Page 99 of Reaper's Ruin
“No.” She planted herself in front of me, blue eyes flashing with determination. “You’re not doing this alone.”
My carefully maintained control began to fray. “This isn’t a discussion, Soraya. Go back to our rooms. Now.”
“Stop treating me like I’m some fragile thing that needs protecting!” she shot back, color rising in her cheeks. “This is my life—my death—we’re talking about. I deserve to know the truth. And I deserve to look him in the eyes, the man who killed me and my mother, while I hear it.”
The thought of her being captured, of her being hurt, sent a wave of fear through me unlike anything I’d experienced in centuries.
“Don’t you understand?” I hissed. “If this goes sideways, if anything happens to you—” The words choked in my throat, too raw, too honest to voice.
“What?” she challenged, stepping even closer. “Tell me, Rhyker. Why does it matter so much to you?”
“Because I care for you!” The admission tore from me, ragged and unplanned. “Because I won’t let you come to harm!”
Silence fell between us, thick with unspoken tension. Her eyes widened, searching mine with an intensity that made me want to look away, but I couldn’t. Not from her.
“You care for me,” she whispered, repeating my truth, her voice barely audible.
“Yes,” I said, the simple word my most powerful admission.
“And you were jealous tonight when Lord Destan was touching me.”
My breath came rough and raw as I answered, “I was furious.”
She stepped closer, her eyes full of fire and softness all at once, and when she leaned in—lips barely a breath from mine—I froze.
Gods help me, I wanted to kiss her. Wanted to claim her, take her, worship her. But I couldn’t. I wouldn’t.
I turned my head, breaking the moment. “No.”
She blinked, startled, hurt flashing across her face before she masked it with that determined fire that always undid me.
“What are you so scared of? Why won’t you admit you want this as much as I do?” she whispered.
“Because you’re too good,” I said hoarsely, every word scraping against the raw edge of my need. “Too pure. If I touch you like I want to, I won’t stop. And I won’t ruin you just for my own pleasure.”
Her eyes searched mine, and then she said, “Rhyker... I spent my whole life on the sidelines. I missedso much. And now... now I’m dead and these could be my very last moments to experience things. At any moment, a Reaper could come through the shadows and end me. At any moment, I could get my door. I don’t know what’s going to happen to me or what’s waiting for me on the other side of the door if I get one, but I do know that I want this. If there’s even a chance I’ll carry memories with me, then this—” she stepped even closer, her hand splaying over my chest, right above the heart that hadn’t beat in centuries until she showed up— “thisis a memory I want.”
My resolve wavered, a crack forming in the wall I’d built around myself centuries ago. “Soraya—”
“I want to feel passion like I’ve never felt,” she continued, her voice dropping to a whisper that seemed to reach inside me and grip something vital. “Passion that I feel for you. Passion that I know you feel for me. I want this, Rhyker.”
My hands curled into fists at my sides, trembling with the effort it took not to grab her, pin her to the wall, and kiss her until the world burned down around us.
But I wouldn’t.
I couldn’t.
I stepped back, struggling to maintain control. “You don’t know what you’re asking. I’ve been alone for eight hundred years.If I let go...” I shook my head. “With what I feel for you, I won’t be able to hold back. I can’t. I won’t ruin you. You’re too good. Too pure.”
Her eyes darkened, determination and desire mingling in their depths. “I’m not asking you to hold back. I’m not some virgin sacrifice, Rhyker. I’ve had sex before—boring, careful, vanilla sex with boyfriends who never made me feel the way I feel with you.”
My vision went red.
Mine.
The thought snapped through me like a whip. The image of another man touching her—laying his hands onwhat was mine—was enough to push me over the edge. But knowing she’d been with others, that she wasn’t untouched, that I wouldn’t be shattering something delicate but instead claiming something already hers to give?
It broke me.
