Page 128 of Reaper's Ruin
Her words weren’t false, and yet I still couldn’t reconcile them as truth. Somewhere, somehow, I should have found a way. Should have been stronger, cleverer, more... something.
None of them. I’d managed to save not a single human.
And it killed me.
I didn’t respond, not wanting more of her words about how it wasn’t my fault. I almost cherished the guilt at this point. It was comfortable. Familiar. Embracing it was the least I could do after I’d lost them all. And this, my existence in this shadowy afterlife, was more than I felt I deserved.
“So that’s why you hate the fae,” she pressed on, noting I wasn’t going to answer her.
“Yes.” I opened my eyes to find her watching me, her expression soft with understanding. “They killed everyone and everything I ever cared for. I watched my own mother die. Then my father. Mybrother. One by one, every person I loved, every human in my world, was torn from me until I was the last human alive. You can’t imagine how that feels. Knowing you’re the last of your kind. Isolated. Alone. A failure.”
Her hand tightened around mine, her other hand coming up to cup my cheek. “I’m so sorry, Rhyker.”
“It was a long time ago,” I said, though the pain in my voice betrayed the lie.
“Does it...” She hesitated, vulnerability flickering across her features. “Does my being half-fae change anything? Between us?”
I captured her face between my hands, making sure she could see the truth in my eyes. “No. Never. You’re mine and I’m yours, no matter what happens. I love you.” I pressed my forehead to hers. “For the first time in any life, I love a woman. A half-fae half-human woman. I loveyou, Soraya.”
Her eyes shimmered with tears. “I love you too, Rhyker. So much it terrifies me.”
Something inside me both shattered and melted at her words. Elation surged through me—I was loved, truly loved, for the first time in my long existence. But with it came the bittersweet knowledge that our time was limited. That this love, as profound and all-consuming as it was, was fated to end.
But I pushed that thought away. I was done fighting. Done running. We had now. We had this moment. And I would cherish it, memorize every detail of it, hold it close during the long, empty centuries that would follow her departure.
Eventually, we rose, helping each other dress with lingering touches and stolen kisses. As I fastened my cloak, something caught my eye—a subtle shift in the air near the treeline, a ripple in reality that I recognized too well.
The veil was moving.
I froze, my body tensing as a familiar figure materialized from the shadows.
Sevrin.
“Oh, fuck,” I breathed, instinctively stepping in front of Soraya.
He stood there, his imposing figure blurred by the veil but stark against the darkening landscape, silver eyes gleaming with triumph as he surveyed us from behind the veil. His mouth curved into a slow, predatory smile.
“The Veil Lords have been looking for you,” he said, his voice carrying across the clearing like a blade. “They sensed your presence in the Shadowveil and sent me to find you.” His gaze shifted to Soraya, still partially hidden behind me. “But I didn’t expect to findthis.”
My wings stirred beneath my skin, responding to the threat, but I kept them contained. Showing aggression now would only escalate the situation. I needed to think, to plan.
Before I could respond, the shadows around Sevrin began to shift and writhe, darkening until one by one, more Reapers appeared around us, blurred by the veil but still unmistakable in their threat. Their black cloaks billowed around them, their faces impassive, their hands tensed like they were preparing to call forth the scythes pulsing beneath their skin.
A dozen at least. More appearing with each heartbeat.
Suddenly, the air behind me shifted—a cold rush of emptiness that made the hair on my neck stand up. I spun just in time to see a Reaper I didn’t recognize reach through the thinning veil, his hand closing around Soraya’s arm.
Realization slammed into me like a warhammer. We were no longer in mortal shells. She was a soul. A Reaper could...
She screamed, the sound cutting through me like a blade, as he yanked her backward into the Shadowveil.
“No!” The roar tore from my throat as my wings exploded from my back, unfurling with enough force to knock back the nearest Reapers even on the other side of the veil. Without hesitation, I sliced through it, tearing my way back into the shadow realm. It tried to resist me again, not designed to allow travel from the living to the dead, but without my mortal shell I was able to force myself inside despite the agony of being shredded nerve by nerve.
The familiar gray landscape of the Shadowveil greeted me, but I had no eyes for it. All I could see was Soraya, her face pale with terror, struggling in the grip of the Reaper who’d taken her. Around them, more Reapers materialized, forming a menacing circle.
Rage, hot and pure as the lava roiling in the distance surged through me.
Raw, possessive need to rip off the arms of the man daring to touch my woman rushed through me, and I felt my scythe pulsing beneath my skin, begging to come out and play and reclaim what was ours.
