Empire of Storms (Throne of Glass #5) by Sarah J. Maas

“No.” He brushed a thumb over her cheekbone. “No, you didn’t hurt me. Or anything else.”

Something in her chest caved in, and Rowan gathered her in his arms as she buried her face in his neck. His calloused hands caressed her back, over each and every scar and the tattoos he’d inked on her.

“If we survive this war,” she murmured after a while onto his bare chest, “you and I are going to have to learn how to relax. To sleep through the night.”

“If we survive this war, Princess,” he said, running a finger down the groove of her spine, “I’ll be happy to do anything you want. Even learn how to relax.”

“And if we never have a moment’s peace, even after we get the Lock, the keys, and send Erawan back to his hellhole realm?”

The amusement faded, replaced by something more intent as his fingers stilled on her back. “Even if we have threats of war every other day, even if we have to host fussy emissaries, even if we have to visit god-awful kingdoms and play nice, I’ll be happy to do it, if you’re at my side.”

Her lips trembled. “Och, you. Since when did you learn to make such pretty speeches?”

“I just needed the right excuse to learn,” he said, kissing her cheek.

Her body went taut and molten in all the right places as his mouth moved lower, pressing gentle, biting kisses to her jaw, her ear, her neck. She dug her fingers into his back, baring her throat as his canines scratched lightly.

“I love you,” Rowan breathed onto her skin, and flicked his tongue over the spot where his canines had scratched. “I’d walk into the burning heart of hell itself to find you.”

He almost had mere minutes ago, she wanted to say. But Aelin only arched her back a bit more, a small, needy noise coming out of her. This—him … Would it ever stop—the wanting? The need to not only be near him, but to have him so deep in her she felt their souls twining, their magic dancing … The tether that had led her out of that burning core of madness and destruction.

“Please,” she breathed, nails digging into his lower back in emphasis.

Rowan’s low groan was his only answer as he hoisted her up. She wrapped her legs around his waist, letting him carry her not to the bed, but to the wall, and the sensation of the cool wood against her back, compared to the heat and hardness of him pushing into her front—

Aelin panted through her gritted teeth as he again dragged his tongue over that spot on her neck. “Please.”

She felt his smile against her skin as Rowan thrust into her in a long, powerful stroke—and bit down on her neck.

A claiming, mighty and true, that she understood he so desperately needed. That she needed, and with his teeth in her, his body in her … She was going to combust, she was going to splinter apart from the overwhelming need—

Rowan’s hips began to move, setting a lazy, smooth pace as he kept his canines buried in her neck. As his tongue slid along the twin points of pleasure edged with finest pain, and he tasted her very essence as if it were wine.

He laughed, low and wicked, as release had her biting down on his shoulder to keep from screaming loud enough to wake the creatures sleeping on the bottom of the sea.

When Rowan finally drew his mouth away from her neck, his magic healing the small holes he’d left, his hands tightened on her thighs, pinning her to the wall as he moved deeper, harder.

Aelin only dragged her fingers through his hair as she gave him a savage kiss, and tasted her own blood on his tongue.

She whispered onto his mouth, “I’ll always find a way back to you.”

This time, when Aelin went over the edge, Rowan plummeted with her.





Manon Blackbeak awoke.

There had been no sound, no smell, no hint of why she’d awoken, but those predatory instincts had sensed something amiss and sent her tumbling from sleep.

She blinked as she sat up, her wound now a dull ache—and found her head clear of whatever that haze had been.

The room was near-black, save for the moonlight that trickled through the porthole to illuminate her cramped cabin. How long had she been lost to sleep and hideous melancholy?

She listened carefully to the creaking of the ship. A faint grumbling sounded from above—Abraxos. Still alive. Still—sleeping, if she knew that drowsy, wheezing grumble.

She tested the manacles on her wrists, lifting them to peer at the lock. A clever sort of contraption, the chains thick and anchored soundly into the wall. Her ankles were no better.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been in chains. How had Elide endured it for a decade?

Maybe she’d find the girl once she got out of here. She doubted the Havilliard king had any news of the Thirteen anyway. She’d sneak onto Abraxos’s back, fly for the coast, and find Elide before tracking down her coven. And then … she didn’t know what she’d do. But it was better than lying here like a worm in the sun, letting whatever despair had seized control these days or weeks wreak havoc on her.

But as if she’d summoned him, the door opened.

Dorian stood there, a candle in his—

Not a candle. Pure flame wreathed his fingers. It set his sapphire eyes glowing bright as he found her lucid. “Was it you—who sent that ripple of power?”

“No.” Though it didn’t take much guessing to suspect who it’d been, then. “Witches don’t have magic like that.”