Page 67 of A Flame of the Phoenix

“Nik gave me this… We’re both hoping it can enhance my healing magick enough to give you more time or maybe even heal you.”

He blinked at the bottle of Phoenix Blood.

“He really gave that up for me?” he asked, stunned the bastard would hand over such a rare thing.

“You may bicker like children, but so do brothers.”

Tarly scoffed a humorless laugh. Nerida didn’t know their history. He was sure if Nik heard her say that, he’d claim his precious Phoenix Blood right back. It had to be by the insistence of Nerida or one of the others that he’d even thought to give it over.

When the shock of seeing the potion settled and the new prospect dawned on him, Tarly was afraid to believe it could work.

He was afraid…because hewantedto live.

Nerida had made him want what once felt impossible to desire in this cold world.

And he wanted to hate her for it. For making him fear death after the decades he’d spent making peace with it.

She uncorked the bottle. but Tarly caught her wrist before the vial reached her lips. Nerida held his eyes with question, and he didn’t know what overcame him. Next thing he knew, his hand was slipping across her jaw and his lips were crashing tohers in a single deep kiss. That was all he intended, until their mouths were moving and heat was gathering. Until the stunning angel in front of him was now straddled over him, and nothing had ever wrapped so perfectly in his arms.

Their kiss slowed, and his hands, which had slipped under her winter cloak, traced down her spine.

“What was that for?” she asked, delightfully breathless against his mouth.

“I don’t know,” he said.

He didn’t know what was between them, only that he didn’t want it to end. He wanted to keep her, though he couldn’t. He was being selfish in letting her get close to him with his days on an uncertain countdown.

“Will you let me take this now?” she said with light amusement, still holding the Phoenix Blood.

Tarly gritted his teeth against his protest. “It can’t possibly harm you, can it?”

Nerida smiled teasingly. “Such a worrier.”

She tipped the contents into her mouth without confirmation, and his heart skipped. Before he could panic, Nerida discarded the bottle, swallowing the contents, then her mouth was on his again.

When her tongue swept against his and he tasted the metallic sweetness of the potion, Tarly gasped at the foreign burst of energy within him. Though faint, he’d never believed any magick lived within him despite Nerida once claiming he had a kernel of healing magick—what must be responsible for keeping him alive for so long after the bite. Now he thought he felt a touch of that magick. Not enough to truly use it for anything, but it brought him closer to Nerida and reminded him of his mother from her passion for healing.

Nerida broke the quick kiss abruptly and shifted off his lap to kneel beside him. He could hear the quick, hard tempo of herheart as she stared over his gray skin and his wound with hard determination.

“What does it feel like?” he asked carefully, not wanting to disturb her focus.

She inhaled deeply, and he thought her hazel eyes swirled with a new brightness.

“I feel…powerful.”

Her hand rose to his skin, and Tarly held his breath when the blue glow of her healing magick cast from her palms. He studied her focused expression, her brown skin beautifully highlighted by the magick she wielded.

He gritted his teeth, feeling her at work through his blood. It always became a vibrating intrusion under his skin. Seconds ticked by, and he didn’t feel anything different to what he’d experienced many times with her attempts to slow the spreading poison or search for a way to retract it.

The hope he’d let warm him started to chill the longer she tried, and he felt nothing.

“This isn’t right,” Nerida said in frustration.

Tarly’s eyes closed. More than his own disappointment, he hated hers.

“It’s not an ordinary wound or illness,” he said. “So you can stop pretending it can be cured like one.”

Tarly reached for his shirt and pulled it over his head.

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