Page 91 of Prisoner of Steel and Shadow

Sudden frustration replaced the heavy weight of guilt pressing into her chest and making it impossible to breathe. “Dammit, stop lying there giving me permission to end you.”

“What would you have me do, Shadow? Kill you instead?” He shifted just enough she could feel the tip of the dagger he’d stolen pressed against her rib cage.

“Yes,” she hissed. Not because she wanted to die, but because it might alleviate some of this fucking guilt.

His expression was surprisingly tender for a man about to have his throat rent open. “I could no more harm a hair on your head than I could a child. I’ve always known this was going to end one way if we reached this point. But my goal was never to win.”

“It wasn’t?”

“I’ve only ever had one mission, to reunite with the woman who pieced my broken heart back together. You were the one who taught it to speak your name. It beats for you.” He dropped the dagger and reached up to cup her cheek. “Mission accomplished.”

“Ronan.” Her voice broke around his name.

“Do with me what you will, kitten. My heart, my life, they’re yours. They’ve always been yours, because without you to share them with, they mean nothing at all.”

“I—"

“Finish him!”

Erebos had remained mostly silent until now, a seething sentinel bearing witness to their ruin, but it would seem the clock had just run out on his patience.

“Do it.” Ronan’s gentle order hit harder than the crack of the High Lord’s command. “It’s okay, I promise. If this is all we get, it’s enough. Loving you is more than enough.”

A tear broke free and splashed down her cheek at his tender reassurance.

“Don’t cry, kitten.” He curled his hand around her wrist, reinforcing her grip on the dagger at his throat. His lips twitched up in a sorry attempt at a smile. “This is what I wanted, remember? To draw my last breath underneath a beautiful woman. All you’re doing is fulfilling a dying man’s wish.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, her eyes falling closed as she sucked in a ragged breath and blindly slashed out.

The crowd that had been a near-constant roar in the background fell as silent as the man beneath her, their shock rendering them speechless.

It was over.

Now she had to find a way to live with what she’d done.

CHAPTER28

EREBOS

He could no more ignore Luna’s pull now than he could in the days he and his goddess had meant more to one another than a means to an end. Since visiting her in the garden upon his release from the tomb she’d trapped him in, his conniving wife had made a point to stay far away. Her presence now, when she could have come to him any number of times in the last five years, could not be a coincidence.

With Shadow fully engaged in battle against the veiled Night Stalker, Dichen, he allowed himself to slip away, leaving his vessel and projecting his consciousness to the celestial plane.

“You rang?” he droned, even as his body reacted to the sight of his nubile bride. He was no more immune to her now than he’d ever been. She’d been crafted for him from the very stars themselves. Her glittering perfection was a stunning contrast to his rippling darkness.

She stiffened at the sound of his voice, her head tilting slowly as she turned to look at him, sweeping those iridescent colored eyes over his body, her regal countenance giving nothing away.

“I wasn’t sure you’d come.”

“Don’t I always come when you call?”

She bit her pouty lower lip, and he had to battle the instinctive need to pull it free and replace her teeth with his own. He loved to hurt her, his shining star. There was nothing he enjoyed more than her tears, except perhaps her sweet moans. Luna came to life under his touch. She quite literally glowed during her climax—it was the main reason one of her better-known monikers was the Lady of Light.

“I stopped counting on you long ago,” she said eventually.

Anger at her betrayal roared to the surface, as it always did when she dared accuse him of being the villain. She was the one who locked him up. He was the forsaken one, not her.Him.

“Still singing that old worn-out tune, sweetheart? How disappointing.”

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