Page 124 of Reaper's Ruin
The admission hung in the air between us, vulnerable and raw. I took a step closer, my anger softening into confusion.
“Protect yourself from... from me?”
Helet out a harsh laugh, raking his hands through his dark hair. “From this.” He gestured between us. “From whatever this is. This... madness.”
“Rhyker—”
“Do you understand what happens next, Soraya?” He turned to face me, his expression fierce with pain. “You find your peace. Your door appears. You walk through it to whatever paradise awaits you, to your mother, to eternal rest. And I...” His voice broke. “I stay here. Alone. As I have been for eight centuries.”
My heart constricted at the naked anguish in his eyes.
“That’s what I’m protecting myself from,” he continued, the words pouring out of him now as if a dam had broken. “The aftermath. The eternity that follows your departure. Do you have any idea what that will be like?”
“Rhyker, I—”
“An afterlife without you would be worse than the flames in the deepest part of the underworld,” he said, his voice rough with emotion. “And maybe that’s what this is. Maybe I am in what you call Hell. Maybe it’s just been eight hundred years of getting me ready for this torture of meeting you, touching you, having you, and then having you ripped away. Maybe this isn’t purgatory at all. Maybe I truly am in Hell because that’s what the aftermath of you leaving will feel like. I’d rather be reaped. I’d rather cease to exist entirely than return to what I was before you. Without you.”
Tears burned behind my eyes as understanding dawned, though I still struggled to grasp the truth in his words.
“You’re pushing me away because... because you care about me? But... how? Why? I’m no one.”
“No one?” He stared at me, eyes wide with disbelief. “How can you think that? How can you not realize how special you are? You’re not no one, Soraya. You’re... everything. You’re everything to me!” The words exploded from him, echoing across the volcanic landscape.
He took a step back like the truth had scorched his tongue. Like saying it aloud had cost him something irreparable.
“You want to know why I’m pushing you away?” His voice was a blade—ragged, sharp. “That kiss? That kiss destroyed me. Because I knew, the second I felt your lips on mine, I would never be whole again without you.”
His shoulders sagged like the weight of the world had settled onto them. “I never thought I’d care for anything—or anyone—again,” he said, voice jagged. “Not after what this cursed world took from me. But then you came crashing into my afterlife like a wildfire—beautiful, reckless, untouchable—and now you’re in everything. Every thought. Every feeling. Every breath.”
I wanted to speak, to stop the unraveling in his voice, but the look in his eyes rooted me in place.
“You think I’m cold because I don’t care?” His voice broke, then rebuilt, sharper. “I’m cold because I do. Because wanting you—loving you—is agony. This body doesn’t bleed. My soul is what bleeds. And every time I look at you, it’s another wound I won’t survive.”
I pressed a hand to my chest, as if that could steady the ache his words carved into my soul.
“I see my beginning in you. Everything I ever wanted. Everything I never let myself hope for. And for the first time in eight hundred years, I’m afraid. Not of dying. Not of suffering. I’m afraid oflosing you.”
He dragged his hand across his jaw, shaking his head like he could silence the storm behind his eyes. “I’ve fought wars. Battled monsters. I’ve walked battlefields soaked in blood, watched souls beg and scream for one more moment. And through it all, I feltnothing. But you... youruinedme. You made me feel again. You made mewant.”
My knees almost gave out beneath the weight of his words. I stared at him—this Reaper, this man—as he poured his soul out to me, raw and unguarded. I ached to soothe the pain I’d carved into him, to undo every wound I’d left. But something deeper, darker inside mecravedthose words because for the first time, I truly knew I mattered to him the way he mattered to me. In a way that defied death, time, and reason.
He stepped forward, gaze locked to mine like it was the only real thing left in this hollow world. “If I had a heartbeat, it would be yours. If I had a future, it would be with you. And if I lose you...” His hand hovered near my cheek, trembling, like touching me might be the thing that finally broke him, “then even eternity won’t be long enough to ease the agony.”
His pain was a mirror of mine. Every word he spoke ripped through the walls around my unbeating heart.
His voice grew quieter, but no less devastating. “I would burn every realm to ash if it meant I got to keep you. To make you mine for this lifetime and every lifetime.”
And then he shattered my entire existence when he finally admitted his truth.
“Don’t you understand? I’m in love with you! I’m in love with you and it’s killing me.”
Time seemed to stop. The world narrowed to just the two of us, his confession hanging in the air like the steam rising from the water.
He took a step closer, his eyes blazing with an intensity that stole my breath. “Please,” he said, his voice breaking. “Find your peace. Right now. Manifest your door. I can’t take it anymore. I can’t stand spending one more day with you. It feels impossible to love you more than I do now, but I keep falling more in love withyou every second we’re together. Each moment you’re in my life is only making the pain of losing you more agonizing. Loving you like I do, more and more, but knowing I don’t deserve you. That you could never love someone like me. That you’re leaving me—either through your door or by a Reaper’s scythe. Please, Soraya. I’m begging you. Go.”
Tears spilled down my cheeks, hot as the lava flowing in the distance. “I can’t,” I whispered.
“You have to. You deserve your afterlife. Your mother. You deserve peace. Please, Soraya. Go. You have to go. Put me out of my misery.”
