What Blooms From Death (What Blooms From Death, #1)

by S.M. Gaither

“I’m tired of fighting with you, Nova. I want you. More than I should, more than makes sense, more than any godsdamn sword or kingdom or anything else.” “That doesn’t change the fact that we’re on two separate sides of a war. I don’t see how we both win—” “I don’t care about winning.” His lips crashed against mine, pressing so completely they sealed away any chance of properly breathing. I was dizzy when he finally pulled away and whispered, “I concede defeat.”

“Do you even know how to beg, Light King?” I murmured against him. He laughed softly. “For you, I would manage it.”

“Lift your hips for me, Chaos.”

“There is nothing tragic about the fact that I met you here in this world,” he said, taking my face in his hands. “Or about the way I feel when I kiss you, or when your body curves next to mine when we sleep. Nothing I could possibly regret about the way I find calm in your chaos and solace in your shadows, and if we end up ripped apart and ruined, it will still have been worth it all.” He gripped me tighter and bowed his head against mine, as if in prayer. “And so no—no, I don’t consider us a tragedy. At all.”

“Oh, Chaos.” He spun me around, pulling me flush against his bare chest. His fingers snaked along my throat and then higher, gripping my jaw, tilting my face so his mouth brushed my ear as he said, “The pleading is unnecessary. Because it will be a privilege to fuck you into a state of oblivion.”