House of Flame and Shadow (Crescent City #3) by Sarah J. Maas

“Hopefully not literally,” Hypaxia said with a wink.

Grinning despite himself, Tharion exited Roga’s office. He’d left Sathia in a small guest room to wash up and rest, though they both knew that no amount of rest would prepare her for the insanity they were about to face.

He’d offered to send her down to the Blue Court, but she’d refused. And dropping her off in Avallen would have taken them too far out of their way. So she’d be coming with him.

Tharion knocked on the door to the guest room and didn’t wait for her to reply before he opened it.

The room was empty. There was only a note on the bed, laced with her lingering scent. Tharion read it once. Then a second time, before it really set in.

I can’t leave Colin in her hands. I hope you understand.

Good luck. And thank you for all you’ve done for me.

Sathia had left him. That’s what the thank you at the end was. It was fitting—he’d done worse to the River Queen’s daughter, and yet …

Tharion carefully laid the note back on the bed. He didn’t blame her. It was her choice to go save her ex-boyfriend from being a drugged-out assassin—and a noble choice, at that. No, he didn’t blame her at all.

It was better she didn’t come with him to the Eternal City, in any case. She’d be safer that way.

Still, Tharion looked at the note on the bed for a long, long moment.

And though he knew he was heading off to challenge the Asteri, likely to die in the attempt … as Tharion left the House of Flame and Shadow, then Lunathion itself, he couldn’t stop thinking about her.



* * *



The video Hunt and Bryce had recorded was due to go out at any moment. Ruhn was so fucking proud of his sister. She knew how to make the most of a bad hand.

That moment came soon after midnight, with a stroke of a key from Declan.

And now, sitting on the floor of the windowless bedroom in the safe house Lidia had procured for them, Ruhn peered over at where she sat beside him and said, “Just a few hours until dawn, then we’ll make our move.”

Lidia stared at nothing, knee bobbing nervously. She’d spoken little since they’d gotten the news of her sons’ abduction. And though Ruhn had been aching to touch her in the quiet moments, he’d kept his hands to himself. She had other things on her mind.

“I never should have gone back onto the Depth Charger,” Lidia said at last.

“If Pollux was able to learn about your kids,” Ruhn objected, “he would have found out whether you were on the ship or off it.”

“You should have let me die in the Haldren Sea,” she said. “Then he’d have had no reason to go after them.”

“Hey.” Ruhn grabbed her hand, squeezing tight. She dragged her gaze over to him. “None of this is your fault.”

She shook her head, and Ruhn gently touched her face. “You are allowed to feel whatever you need to right now. But come dawn, when we walk out of here, you’ll have to bury it and become the Hind again. One last time. Without the Hind, we’re not going to get into that palace.”

She scanned his gaze, and leaned forward, her brow pressing against his.

Ruhn breathed in her scent, taking it deep into his body—but he found it already marking him. It had been there, hidden in him, since that first time.

“Can I …” She swallowed hard. “Can we …”

“Tell me what you want,” he said, kissing her cheek.

She pulled back, and slid a hand against his jaw. “You. I want you.”

“You sure?” She had so much burdening her. With her sons in the Asteri’s hands, he didn’t blame her if—

“I need to not think for a while,” she said, then added, “and … I need to touch you.” She traced her fingers over his lips. “Your real body.”

He closed his eyes against her touch. “Tell me what you want, Lidia.”

Her lips grazed his, and he shuddered. “I want you—all of you. In me.”

A grin spread across Ruhn’s face. “Happy to oblige.”

He followed her lead, letting her set the pace. Each kiss, he answered with his own. Let her show him where she wanted him to touch, to lick, to savor.

Thankfully, the parts where she wanted him to really focus were the ones Ruhn had been especially interested in. The taste of her sweetness on his tongue had him nearly coming in his pants—and that was before her breathy moans filled his ears like the most beautiful music he’d ever heard.

“Ruhn,” she said, but didn’t give him the order to halt, so he kept working her in long strokes of his tongue, wishing to the gods he still had his lip piercing, knowing he could have driven her to distraction with it—but there would be time later.

She arched off the bed, and her orgasm sent him writhing, desperate for any sensation against his cock.

She put him out of his misery a moment later, her eyes nearly pure flame as she unzipped him, and her slender hand wrapped around him—

He bucked against her first stroke, and was about to start begging when she pushed him back onto the bed. When she climbed over him, straddling him, and that hand around his cock guided him to her entrance.

Ruhn slid his hands into Lidia’s golden hair, the silken strands spilling through his fingers, and held her gaze as she sank down onto him.