Page 54 of Reaper’s Ruin (Reaper’s Ruin Trilogy #1)

I had no idea if I could pull our mortal forms through the veil even with my Veilwings, but I had to try.

I opened my hand, my eyes conveying my need for her to come to me.

She rose, and I pulled her into my arms, my body heaving a sigh at her closeness, a relief of feeling her against me again. Where she belonged.

“Hold on to me,” I whispered against her hair.

Her arms wrapped around my waist without hesitation, her face pressed against my heart.

I pushed against the veil, my wings straining to slice straight through it while it tried to push me out, refusing to open to my mortal flesh.

I was no longer a soul but flesh and blood, and it rejected me as surely as the body rejects a foreign object.

Pain lanced through me, white-hot and searing, as I forced my will against the ancient barriers that separated life from death.

It wasn’t supposed to work like this. It didn’t want me. Tried to deny me entrance.

The pain was like a thousand blades tearing through every nerve .

But I didn’t care. I had to get her safe.

Gods help me, I’d defy every law that held this world together if it meant keeping her alive.

“Did you see that? Something moved,” one of the Storm Warriors whispered, and I heard them moving closer.

Silently, I absorbed the agony, holding her against me as I drew on every strength I had, every will inside my body to fight through.

The Shadowveil wasn’t meant for mortal flesh, and it fought back, clawing at my skin, ripping me apart nerve by nerve, but I forced the Shadowveil to submit to my will, and I dragged us both through.

I roared internally with the effort, holding Soraya tighter, refusing to let her go as reality tore and shifted around us.

And then—silence.

The endless quiet of the Shadowveil enveloped us, familiar yet strange. We stood in the same forest, but now it was a shadow of itself—colorless, muted, like an old painting faded with time. The trees were ghostly silhouettes, the ground beneath our feet insubstantial.

I looked at Soraya, still clutched against my chest, and froze.

She was no longer wearing the fine dress of the Storm Court.

Instead, she stood in the bloodstained nightclothes she’d worn when I’d first found her—tattered and stained with the evidence of her murder.

Her skin seemed paler here, almost translucent, and her eyes were wide with wonder and fear but human again.

No shine of the fae glamour remained in those beautiful, mortal eyes.

I looked down at my own form, seeing the familiar black leather, the silver fastenings that had been my constant companions for centuries.

Like our mortal bodies had been stripped away in an instant, and once again, we were as we were meant to be.

Death and the ghost he had fallen for .

“Rhyker,” she whispered, her voice echoing strangely in the silence of the Shadowveil. “What happened? Where are we?”

“The Shadowveil,” I said, still stunned I’d actually succeeded. I’d ripped open the barrier between life and death and I’ d done it... for her.

She stepped back slightly, her eyes sweeping over me. I tensed, waiting for fear. Like she’d suddenly remember this was what I truly was—not the man she’d kissed in the storm, not the noble who’d ravished her on the desk, not the protector who’d fought for her in the palace.

I was Death, cold and eternal.

But there was no fear in her eyes. Only that same look of awe she got that could drop me to my knees.

The sound of voices reached us, muffled by the veil between worlds but still audible. She tensed, but I shook my head.

“They can’t see us. Not here.”

We watched in silence as the Storm Warriors entered the clearing, their forms strangely blurred from our perspective. They pushed around the brush, following our tracks to where we’d vanished.

“They’re gone,” one of them said, his voice distant, as if coming from underwater. “The tracks just... stop.”

“Impossible,” another growled, a tall woman with lightning crackling around her fingertips. “Search the area. They can’t have vanished.”

Soraya pressed closer to me as they moved through the clearing, some passing within inches of where we stood.

None of them showed any sign of sensing our presence.

I kept my wings partially extended, ready to shield her if necessary, though I knew they couldn’t harm us here.

I kept her close, my arms around her, my wings a barrier to protect her from whatever may come .

Eventually, the Storm Warriors gave up their search, mounting their steeds and continuing down the path we’d abandoned, assuming we’d been on Moonshadow and galloped away. I knew he’d find his herd soon, and when they saw him riderless, they’d be back on us in an instant.

When the last of them had disappeared from sight, Soraya looked up at me, her eyes reflecting the strange, silvery light of the Shadowveil.

“You saved us,” she whispered.

“For now,” I said, unable to keep the grimness from my voice. “But we can’t stay here. I’m worried the Veil Lords will sense us. We need to go. I can slice us straight to the Flame Court. To safety.”

She gripped me tighter, no question as to my plans.

She trusted me.

Completely.

I looked at this impossible woman who had changed everything. Who had made me feel again after centuries of emptiness. Who had looked at Death itself and hadn’t flinched away.

I pulled her closer. “Hold onto me.”

As I held her against me, I noticed the absence of my heartbeat because it should have been racing at her touch.

I shouldn’t want this. Shouldn’t crave the feel of her in my arms. Shouldn’t yearn for the impossible future that could never be ours.

But I did. Gods help me, I did.

Her face tilted up toward mine, her eyes searching, asking a question I couldn’t answer. Slowly, achingly slow, she rose on her toes, her lips parting slightly as they neared mine.

I should have stopped her. Should have turned away. Should have remembered that this—whatever this was between us—could only end in pain .

Instead, I was too exhausted to fight back. Maybe it was from the battle against the Shadowveil that had drained me, or the days of holding her in my arms like the most exquisite torture, but whatever it was, my resolve flickered, and slowly, I leaned down, meeting her halfway.

Her lips touched mine, soft and hesitant at first, then with growing urgency. Heat bloomed between us, a stark contrast to the cold emptiness of the Shadowveil. My arms tightened around her, pulling her closer, as if I could somehow keep her with me forever if I just held on tightly enough.

Her hands slid up my chest, tangling in my hair, and a sound escaped me—half groan, half surrender. I was drowning in her, in the taste of her, in the feel of her body pressed against mine.

For eight centuries, I had been Death—cold, implacable, untouchable. Now I was burning alive, consumed by a fire I’d thought long extinguished.

This was madness. This was wrong. This was—

Perfect.

I deepened our kiss, losing myself in her once more. Relishing every stroke of her tongue, the way it seemed insatiable for mine. I swallowed her moans, inhaling her breath as if I could trap it in my lungs and hold it forever. Keep a piece of her with me even after she was gone.

Gone.

She would be gone soon. One way or another, I would have to say goodbye.

Fuck!

With a wrench of will that felt like tearing myself in half, I broke the kiss, stepping back from her as far as the shelter of my wings would allow.

“We can’t,” I said, my voice rough with desire and regret.

Hurt flashed across her face, quickly replaced by frustration .

“Why not? Because you’re Death? Because I’m half-fae?”

“For a thousand reasons,” I ground out. “This can’t happen. Now, hold onto me. We need to go.”

She stared at me, eyes shining with unshed tears—so many words trembling on her lips. But she said none of them.

Instead, she stepped back into the circle of my arms, her silence louder than any scream.

I wrapped my wings around us both and forced my way back through the veil. It fought me again, clawing and tearing at my essence, punishing me for my transgression. But I pushed through, gritting my teeth against the pain, until we burst back into the living world.

One breath we were shadows.

The next—we weren’t.

The transition from the Shadowveil was jarring—color and sound and sensation rushing back all at once as we stepped out back into the world of the living and into the vibrant lands of the Flame Court.

We stumbled apart, both gasping for breath.

I fell to my knees, my strength temporarily drained by the effort of forcing the veil.

We staggered forward, stumbling into the Flame Court territory.

.. and everything around me exploded with beauty.

The Flame Court territory stretched before us, so different from the Storm Court’s perpetually thunderous terrain.

Mountains rose in jagged spires, their peaks draped in rich, green jungle that glowed under a sunburnt sky.

Verdant grass stretched in every direction, waterfalls carved through stone cliffs, pouring into steaming pools below.

But the mountains bled molten rivers down their sides, glowing amber and crimson against the dark stone, while impossibly lush vegetation thrived along the edges of these fiery streams. The contrast was breathtaking—death and life existing side by side in perfect, terrifying harmony .

As I stood there, I realized my breaths should have been thick with the warm, humid air. I should have smelled with sulfur and heat.

But I felt... nothing.

No wind against my skin. No warmth on my cheeks. No heat in the air. The grass beneath my feet didn’t bend beneath my weight. The sunlight didn’t burn.

And that’s when I realized.

Somehow, when we’d crossed the veil, I’d ripped us out of our mortal forms.

“I’m...” Her voice broke and I looked up to see she was still in the torn pajamas I’d found her in. “I’m not in my body.”

“I guess when I took us into the Shadowveil, I ripped us out of our mortal form,” I answered, still stunned at the dulled sensation of existence after having experienced so much in the short time I’d been human again.

I glanced down at myself, my leather armor still clinging to my form, my fineries stripped away. At least there was one silver lining in losing our mortal forms and that was not being trapped in those ridiculous clothes a minute longer.

But I saw the pain and sadness in her eyes as she stared down at her own body.

“We should rest for the night,” I said, forcing the words out.

Though I realized that now that I was in Reaper form, I needed no rest. No sleep.

No food. But it was my mind that needed rest. Needed time to process this adjustment.

This loss of my mortal self. To process the impending loss of. .. her.

She nodded, her expression carefully neutral, but I could see the hurt and confusion still lingering in her eyes. The rejection. The questions I couldn’t answer .

It was better this way. Better to keep my distance. Better to remember what I was, what she was, and the impossibility of anything between us.

For eight hundred years, I had been Death, and I had feared nothing.

Until now.

Until her.

Until the moment I would have to watch her walk away, back to the light where she belonged, leaving me alone in the shadows once more.