He was nothing now.
Ixon laid in his swaying bunk, rocking and creaking in rhythm with the zeppelin's groaning lurch, the clank and churn of the engines all around him. He looked blankly up at the wood overhead, tracing its whorls and patterns and lines. He'd given everything up. His rank among the Blood Knights. His title. Even his honor, in that he had always sworn to protect, to obey the hierarchy, to go where commanded and come when called.
All for her. All for a pale little slip of a thing, barely a stranger, who looked at him as if she expected better from him, when all he could give her was the promise that he would let her down.
She was safer with someone else. Anyone else. She would be reassigned to another partner, one who could protect her. It was better that way.
And it was better for Ixon to fight alone.
Nonetheless, as he closed his eyes and let the zeppelin's rolling churn lull him to sleep...he touched his lips, and remembered the taste of kissing fire.
