Page 106 of Reaper's Ruin
“What do you want?” he asked, his voice surprisingly calm for a man tied to a chair by an enraged Reaper.
“The truth,” I said simply. “Why did you kill me? What did I ever do to you?”
He lifted his chin, stiffing his shoulders. “It wasn’t personal,” he said, eyes darting between us. “Just business.”
“Whose business?” I demanded.
“None of yours,” he snapped back.
Rhyker backhanded him—a lightning-fast movement that left blood trickling from the corner of Lord Cassius’s mouth. “Answer her question,” he snarled.
Something in his tone must have conveyed the depth of his rage, because Lord Cassius’s smug expression faltered.
“I’m a dead man if I tell you.”
“You’re a dead man if you don’t. Speak.”
Lord Cassius looked like he may finally give me the answers I needed, but then his eyes hardened, his sharp chin lifting. “No. I won’t talk.”
Rhyker stiffened, rising taller as he stared down the man. “Soraya. Go get me that fabric.”
He gestured to a pile of folded clothes on a chair. I didn’t ask for what, just hurried over to retrieve them with shaky hands. I carried back the pile, unsure what he wanted, and he pulled a sock from it, wadded it up and then shoved it into Cassius’s mouth.
What followed wasn’t the chaotic interrogation I’d expected from spy movies. It was... precise. Efficient. Calculating.
Rhyker didn’t yell. He didn’t posture. He asked questions in a voice so calm it made my skin crawl, his tone more suited to a dinner party than a torture chamber. And when Cassius didn’t answer? He simply... corrected him.
Once, he took hold of Cassius’s pinky and bent it back with casual, almost curious pressure—like he was testing the limits of ahinge. The muffled scream through the sock told me exactly when the bone gave way.
Another time, he traced a line down Cassius’s arm with the flat of his dagger—just a whisper of steel on skin. A warning. When Cassius hesitated, Rhyker angled it, the sharp edge applying just enough pressure to make blood bloom like an opening rose in the spring.
I should’ve felt sick. I should’ve looked away.
But God help me... it was hot.
Watching Rhyker like this—controlled, ruthless, ice-cold—avenging my death with surgical precision...
It did something to me.
This wasn’t chaos. This was order.
He was Death in a jacket and gloves, and he was magnificent.
Finally, after Rhyker pressed the blade against his crotch, asking which ball he wanted to bid goodbye to, Cassius broke.
“All right!” he mumbled over the fabric, his eyes wide and pleading as he nodded his intent.
Rhyker pulled the sock out of his mouth, and he spit, coughing.
“Speak,” Rhyker commanded, the one word so deep and powerful it nearly shook the room.
I held my breath as he opened his mouth. Finally, I would hear the truth... my truth.
“It’s the Princess Ravenna,” he spit out breathlessly.
My heart seized. “What?” The woman who’d seemed so kind and caring. The one I’d sat down with for tea only yesterday?Shewas the reason my mother and I had to die?
“Why?” I asked, leaning forward.
