Page 32 of Fire Kissed
But they’re true.
“Hey, we have to go. One last portal leap over here,” Torben calls back to us before she can say whatever confused words are clearly stuck in her throat.
“Come on.” Her hand is gentle in mine. It feels delicate and breakable suddenly.
I don’t want to let it go.
And so I don’t.
I allow myself to touch her for a little longer one last time. I guide her forward to the edge of the cliff that will lead us back to the woman who will end everything for us all. I’ll protect her one last time too.
I’ll give everything I have for her.
The look in her eyes alone nearly breaks me as I stare into those stormy, blue eyes. I pull her close with both hands held between us. I just didn’t expect to see the dampness shine in her gaze.
I want to pull her close as I fall over the edge.
She just beats me to it.
She jerks my hands forward until my chest is against hers, her chin tipped up high to give me the fullness of her glare. Confusion clashes within me to see the anger in her pretty face.
“You don’t get to decide who’s my person, Latham. If I want Aric,” she throws her attention at the startled and bewildered dragon shifter, “I’ll take him.”
A strange smile breaks across his stupid face.
“Well shit, Love, I’m flattered.”
“If I want Torben,” she shrugs, “I’ll have him too.”
Her soft lips ghost over mine.
“But don’t ever tell me that you’re wrong for me.”
The softest kiss presses to my lips, and every ounce of anxiety within me rushes out like a bolt of lightning finding its source.
And then she throws us over the edge.
And we spiral into the whipping wind, falling up into the realm of Hell once more.
Freefall
Rhys
I’m still holdinghim against my chest when I land on staggering feet in a cavernous, dim room. His dark eyebrows shadow his bright eyes, but he never looks away from me as he searches my face as if to really believe what I told him.
I want him. I do. I have no idea how it’ll end for the four of us together, but right now, it doesn’t matter. The four of us together is the only thing in my entire life that feels right.
And I won’t let that go.
“How very kind of you to join us again,” a cruel, cryptic voice says. Her words scurry up the tall walls, crawling all around me until a shiver races down my arms.
Just as two more men free fall from a source of magic hidden in the jagged, rocky ceiling above, my head turns, and there she is, seated casually on a stone throne.
Two thrones sit near the back wall, not quite touching the rocky backdrop that shimmers mysteriously behind them. Even the setting around them is emphasized in a manner of beautiful darkness. King Mordon sits watchfully at her side. And kneeling at his feet is my mother.
Big blue eyes flick up to look at me before gazing back down at the floor like a beaten dog. Her hands rest flat on her upper thighs, her spine as straight as a Queen’s. Or a God’s.A Goddess of Love.
I leapt through that portal so recklessly because I knew even though I’d face Hela again, I’d see my mother. I’d know she was safe for another day.
