Page 125 of Reaper's Ruin
Staring into those eyes filling with agony broke something in me. He loved me. He needed me. And I...
“I’m in love with you too.”
His body went rigid, eyes widening in shock. “What?”
“I’m in love with you.” I laughed through my tears, the words feeling both impossible and inevitable. “It’s crazy. It’s nonsensical. How could I fall in love with Death? How could I fall in love with the being sent to erase me from existence? But it’s true. I love you, Rhyker.”
I closed the distance between us, placing my hand over his heart. As I touched him, my body froze because Ifelthim. In this existence of no sensation, I felt him, only him. Just like in a life where I had simply coasted by on existence until I met him, he was the only thing now that existed to me.
I closed my eyes and whispered out my truth. “I don’t know how to find my peace when it means leaving you behind.”
He caught my hand in his, holding it against his chest, and even though his heart no longer beat in this form, I could still sense the ghost of it, almost hear the echo of it from when I’d lay on his chest and he’d held me in his arms. “We can’t do this, Soraya. Ican’t lose myself to you anymore and then watch you walk out of my world forever.”
“Maybe you can come with me? Through my door?”
Pain twisted his beautiful features. “That’s not how it works.”
“Then you need to find your peace. Right now. Forgive yourself for whatever you blame yourself for and manifest a door. Then I’ll get mine too.”
Sadness and pain crashed into his eyes. “I don’t know how to find my peace. I’ve been trapped here for eight hundred years. I don’t think I’ll ever find it, Soraya.”
“Then I’ll stay with you.”
“No.” He gripped my shoulders, his face fierce. “I won’t let you sacrifice your afterlife for me. I won’t condemn you to the shadows.”
“Then we’ll find another way.” I cupped his face in my hands, forcing him to look at me. “But I know one thing for certain: I can’t go on pretending I don’t feel what I feel. I love you, Rhyker. I love you more than I thought it was possible to love anyone or anything. And I don’t care if it’s wrong or impossible or doomed. I don’t care if I only have days or hours or minutes left with you. I want them. All of them. Any of them. I want you.”
Something broke in his expression—the last wall, the final defense crumbling into dust. His hand trembled as he reached up to brush away my tears.
“I love you,” he whispered, the words sounding strange on his tongue, as if he’d never spoken them before. “I love you, and I can’t deny it anymore. I can’t fight it. I’ve tried, gods know I’ve tried, but I can’t.”
That was all I needed to hear.
I surged forward, hands fisting his coat, pulling him down to my lips. Rhyker stilled for half a second before he was on me, his arms wrapping around me with devastating need.
This kiss wasn’t like our others—it wasn’t just heat or desperation. It was something more, something deeper. A promise. A surrender. A beginning.
His lips moved against mine with exquisite tenderness, as if he was memorizing the feel of me, the taste of me. His hands cradled my face like I was made of glass, precious and irreplaceable. I melted into him, my whole body singing with the rightness of it, with the perfection of this moment we’d both fought against for so long.
He walked me backward until my back met the smooth stone wall beside a small waterfall that tumbled down into a clear pool. Warm steam rose around us, but I couldn’t feel it. Couldn’t feel the wall behind me.
While the world around seemed to exist on one plane, it was just him and I existing in this one together.
Him. I could only feel him.
His lips. His breath. The hard muscles of his back as I clung to him like I would never let him go.
And I didn’t want to. God, I never wanted to let go of this man, this Reaper, this being I loved with all my heart.
“Are you sure?” he asked, his voice a rough whisper against my lips. “Are you sure this is what you want?”
I answered by sliding my hands beneath his leather cloak, pushing it from his shoulders. It fell to the ground with a soft thud. His eyes never left mine as I reached for the fastenings of his shirt, my fingers trembling slightly with urgency and need. I slid it off him and it fell to the ground atop his cloak.
Awe spread through me like wildfire as I took in his incredible form, my hands following the path of my gaze. No matter how many times I touched him, it would never be enough. I traced the hard planes of his chest, the ridges of muscle, the scars that told stories from a life lived centuries before my birth. His musclestensed at my touch as I slid my hand across his skin, reverently, wondering how this incredible man was mine.
“You’re so beautiful,” I whispered, watching his eyes darken at my words.
His fingers slid down my back with agonizing slowness. “So are you,” he said, his voice thick with emotion. “So beautiful it hurts to look at you sometimes.”
