Page 48 of Reaper’s Ruin (Reaper’s Ruin Trilogy #1)

Once, he took hold of Cassius’s pinky and bent it back with casual, almost curious pressure—like he was testing the limits of a hinge. The muffled scream through the sock told me exactly when the bone gave way.

Another time, he traced a line down Cassius’s arm with the flat of his dagger—just a whisper of steel on skin. A warning. When Cassius hesitated, Rhyker angled it, the sharp edge applying just enough pressure to make blood bloom like an opening rose in the spring.

I should’ve felt sick. I should’ve looked away.

But God help me... it was hot.

Watching Rhyker like this—controlled, ruthless, ice-cold—avenging my death with surgical precision...

It did something to me.

This wasn’t chaos. This was order.

He was Death in a jacket and gloves, and he was magnificent.

Finally, after Rhyker pressed the blade against his crotch, asking which ball he wanted to bid goodbye to, Cassius broke.

“All right!” he mumbled over the fabric, his eyes wide and pleading as he nodded his intent.

Rhyker pulled the sock out of his mouth, and he spit, coughing.

“Speak,” Rhyker commanded, the one word so deep and powerful it nearly shook the room.

I held my breath as he opened his mouth. Finally, I would hear the truth... my truth.

“It’s the Princess Ravenna,” he spit out breathlessly.

My heart seized. “What?” The woman who’d seemed so kind and caring. The one I’d sat down with for tea only yesterday? She was the reason my mother and I had to die?

“Why?” I asked, leaning forward.

He laughed bitterly. “Power. What else? In the other Fae courts, queens can rule. But the Storm Court is old-fashioned. Only men can inherit the throne. ”

“And?” Rhyker pressed.

“And she was the older sibling. The legitimate one,” he added darkly.

“Daughter of the Storm Queen and King, born in wedlock, the rightful heir in any other court. For a moment, people wondered if he may legitimize women ruling and grant her the throne. But then the king fathered a bastard with a mistress. A son.”

Understanding dawned as the weight of it sank in like a stone.

“She should have been queen,” he said. “But instead, her younger half-brother—born out of scandal but blessed with the right anatomy—got the crown. She’s been furious about it her entire life.”

The pieces began falling into place as he continued, painting a picture of decades-long resentment and carefully planned revenge.

“She and her brother hated each other,” Lord Cassius explained.

“But since he only had one daughter, she at least knew that her son would take the throne when he died as it couldn’t be passed down to his girl.

That meant eventually, though she couldn’t rule, her child and grandchildren would at least get the honor.

But King Aric knew of her desires, and with his hatred of her, he had other ideas to stop her line from taking his place. ”

I listened, still trying to decipher how I would ever fit into this political maneuvering.

“What does this have to do with me?” I asked.

Lord Cassius’s lips twisted in a cruel smile. “The King had a tendency to... spread his seed. He fathered children all over the realm, and because he was a Realm Walker, like me, he even fathered some beyond it. Hidden heirs to the throne.”

My heart stuttered. “And I’m one of them?”

“Your father was Aric Skyborne, the Storm King himself,” he confirmed. “You were conceived on one of his many illegal adventures to the Mortal Realm. He had a knack for breaking the rules, and he found great joy in sneaking to your realm and seducing humans. I guess your mother was one of them.”

The room seemed to spin around me. My father—the man my mother had never spoken of—was a fae King? I was fae royalty?

“But... but even if that’s true. Even if I’m his daughter, I’m a woman. I can’t rule. And I’m a woman in another realm. I’m no threat to Prince Alaric’s rule. It... it doesn’t make sense. Why?”

“Because King Aric suspected Ravenna would do something terrible, even have him killed so her son could take his place. So, he kept a list of all the children he’d sired around the realms. Every last one of them, and he kept it hidden away, only to be revealed in his death.

Meaning when he died and Ravenna expected Alaric to take the throne, she’d be thwarted when she learned he had bastards everywhere. Bastards with a claim to the throne.”

“But... that still doesn’t explain why me. I’m a woman.”

“The King had created not just a list of his heirs to be revealed at his death, legitimizing you all and ensuring that his sister could never seize power through her son, but he also secretly changed the law to allow females to inherit the throne. Meaning his daughter would rule, or on the off chance she wasn’t alive, any of his heirs, male or female would take the throne and carry on his line, and Ravenna would be left with no blood on the throne. And then... she found out.”

“So she had him killed,” Rhyker stated flatly.

“Yes. When Ravenna discovered there was a list of heirs, male and female, and a decree secretly granting both sexes the ability to ascend the throne, she was wild with fury that she’d been denied her chance to rule and now it was law that women could rule just after she missed her chance.

And just in time to ensure her son never would.

She knew her brother did this just to spite her and destroy any chance she had of her own bloodline, her son, taking the throne.

She killed him and hid the list so no one knew of his heirs or his law putting females into the line of succession.

And then, just to be sure, in case it ever came to light he had additional heirs or had signed a law allowing women to rule, she began eliminating anyone who could claim the throne before Alaric—those who knew of their heritage and those, like you, who didn’t.

She promised my brother and me wealth, lands, titles if we helped her. ”

“And you agreed,” I said, disgust filling me. “You murdered innocent people, including a young woman who didn’t even know she was fae, just for power and wealth.”

He shrugged, unrepentant. “As I said, nothing personal. There are certainly great benefits to having my nephew on the throne instead of one of Aric’s bastards.”

The word ‘bastard’ hit me like a physical blow. That’s what I was to them—not a person, not a daughter, not a nursing student with dreams and hopes—just an inconvenient bastard to be eliminated.

“You killed me!” I snarled, trying to keep from screaming so loudly I’d draw the attention of the guards. “You killed my mother!”

The tears started falling as it all came together.

Finally, I understood. I was an heir to the Storm Court throne.

A threat to a ruthless woman who would take power however she could.

For one moment, one small blink of an eye, I felt for her.

Felt her injustice. Understood her rage.

The heartbreaking betrayal. But my empathy faded as quickly as the deadly blade had moved when Lord Cassius drove it into my body to complete her revenge.

She’d stolen everything from me. My life. My future. My mother.

“All my life I wondered about my father,” I whispered, my voice breaking. “All those nights staring out the window, wondering who he was, why he never came for me. ”

Lord Cassius made a sound that might have been laughter. “Don’t romanticize it, girl. The King didn’t care about you. Not really. You were just another little leftover from his many, many interludes.”

I stared at him, the words landing like blows to my stomach.

“You think he sired all you bastards out of love?” He sneered. “You were insurance. A way to ensure his sister would never win their lifelong game. You meant nothing to him beyond your bloodline.”

The revelation stung, but somehow didn’t surprise me. I straightened, facing my murderer with newfound clarity. “So I was just a chess piece to him. And to Princess Ravenna. And to you.”

“Now you’re understanding, girl.”

“But my mother,” I pressed, needing to know. “She was innocent in all this. She never knew, did she?”

“She wasn’t part of the plan,” he said dismissively. “But she saw me, and I couldn’t take any chances. She was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

My hands trembled with rage, with grief, with the cosmic unfairness of it all. “You murdered her—murdered me—for a game I never even knew I was playing.” I slammed my fist against the chair, my control shattering. “You stole everything from me!”

“Don’t blame me. Blame your mother. If she’d have kept her legs shut instead of spreading them for some stranger when Aric came to your land, you wouldn’t be in this mess.

” Then his gaze flicked to Rhyker, his shirt torn from our earlier interlude, and his eyebrow raised.

“Though it looks like being a whore runs in the family. It seems you spread your legs just as easily.”

I recoiled as if he’d slapped me. The words hung in the air for one frozen heartbeat .

I never saw Rhyker move. One moment he was standing beside me, rigid with fury; the next, his dagger was buried in Lord Cassius’s chest.

With one sharp stab, and then a slice upward, he split his chest open.

And then, as Cassius gasped and choked on blood, Rhyker reached forward, sliding his hand into the hole, grasping the still-beating heart within.

Lord Cassius made a strangled sound, his eyes bulging with shock and agony as Rhyker leaned close to him, voice dropping to a lethal whisper.

“This is for her.”

With a sickening crunch and a wet tearing sound, Rhyker ripped out Lord Cassius’s heart.

Blood sprayed across the expensive carpet, across Rhyker’s chest, a few drops spattering my dress.

Lord Cassius convulsed, a gurgling noise escaping his lips as Rhyker held the organ before his eyes in the final moments of his life.

“When you arrive in the fires below where you’re going... tell them Death sent you,” Rhyker said, crushing the heart in his fist as Lord Cassius’s eyes went blank, his body slumping forward, lifeless—blood still dripping from the gaping hole in his chest.

I should have been horrified. I should have recoiled from the brutality, the savagery of what I’d just witnessed.

But as I stood there, watching the life drain from the man who had murdered me and my mother, who had mocked our deaths and sullied our memories, I felt only a fierce, primal satisfaction.

But then, suddenly his soul pulled out from his lifeless corpse.

I gasped as he stood up, a mirror copy of himself now spinning around, confused. He froze when he looked down at his mangled body, eyes wide in disbelief as he took a staggering step back.

“What the—what is this?” he choked, staring at his own body like it couldn’t possibly be real. “No. No, this isn’t—”

“Not so fun seeing your own corpse, is it?” I said coldly, my voice laced with the sharp edge of vengeance.

He turned toward me, eyes widening. “You—you can see me—”

“I can see you because I’m a ghost, thanks to you. And he can see you because he’s literally Death. And now, you’re dead too.”

He stood staring at his body, and I couldn’t help but feel a sense of joy in knowing he experienced now what he’d put me through. But then, suddenly, the ground beneath him trembled, cracked, and then ripped open with a deafening roar.

Red light surged from the chasm below. Smoke curled upward—thick and stinking of sulfur and ash—followed by clawed shadows that slithered toward the ghost of Lord Cassius like they’d been waiting for him.

“No,” he whispered. “No, this isn’t—this isn’t supposed to happen!”

“Oh, I think it is,” Rhyker growled, voice low and lethal.

The shadows struck.

They wrapped around Cassius’s ghost like chains, dragging him toward the gaping tear in the floor as he thrashed and screamed.

“HELP ME!” he shrieked, reaching out toward us. “PLEASE! HELP ME!”

But I didn’t move.

“You got exactly what you earned,” I said softly. “Enjoy your endless afterlife below.”

And with one final, earsplitting shriek, his soul was ripped downward, dragged into the chasm that snapped shut behind him with a sound like a slamming door.

Then...

Silence.

No trace of his ghost. No afterlife. No redemption.

Just... gone .

I should have been horrified. Terrified. Shocked. But instead, all I felt was... justice.

Rhyker turned to me, his face splattered with crimson, his eyes burning with an intensity that stole my breath. He looked like what he truly was in that moment—not just a man, but something ancient and terrible. Beautiful and avenging.

“Are you all right?” he asked, concern breaking through the rage still evident in his face.

I nodded, though I wasn’t sure if I was.

Too many emotions churned inside me—grief, shock, vindication, a strange sense of closure.

The man who’d murdered me just received the justice he deserved.

I had my answers now. I knew why I had died.

I was simply collateral damage in a power struggle I never knew existed.

My mother had been nothing but an inconvenience to be eliminated.

A strange thought occurred to me—now that I knew the truth, now that I understood why I’d died, had been avenged, would my door appear? Was this the peace I needed to find?

I glanced around the room, half-expecting to see a glowing doorway materialize before me. My feelings were a jumble of contradictions—part of me desperate to see my mother again, part of me panicked at the thought of leaving Rhyker behind.

Because somewhere along this bizarre journey, I’d fallen for him. The beautiful, tormented soul who had been meant to end my existence but had instead become my protector, my lover, my everything.

I looked at him and saw the same conflict in his eyes—resignation battling with desperation, as if he too was waiting for a door to appear and tear me away from him.

But no door materialized. The room remained unchanged except for Lord Cassius’s cooling body slumped in the chair, the bloody cavity in his chest a testament to the price of threatening what Rhyker held dear.

“Why—” I began, but before I could finish, the door to the chambers burst open.

“Hey, I need—” Lord Marwyn started then stopped, freezing in the doorway as his eyes widened while he took in the scene—his brother’s murdered body, Rhyker and me standing over him, the evidence of our interrogation clear.

For one breathless moment, we all stared at each other in shocked silence. Then Rhyker moved, blindingly fast, flinging his dagger with lethal precision. It embedded itself in Lord Marwyn’s chest, but as he fell, he crashed backward through the doorway into the hall.

Shouts erupted immediately. The sound of armored boots rushing toward us echoed through the corridor.

“Shit,” I whispered, looking at Rhyker in dismay. “We’re busted.”