I did my damndest not to let my lies bleed through and allowed my heart to swell with my unspoken emotion. I let it touch my eyes and gentle my voice.
“The night will always be a safe haven for the stars.”
He pinched my chin, tilting my face up, and kissed me in front of everyone.
“For all the days I breathe, and every silence after,” he declared against my lips.
I viciously blinked away the incoming ache.
Ronen pulled back, surveying my face as if he felt the sharp stab I tried to hide.
Before he could ask the question furrowing his brow, a large thump vibrated through the ground. It sent a shockwave of reality up my spine, calling to my Infernus and Glory. They itched and danced beneath my skin, and violence sang in my ears.
We both turned.
The last line of towering trees slowly shriveled.
The Eternal Forest was gone—the graveyard desecrated.
Lucifer stepped into view, Ridigar at his side, and behind them a line of dark destruction.
There had to be at least fifty Spinewalkers that I could see.
“Leave my father to me,” I ordered Aspen and Ronen.
They both stiffened, and Ronen’s worry shot through ourbond.
“He’s not your father anymore, Hellion.”
I lifted my chin. “But he was. And Oliver’s my best friend.”
Nothing would sway me. Nothing would stop me from doing what I was born to do.
They saw the steel in my spine and conceded.
Lucifer grinned, Melanie slipping through the cracks of the façade. She wanted me as badly as I wanted her.
I never told our military about the threat waiting beyond the gates. I couldn’t risk the possibility that Melanie knew we knew. ThatI knew.
Use what she wants against her.
Lucifer raised his arms, and his eyes flashed. A winter storm erupted around him, his smile vanishing behind a sheet of white. Ice and snow swallowed them whole. Hidden.
I stepped closer to Aspen, the guardian bond humming with urgency. A line of lighting split the clouded sky, Alexei signaling to our flying archers.
Then the storm surged toward us.
Ice shards glinted in the whipping wind, whistling as they flew. I unleashed my Glory, the white flames colliding with blue and black shadows. Our barrier stopped the storm cold.
Too easy.
It wasn’t an attack.
It was a distraction.
Thousands of infected luscelered into our barrier, sacrificing themselves. But why…
Our flames shuddered. Ronen’s shadows lightened. Sweat beaded on my forehead as I shoved more heat into my flames, about to pull on my Infernus.
