Page 80 of Reaper's Ruin
Before I could respond, one of the hunters—an older man with gray streaking his beard—knelt beside the Voltmauler’s corpse.
“You killed this? Alone? With nothing but a hunting knife?” He looked up at me with newfound respect. “That’s... that’s impossible. These beasts have been known to take down entire hunting parties.”
Lord Destan rode up, his wide eyes finding the Voltmauler and then me. I swore I saw a flicker of defeat in them.
Good.
I shrugged, uncomfortably aware of the attention now focused on me. “I did what was necessary.”
“What was necessary?” Alaric repeated, incredulous. “You slew a beast that has claimed the lives of some of our finest warriors! This is grounds for celebration, not modesty!”
The prince turned, gesturing to his companions. “Send riders ahead! Tell them to prepare the great hall. Tonight we feast in honor of Lord Rhyker’s bravery!” He clapped me on the shoulder, oblivious to my wince as he aggravated one of my wounds. “Come! The storm has passed, and great deeds deserve recognition!”
I glanced at Soraya, finding her already looking at me. Something passed between us—an unspoken acknowledgment of what had happened, what had changed.
We stood there for a moment, the two us staring. Confused. Bewildered.
She’d kissed me.
And I’d kissed her back.
“Someone retrieve Lady Soraya’s mount,” Alaric commanded. “We return to Thunderspire at once!”
As the hunting party bustled around us, preparing to transport both us and my kill back to the city, Soraya caught my gaze.
I looked down at her—this impossible, beautiful soul who had somehow penetrated every defense I’d built over centuries—and felt twin currents of desire and dread churning within me.
Though I couldn’t bring myself to feel regret for that one beautiful moment we’d shared, I knew in the deepest part of whatever soul I had left that I’d crossed a line that should never have been crossed. She wasn’t mine to take. She wasn’t mine to want. She was a soul seeking her door, her peace, her escape from this realm—and from me.
And yet, her blue eyes held a promise that tightened my chest with equal parts longing and grief. The taste of her lingered on my lips, the memory of her body pressed against mine burned into my skin like a brand. For one perfect moment, I’d forgotten what I was. What she was. What waited for us both.
But reality couldn’t be outrun. Not even by Death.
She would find her door. She would leave. And I would return to the shadows, eight hundred years of solitude stretching into eight hundred more. Only now, I would know exactly what I was missing.
No. This couldn’t happen again. I wouldn’t let it, no matter how fiercely my newly awakened heart protested.
This moment of weakness—of impossible joy—had to remain just that.
A moment.
But even as I made this vow, I knew with sickening certainty that I would break it the next time she looked at me with those eyes. The next time she stood close enough for me to breathe her in. The next time her hand brushed against mine.
Because for the first time in eight hundred years, I felt truly alive.
And that was more dangerous than any Voltmauler could ever be.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Soraya
The ride back to the castle was possibly the most exquisite form of torture ever devised.
With my mount having run back to the city, I had to ride back with Rhyker, sitting behind him, arms wrapped around his waist. Every bump in the path making me tighten my grip around his rock-solid form. My breasts pressing up against his back. My breath hitching at the intense sensation of holding him so tight. Memories of our kiss flashing through my mind over and over like a movie stuck on repeat. The silence between us had stretched like a living thing, filled with everything we weren’t saying.
I’d kissed him. Death itself. And he’d kissed me back with an intensity that had left me shaken to my core.
As I stood in my chamber, staring at my reflection in the polished mirror, my fingers traced my lips for the hundredth time since we’d returned. I could still feel the pressure of his mouth against mine, the impossible heat that had sparked between us.
