Page 276 of Burn of the Everflame

“Trying to work up the courage to ask her to dance?” Taran teased, sauntering up with a foamy pint of honey-gold liquid. “Or is watching her what gets you off?”

Against my will, a far different, far happier memory surfaced—of me stroking my cock as I watched a naked, soapy Diem touch herself in a Sophos washroom. Instantly, I was hard, my body hungry from days of holding back. Diem and I hadn’t been intimate since she’d returned. I’d wanted to bury myself inside her the second we were alone, but that night and every night since, she’d curled up in my arms and asked me to hold her instead. Though I was sharing her bedroll, it felt like something still lay between us.

“I thought you weren’t drinking,” I said, nodding at Taran’s ale.

“I’m not. This is for you.” He shoved it in my hand. “It’s my mating day. You can’t say n⁠—”

“No.”

I tried to shove it back, but he jumped away and hid his hands, refusing to take it. “Come on, Lu. We’re in the middle of war. You just cut off the head of the enemy. The girl you love is standing right there looking like she needs a good fuck. What better reasons to pull the royal scepter out of your ass and have a little fun?”

Although those were the exact reasons I shouldn’t be drinking, I felt guilty that Taran’s mating ceremony had been marred by so much conflict, instead of the mating day he’d always dreamed of, where the two of us abandoned our worries for at least one night.

I grudgingly took a long swig, and Taran flashed a victorious smirk. “Zal said if I can get you drunk enough to sing, he’ll do this thing I like where he puts my dick in⁠—”

I cleared my throat. “That won’t be happening. The singing part, at least. The rest is up to your mate.”

Despite my refusal, Taran beamed. “My mate,” he echoed, trying the label on, testing it out. “My mate.”

I raised the pint in toast. “A completed bond. How does it feel?”

His eyes wandered to Zalaric, who had apparently partaken in all the alcohol Taran hadn’t. He was completely naked, wearing only his mating mark and a radiant smile, and twirling in circles with a group of half-mortals who’d worked in his Umbros inn.

Taran sighed happily. “Like I finally have a home where I feel safe.”

My heart twisted. “I’m sorry you never had that before.”

“Yeah, well . . . neither did you.” He pointed a thumb at my father, who was mingling with a group of Benettes. “Saw you two talking earlier. Did you kiss and make up?”

I took another drink in lieu of an answer. I’d thrown every wrong I could remember back at my father, and he’d had an explanation for every one. They were not always noble, nor persuasive, but as far as I could tell, none were lies. I still wasn’t sure what to make of it. I wasn’t like Taran, secretly pining for a reconciliation with the family who’d hurt me. I had vowed to hate my father the day I watched his magic rip my mother apart, and I’d never looked back. I already had all the family I needed in Lily, Alixe, Eleanor, Taran—and now Zalaric.

Maybe someday in Diem, Auralie, and Teller, too.

As for my father . . . he wasn’t in a grave or a dungeon. That was the best I could offer him for now.

“What about you and Aemonn?” I said. “Planning a playdate yet?”

Taran barked a laugh, though I saw him tense and his eyes dart to my glass. In the past, any discussion of his brother would send him straight to the bottom of a drink. I wished he knew just how proud it made me to watch him stare down the ale, then look away.

“You ever wonder who we’d be if our lives hadn’t been so fucked up?” he asked. “You think we still would have been friends?”

Unlikely, I thought. Even before my mother’s death, I’d been a quiet, serious child, far from the lively personalities Taran usually sought out. We’d only come together because we both needed something we thought we’d lost: for Taran, a family; for me, someone I could protect.

“Of course we would,” I lied.

“Yeah. I don’t think so, either.” He crossed his arms and gazed out over the garden and the surrounding camps. “I wouldn’t have met Zalaric.”

“I might never have met Diem.” I knew as soon as the words were out, they weren’t true. I would have found her in any world, in any life.

“Yes, you would. But she might not have liked you. If our lives had been as good as they were supposed to be, maybe she’d be raising an army against us.”

I wanted to deny it, but I feared he might be right. All the Descended who’d joined Diem’s cause had their own reasons for feeling left behind. To those who the system kept privileged and happy, its injustice was, at worst, a tolerable side effect of a greater, more valuable cure. Even those whose hearts were pure—Lily, Eleanor—had accepted it, either to keep the peace or believing nothing could change it. Only those of us who wore its scars had been driven to action. If that’s what it took, then for once in my life, I was grateful for mine.

“Speaking of enemies,” Taran muttered, staring at the new tents being erected for the Centenaries.

I grunted my displeasure, and Taran grunted his back. Alixe had tried to move them into camp discreetly, but their arrival was already the talk of the reception.

“You think Diem was right to let them stay?” he asked.