Page 55 of Reaper’s Ruin (Reaper’s Ruin Trilogy #1)

Rhyker walked away toward the small stream cutting across the wild, lush landscape. He was once again in the dark armor he’d worn the day we met—familiar and ominous and heartbreakingly beautiful. His wings curled behind him like smoke and shadow, dissipating as he sat down beside the stream.

I turned slowly in place, taking in the living world around me. The molten rivers, the wind rippling the trees, the sunlight casting golden light over the mountains—and I felt none of it. Not the breeze. Not the heat.

Nothing.

This world existed around me, but not for me.

He hadn’t just pulled us through the Veil, he’d pulled us out of our mortal forms.

“I’m a ghost again,” I whispered, shattered by the loss. “A soul.”

And that realization settled like a stone in my chest—heavy and hollow and final.

I stood alone staring at Rhyker by the water, his back turned toward me as he reached through a rock. I wondered if he had forgotten and meant to pick it up and toss it in the lazy stream.

He looked sad and lonely. Broken once again.

How badly I wanted to go sit beside him, to ask him why he’d pulled away after our kiss—that world-altering, soul-shattering kiss.

The distance between us seemed to have grown exponentially, or at least it felt that way after I’d just been tangled in his arms .

Arms I wanted to fall into once again.

I couldn’t take it anymore. I walked toward him, my frustration building with each step until it burst from me like one of the geysers erupting in the distance.

“Why are you doing this?” I demanded, my voice sharp with hurt and anger.

He didn’t look up, just trailed his fingers through water that didn’t acknowledge his presence by parting for him. “Doing what?”

“Don’t play dumb. It doesn’t suit you.” I crossed my arms over my chest, glaring down at him. “One moment you’re ripping out hearts for me, the next you’re acting like I’m nothing. Like what happened back there meant nothing.”

He rose slowly, his face carefully composed.

“We should keep moving. I’m not sure what we need now to find you peace or get your door.

We’re not mortal anymore, so we can’t kill the Queen Mother if that’s what you need.

Maybe I can take us back to Selyse. Have her do the spell again.

But trying to get back into the Storm Court is going to be near impossible. ”

“No.” I planted myself directly in his path. “We’re not going anywhere until you tell me what’s going on. Why you’re suddenly so cold. Again. ”

“I’m not cold. I’m focused on keeping you alive.” He waved a hand over my undead form. “Or whatever this is, so you can get your fucking door and move on already.”

“Bullshit.” I spit out harshly. Too harsh.

Far harsher and bolder than I’d ever been in life.

But death had changed me. He had changed me.

“I’m so fucking confused! Clearly, you don’t care about me the way I—” I stopped myself from saying the way I love you.

Instead, I finished with, “but then why do you care what happens to me? It doesn’t make sense.

None of this makes sense. Why not just leave me to my fate?

Better yet, why not just reap me and get it over with? Isn’t that your job? ”

He glanced at his forearm showing beneath his rolled up leather sleeve, and I saw the dark, swirling purple just beneath his skin had returned.

“Go on. That’s your scythe, isn’t it? It’s back. So, reap me, Rhyker. Just put an end to this.”

His eyes flashed dangerously, something dark and volatile stirring beneath the surface. “Don’t you ever say that to me again,” he snarled. “Don’t you dare tell me to reap you.”

“Why not?” I cried. “If this doesn’t mean anything, if you don’t care about me, then what’s the point of any of it?”

“Fuck!” He grabbed his hair, gripping it in frustration as he shouted toward the sky so loud it sent me back a step.

But then he looked back at me, eyes blazing with fire that would have stolen my breath if I had it.

“Because you do mean something!” he roared, stepping toward me, storming into my space.

“You mean everything. You are everything! You think I don’t care?

” His voice dropped to a dangerous rumble. “You think that’s what this is about?”

“I don’t know what to think anymore!” I threw my hands up in frustration. “One minute you’re kissing me like you’re drowning and I’m your air, the next you’re acting like I’m a burden you can’t wait to be rid of. So please, enlighten me. What exactly is going on with you?”

He turned away, his shoulders tense, hands clenched at his sides. For a long moment, I thought he wouldn’t answer. Then, so quietly I almost missed it:

“Because I am drowning. And you are my air. And I’m not going to survive without you. I’m just trying to protect myself, Soraya.”

The admission hung in the air between us, vulnerable and raw. I took a step closer, my anger softening into confusion.

“Protect yourself from... from me?”

He let out a harsh laugh, raking his hands through his dark hair. “From this.” He gestured between us. “From whatever this is. This... madness.”

“Rhyker—”

“Do you understand what happens next, Soraya?” He turned to face me, his expression fierce with pain.

“You find your peace. Your door appears. You walk through it to whatever paradise awaits you, to your mother, to eternal rest. And I...” His voice broke.

“I stay here. Alone. As I have been for eight centuries.”

My heart constricted at the naked anguish in his eyes.

“That’s what I’m protecting myself from,” he continued, the words pouring out of him now as if a dam had broken. “The aftermath. The eternity that follows your departure. Do you have any idea what that will be like?”

“Rhyker, I—”

“An afterlife without you would be worse than the flames in the deepest part of the underworld,” he said, his voice rough with emotion.

“And maybe that’s what this is. Maybe I am in what you call Hell.

Maybe it’s just been eight hundred years of getting me ready for this torture of meeting you, touching you, having you, and then having you ripped away.

Maybe this isn’t purgatory at all. Maybe I truly am in Hell because that’s what the aftermath of you leaving will feel like.

I’d rather be reaped. I’d rather cease to exist entirely than return to what I was before you. Without you.”

Tears burned behind my eyes as understanding dawned, though I still struggled to grasp the truth in his words.

“You’re pushing me away because... because you care about me? But... how? Why? I’m no one.”

“No one?” He stared at me, eyes wide with disbelief. “How can you think that? How can you not realize how special you are? You’re not no one, Soraya. You’re... everything. You’ re everything to me!” The words exploded from him, echoing across the volcanic landscape.

He took a step back like the truth had scorched his tongue. Like saying it aloud had cost him something irreparable.

“You want to know why I’m pushing you away?” His voice was a blade—ragged, sharp. “That kiss? That kiss destroyed me. Because I knew, the second I felt your lips on mine, I would never be whole again without you.”

His shoulders sagged like the weight of the world had settled onto them.

“I never thought I’d care for anything—or anyone—again,” he said, voice jagged.

“Not after what this cursed world took from me. But then you came crashing into my afterlife like a wildfire—beautiful, reckless, untouchable—and now you’re in everything.

Every thought. Every feeling. Every breath. ”

I wanted to speak, to stop the unraveling in his voice, but the look in his eyes rooted me in place.

“You think I’m cold because I don’t care?” His voice broke, then rebuilt, sharper. “I’m cold because I do. Because wanting you—loving you—is agony. This body doesn’t bleed. My soul is what bleeds. And every time I look at you, it’s another wound I won’t survive.”

I pressed a hand to my chest, as if that could steady the ache his words carved into my soul.

“I see my beginning in you. Everything I ever wanted. Everything I never let myself hope for. And for the first time in eight hundred years, I’m afraid. Not of dying. Not of suffering. I’m afraid of losing you .”

He dragged his hand across his jaw, shaking his head like he could silence the storm behind his eyes.

“I’ve fought wars. Battled monsters. I’ve walked battlefields soaked in blood, watched souls beg and scream for one more moment.

And through it all, I felt nothing. But you.

.. you ruined me. You made me feel again. You made me want .”

My knees almost gave out beneath the weight of his words.

I stared at him—this Reaper, this man—as he poured his soul out to me, raw and unguarded.

I ached to soothe the pain I’d carved into him, to undo every wound I’d left.

But something deeper, darker inside me craved those words because for the first time, I truly knew I mattered to him the way he mattered to me.

In a way that defied death, time, and reason.

He stepped forward, gaze locked to mine like it was the only real thing left in this hollow world.

“If I had a heartbeat, it would be yours. If I had a future, it would be with you. And if I lose you...” His hand hovered near my cheek, trembling, like touching me might be the thing that finally broke him, “then even eternity won’t be long enough to ease the agony. ”

His pain was a mirror of mine. Every word he spoke ripped through the walls around my unbeating heart.

His voice grew quieter, but no less devastating. “I would burn every realm to ash if it meant I got to keep you. To make you mine for this lifetime and every lifetime.”

And then he shattered my entire existence when he finally admitted his truth.

“Don’t you understand? I’m in love with you! I’m in love with you and it’s killing me.”