Page 280 of Burn of the Everflame

But this Diem, the one I’d been learning, the one I was finally beginning to understand—the one I loved not a single heartbeat less—simply stared at me. Empty.

“Do you know what your mother told Lily?” I raised my chin into a stubborn jut and pulled my shoulders back, infusing my voice with my best Mortal City accent. “Healing is not about what the healer deserves, Lilian. The question is: What does the patient deserve?” I arched a brow. “How’s my Auralie impression?”

I could have slayed Ophiucae and his gryvern with my bare hands, and I wouldn’t have felt as proud as I did of the tiny smile Diem cracked.

“Frighteningly accurate,” she said. “I think my mother’s growing on you.”

“She is,” I admitted. Sorae thumped onto the soil, and I tugged Diem toward her. “I think she feels guilty for accusing me of wanting to do vile, unspeakable things. She’s a surprisingly good listener when she’s not threatening me and bossing me around. I might have known that if I hadn’t spent so many years doing the same to her.” I took Diem by the waist, lifting her onto Sorae’s back. “Let’s hope she never finds out the truth.”

“What truth?” Diem asked.

My hands burrowed beneath her skirts, skating up her bare legs and gripping the warm flesh of her upper thigh. “When it comes to you, I absolutely want to do vile, unspeakable things.”

Red flushed her cheeks. I smiled smugly as I walked to Sorae’s ear and whispered my request, which she accepted with a blue-flamed snort, then I mounted behind Diem. I looped an arm around her waist and pulled her hips hard against mine. Her soft noise of surprise went straight to my cock, leaving me picturing the other things I could do to elicit that sound again. One hand slid up her ribs and over her breast, palming its swell.

“Luther,” she protested, though she arched against me.

My shadows skated up the long lines of her throat and gathered like a blindfold over her eyes. “Remember what happened the last time I surprised you like this?” I murmured in her ear. “Can you trust me that way again?”

Her answer didn’t matter. I was following through on my plan, even if I had to throw her over my shoulder and drag her there to do it.

But I did so love it when she chose to obey.

“Tell Sorae to fly,” I ordered.

“Fly where?”

“She already knows. Give the order, Diem.” My fingers tightened on her hip. “Then I’m the one in charge.”

“Fly,” she breathed.

Sorae’s wings slammed down, and we took flight into the midnight sky. “That’s my girl,” I said proudly as I held her against me.

“Where are we going?” she asked.

I smiled to myself.

“Home.”

62

DIEM

Even with my vision obscured by Luther’s shadows, I knew where we were. The moment my lungs filled with the scent of sweet pine and damp, earthy moss, cut by the crisp brine of a seaborne wind, a tension I’d been holding on to for weeks, or months—almost a year, if I was really counting—instantly unspooled. In this beloved forest I’d grown up in, the worries of the world felt fenced off, waiting at the gate with gnashing teeth but unable to reach me as long as I stayed right here. It felt like some cosmic riddle finally found its answer. It felt the way Luther’s skin felt against mine.

Home.

Just as he’d promised.

The forest was loud with the chirps and croaks of a cool summer night. I’d spent thousands of evenings sitting outside on our family’s front stoop, listening to their song. When my feet hit the soft, peaty soil, their calls grew louder, as if to welcome me back. Why did you leave? they seemed to ask. Don’t you know this is where you’re meant to be?

Sorae nudged my palm with a whine. Though we no longer shared emotions through a bond, I was sure she understood my conflicted feelings. She’d been here the day my father died, and she’d felt my pain firsthand in the weeks after.

Luther gave her an order to leave, and she sniffed a resistant response. “The best way to help Diem tonight is to be her eyes on the south,” he told her.

Her scales brushed against my hand one last time, then her wings ruffled and faded into the distance. He was right, as usual—knowing Sorae was watching for Vance and his men from the sky was the only thing keeping me from running to the border and doing the same thing myself.

He took me by the shoulders and guided me forward. “You know where we are?”