Page 122 of Reaper's Ruin
I deepened our kiss, losing myself in her once more. Relishing every stroke of her tongue, the way it seemed insatiable for mine. I swallowed her moans, inhaling her breath as if I could trap it in my lungs and hold it forever. Keep a piece of her with me even after she was gone.
Gone.
She would be gone soon. One way or another, I would have to say goodbye.
Fuck!
With a wrench of will that felt like tearing myself in half, I broke the kiss, stepping back from her as far as the shelter of my wings would allow.
“We can’t,” I said, my voice rough with desire and regret.
Hurt flashed across her face, quickly replaced by frustration.
“Why not? Because you’re Death? Because I’m half-fae?”
“For a thousand reasons,” I ground out. “This can’t happen. Now, hold onto me. We need to go.”
She stared at me, eyes shining with unshed tears—so many words trembling on her lips. But she said none of them.
Instead, she stepped back into the circle of my arms, her silence louder than any scream.
I wrapped my wings around us both and forced my way back through the veil. It fought me again, clawing and tearing at my essence, punishing me for my transgression. But I pushed through, gritting my teeth against the pain, until we burst back into the living world.
One breath we were shadows.
The next—we weren’t.
The transition from the Shadowveil was jarring—color and sound and sensation rushing back all at once as we stepped out back into the world of the living and into the vibrant lands of the Flame Court. We stumbled apart, both gasping for breath. I fell to my knees, my strength temporarily drained by the effort of forcing the veil. We staggered forward, stumbling into the Flame Court territory... and everything around me exploded with beauty.
The Flame Court territory stretched before us, so different from the Storm Court’s perpetually thunderous terrain. Mountains rose in jagged spires, their peaks draped in rich, green jungle that glowed under a sunburnt sky. Verdant grass stretched in every direction, waterfalls carved through stone cliffs, pouring into steaming pools below. But the mountains bled molten rivers down their sides, glowing amber and crimson against the dark stone, while impossibly lush vegetation thrived along the edges of these fiery streams. The contrast was breathtaking—death and life existing side by side in perfect, terrifying harmony.
As I stood there, I realized my breaths should have been thick with the warm, humid air. I should have smelled with sulfur and heat.
But I felt... nothing.
No wind against my skin. No warmth on my cheeks. No heat in the air. The grass beneath my feet didn’t bend beneath my weight. The sunlight didn’t burn.
And that’s when I realized.
Somehow, when we’d crossed the veil, I’d ripped us out of our mortal forms.
“I’m...” Her voice broke and I looked up to see she was still in the torn pajamas I’d found her in. “I’m not in my body.”
“I guess when I took us into the Shadowveil, I ripped us out of our mortal form,” I answered, still stunned at the dulled sensation of existence after having experienced so much in the short time I’d been human again.
I glanced down at myself, my leather armor still clinging to my form, my fineries stripped away. At least there was one silver lining in losing our mortal forms and that was not being trapped in those ridiculous clothes a minute longer.
But I saw the pain and sadness in her eyes as she stared down at her own body.
“We should rest for the night,” I said, forcing the words out. Though I realized that now that I was in Reaper form, I needed no rest. No sleep. No food. But it was my mind that needed rest. Needed time to process this adjustment. This loss of my mortal self. To process the impending loss of... her.
She nodded, her expression carefully neutral, but I could see the hurt and confusion still lingering in her eyes. The rejection. The questions I couldn’t answer.
It was better this way. Better to keep my distance. Better to remember what I was, what she was, and the impossibility of anything between us.
For eight hundred years, I had been Death, and I had feared nothing.
Until now.
