Page 53 of Too Dangerous To Die

His arms are locked around me, holding me down as I thrash, as light pours from my mouth in a ragged scream.

“Let me go!” I cry.

“I won’t,” he says, voice rough, grounding.

“She’s inside me—she’s waking—I can’t stop it?—”

“I know,” he growls. “But you’re still in there too.”

My vision blurs.

“She’s stronger,” I sob. “She’s always been stronger.”

He tightens his hold, pressing his forehead to the side of my head. “You are not her.”

I shake, magic crackling in wild waves.

“But she is part of you now,” he says, breath ghosting against my temple. “You don’t have to be her. You just have tochoose.”

The storm inside me slows.

Only slightly.

The mirror still stands.

But now our faces are merged.

One eye violet. One eye silver.

One mouth set in a snarl.

The other whisperinghelp me.

I collapse against Rhaegar, my whole body trembling, magic pulsing low and wild beneath my skin.

“I don’t know who I am anymore,” I whisper.

His arms tighten.

“Then we’ll find out together.”

24

RHAEGAR

She’s still trembling in my arms when I kiss her.

I don’t mean to. It isn’t planned. It’s instinct—raw and involuntary, like a beast snapping at the only light in a long, cursed darkness. One second, I’m holding her, trying to stop her from unraveling. The next, my mouth finds hers, desperate to devour the terror bleeding from her soul before it tears her apart.

But it’s not just her fear anymore. It’s mine too.

She kisses me back with the same ferocity, as if we both know there’s no turning away from this edge we’ve been circling. Her fingers curl into the collar of my tunic, dragging me closer until we’re pressed together in the ruin’s heart, surrounded by shattered stone and spectral memories that scream of who she was—who she might still be.

Our magic flares—dangerous, volatile. Hers crackles along my skin like frostbite, while mine burns in molten pulses beneath the surface. We’ve barely touched, and already I can feel her slipping deeper into me, her essence threading through my bones like smoke through cracks.

But I don’t stop.

Because I need her. Not just her body or her touch. I need this to remind myself that she’shere, now. Not Medea. Not a ghost. Not a vision. Nora. The woman who defies me, challenges me, saves me without even knowing it.

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