A Kingdom of Flame and Fury (The Four Kingdoms, #1)

by Whitney Dean

I could feel his heartbeat against mine, thundering in the same rhythm — like one heart shared between two and all we’d done was kiss.

And then, her eyes met mine. Flashes flit through my eyes, skating in the depths of my mind. I could see them like they were right in front of me. Me, in lives I’d never lived, with her — laughing, crying, kissing. Together. I knew her.

Until this moment, this second, I hadn’t realized that I had been looking for her my entire life.

I knew my sole purpose in every life was to love her. I regretted spending thirty years of my life never knowing her, finding relief in other women. I couldn’t imagine ever touching someone else again. I wanted all of her, inside and out, only her.

We. He referred to them as one. He was staking claim of her.

Hilarious

“I possess earth, fire, and ice. The very wind that gives you chills on a blustery day is the same one that runs through my veins. I am the elements.”

“Soul mates and twin flames are rare; they’re both destined to be together.”

“Soul mates can be anyone. A friend, a lover, someone you met briefly.” Raven wasn’t anyone. “Twin flames are two halves of one soul. There’s an intense connection that can’t be replicated. There’s pain associated with flames, both people mirroring one another. When you find your twin, you can’t be apart from them without going a little mad.”

“You can,” I promised her. “You will. You and your perfect little body will take it all.”

“Take it, Raven. Show me what you can do.”

“Come back to me.”

“Come back to me,” he whispered, repeating my earlier plea.

“What did you say to her?” A hesitant smile. “That I belonged to you.”

When he broke our kiss, it was only to whisper against my lips, “We taste so fucking good together.”

But she couldn’t anticipate that I would fall in love with her and find my flame that burned through every universe.

My anguished love. I would have to break your heart.

Please don’t fall in love with him, I pleaded with her. Please forgive me for the hell I would unleash on your soul.

I needed to start while I had her because soon, I’d have to sneak around to see her. Dream with me, my love.

If I couldn’t show her that I loved her in reality, I could show her in our dreams.

Some villains were born, but I would be made. I would be her devil to keep her protected. “I love you,” I whispered against her hair.

He was the most beautiful man. And he felt like mine. He was like the moon fighting against the sun. Shadows stuck to him — shadows I wanted to cloak myself in.

He lifted his head from my shoulder to find my eyes, but he pressed his lips against mine when I closed them. “Stay with me,” he begged, his voice a broken whisper.

I felt a heavy absence. Like every time he left, he took a piece of me with him.

He wanted to drink my darkness. I wanted to drown in his.

“Beg me, Raven,” he repeated against my mouth. “Tell me how much you want me.”

We’d unlocked something in each other. Something sinister.

“Come back to me,” he whispered, sincerity dripping from his voice. I nearly broke.

“Raven,” he whispered. “You are everything.”

He groaned from the pain, but it was nothing compared to how he was tearing apart my insides and heart. He was hungry for me. I was ravenous for him.

“You can keep us here, can’t you?” He nodded slowly. “Stay with me,” I whispered, kissing him again.

“I saw you dying, Raven. And then in the spring… you weren’t coming back up. I realized then that if you died, I wanted to die, too. I don’t want to live a life without you.”

“After this is all over, Raven… I’m going to demand that you spend your life with me.”

Marriage. Marriage to Cade. Proposal. I felt overwhelmed. We had only been together for a couple of weeks, and now he wanted to marry me. Nausea rolled over me, but it had to be from nerves.

“You have to get her away from him, Zeke. Or he’s going to bury her.”

I realized that Raven was too good for any of us. None of us deserved her.

As I was about to throw her, she asked why I didn’t love her, and everything inside of me, all the walls I’d built to keep from breaking, did. I worried she’d never be able to understand.

Before magic was banned or destroyed, finding your flame or mate was considered a sign of goodwill from the gods. It meant you were blessed and in Aphrodite’s favor.

But when I got to the part about feeling like you’d know your flame from past lives, it only further confirmed that Raven was mine.

“Tell me, baby. Do you scream for him like you screamed for me?”

“Do you love him as you love me?” he asked quietly and painfully. His entire demeanor had changed — it was no longer the threatening but the broken one I fell in love with.

“You starved my heart for too long, and it had to learn to feed from another.”

Cade called my name, but I couldn’t answer. I was frozen to the wall with want, hate, and soul-shattering love. And all I wanted to do was die. My body immediately missed his when he released me. Our heartbeats matched.

He wanted to make his mark. Reclaim me. Now he was the last one to kiss me. Cade was erased. All the time we’d spent trying to purge him from my body was gone. He lived in my very bones again; my body was raw.

I could sense her contempt, but she still radiated so much love. I underestimated her heart.

My world froze. Sounds died out. He was the only one in the room with me, stealing my air.

Zeke looked at me but was again only talking to Cade. “How does it feel, Cade? To know you had to beg to kiss her, but she was begging me to fuck her?” Zeke uncrossed his ankles, his fingers wrapping around the table’s edge. “To know she’s done nothing but think about me since I left? It only took me a matter of days. It’s taken you fifteen years.”

“I need you to know that I will never love another the way I love you. I will never love another, ever. I need you to know….” he trailed off, his voice hoarse now, “That you are the very blood that runs through my veins. You are every breath, every whisper. Every dream, every nightmare. The ghost of you will forever haunt me. The ghost of what could be.”

Too many men surrounded me, and I wondered if that was why I always had headaches.

“This is about more than sex, Raven. I feel like I need to touch you to breathe.”

This was more than a kiss. It was oxygen. It was life. It was strings of a harp, creating a melody just for us. It was beautiful and heartbreaking, and everything.