Page 29 of Reaper’s Ruin (Reaper’s Ruin Trilogy #1)

She slipped one hand onto my shoulder and the other entwined with mine.

Her body was close. Too close. I could feel the heat of her through the silk and satin of that gods-damned dress.

Midnight blue. Silver embroidery. Like she’d been sewn into stormlight itself.

I cursed myself for choosing it now that I felt its full power over me.

“So, Death really knows how to dance?” she teased.

“I was alive during the rise of the Moon Courts,” I said dryly. “I’ve danced more waltzes than you’ve had breakfasts.”

Her smile widened. “Well then, lead on, Mr. Darcy.”

I exhaled slowly and stepped into the movement, guiding her into a slow rotation just as the music shifted to a haunting, sweeping melody. She moved gracefully with me, her eyes locked on mine, full of amusement and... something else.

Something dangerous.

As the music swelled, I guided her into the pattern, keeping the movements simple. She was a quick learner, adjusting to my direction with surprising grace. Within moments, we were moving as one across the floor, her body responding to mine as if we’d danced together a thousand times before.

The proximity was maddening. Her hand in mine, her waist beneath my palm, her body occasionally brushing against me as we turned. The scent of her filled my senses—something warm and sweet that reminded me of summer nights long forgotten.

The dance brought us closer, then apart, then closer again, a rhythm like breathing.

With each turn, each movement, the room around us seemed to fade.

The other dancers, the watching nobles, the danger of our situation—all of it receded until there was only Soraya, her blue eyes looking up at me through her mask, trust and something else shining in their depths.

The music curled around us like smoke, and we moved together in perfect rhythm.

I shouldn’t have enjoyed it. I shouldn’t have noticed the way her breath hitched when my hand slid just a fraction lower on her waist. Or the way her gaze flicked to my mouth when I leaned in slightly to murmur the next step.

But I did .

Gods help me, I did.

Images flashed unbidden through my mind—how she would feel beneath me, the sounds she might make if I kissed her neck, the weight of her in my arms not just for a dance but for more, much more.

I imagined peeling that dress away, revealing the soft skin I’d glimpsed when lacing her bodice.

I imagined her gasping my name—not Death, not Reaper, but Rhyker —as I showed her pleasure she’d never known.

The thoughts were inappropriate. Dangerous.

And completely unstoppable.

She was a soul I was supposed to guide to her afterlife. A task. A burden. A final mission before my own darkness swallowed me whole.

But she was also the first warmth I’d felt in centuries. The first spark of something alive .

As the music swelled toward its crescendo, our bodies moved closer, my hand pressing tighter into her back, the warmth of her skin flooding into my fingertips through the silk of her gown.

My thumb, acting of its own accord, traced the smallest circle against her spine—a betrayal of control I couldn’t stop.

Her lips parted, soft and pink, and when she looked up at me—gods, those eyes.

There it was again.

That look.

Desire . Honest, unguarded, and directed at me.

It couldn’t be. I’d imagined it the last few times—chalked it up to projection, to proximity, to the way she made me feel things I shouldn’t. Things I’d forgotten how to feel. But now, there was no mistaking it.

She looked at me like I was a man.

Not a monster.

Not Death.

Just... me.

And it wrecked me.

My chest tightened, a thousand-year-old instinct roaring to life inside me, louder than the thunder outside. That expression—I’d seen it before. In another life. When I was human. When love had felt like something I might be worthy of.

A flash of memory—another dance, another time.

A harvest festival, torches burning against the night, the sound of fiddles and drums. The woman in my arms had looked at me with a similar expression, an unmistakable invitation I’d gotten from so many others.

But like all of them, it had left me cold, unmoved.

I’d gone through the motions, playing the part expected of me, feeling nothing but the weight of duty.

But this? This was fire where there had only been ashes. This was coming up for air when I’d spent lifetimes drowning beneath the waves.

The way she looked at me left no room for confusion, and yet, it still felt like some cruel trick of fate. She couldn’t want me. Not really.

And yet... her gaze flicked to my mouth, lingering just a breath too long. My pulse stuttered.

She wanted me to kiss her.

It hit me like a blade to the ribs—shocking, excruciating, and so impossibly tempting I forgot how to think. How to breathe.

My need to devour those lips and claim them as my own surged through me like the lightning crackling above had jolted through my system.

But kissing her was impossible. The worst idea I’d ever be able to conceive no matter how many centuries I’d roamed this land. Forbidden. Wrong.

No. I couldn’t kiss her no matter how she stared through me with those eyes flooding with want I would never understand .

She was light and warmth and all the things I could never touch without turning them to ash.

But gods... I wanted to.

More than I’d wanted anything in any lifetime.

The space between us vibrated with possibility, with want, with everything we weren’t allowed to have. Just her. Just me. A current between us crackling louder than any lightning above.

A pull. Irresistible. Like fate itself drawing us together.

I could feel the tremor in her hand where it curled in mine.

She smiled, small and unsure, and something inside me cracked.

The world fell away.

The crowd, the danger, the mission, the masquerade—none of it mattered. Just her. Just this moment. The two of us suspended in something too big to name.

Her hand tightened in mine.

My breath hitched.

I didn’t move. Didn’t dare.

Because if I leaned in even one inch...

I wouldn’t be able to stop.

I’d kiss her.

And if I kissed her—

My lips drew toward hers. I couldn’t stop them. Didn’t want to. I was about to make the biggest mistake of my afterlife.

But then—

A scream tore through the ballroom.

Instinct took over. I pulled Soraya against me, shielding her body with mine as I scanned for threats. The music had stopped, the dancers frozen in confusion. Another cry rang out, this one more desperate.

“A healer! We need a healer!”

A crowd was gathering near the refreshment tables. Through gaps between bodies, I could see a man on the floor, his face contorted in pain, hands clutching at his chest.

“Poison!” someone shouted. “The assassin has struck again!”

Panic rippled through the crowd. Guards moved toward the commotion, hands on weapons, electricity crackling through their palms prepared to strike.

“The healer was called away,” another voice cried. “To attend Lord Erran’s wife!”

“Somebody help him!” a woman screamed.

Before I could tighten my grip on her, Soraya broke free from my arms, pushing through the crowd toward the fallen man.

“Soraya!” I hissed, rushing after her. “What are you doing?”

She didn’t answer, just kept moving forward with determination. By the time I reached her, she had already dropped to her knees beside the victim—a young noble in elaborate silver-trimmed garments, his mask discarded as he gasped for air, clutching his chest.

“Let me see,” she said with an authority that surprised me.

Without hesitation, she began unbuttoning the man’s jacket, pushing it aside to examine his chest. A massive purple bruise spread across his left side, visible even in the dim light.

“What happened to him? This bruise? What is it from?” she demanded of the panicked onlookers.

“He was kicked by a Stormsteed during practice this morning,” a woman replied, tears streaming down her face. “Said he was fine—”

“It’s a pneumothorax, not poison,” Soraya said firmly. “His lung has collapsed. I need to relieve the pressure. Now.”

I crouched beside her, gripping her arm. “What are you doing?” I growled under my breath. “This is the opposite of blending in. ”

She met my eyes, her determination unwavering. “I’m a nursing student, Rhyker. I can’t just let him die.”

“You’re drawing attention to us—”

“Unless a healer can get here in a minute, he’s not going to make it,” she interrupted, already looking around frantically. Her eyes landed on a noblewoman’s elaborate hairpin, studded with gemstones. “That. I need that.”

Before I could stop her, she stood and plucked the pin from the startled woman’s hair. In her other hand, she grabbed a hollow reed straw from an abandoned drink on a nearby table.

“Hold him still,” she commanded me.

Realizing she wouldn’t be deterred, I moved to the man’s shoulders, pressing him firmly against the floor. The crowd around us had grown, horrified fascination on every visible face.

With steady hands, Soraya positioned the hairpin between the man’s ribs, then, after a deep breath, plunged it into his chest with practiced precision.

“Oh my God! She stabbed him!” someone shrieked.

Gasps echoed through the ballroom. A woman fainted nearby.

The man on the floor jerked beneath my hands, a small spray of blood appearing where the pin entered his flesh.

Holy. Fuck.

Soraya just murdered a Storm Court noble in front of hundreds of witnesses.

“Seize her!” a man shouted, and more screams and shouts of horror flooded the room.

My entire body tightened with coiled precision as I prepared to defend her.

My mind raced through escape scenarios—which exits were least guarded, how many I could fight through before they overwhelmed us, cursing that as a human I couldn’t manifest my wings to get us out.

The Storm Warriors would make quick work of us in these fragile human forms .