The thought of her name caused a sudden, violent wave of possessive anger and raw determination to flood his chest.
He closed his eyes for a split second, and his mind instantly flashed back to the distant past, to the memory of a secluded mountain cliff in the lower world, where a beautiful, cool-eyed female had used her medical knowledge to save his life from a deadly venomous wound.
He remembered the soft touch of her hands, the crisp, clean scent of her skin, and the way he had vowed to become a powerful five-stripe Guardian just to be worthy of standing by her side.
He had left her then to train in the deepest ancestral forests, but when he returned to find her, she was gone—taken away by the very man who now sat casually on the supreme throne of the heavens.
