It simply glides, smooth and effortless, across the Broken Plains. A luxury barge cutting through shadow.
The seat beneath me is plush black leather, stitched with gold thread.
It's wide enough for two, but I sit a little too close to the edge, trying not to take up space.
The leather warms beneath my thighs, like it's enchanted to match body temperature, and smells faintly of firewood and something richer—amber and spice.
I glance at the windows—if you can call them that.
They look like crystal, but no crystal I’ve ever seen.
Giant panes stretch from floor to ceiling, seamlessly curved into the walls so there’s nothing to interrupt the view.
No seams. No frames. Just endless, unobstructed sky and scorched land rolling past, streaked with rivers of fire and glowing magma veins that snake through cracked earth like molten lifelines.
“How do you find your new home, milady?” Thorne asks.
His voice is low, rough silk over flame.
The kind of voice that slides beneath your skin and stays there.
And I know immediately—the question matters.
I look up.
He’s watching me.
He’s always watching me.
Even now, after the claiming, after the bond has been sealed and his mark still pulses faintly on the side of my neck, warm and comforting—he watches me like I’m some puzzle he’s only just been allowed to touch.
God, he’s so out of my league.
Massive. Inhumanly beautiful. Made of shadows and fire, and a ruthless, terrible power.
And yet—he stares at me like I’m the one that glows.
“It’s amazing,” I answer honestly, voice barely above a whisper.
A flicker. Just the tiniest one—but I see it.
Pride.
And something else.
Pleasure?
Is he happy I like his homeland?
That thought shouldn’t make my stomach flip the way it does. But it does.
A low curl of heat rises inside me, unexpected and completely inappropriate. I press my thighs together and offer a small smile before I can stop myself.
“Does everywhere in Nightfall look like this?” I ask quickly, hoping to redirect my thoughts before they spiral further into nonsense. Because that’s what it is.
Nonsense.
I mean, sure—he claimed me.
