Page 40 of A Heart of Crimson Flames
Briar
WHEN THE GROUND FINALLY FOUND MY FEET AGAIN, THEchange in climate was a shock. The air was balmy, scented with citrus and jasmine. Warm tiles greeted my feet, and I craned my neck up to see the atrium of a cream- and teal-tiled room. Potted trees billowed in a humid breeze. Bright orange and yellow birds flocked overhead. I dropped my gaze to look around the room, mesmerized as I stared out the windows to endless blue sky beyond.
“Where are we?” I asked as Maez shook off her cloak and hung it on a hook beside a fountain.
“Upper Valta,” she said.
“Valta?” I choked out, my eyes bugging wide. “This seems like the worst place in all of Aotreas to be after you just killed a bunch of their comrades in the snow.”
“Not just me,” she reminded pointedly, and I remembered the soldier whose throat I’d slit.
I stalked to the open doorway—teeming jungle toppled down, down, down a steep cliff and then nothing but open air. The sand was a sea of beige so far below, the warm desert air whooshing up to greet my face. I felt like I was flying and falling all at once, my stomach dipping as if the floating mountain we were on might suddenly plummet.
At the sight of the sheer drop, I reeled backward, my arms wheeling and practically falling to get away from the ledge.
“The Onyx Wolf pack is in tatters,” Maez said. “Half of them were slaughtered the day...”
The day I turned.
I knew it’s what she wanted to say. She rolled up her sleeves and began to wash her hands in the fountain, splashing fresh water on her face.
“Another good chunk of their force was just decimated in Taigos,” Maez continued.Also by her hand. “I don’t know how much of an army they have left at this point. It might just be a few pups and Prince Tadei hanging around.” She shrugged, the V of her black tunic dipping lower. “Valta might be the safest place to be right now.”
I stared out through the open doorway again. “Where in Valta are we?”
“A little remote island floating just past Rikesh,” she said. “There’s no rope bridge here anymore. It was wrecked in a sandstorm a few years ago, and since it only housed this abandoned castle, no one saw the point in rebuilding it.”
“How do you know that?” I asked, watching the beads of fresh water trail down her muscled neck and dip between her cleavage. I cleared my throat.
“It’s amazing what you can learn when you have no need for sleep and the ability to be a shadow in the corner of any room,” she mused, her eyes dipping to take in my body.
It was only then I realized I was naked apart from a rumpled blanket caked in gore. Normally, I wouldn’t have thought twice about being naked in front of my mate, but this predatory gaze—this was someone else entirely.
I shrunk backward, ducking behind one of the leafy trees that had sprung up through the cracks of the abandoned palace. Maez chuckled at my sudden act of modesty.
“You look good in nothing but the blood of your enemies,”she said, taking a deep breath as if scenting the blood on me. “It makes me want to take you right here and now.”
I pressed my thighs together, my cheeks heating. This was not something that should turn me on. But the heat in her eyes promised that I would very much enjoy the way she devoured me. I wondered how different it would be now with her—deft skill with her new edge...
I cleared my throat, shaking the thought from my head. “I just killed someone.”
Her glinting smile widened. “You will see a lot more die if you intend to stay with me.”
“I can’t do that.”
“You can,” she said with a confident nod. “Perhaps you’ll come to enjoy it as much as me. Maybe I need to help you sharpen those claws.”
“No.” My protest wasn’t convincing even to my own ears, but it felt like the thing Ishouldsay.
“Or maybe you just need the right person laid at your feet,” she said, considering.
It made me uneasy to hear her say it. To not only think I was capable of murdering again, but that I would enjoy it. A thought crept up before I could push it away:I bet I would enjoy it, too. The idea had my mind reeling. Where was the line between acts of strength and acts of evil? I wasn’t so certain anymore.
“So no rope bridges,” I said, trying to redirect the conversation away from my swirling thoughts. “I suppose I won’t be running away, then.”
“You should’ve run before,” Maez said. “But if you want out of here, you know you only need to say the word.”
She gave me a choice time and time again and I wondered what madness drove me to pick this one. Why was I able to believe in this fleeting hope that we could find our way back to each other somehow?
