Page 57 of Reaper’s Ruin (Reaper’s Ruin Trilogy #1)

I held her against me, her body pressed to mine, her head resting on my chest. The last of the amber light illuminating the volcanic landscape faded as the sun set, casting long shadows across the clearing.

Darkness swallowed the world around us as I lay with her in my arms, only the distant lava and the full moon above lighting the backdrop of the beautiful world around us. A world we could see but couldn’t feel.

But we could feel each other.

In a world where we were ghosts—unable to touch the grass, to feel the heat from the lava flows, to taste the ash in the air—we could feel each other’s skin, each other’s warmth, each other’s breath.

The miracle of it wasn’t lost on me. It was as if the universe itself had conspired to give us this one impossible gift.

I tightened my arms around her, burying my face in her hair, inhaling the scent of her that somehow lingered even in this form.

I’d spent eight centuries in solitude, eight centuries embracing the cold emptiness of the Shadowveil.

I’d forgotten what it felt like to hold someone, to be held in return. To want. To need.

To love.

To be loved.

“You’d better not get all cold and weird again,” Soraya murmured against my skin, her voice a soft vibration against my chest. “You’re gonna give a girl a complex. ”

A laugh escaped me—rusty and unfamiliar, but genuine. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed before meeting her. “I won’t,” I promised, my fingers tracing lazy patterns along her spine.

“Good,” she said, lifting her head to meet my eyes, her gaze fierce and determined. “Because I’m not letting you push me away again. Not now. Not ever.”

I brushed a strand of hair from her face, marveling at the softness of it. “I was trying to protect myself,” I admitted. “But that’s futile now. You’ve already ruined the Reaper.”

“Oops.” She smiled, her eyes softening. “I didn’t mean to ruin you. But we can’t go back. We’re in this together now. That’s how this works.”

I nodded, the simple statement more profound than she could know. For centuries, I’d had no one but myself, and eventually, I hadn’t even cared about that. I’d existed. Nothing more.

Until her.

“I love you,” I said, the words coming easier now, as if my tongue was remembering how to form them. “I think I’ve loved you since the moment I found you in that marketplace.”

She laughed, the sound warming me from the inside out. “When you were literally hunting me down to erase me from existence?”

“Even then,” I admitted. “You were so alive, even dead. So defiant. So bright.” I traced the curve of her jaw, marveling at how perfectly she fit against me. “You’ve no idea how terrifying it was to feel anything after so long feeling nothing.”

I knew that the aftermath would break me in ways that eight hundred years of solitude never could. I’d lost every human I’d ever known and somehow kept existing. But losing her? That would finally end me.

But in this moment, with her warmth against me, her eyes looking into mine with such open affection, I couldn’t bring myself to care. Let tomorrow bring what it would. Let the Veil Lords discover my betrayal. Let the world crumble around us.

Right now, she was in my arms, and I would relish every second.

We lay in comfortable silence for a time, watching as the stars sparkled above, little lights breaking up the eternal darkness. Just like she was to me. Her fingers traced the scars across my chest, lingering on the oldest ones—the ones I’d carried from my mortal life.

“Will you tell me?” she asked quietly. “About before? About who you were?”

I tensed slightly, old instincts warning me to guard those memories, to keep them locked away where they couldn’t hurt me.

But as I looked down at her—this woman who had defied fate itself to love me—I found I wanted to share them.

Wanted her to know who I had been. Who I was. At least some of me...

I took a deep breath, then spoke words I hadn’t uttered in centuries.

“I was the last...” I paused, the weight of truth heavy on my tongue. “The last defender of the humans in Faelora.”

She shifted to look at me more directly, her eyes wide with interest.

“Humans had our own territory,” I said, memories washing over me like a tide I couldn’t stop. “Ravenspire it was called. Situated in the northeast. We had a kingdom. A realm within a realm, carved out alongside the fae courts. For millennia, we coexisted—not always peacefully, but we survived.”

“What happened?” she asked softly.

“We don’t know why they attacked us. They just..

. did. Every court, every fae, hellbent on our extinction.

It’s my fault,” I said, the admission tearing from me like a physical wound.

“All of it. The kingdom fell because I couldn’t protect them.

It was my job to keep them safe, and I failed them.

My friends. My family. All of humanity in Faelora. I failed them all.”

Her hand found mine, fingers intertwining, anchoring me as the memories threatened to drag me under.

“All five courts came for us at once,” I continued, my voice dropping to a near-whisper. “We were overwhelmed. We fought—gods, how we fought. But it wasn’t enough. We couldn’t stop them.”

I closed my eyes, the sounds of battle still echoing in my mind after all these centuries.

The clash of steel. The screams of the dying.

The lightning crashing down on us. The flames consuming flesh.

The ice spears penetrating us. The water rising like hands to pull us under.

The earth itself, plants and trees, slaughtering us.

The smell of blood and ash and death had burned itself into my memory even eight hundred years later.

“If nothing could have stopped them, then it’s not your fault. You shouldn’t feel guilty for failing in a battle you couldn’t win.”

Her words weren’t false, and yet I still couldn’t reconcile them as truth. Somewhere, somehow, I should have found a way. Should have been stronger, cleverer, more... something.

None of them. I’d managed to save not a single human.

And it killed me.

I didn’t respond, not wanting more of her words about how it wasn’t my fault. I almost cherished the guilt at this point. It was comfortable. Familiar. Embracing it was the least I could do after I’d lost them all. And this, my existence in this shadowy afterlife, was more than I felt I deserved.

“So that’s why you hate the fae,” she pressed on, noting I wasn’t going to answer her.

“Yes.” I opened my eyes to find her watching me, her expression soft with understanding.

“They killed everyone and everything I ever cared for. I watched my own mother die. Then my father. My brother. One by one, every person I loved, every human in my world, was torn from me until I was the last human alive. You can’t imagine how that feels.

Knowing you’re the last of your kind. Isolated. Alone. A failure.”

Her hand tightened around mine, her other hand coming up to cup my cheek. “I’m so sorry, Rhyker.”

“It was a long time ago,” I said, though the pain in my voice betrayed the lie.

“Does it...” She hesitated, vulnerability flickering across her features. “Does my being half-fae change anything? Between us?”

I captured her face between my hands, making sure she could see the truth in my eyes. “No. Never. You’re mine and I’m yours, no matter what happens. I love you.” I pressed my forehead to hers. “For the first time in any life, I love a woman. A half-fae half-human woman. I love you , Soraya.”

Her eyes shimmered with tears. “I love you too, Rhyker. So much it terrifies me.”

Something inside me both shattered and melted at her words. Elation surged through me—I was loved, truly loved, for the first time in my long existence. But with it came the bittersweet knowledge that our time was limited. That this love, as profound and all-consuming as it was, was fated to end.

But I pushed that thought away. I was done fighting. Done running. We had now. We had this moment. And I would cherish it, memorize every detail of it, hold it close during the long, empty centuries that would follow her departure.

Eventually, we rose, helping each other dress with lingering touches and stolen kisses. As I fastened my cloak, something caught my eye—a subtle shift in the air near the treeline, a ripple in reality that I recognized too well.

The veil was moving .

I froze, my body tensing as a familiar figure materialized from the shadows.

Sevrin.

“Oh, fuck,” I breathed, instinctively stepping in front of Soraya.

He stood there, his imposing figure blurred by the veil but stark against the darkening landscape, silver eyes gleaming with triumph as he surveyed us from behind the veil. His mouth curved into a slow, predatory smile.

“The Veil Lords have been looking for you,” he said, his voice carrying across the clearing like a blade. “They sensed your presence in the Shadowveil and sent me to find you.” His gaze shifted to Soraya, still partially hidden behind me. “But I didn’t expect to find this .”

My wings stirred beneath my skin, responding to the threat, but I kept them contained. Showing aggression now would only escalate the situation. I needed to think, to plan.

Before I could respond, the shadows around Sevrin began to shift and writhe, darkening until one by one, more Reapers appeared around us, blurred by the veil but still unmistakable in their threat.

Their black cloaks billowed around them, their faces impassive, their hands tensed like they were preparing to call forth the scythes pulsing beneath their skin.

A dozen at least. More appearing with each heartbeat.

Suddenly, the air behind me shifted—a cold rush of emptiness that made the hair on my neck stand up. I spun just in time to see a Reaper I didn’t recognize reach through the thinning veil, his hand closing around Soraya’s arm.