Page 79 of Reaper's Ruin
For one heartbeat. Two. Three.
Then something inside me broke free, and answer her I did.
I grabbed her like a dying man clutching salvation, crushing her against me as I answered her kiss with everything I’d locked away. My mouth moved against hers—hungry, desperate, unrelenting. Her soft gasp fed the fire that had been smoldering for too long, and I burned with it.
She wrapped her arms around my neck, pulling me closer as if she could anchor us both to this impossible moment. Her lips parted for me, and I took the invitation without mercy, tasting her like a starving man. Rain. Sweetness.Life.
I was drowning in her—in her scent, in her warmth, in the small sounds she made as I claimed her mouth with a possessiveness that should have frightened her. Instead, she met my ferocity with her own, her fingers tangling in my hair, holding me to her as if afraid I might vanish like the shadows I commanded.
In that moment, nothing else existed. Not the Veil Lords. Not her murder. Not the centuries of emptiness that had preceded this moment. There was only Soraya—soft and warm in my arms—and the fire she had ignited in my cold, dead heart.
Eight centuries of control shattered in an instant. The wall I’d built, stone by meticulous stone, to keep myself separate—from feeling, from caring, from the dangerous pull of connection—collapsed into dust. In its place, a truth I could no longer deny surged forth, unstoppable as the tide.
She had reached through shadow and death to find the man I’d been before—the man I’d forgotten existed.
A man whose heart beat now for her.
Only her.
My lips moved against hers. Desperate. Hungry. I kissed her with the raw need of a man denied life’s pleasures for far longer than any soul should endure.
I should’ve stopped.
Gods, I should’ve stopped.
She was a soul. A fleeting spark. A storm passing through.
She wasn’t mine. Could never be mine.
But right now, in this breath, in this kiss—I didn’t care.
I’d deal with the regrets later.
The crack of a branch snapped me back to reality. I reacted instinctively, pulling her tighter against me, my body coiled to fight whatever threat approached. The protective instinct that had summoned my wings earlier surged through me again, though this time they remained dormant.
A deer burst through the undergrowth, its eyes wide with terror as it bolted past our hiding spot. The hunting party, I realized. They were still pursuing their quarry.
As quickly as it had come, the moment shattered. Soraya pulled back slightly, her chest heaving, her lips swollen from my kiss, her eyes dazed. The rain had slowed to a gentle patter, the storm moving on as swiftly as it had arrived.
We stared at each other, neither willing to be the first to speak, to acknowledge what had just happened between us. What it might mean. What impossible future it hinted at.
Before either of us could break the silence, voices called through the trees.
“Hello? Is someone there?”
“I thought I saw something move over here!”
Reluctantly, I released her, though everything in me protested the separation. We emerged from beneath our shelter just as a group of hunters broke through the trees.
“My lord! My lady!” One of them exclaimed, then his eyes fell on the massive corpse of the Voltmauler. “By the storm! Is that...?”
“A Voltmauler,” I confirmed, straightening to my full height despite the pain from my wounds. “It attacked Lady Soraya when her mount bolted.”
“Gods above,” another hunter breathed, edging closer to the beast. “I haven’t seen one this far down from the high peaks in decades. They never come this close to the city.”
The rest of the hunting party arrived, Prince Alaric at the lead. His eyes widened as he took in the scene—Soraya disheveled and mud-splattered, me shirtless and bleeding, and the massive predator dead at our feet.
“Lord Rhyker! Lady Soraya!” Alaric pushed through the gathering crowd. “Are you injured? What happened?”
