Page 85 of A Tribute of Fire

“Yes.”

“And won.” Zalira nodded with satisfaction, like she was proud of me.

“Wasn’t there another maiden?” Io looked at me sympathetically, as if she somehow already knew that this would be the hardest question for me.

To my horror, tears began to spill down my face. I did my best to get myself under control, but I couldn’t. “My best friend. My sister. Quynh. She sacrificed herself so that I could live.”

Those words knocked down a wall inside me, letting all my sorrow and heartache pour out. Great heaving sobs racked my body and I crossed my arms over my chest, like I could stop it from happening.

My throat ached, my chest burned, my heart broke.

The pain was nearly unbearable.

Io got to me first and wrapped her arms around me. “Sometimes it has to hurt before it can heal,” she said.

I felt more arms until all my adelphia stood in a circle around me, protecting me as I cried my pain and anger out.

And while I wanted to blame the wine, I knew that wasn’t the reason that I could finally cry.

It was because for the first time since I’d stepped foot onto theNikos, I felt safe.

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

I was asleep until I felt a large, warm hand on my shoulder, turning me over. I reached under my pillow, my fingers wrapping around the handle of my sword. My eyes flew open as I brought my weapon up.

“Jason?” I asked, shocked, my voice still sleepy.

“Did you miss me?” he asked, his voice low and intoxicating. He took my xiphos from me in one swift, easy movement, letting it fall to the floor. His gaze was on mine and it was somehow both lazy and predatory, making me shiver in response.

“You can’t be here,” I hissed at him, but he just smiled, and somehow my concern and anger instantly faded away.

“You’re the one in my bedroom,” he said, and I sat up to look around.

He was right. We were not in the room I now shared with four other people, but how had I come to be in Jason’s bedroom? I didn’t know where he lived.

Before I could ask, he leaned down and his mouth was on mine, urgent and needy, and I immediately melted into his kiss. His feverish passion pulsed through my body so that even my toes were aching with want.

He parted my lips with his so that his kiss was all I could taste, all I could feel, all I could think about. He set a smooth, insistent, fieryrhythm that had me gasping against him, reaching up to pull him down to me.

With a low growl of pleasure, he broke off the kiss and I softly protested. He knelt on the floor in front of me, grabbing the backs of my knees and pulling me against him, hard. I wrapped my legs around him, trapping him right where I wanted him.

He knotted his fingers in my hair. “So beautiful, so soft,” he whispered against my mouth before capturing it again, sweeping me into the undertow of his desperate fervor.

His kisses burned my lips, branding them like hot coals.

Lightning flashed outside his window, but there was a bolt of lightning living inside me. The energy of it crackled, and every nerve ending inside me felt alive, sparking with heat. It overwhelmed my heart, making it pulse unevenly in my chest.

I was flushed with a thick and heavy desire that dulled my ability to think. His clever fingers ran up and down my bare calves, sending waves of heat skating across my skin. The butterflies I’d seen in the flower garden had now taken up residence in my stomach, and their wings fluttered and flapped, hollowing me out.

I wanted him so much.

His lips moved from my mouth to the column of my throat and I let out a sigh of pleasure.

“Why won’t you give in?” he asked, and the desire in his voice burned a destructive path through me, intent on getting me to surrender.

“I took a vow.”

“Vows are made to be broken,” he said, and I shook my head hard. No.

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