Bright Burns the Night Read online

  When he suddenly halted, she skidded to a stop as well.

  “What is it? Is something wrong?” She inhaled deeply, trying to scent anything unusual, her ears perked to listen for a warning sound of some sort.

  “Nothing is wrong. I merely thought we should pause for a moment.”

  “I don’t need to rest.” Her neck grew hot.

  He lifted one eyebrow. “I wanted to get a drink and a bite to eat.”

  “Oh.”

  Lorcan sat down on a fallen log and unslung the knapsack from around his shoulders, loosening it to pull out a piece of some sort of dried meat. He offered her some, but she shook her head. She felt too sick from pushing herself so hard to stomach meat, particularly salted, dried hunks of it.

  “Ah, yes, you prefer lighter fare. I forgot.” He shrugged and put the second piece back. Then he unhooked the waterskin from his waistband and took a deep draft.

  Evelayn pulled out a slice of cheese and a roll from her bag and forced herself to eat. Even though it was the last thing she felt like doing, she knew she needed the energy it would provide.

  As he sat there, eating and drinking, Lorcan seemed so … normal. Completely un-Lorcan-like as he stood and re-slung the bag over his shoulders to hang down his back. There was almost no hint of the cocksure, acerbic royal she’d known evident at the moment. He was being solicitous … almost kind. He, too, wore heavier clothing than normal, but none of it was fur-lined. When she’d complained about that, he’d reminded her that he was a Dark Draíolon and actually enjoyed the cold. That enjoyment was evident as he tilted his face toward the chilled breeze that promised more snow.

  The clouds broke apart above them at that exact moment, letting a glimpse of the moon shine down on their little clearing, washing him in iridescent light. His skin was so dark, he practically blended into the night—all except his white hair and the flash of his silver eyes reflecting the moonlight when he turned and met her bold assessment of him.

  How had so much changed so quickly? She was now stuck in her Draíolon form rather than the swan, going to Máthair Damhán again, and Bound to this mercurial, powerful male.

  When he spoke, it almost made her jump. “You were a swan for the better part of ten years, Evelayn.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You can’t expect to be in the condition you once were. You haven’t run in a decade.” He hooked the waterskin back onto his waistband.

  “I told you I didn’t need to rest. I was fine. I am fine.”

  “No”—he stepped toward her and held out a hand—“you’re lying. And we don’t have time for your pride.”

  She stared at his hand as if he were trying to hand her a snake. “Are you planning on dragging me behind you?”

  When he barked out a laugh, it seemed to take him by surprise as much as it did her.

  “No, my lady queen, I am offering to siphon some of my power into you so that you can run faster without tiring.”

  Evelayn’s eyes shot up to meet his amused expression. “You can do that?”

  “Take my hand, and I will show you.”

  His silver eyes seemed unnaturally bright for such a dark night, as if they attracted and refracted any ounce of light available, making him seem almost predatory as he took another step toward her. A rush of fear took her off guard and she had to swallow back a sudden panic. She was powerless and alone in the darkened forest with the king of Dorjhalon. The most powerful being on land at the moment. What was she thinking Binding herself to him? To this male who had hurt and manipulated and killed …

  “What caused it?” He spoke softly, his voice hardly louder than the whisper of the breeze.

  “Caused what?” she forced herself to respond, managing to keep her voice from betraying her.

  “Your fear.”

  “I’m not afraid.”

  “I can smell it on you, I can see it in your eyes. You can’t lie—not to me.” Lorcan closed the gap between them so that he stood less than an arm’s length away. “There’s no reason to be frightened. I will protect you.”

  Evelayn took a deep breath to steady herself. His now familiar evergreen-and-frost scent filled her nose; and beneath that, the heavier fragrance of the Darkness he wielded was a constant reminder of the power simmering in his blood, woven through every muscle and sinew in his body. “And if you are the reason … how will you protect me from yourself?”

  He looked taken aback. “Why would you be frightened of me now? After everything else … After Binding yourself to me?” The wind picked up a bit, blowing strands of his hair out of the leather band, pulling it back and across his face. The night had grown bitterly cold, making Evelayn grateful for the fur-lined clothing he’d insisted she wear. “We are going to retrieve your stone and reclaim your power. What else must I do to prove to you that I am not your enemy?”

  “I don’t know,” she answered honestly. “A few seemingly good deeds can’t immediately erase a decade of cruelty and deception.”

  Lorcan studied her face for a long moment. The intensity of his scrutiny made her belly tighten—partly in fear, but not entirely. “My whole life, I have been surrounded by those who feared me or hated me, or both. Some merely for the fact that I was my father’s son, without ever knowing me at all. And I lived with that, as I had to. Even my own brother came to loathe me. But now … I have a chance to change all of that. With you.” Slowly he lifted his hand toward her, giving Evelayn time to pull away. Instead, she stood frozen, waiting. When his fingers brushed her cold cheek, it sent a jolt through her that launched her heart into her throat. “My life was bound to yours even before today, Evelayn. I made a Blood Vow that tied our fates together ten years ago.” His voice was a husky murmur as his fingers curled to cup her jaw. “I will never harm you—nor let anyone or anything else harm you. If you die, I die, remember?”

  She stared up into his quicksilver eyes, hardly able to breathe. A flare of heat blossomed in her right hand, where her scar bisected the formerly perfect skin.

  “I know you feel that,” he whispered, so close that his breath was warm on her icy lips. He took her right hand in his left and ran his thumb across the scar, sending a shiver up her arm. “When we made that Blood Vow, something happened. For some reason, it created a connection far beyond just the stipulations of the vow. We can sense each other, feel one another’s emotions.”

  Her heartbeat had become a beacon in her body, pounding at the arch of her throat where his fingers brushed against her skin, in the hand that he held, and in her belly that tightened as she realized she was staring at his mouth.

  “Please, my lady queen, don’t be afraid.”

  Evelayn didn’t dare move, didn’t dare speak. But not from fear, not anymore. If she was afraid of anything, it was of the urge to close the gap between them. To give in to the sudden madness that made heat pool in her abdomen and her head buzz with the desire to lean forward, to feel his mouth on hers.

  A gust of wind whipped through the clearing, blowing directly in her face and breaking the spell of Lorcan’s gaze and his heated touch in a world turned cold. She abruptly stumbled away a step, pulling out of his reach.

  They stared at each other, the silence drawing out as the clouds gathered above them. The scar on her hand twinged and a sensation of uncertainty washed over her. His uncertainty.

  If you die, I die, remember?

  She was Bound to him. She’d made her choice. Finally she took a deep breath and then held out her hand. “I told you, I’m not afraid.”

  He gazed at her for a moment longer, then a hint of a smile broke out across his face. Lorcan took her hand in his and turned back to the path.

  “Ready?” he asked once more.

  “Ready.” She smiled back at him as warmth and strength surged into her hand, up her arm, and throughout her body.

  He squeezed her a little bit tighter, and then they took off at a sprint just as the first flakes began to spiral to the ground.

  DAWN WAS RAPIDLY AP
PROACHING, WHICH MEANT they had run for the majority of the night. It had not begun to grow lighter, but Lorcan could scent the coming sun on the crystalline air. Even though he had helped sustain her throughout the night, he knew Evelayn needed to rest. And truth be told, he did as well. It took an immense amount of concentration and energy to siphon some of his power into her, especially while running full speed through a snowstorm. There was at least a couple inches of accumulation on the ground, soaking through their boots and making the trails treacherous. If they veered off to where the trees grew thicker, there was less snow, but their speed was hampered by the branches that reached for them like bark-crusted claws, tearing at their cloaks, hair, and skin.

  He slowed and then pulled her to a stop. “We need to rest. At least for a couple of hours.”

  Evelayn didn’t argue, merely nodded. Her nose was red and her hair had little bits of snow and frost clinging to it. Her fingers were like ice on his, so frozen into his grip that he had to help pry them off of his hand so he could set about making a shelter and starting a fire.

  Once the fire burned brightly beneath the makeshift shelter he’d created with his cloak and some tree branches, he sat down beside her on the hard ground.

  “Won’t you freeze?” Evelayn glanced up at his cloak above them, blocking the little bit of snow still falling and helping to trap some of the warmth from the fire.

  “I told you, the cold doesn’t bother me. Just as the heat of summer doesn’t cause you discomfort, but I can’t stand it.” He opened his pack and took out more food.

  “It might not bother me as much as you, but if it is extremely hot, it does make me uncomfortable.” Despite the fire, she was still shivering when he glanced over at her.

  “Why don’t you lie down and try to rest.” He brushed off her concern. The snow gave the night air an icy bite, but the fire created enough heat to keep him from getting chilled. “I can sit up and take the first watch.”

  “I’m not going to sleep while you stay up. You need to rest also. What would we even need to watch for? We’re not at war … are we?” The cold wind blew a gust of smoke into her face, making her blink rapidly.

  “I don’t know what Máthair Damhán is doing, or why she is suddenly pushing so hard to have me fulfill my vow. Something has changed. She’s sent messages before, but not like this. And she’s never attacked us until now. I refuse to be taken off guard again.” He shifted on the hard ground. “How about you sleep for an hour and then you let me sleep for an hour. Then we can continue on.”

  Evelayn looked at him steadily for a moment, doing her best to hide her unease, but he could still see it in her violet eyes. “All right,” she finally agreed. When she lay down on the ground and rolled over so her back was to him, Lorcan allowed himself to look away out into the dark night. Already the blackness had melted into a deep gray, hinting at the sun that would be rising in mere minutes.

  “Will your mother be angry?”

  He didn’t have to ask what she meant. There was a reason he hadn’t informed his mother about the Binding ceremony or his plan to leave with Evelayn to reclaim her power. “Don’t concern yourself with how she’ll react. We have to focus on surviving this first.”

  “That wasn’t very comforting.”

  Lorcan sighed. “My mother is … complicated. But she will accept you with time, I believe.”

  “Still not very comforting.” Evelayn spoke to the flames, so Lorcan couldn’t see her face or read her expression, but he scented her trepidation. “Did you tell her about … any of this? Does she even know you’re gone?”

  “No.” Lorcan shifted on the cold, hard ground. “There wasn’t time to explain it all to her, and she might have interfered if she knew what I intended to do.”

  “You mean, if she knew you were helping me to reclaim my power.”

  One of the branches had burned through so that it collapsed into the heart of the fire, sending a burst of flames into the darkness—a shower of light that momentarily blinded him. “You have to understand, she was Bound to a royal who became obsessed with power, ruled by violence, and forbade her to show love toward her sons. She wanted us to be free—free of him, and free of any other Draíolon, male or female, who could ever become like him. She supported me, helped me even, to overthrow him. Her own Mate.” Sometimes he still woke at night drenched in a cold sweat from nightmares where his father was alive and found out that Abarrane and Lorcan had been working together and forced Lorcan to watch while he tortured his mother to death.

  “Abarrane helped me, too? She wanted me to kill Bain? But she loathes me.”

  “My mother knew the only way to escape his abuse was for him to die. But she also wanted me to be king in his stead, which meant I couldn’t do it—and neither of us dared risk Lothar.”

  “Which meant I was the only one who could.”

  “Precisely.” Lorcan hesitated to admit the rest but decided it was better she knew. When they returned, Evelayn would be walking into a beehive of trouble with the other queen. “But I explicitly chose not to inform her about our Binding or helping you reclaim your power because she would try to stop me if she did.”

  “Why? All I’ve ever wanted was peace. Can’t she see what the imbalance of power is doing to our world?”

  “I believe she would rather risk that than allow another royal to exist who could threaten her—or me.”

  “So she will let Lachalonia shrivel and die rather than let me reclaim what is rightfully mine—the very power that enabled your ‘escape’ from Bain?” She finally rolled over, her violet eyes flashing in the firelight, her cheeks stained red—from the heat of the flames or her anger, Lorcan wasn’t quite sure.

  “She isn’t letting anything happen or not happen, because she is not choosing for me or you. Which is exactly why I sent an urgent summons to her this morning, to keep her from finding out about any of this. She is on her way back to Dorjhalon even now. By the time she returns to Éadrolan, this will all be long behind us and she will have to learn to live with my decisions.”

  Evelayn opened her mouth but then shut it again, as if thinking better of whatever she’d been about to say. Finally, she lay back down, turning to the fire once more. She’d been silent for so long, Lorcan began to wonder if she’d given in and begun to doze off, but then she spoke once more, a soft question that took him completely off guard.

  “Do you ever miss him?”

  When he didn’t respond right away, she pressed. “Even though he did terrible things to you, he was still your father.”

  Lorcan clenched his teeth together, a surge of memory rising up, carried on a wave of pain.

  “I honestly don’t know how to describe what I feel when I think of him.” He struggled against the instinct to push her away, to deflect her question, especially after the heated exchange about his mother. However, he knew if he wished to gain her trust or ever hope that she could come to care for him, he had to open himself up to her more than he had to anyone else before. “Even though he was cruel, I suppose there was always a part of me that wished to please him. At least when I was a youngling. You are right—as much as I hated him, he was still my father. Perhaps I don’t mourn him so much as the death of the dream that he would someday become a better father. The death of any hope that he could have been a better king, rather than leaving me a world torn apart by his greed and machinations.”

  The pop and hiss of the fire consuming the wood he’d gathered was the only sound for several moments. When she spoke again, her voice was heavy with sorrow.

  “I miss my mother and father every day.” She rolled over once more, her eyes luminous in the darkness. “We have a complicated web between us. Your father is the reason my parents were taken from me. And, no matter that you and your mother helped orchestrate it, I am the one who took him from you. I’m not sorry for that, because there was no other way to stop him. But I am sorry for what he did to you. For what he has thrust upon you as the king who must take his place.”


  Lorcan shrugged, not trusting himself to speak without betraying the full depth of his volatile emotions. Hesitantly, she reached out and gently placed her hand on top of his. Her touch felt like a brand, searing not only his cold skin but also his ice-filled heart.

  “Perhaps you were right after all,” she murmured, her voice barely audible over the hiss of the fire. “Maybe with time I will be able to see past the monster I believed you to be to the king that you are trying to be instead.”

  Their eyes met, and he found himself struggling to stay where he was, to not follow the compulsion to pull her toward him and finish what they had nearly started hours ago, when they’d almost kissed. Her gaze dropped to his mouth, her scent warming with the fragrance of her sudden desire, and it was almost more than Lorcan could stand.

  “Go to sleep, Evelayn,” he said roughly, forcing himself to turn and stare at the flames, ignoring the fire raging in his own blood.

  Lorcan heard her move but didn’t look up. In his peripheral vision he could tell she’d lain back down.

  “You’ll wake me in an hour?” she finally asked.

  “I promise.”

  Mercifully, within a few minutes her exhaustion beat out her willpower, and Evelayn’s breathing slowed and deepened. Only then did he let himself breathe freely, inhaling her scent more deeply. Only then did he allow himself the freedom to look at her—to really look at this fierce yet unsettlingly intuitive queen he’d Bound himself to—studying the planes and angles of her face, the brush of her eyelashes on her skin, the beating of her pulse in her throat, the curve of her lips as they parted slightly in sleep.

  Just as the Blood Vow he’d made with Evelayn bound him to her in unexpected ways, so, too, did his vow with Máthair Damhán. And he could sense the Ancient’s impatience growing ever stronger, a distant but nagging burn in his veins.

  He’d told Evelayn the truth—something had to have changed. Something drastic.