Page 168 of Burn of the Everflame

“I think you’ve tasted enough,” I teased, hoping he missed the streak of sadness in my tone. I eagerly tugged down on his pants.

“Diem.” He grabbed my hand. “Wait.”

“Don’t tell me you’re still too much of a Descended snob to take me against a tree,” I joked. His expression hardened, and the fire coursing through my veins turned cold. “Oh.” I blinked. My cheeks flushed. “I see. You don’t want⁠—”

“I’ve never wanted anything more.” His chin dipped. “Do you?”

“Luther, I have wanted you since . . .” I thought of the day he patted me down for weapons, and my face grew a little redder. “Since long before I should have.”

The hint of a smile slipped out from beneath his dark beard, though it didn’t reach his wistful eyes. “But do you want this? Us?”

“I do,” I insisted.

“Will you still want it tomorrow?”

The question landed like a bomb.

“If you need comfort, Diem, I will be that for you. If you want a distraction, I’ll be that, too. I’ll get on my knees right now and make you forget everything that haunts you. I’ll be whatever you need me to be.” Muscles strained on his throat. “But I will not be your regret. Not again.”

His expression bled with the wounds from my torturous push and pull. The mask he’d been wearing to keep his pain out of sight—from everyone, but especially from me—fell away, and the Luther beneath it looked battle-scarred and weary. While I’d been at war with Ophiucae, Luther had been at war with me.

And every war had its casualties.

“You called Sophos a mistake,” he said, his voice so terribly quiet. “I can’t accept that. You could never be a mistake to me.”

“Are you sure?” I asked, my heart teetering on a dangerous cliff. “This war could have some terrible, tragic end. You and I might not get a happily ever after.”

“If I get to be with you in whatever days we have left, I already have mine.”

My forehead sank against his. “There are so many mistakes I regret. But loving you isn’t one of them. I’m done running. From you, and from the future . . . whatever it may hold.”

A troubled look flickered over him at those final words, so I took his face in my hands, and I kissed it away. I kissed away all the hurt I’d caused him, all the rejection and doubt. I kissed him with the promise of my mark—that my heart was his, eternal and unconditional.

He scooped me into his arms and laid me down in a grassy bed of wild-growing bluebells and ivory yarrow. With tender hands, he slid my skirts up over my hips, his touch as soft as a kiss, and he nestled between my thighs. His cock nudged at my entrance, not as a tease but a promise, though I whimpered for it all the same.

“I love you,” I breathed. “I love you. I love you.” I repeated it over and over, knowing he needed to hear it to believe it again.

His arm slid under my back and drew me against him, his other hand cradling my head, fingers twining in my hair. His lips hovered over mine, letting my whispered reassurance fill his lungs and feed his spirit.

“I love you,” I said again. “I never want to let you go.” For once, I was grateful for the incomplete bond, so he could not feel the sorrow cowering beneath my vow.

He held me close, and in one slow shift of his hips, my grief disappeared, replaced by the most exquisite bliss I’d ever felt. It was more than just his rigid fullness or the delicious friction on my attention-starved core. As he seated inside me, something soul-written filled every dark corner with glittering joy. All my worries seemed conquerable, all my burdens took flight. I felt strong and beautiful and brave, convinced there was no challenge I couldn’t overcome with Luther at my side. And though I knew the mating magic was at work, masking my troubles in its euphoric glow, I didn’t care. I didn’t feel broken anymore—I felt perfectly complete.

With our bodies joined, the needs of the bond finally went silent. There was no more burning mark or itching skin, no ceaseless tug to his side. Everything felt right, as if this person, this moment, was the only place I was meant to be. The place I’d always been meant to be.

Luther began to move, thrusting in deep, indulgent strokes. Sex between us had always been closer to a fight, intense and just the right kind of rough—but this night felt different. There was something achingly sweet about the way he kept me caged against his chest, breathing enraptured vows of love in my ear. Every time he withdrew, we both held the other a little tighter, and every time he filled me again, our bodies melted into one. This was not a man marking his territory, but savoring it for the paradise that it was.

The sensation was so overwhelming, I barreled toward release long before I was ready. I gripped hard to his back, tense with irrational panic at the thought of this moment ending and the cruel world reclaiming me for its own. Luther stilled inside me and showered my bruised neck in the lightest of kisses until my passion ebbed and my body relaxed. Then he began again, grinding against my clit until I was breathless and writhing.

We continued like that, moving together among the starlit trees, until at last he worked me into a high I couldn’t come back from. I clung to him and cried out his name, then he worked my quivering body until he thickened inside me, and he cried out mine.

Sweaty, spent, and blissfully at peace, we lay among the wildflowers, and we talked. He held me in his arms while I told him about my time on the island. The shame I’d been harboring slowly transformed to something more like strength as I recounted the hardships I overcame, every dark moment I fought through and survived.

He refused my apology for my cruelty in Fortos, insisting he was grateful for the push to explore his own dreams more deeply. My heart leapt as he talked excitedly of his vision for the council, his attempts to embrace his mortal side, and his hope to help other half-mortals do the same.

We made love again under the silvery embrace of two watchful moons, my sentinel in the sky and Luther’s creation on earth. After, I laid my head on his chest, his heartbeat pulsing through my blood alongside its companion rhythm in my chest. A breeze scented with seawater and spring ruffled my hair, and I felt him smile against my temple.

And for a moment, I saw it.