Page 98 of ColdIron
My voice broke. I couldn’t help it.
“I escaped the mine to find a haven for her. For us. And now my sister is alone down there.” I wiped my eyes with the back of my hand. The tears wouldn’t stop. “So here’s my proposal: help me get my little sister out of Crimson Ridge, and I’ll topple the Pallid Court for you. But it has to happen in a month. I can’t leave her behind longer than that. No one needs to crawl through the tunnel with me. I’ll go alone. All I need is a Spartan team waiting at the border of the mine to protect and escort my sister through the Scorched Wastes to the fortress.”
I’d sell my soul to anyone who could get her to safety.
Drakken had stopped the jeep. The engine idled.
“You never need to bargain with me, Max.” Aelindor’s thumb brushed away my tears. “Not for this. Not for anything. We’ll move on Crimson Ridge after we return to base. We’ll get your sister out.”
The air left my lungs. “You’d do that?” My voice cracked on the last word. He was offering me the one thing I’d clawed across a wasteland for, and he was offering it like it was simple.
The Fae prince smiled. “Breathe, Max.”
“Let me lead the team, Aelindor,” Caspian said from the passenger seat.
“Not a chance.” Drakken moved his hand to the shift. “You had your fun last time. We’ve raided Crimson Ridge seven times and never breached it. This time, I’ll make sure we succeed.”
Hope swelled in my aching chest. My eyes burned. My hands trembled in my lap. I’d carried the weight of Missy’s survival alone for so long that the idea of someone else lifting it—three of the most powerful beings on the continent—felt surreal. Like something that would vanish if I blinked.
“When do you think we can go, sirs?” I asked, not blinking. “Do you have an ETA?”
“In a week after we return to base,” Aelindor said, looking at me and shaking his head. “In fact, we can be ready within two days.”
The wall I’d been holding up for a decade gave way. Gratitude, hope, and burning need flooded through me, drowning the pain, the desperation, everything.
I seized Aelindor’s face between my hands and kissed him hard.
His lips were cool at first, then warm—warm and firm and eager. It was electric. I could have kissed him forever. His hand came up to the back of my neck as he kissed me back, his need mirroring mine.
I pulled away. If I didn’t, I might not survive.
I stared at him, my fingers still hovering near his jaw, my pulse slamming. I’d just grabbed the highest-ranking heir of the Zodiac Covenant by the face and kissed him without permission. In a jeep. In front of two other princes. On a combat deployment.
“I’m sorry. So sorry, Your Highness.” The words tumbled out. “I didn’t—I don’t know what got into me. The news about Missy, I just—I got ahead of myself.” I swallowed. “If you want to punish me?—”
His laugh rolled through the space between us, lowand rich. The sound sank into my chest like a slow burn. Aelindor didn’t laugh. Not ever. Not that anyone had witnessed. And here he was, doing it for me.
“I’m not sorry.” He traced my cheekbone with his knuckle, a feather-light touch that burned hotter than the dragon fire I’d walked through. His impossible blue eyes held mine, blazing hunger dancing in them. He let his guard down and let me see it.
My body burned for him. My heart burned worse.
“When you’re with us in private, Max, you can use our first names.”
“Am I going to get a kiss as well?” Caspian demanded from the front seat. Every word was laced with heat and pure male need.
Shit.
The jeep jerked forward with such G-force that my face nearly crashed into the back of the passenger seat. Drakken had chosen this moment to try to ruin it for us.
37
MAX
We camped three blocks from the DarkVeil at night.
The high-ranking officers were still in a battle brief at the outpost compound, two miles behind us. The demon invasion loomed as a grave threat. I figured a permanent Spartan garrison would be posted here to protect the mines, farms, and the satellite towns along the eastern fringe.
Our jeep had passed through two razed villages on the way in. The damage was heartbreaking. Walls of houses stood intact on one side of a street, only to be reduced to rubble on the other, as if the demons had destroyed only what they needed to flush out the inhabitants. Scorch marks blackened the facades of what had once been a general store and a small clinic. A hand-painted red cross was still visible above the clinic’s door. Broken glass littered the storefront. A child’s shoe sat in the middle of an intersection.
