Lord of Embers (The Demon Queen Trials, #2)

by C.N. Crawford

“I’m going to have to decline that invitation, Congressman Corwin. I’m trying to cut down on the amount of time I spend being kidnapped and prodded with knives.”

There was no doubt in my mind that he was my father. I felt a lump in my throat as I read the name below the portrait: Duke Moloch.

Dark eyes like ours. If you took Duke Moloch here, gave him blond hair… Yeah, he’d look a lot like King Cambriel. Had my dad knocked up Cambriel’s mom?

A Swindler king, a golden ring to keep his heart alive. Take the ring, fell the king. The city yet will thrive.

Another slow step closer. “But do you know what I love?” he murmured. “Let me guess,” I shot back. “Yourself? Reading smut. Being a big scary incubus with snake tattoos?”

“Guess what, Orion? You’re not the only one with a dead family, but you’re the only one using it as a license to be an absolute twat.”

Rowan was different. Even if I knew they were the same person, it was hard to think of them as the same. When she was around, embers smoldered to life in my chest for the first time in centuries, and I felt alive. I hadn’t woken with a feeling of dread and known she was here. I’d had a feeling of warmth in my chest, dead charcoal sparking. Without Rowan, my world was cold, silent.

oath to the dead, I was going along with her plan. She’d incinerated my own thoughts the first time I’d kissed her—back when we were supposed to be pretending, in the Temple of Ishtar. And now my mind wasn’t my own anymore. She’d become my obsession.

I touched down, then turned to look up at her, my beautiful nemesis.

“Because anxiety is spending all your time imagining terrible situations that might occur,” I replied. “Whatever is happening right now isn’t a million times different than the apocalyptic scenarios I usually envision. Every night, I go to sleep thinking of the sun exploding tomorrow because the scientists have got the calculations wrong. So this isn’t as bad as that.”

“What?” I asked. “How is it you can talk so much and clarify so little? It’s like the world’s shittiest superpower.”

“I can’t stand you,” I said through labored breaths. My pride made me say it, since I knew how he felt about me. “The feeling is mutual,” he whispered against my neck, “but I will die if I don’t kiss you.”

“What do you do when you have nightmares now?” “Now, love, I am the nightmare.”

It kind of sounded like Goody Putnam had been wandering around the sex forest, hoping for a rut with the devil, but she was too weird, even for him.

Rowan walked ahead of me, shivering, which against all reason made me want to pull her close. I had a coat on, and she did not. But I never felt the cold anymore.

I could tell myself she was my enemy, my rival, but my body had other designs. My body had decided she was mine, and that we belonged together.

And I can never, ever stop thinking about you.”

“Are you going to admit I’m your queen?” “No, love, because you’re my worst enemy,” he whispered, “but this I will admit. I can’t stop thinking about you, and I never will.”

What if, when something so devastating happened, it left an imprint on the world? What if horror lingered forever—like Pompeii’s victims, eternally contorted in their final moments, tormented tragedies perpetually encased in stone?

Aria, I fear my time here is running out. The false prince, my disloyal son, is impervious to my threats to allow us to return. He does not know of our beloved creation, Rowan. I have spoken with the Dying God. He confirmed our fears. If the Lord of Chaos succeeds, the mortal realm will burn. Only Mortana’s ka can reign. Only the third Lightbringer can restore us. I will return to you as soon as I can. —Moloch