Free Inferno of Darkness (Order of the Blade #8) by Stephanie Rowe

long-suffering look. "Really? So, we do that, and then let the earth die? Is that the plan?"
    He narrowed his eyes. "Fuck that. I'll save everyone."
    "You can't, and you know that." She looked into his eyes, searching for a truth she needed to know. "The question isn't whether I'm willing to die, or whether you'll let me. The question is whether you're a good enough warrior to destroy the sword once it has severed the veil, or are you not strong enough to resist the lure? Because if you're not, if you sever that veil and can't destroy it, everything is done. Everything that matters to you, and to me."
    He met her gaze. "If I sever the veil and don't destroy the sword, do you die?"
    "No. I return to my world with the sword, and then the queen's darkness enters the earth realm."
    He closed his eyes, and his grip tightened on her wrist. "There has to be a third option."
    "Walk away from the sword."
    "And let someone else try to solve this situation? Fuck that. I've seen other men try to be the hero, and fail. Again and again, they failed. Warriors selected because they alone were strong enough to resist the call of a sheva , to rise above the dangers of going rogue, to be cold enough to slaughter the men who were once friends in order to save the innocents. Those men, the ones who were supposed to be the strongest warriors, are all gone. I had to kill them. There's no one else besides me. I'm it. And I cannot fail."
    As she stared into those blazing eyes, her heart sank. All the weight of the world on one man's shoulders? It was too much for a single soul to bear. How could it not break him? "I'm sorry they all died," she said softly as he turned away, striding across the clearing as if to put distance between them. "I know how it feels." And she did. She lived the deaths of those few people she believed in every day. "There is so little to believe in, that when you lose even that, there's nothing left."
    "No," Dante said, turning back toward her. "There's always something left. There's always another chance. There must always be redemption." He walked toward her, his body lean and lithe, his muscles rippling like a wild animal stalking his prey.
    She tensed and held up her hand to ward him off. "Too much hope breaks you," she replied, unable to keep the ache out of her own heart. "If you believe too much, the crash is too hard—"
    "Then you never allow failure . " Dante pulled her close, burying his face in her neck as he spoke. She was astounded that his words could be spoken by a man who had already admitted that everyone he believed in had failed, and that all he had tried had come up short. How was he able to say those words, when the earth around him was littered with all he'd lost?
    "How can you believe?" she asked, even as she raised her hand to the curve of his neck, needing to touch him, to feel the strength that this warrior bled so fiercely. "I don't understand how you can see success and victory, when there is nothing around but carnage and loss."
    "Because there is no other choice." He pressed his face deeper into the crook of her shoulder, his whiskers prickling her. His breath was hot and fiery on her skin, a temptation laced with danger and anger. "There has to be a way," he said. "There has to be." He ran his hand down her arm, his touch so soft it was like the whisper of a butterfly's wings. "Such beauty," he said, pressing a kiss to her shoulder. "Such innocence." Another kiss on her collarbone. "Such courage." He feathered a kiss across her cheek. "And so much loss," he said, his voice rough as he whispered his last comment. "You make me want to be the man I have not yet been able to be."
    Tears seemed to bleed from her heart, filling her lungs, making her chest ache. She lifted her head to gaze at him. "How can you see me like that, Dante? Don't you know where I'm from? Can't you feel the blackness of the blood that runs through me?" She spread her hands, as if she could see through her flesh. "I am my