Page 63 of Too Dangerous To Die

I’m yanked backward by unseen hands. The collar snaps at my throat, but then—suddenly—it fizzles and bursts, as if something stronger has intervened. I gasp as the connection between me and Rhaegar slams back into place.

He’s free.

A snarl splits the night—and I see him. My gargoyle.

Rhaegar bursts from the shadows like vengeance incarnate, his body crackling with broken magic, eyes lit with fury. His claws tear into the Wraithborn nearest to me, ripping it from the inside out in one explosive movement. The air warps around him with each step, his power distorting the light.

He’s wounded. I can see it in the tremble of his hands, the uneven way he breathes. The cracks in his skin glow red, lava bright, like he’s coming apart at the seams.

But still, he fights.

“Rhaegar!” I cry, reaching for him, even as another Purna falls screaming behind me.

Ivenna turns to run—but a Wraithborn catches her mid-incantation. Her body crumples. One of the younger witches tries to shield me with a dome of magic, but it falters under the weight of two charging Wraithborn. She’s flung like a doll into the stone altar behind us.

I don’t even know if she’s breathing.

The Wraithborn move toward me—deliberate. Unhurried. Their hands don’t reach for my heart.

They reach for my face. My chest. My soul.

They want me whole.

“No—no—” I stumble back, magic surging through me in violent bursts. I lash out, uncontrolled, a cyclone of force and heat. One of them staggers—but not far.

They close in.

But Rhaegar is faster.

He slams into them with a roar, his body already fracturing from the pressure. “Stay back!” he snarls at me, blood trailing from his mouth.

“Rhaegar, you’re—” I don’t finish the thought. I don’t need to.

He’s burning from the inside out.

He turns toward me, wild and barely himself. “Nora, I need?—”

“I know.”

I run to him.

And without hesitation, without thought—I press my lips to his.

30

RHAEGAR

The battlefield still reeks of scorched earth and spilled blood. The ash clings to my skin like a curse, coating my wings in soot, staining the corners of my mouth with the copper tang of fury.

Nora lies crumpled a few feet from me, her chest heaving, her fingers twitching as if they still remember the way they wrapped around my collar, dragging me into that kiss. That act—that desperate, soul-burning contact—wasn’t meant to be salvation. It was a gamble. A sacrifice.

And I took it.

The storm of her magic still churns in my chest. I can feel it—her essence, raw and untamed, binding to mine in tangled threads that shouldn’t exist. I was starving, my body fractured from the last fight with the Wraithborn. They would have torn her apart if she hadn’t offered herself. If she hadn’t whispered my name and kissed me like I was both her ruin and her redemption.

I crouch beside her, brushing strands of hair away from her cheek. She’s feverish. Pale. The bond between us pulses too hot, too alive.

"You didn’t have to," I whisper, my voice a rasp. “Godsdamn it, Nora…”

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