Page 103 of Reaper's Ruin
Never found me.
Never became mine.
And just like that, I felt it—that terrifying, exhilarating clarity.
I was hers.
She rolled onto her back, her eyes meeting mine before drifting to the shadowy wings still curling like smoke behind me. Her lips parted, breath catching as she took in my true form—naked, powerful, otherworldly.
“Beautiful,” she whispered, reaching out with trembling fingers to touch the edge of one wing. It rippled at her touch, and her eyes widened with wonder. “You’re beautiful, Rhyker.”
No one had ever called Death beautiful before. The word lodged in my chest like a blade. But the heat in her eyes, the way she looked at me like I was something magnificent instead of monstrous—it undid me completely.
When the last of the shadows melted away, I was just Rhyker again—naked, spent, shattered, and completely hers. I collapsedonto my back on the desk, slipping an arm around her and pulling her against me like I could keep her there forever. Her skin was flushed, glowing in the soft moonlight. Hair tangled. Lips swollen from my kisses. And absolutely fucking radiant.
She’d just let me lose every shred of control I’d clung to for centuries and trusted me with it.
And it wasn’t her that was ruined... it wasme.
I had tried to hold back so hard knowing if I gave in to the feelings I fought for her, that I would be totally and irreparablyfucked.
And now—now I was.
I brushed my hand down her back, fingertips ghosting over the curve of her spine like I could memorize it through touch alone. I could feel her still shaking in my arms. Not from fear. Not from pain.
Justus. The weight of what we’d just done. What wewere.
She rested her cheek against my chest, listening to my heartbeat like it meant something. Like she didn’t just blow apart every line I’d drawn to keep her at a distance. Like this wasn’t the beginning of the end.
Because she was going to leave.
Maybe tomorrow. Maybe the day after.
Or maybe tonight. When I ripped the truth from Cassius, even tonight, she could get her peace. Soon, a door would come for her. A doorway carved from peace and closure and all the answers we were chasing. And she would step through it.
She’d find her afterlife.
And I... I’d stay here.
Alone.
In the shadows.
With nothing but the memory of how she’d felt beneath me, how she’d looked at me—like I was something more than Death. Like I was a man.
And now that someone had, now thatshehad... I didn’t know how I’d survive watching her go.
I’d survived losing everything before. My home. My family. My world.
But her?
Losing her would break me in a way I wouldn’t come back from.
She shifted slightly, nuzzling closer, her hand splayed over my chest like she was trying to keep something inside me from slipping away. “That was...” she whispered, words trailing off like she didn’t even know what to call it.
Sacred? Destructive? World-ending?
“Yeah,” I said hoarsely. “It was.”
