Page 74 of A Heart of Crimson Flames
I frantically unbuckled his belt, freeing his already hardening cock. There would be no slow lovemaking. We may never haveall the time in the world again. But if the world was going to end, then I needed the love of my life to fuck me one last time before it all came undone.
I positioned him at my entrance as my mouth collided with his. He pushed into my wet core, letting out a groan as he filled me to the hilt. He licked into my mouth, his tongue battling mine as he started moving inside me.
“I love you, Sadie,” he said, his proclamation dying on a groan.
“I love you,” I cried out, angling my hips for him to take me deeper.
He fucked me hard, driving me into the loamy earth with each brutal thrust. I was lost to the frenzy and sensation as he gave me everything I so desperately needed. My sounds spurred him on. Feral, he took me with wild abandon. My orgasm roared through me, catching me suddenly. My clenching inner walls pulled Navin over the edge, and he started spilling inside me. I clamped around him, milking his release, as we came just as fast and rough as we started.
My lips found his as I took deep sips of air.
“We will survive this,” I murmured against his mouth. He didn’t reply and I pulled my head back to meet his eyes. “Wewillsurvive this,” I repeated, finding strength in all the ways we joined, body, mind, soul. I would be his lighthouse in this storm. “We will win.”
Briar
I WAS MEANT TO BE HERE. IT WAS THE ONLY THOUGHT THATkept me moving forward. I wouldn’t stall long enough to be afraid.
We crept forward through the nighttime forest, all in our human forms so the Silver Wolves wouldn’t catch our scent. Just as Calla had suspected, the Wolves weren’t running through the forest so close to the full moon. They were saving their shift for the holiest of nights. Maybe it was part of a sadistic tradition, maybe it was to heighten the pleasure of the change, although now I was beginning to suspect it was yet another way that kings controlled their packs, just another arbitrary rule to keep us in line.
I kept looking up at the sky, checking to see if the moon was directly overhead. But I’d be lying to say I wasn’t checking the sky for those glittering emerald stars as well. I couldn’t seem to let it go, my eyes playing tricks in my periphery. I swore I saw flickers of that brilliant green light.
With each passing hour, I hoped more and more that Maez would change her mind, that I would see her violent lightning streak across the sky. But hour after hour, she didn’t come. It was the most wicked thing she’d done, more than killing even: letting the ghosts of her past be more important than the love of her present.
But if Maez wouldn’t avenge herself, then I would do it for her. Fighter or no, a promise rose up in me like its own kind of curse: Nero would die at my hands for what he’d done to her.
We reached the back entrance to the castle, undetected, and waited in the shadows as the moon rose higher.Any minute now. I prayed Sadie and the Songkeepers were on the other side of the castle, ready to attack from their end. I prayed I’d see the infamous, bloodred dragon that Navin had conjured during the battle that turned my mate into a sorceress.
I prayed it would all be enough.
Rolling my shoulders back, I waited, and waited, watching my twin for the signal. Calla observed the moon as it crested to the apex of its trajectory across the sky. I saw in the way their chest rose and fell, the coiled fear coursing through them. Their eyes fell to Grae, and he nodded and then Calla looked at me, one final glance, and I knew everything that was being said in that one expression. We never needed to speak to know each other’s minds. I swallowed thickly and bobbed my head at Calla, watching as their face morphed into that of a ruler, one that would have made our parents proud.
The Golden Court Queen lifted their hand to the sky, holding it there for a split second to ensure every Wolf and human soldier behind them saw, and then dropped it to the ground. Everyone moved at once, three of the back doors being breeched simultaneously. I followed Calla and Grae through the central one—a servant’s passage that led straight to the grand hall.
Calla picked the lock to the anteroom door and moved in, funneling quietly through the pitch-black and up the stairwell under Grae’s murmured guidance. In a single line, we moved through the eerie stillness, Grae’s back inches from my face and another soldier’s chest directly behind me. The stone floors were uneven here and we had to pick up our feet higher so as not to trip. The servant’s passage was dank and musty, the underbelly of a well-appointed castle, feeling more like the prison cell I’d been caged in than a space for staff to movethrough. Being a servant was just another kind of trapped, I supposed.
My ears tingled as I tried to listen for any sounds up ahead, any scuffle of boots, or fighting from other distant corners of the palace, but I heard nothing. It made acid rise up my throat. This all felt far too easy. Was the whole castle truly asleep? Not even a guard alerted to the hundreds of enemies now swarming through the palace?
My anxiety grew even sharper when we reached the first floor, readying to pick off the guards normally stationed along the main hallway, but we found it empty. The sconces were lit, casting the corridor to the grand hall in a bright glow, but no one guarded the doorways. No boot prints marked the burgundy carpets, no scent of blood, no sounds at all. We looked up and down the halls but saw no one. Calla and I exchanged wary glances, a chilling expression rising on Calla’s and Grae’s faces.
Our army spilled onto the first floor, tiptoeing down the plush carpet, a feeling of dread mounting in my stomach with every step. At the far end of the hallway, the doors to the grand hall were shut, not a single glimmer of light coming from underneath the doorway. I held my breath as we crept to the towering doorway. Pressing my cheek against the smooth wood, I listened but didn’t hear a sound.
Calla’s throat bobbed from where they listened beside me. They nodded to me in silent command, and in unison, we held our hands to the door and gave the gentlest of pushes.
We opened one side of the heavy doors inch by inch so as to not make a sound. It took several heartbeats to fully open before we began filtering into the grand hall. Still no sounds from the windows beyond. Where were the Songkeepers? Had something happened to them? Had they been delayed? Was the entire force of the palace manning the front of the castle while we crept through the rear?
Gods, it would feel good to see a dragon right about now.
We took in the shadowed room, the moon partially obscured through the stained glass windows. The space was vacant, but it still flooded me with memories, of the day of my failed wedding, of the way the moonlight hit me. Back then all I saw was Maez, knowing with unfailing certainty that she was mine and I was hers. Then the memory was violently replaced by another one: being brought before Nero the last time, Hector hanging in the corner, and Evres’s hungry, possessive stare.
The shadows around the throne seemed to twist, black nothingness pulling in on itself. Upon the throne was a void darker than night. Calla and I froze when we saw it.
The shadows finally pulled back to reveal a lone figure lounging upon the throne, and when they did, what I saw made my heart stop. I knew those shadows, more solid than natural. I knew that inky black abyss... but this magic didn’t belong to who I’d hoped.
The silhouette upon the throne stood and stepped from his swirling darkness, revealing himself upon the dais. Emerald magic filled the air, spitting and sparkling with vicious promise, as the Silver Wolf King lifted his violent green eyes to us.
Nero was a sorcerer.
Sadie
