Page 152 of Savage Throne
I reached up, cupping his cheek with my hand. “I ended up being okay.”
Keeping us steady on the path, he turned into my touch. "I've never felt that much fear before."
"I'm here now and we're together, but I missed you too, so much. All I could do was make sure I got back to you."
“And you did.” Lei frowned. “He fucking made you kill and you did so without hesitation.”
I looked away, pissed that Lei and the rest of the world had seen that.
“Moni.”
I kept my gaze averted.
“Are you okay? How do you feel?”
“My killing all those men was fucked up and. . .the East is cheering my name and thinking I’m some hero when in the end I really feel like a fraud.”
“You’re not a fraud.”
“Your father set it up. It was all a game to him.”
“But you still had to win.”
“I didn’t even know those guys.”
“I knew them. In fact, I grew up with many of them.”
I closed my eyes.
“They were beyond loyal to Yan. And because of that they would have killed you if they had the chance. Thank God youdidn’tgive them that chance.”
"I know what you’re saying, but it’s also hard not to think of them as human beings.”
"They made their choice. Yan’s men that chose to be loyal tomeafter her death, reintegrated into the East and was at home with their families last night. Many hadn’t seen their parents in years due to living in Shanghai with my sister. However, the ones that were still enraged over Yan’s death, the ones that still wanted blood and revenge. . .well, they stayed on Mount Utopia and plotted inthattent."
"I still didn't want to kill them."
"No one wants to kill, Moni, but in our world. . .it is necessary."
Soon, we broke free from the thick, tree-canopied path, stepping into a world that felt like a dream rendered in color and light. It was a flat, grassy meadow, breathing with life and stretching to the edge of a cliff that opened to infinity.
The air here was different. Warmer than it should have been, as if the space itself defied the chill of the night.
Oh my God. This is beautiful.
Lei finally stopped, setting me gently on my feet, yet his hands lingered on my waist, grounding me as I took it all in.
My breath hitched.
The cliff itself was a stage for a showstopping visual performance.
A garden framed the cliff and it was so captivating that it didn’t seem like it was from this planet.
Flowers in every shade of blue imaginable blanketed the ground, their velvety petals caught the moonlight and shimmered like scattered gemstones. Midnight indigo, soft periwinkle, and the brilliant flash of cerulean mingled together in perfect harmony, as if the stars had fallen and taken root.
To add even more magic, there were hundreds of fireflies everywhere. They were tiny dots of flickering greenish-golden light, floating along petals, swirling between stems, and dancing in the air.
Beyond the edge of the cliff, the mountains stood sentinel, their jagged peaks crowned with the soft gleam of starlight.
