eyes. But now, I can’t fathom drowning if she is not the anchor I’m sinking with.

I would spend the rest of my days making her flower crowns if she wanted to be a queen. My queen. Not Kitt’s. Not Ilya’s. Mine.

It was her I was meant to adore in this world and crawl to in the one after.

“You’re not supposed to touch me at all.” “But you could command me to,” I drawl. “Then I’d simply be following an order.”

“So bow at my feet with a sneer, if you must. I won’t see it with your face to the ground.”

“Most people are shocked. Then again, most people don’t realize there is more to life than power.” My scoff is weak. “Is there?” She tilts her head, the mannerism so like her dark-haired cousin. “I figured you of all people would understand that.” I shake my head, smile sad. “For you, there is more to life than power. That is because you have it.” My eyes drift up the walls while her own remain pinned on me. “But for me… my life has always been about power. And trying to survive without it.”

a good way to say bye until I see my A next.