Page 210 of Red Ruin

Like I’m holding onto the moon.

When she gasps for breath, Trezzoran yanks her sideways, stealing her kiss. I support her, stroking her lower back.

I don’t want to share, but I love watching Iris melt.

Rolling her blood on my tongue, I wait for my chance to retake control.

“Um, Commander?” A light male voice cuts through the noises of her breath. “What the hell is going on?”

CHAPTER49

IRIS

A voice echoes from far,far away.

I can hear my pulse. Remy’s heartbeat. Vhex’s delicious fucking growls.

Can we kiss forever, just like this?

I groan into the heat of Vhex’s mouth as Remy caresses every bare inch of skin he can reach without stripping me naked in the middle of?—

A hole in the ground.

Right.

Fuck.

Fuck!

The bucket of cold water finally hits. I pull away from Vhex and jump off Remy’s hips, stumbling a step that I blame on the overturned earth instead of my watery knees.

Simms holds Tan to his chest, clear-eyed, but with a slightly puckered cheek—half confusion, half disgust. Tan hugs his Sentinel’s arms with eyes widened in perfect circles. Not from fear. He’s enjoying the show.

That’ll change soon.

I wipe my lips and look up, finding endless crooked rock walls instead of a ceiling. “Take us back to the tower.”

Remy’s shadows flash. As I squint against the sudden sunlight, my heart pounds. The rhythm deepens as I take in the empty ground.

“Kevan and Luca are gone,” my voice sounds hollow, even to me.

I made that choice.

I’d make it again, even if it makes everything so much worse.

“Who’s gone? What the hell is going on?” Tan wrinkles his nose, looking out over the smoking battlefield.

The next wave of undead is massing. Some stumble toward the walls. Others rise as bones from the ground.

I rub my aching forehead. Our ticking clock just skipped ahead to midnight. I’m afraid of what happens if thereallich king turns my ex into a custom meat suit.

Fingers trembling, I press both badges to blast an all-hands alert. “Someone find Cherise and gather the captains in the courtyard.”

I wince as death magic pulses much too close for comfort. The kobold army lets out a hissing roar that would be deafening if they still had working vocal cords.

Now it’s just fucking eerie.

Tan peeks between the tower’s ramparts. “Tell me those aren’t death knights.”