The Six Deaths of the Saint (Into Shadow, #3)

by Alix E. Harrow

Gwynne did not answer. He pulled you down beside him in the tall grass and touched you in that heady, secret way that transformed the brutal weapon of your body into mere flesh. It was like shucking plate armor after a long campaign and walking naked into a river, letting the current take you. It was like surrendering on the field and finding mercy.

Gwynne’s voice cut through yours, his brow still resting heavily on your forehead. “I would rather love a coward than mourn a legend.”

I understand that I have made my life a work of bloody alchemy, transforming a child into a devil into a saint, a kingdom into an empire, a prince into a god. That I have lived and killed and lived again in the name of a man who does not deserve it because I wanted so badly to be beloved. But only one person in all my lives has ever loved me, and he does not wear a crown.

I am no berserker; I have never fought for fury or bloodlust. But for the first time, I imagine how it would feel. To unhitch my reason, to unleash the terrible animal of my body, which has spent centuries learning nothing but violence.

I know his desires by the pace of his breath and the tilt of his shoulders, by the shape of his jaw and the heat of his gaze. I know him, and in knowing him I love him, and in loving him I cannot do as he wishes.