Page 88 of Queen of Whispers and Mist

It should be him. He was the one who should be laying down his life to save hers. Not this. Never this.

He could barely breathe, let alone tell her so. Cut off from air as he was, he could do little more than make harsh rasping sounds. She risked a final glance back at him, her gaze filled with everything she couldn’t say.

I love you. Please don’t do this.

As if she could hear him,a tear beaded at the corner of her eye, but she blinked it away before taking that final step.

The second Reyna was within range, Erebos pressed the palm of his hand to her forehead, and her eyes rolled back in her head, body going limp. Erebos caught her easily, lowering her into an unconscious heap at his feet.

“Reyna!” The outraged shout was barely a strangled grunt.

“I’ll deal with her in a minute. Right now, I think it’s past time you and I had a talk.”

Ronan tried to bare his teeth in something that might pass as a derisive snarl, but it was hard to convince his limbs to do much of anything. Even his fingers, which had been attempting to peel away the smoke crushing his throat, were sliding down. It was a struggle just to keep his gaze trained on the other man’s face.

“From the day you set foot on my continent, you’ve caused me no end of grief. I overlooked your trespasses, admittedly not considering you—a broken, pathetic man—much of a threat. But then you took something that belongs to me, and in doing so, ruined years of hard work. And that I simply cannot forgive.” He exhaled, his head slowly tilting to the side as he studied him. “I’m afraid I’m going to enjoy this more than I should. Far more than you, certainly.”

Erebos stalked forward, closing the distance between them. The smoky hand did not release him until the Lord of Death grasped his cheeks between his thumb and forefinger. Such a slight touch shouldn’t have hurt, but it felt as though a storm’s worth of lightning shot directly into his heart.

Ronan convulsed in his hold, vision blurring as his eyes rolled back in his head and agony became the only truth he knew. The pain stopped as suddenly as it started, Erebos’s cruel voice whispering in his ear.

“Do you have any last words, Shield? I couldn’t care less about them, to be perfectly honest, but there’s a certain poetry to the ritual, isn’t there? Especially if my wife is out there somewhere, watching. I wonder, would you have remained devoted to Luna and her Vessel if you’d known this was what was in store for you?”

Ronan struggled to pay attention. To memorize the words so he could pick them apart and make sense of them later. Erebos didn’t make it easy for him, either. Especially since he wouldn’t shut up.

“I want her to know this was the moment she failed. Where all her best-laid plans went awry. Because at the end of the day,youwere never a match forme.I mean, really, what was she thinking sending such a wretched, pitiable creature to finish the job she herself failed to do? Alone at that?” He pulled back to meet Ronan’s gaze. “I suppose that’s a question I’ll simply have to ask her myself.”

Blood began to dribble out of Ronan’s cracked lips as another pulse of electricity shot through him.

“Oh, don’t worry, Shield. I’m not going to kill you... yet. I fully intend to draw this out. Use you to keep my pet in line. For she is my favorite toy, and you are hers. She’d do anything to save you. Just as I would do anything to keep her. And to think, all this time, I should have been torturing you instead. How differently things might have ended up if I’d simply done that from the beginning. Ah well, better to learn one’s lesson late than never.”

Erebos squeezed harder, his eyes furious black pits and his smile carved of malice.

Every muscle in Ronan’s body went taut as he fought wave after wave of blinding agony. This time when the pain cut off, he dropped to his knees in the sand, bloody spit dripping from his mouth as he fought to catch his breath.

“Oh, I got a bit carried away, didn’t I? We were discussing last words.”

“Fuck. You.” His vocal cords may not be able to convey the depth of his loathing, but he knew the truth of his hatred shone in his eyes.

“What was that? I didn’t quite catch it,” Erebos said, crouching beside him and hauling his head back by the hair.

Ronan spat a mouthful of blood in his face.

Erebos wiped a hand over the red-tinged spittle, looking like a bored tutor rather than an enraged Lord of Death. “Now that wasn’t very nice, was it? Manners, Ronan. They matter. I believe it might be time I teach you some.”

This time when the lightning shot through him, the torment went on without end, Ronan’s anguished cries ringing out into the night until his voice was too hoarse to create sound. Even then, they continued to bounce around in his skull, the unending echo chasing itself until he was lost to it.

He must have passed out at some point because later, when he was able to once again think past the pain, he peeled open his eyes. In that one final moment of awareness, the last thing he saw was Reyna’s slumped form being dragged beside his in the sand.

No!

He couldn’t let his monster steal her from him again.

Reyna. Reyna!

He couldn’t form the words, but his heart screamed them.

This couldn’t be happening. Even if what Erebos had said about Luna always intending for this to happen had been true, he refused to accept it.

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