Chapter 29
Alora
Alora blinked up at the God of Shadows looming above her, his crimson eyes glowing like coals in the lowlight.
His long black hair spilled down his face, framing hers.
His weight didn’t touch her, but the shadows did, curling possessively around her wrists and sliding up her waist like silk spun from night.
She didn’t move. Because she didn’t know what Rune would do if she did. The way he was looking at her made her heart pound as everything else fell still.
“No matter what I do, or where I am, my attention is always on you,” he murmured, softer now.
Alora’s chest rose and fell with shallow breaths.
She hated the way his voice curled inside her, making her pulse slow.
She hated the way he looked at her, like she was his salvation and his temptation all at once.
His grip held her in place, one hand on her neck and the other pinning her wrist above her head.
He didn’t hurt her, but he held her tight enough that she could hardly breathe.
Yet her first instinct wasn’t fear. A wild rush of heat curled low in her stomach that made her almost forget every reason to resist.
Wrapping her fingers around Rune’s wrist, she let the light brand him as she said icily, “Get off me.”
Yet Rune didn’t move, and it startled her that he hardly reacted to the burn. As if he were used to it. Or he enjoyed it.
Alora let the bodkin blade sheathed in her sleeve slide neatly into her palm, and it flashed in the low light as she pointed it against his chest.
“Oh,” Rune drawled, voice low and velvet-dark, “If you wanted me that badly, you need only say so.”
“Want you?” Alora gripped the black blade, the tip pressed against skin that refused to bleed. “I have a knife at your heart.”
“Exactly.” His red eyes glinted, wicked, gleeful.
Rune leaned in, shadows curling up his arms like they ached to touch her. His voice brushed her ear like a threat disguised as a promise. “Whenever you threaten my life…”
His gaze dropped to her lips, the markings on his neck flashing bright crimson.
“My only instinct is to devour you whole.” His eyes burned bright. “Unfortunately, Nightstone cannot harm me.”
To her shock, the dagger dissolved like black stardust, crumbling into the sheets. His shadows grasped her wrist and pinned it above her head again. She bucked against him, growling.
“I despise you,” she spat.
“Oh, I’m sure you do,” Rune murmured, lips ghosting her ear. “Almost as much as you despise how much you crave me.”
“I crave running a blade through your heart,” she hissed.
He grinned at that. “As much as you wish to deny it, one day you will come to understand this pull you feel towards me isn’t seduction. It’s because you are mine. You feel it in my touch. In the magic in the air. In the beat of your heart. Even in your dreams.”
Heat rushed through her face, remembering the moments she had dreamed about him … and the things they had done. Had he seen her dreams?
Rune chuckled, his mouth grazing her jaw. “It’s torture waiting.” His hand delicately traveled up her thigh, making her shiver. “It’s delightful how innocent you are,” he murmured, fangs nipping her skin. “But I know you have already imagined what it would feel like to take all of me.”
Then he had been in her dreams—or the source of them. The wicked gleam in his eyes infuriated her. Magic flashed at Alora’s wrist, breaking his shadow hold, and she slapped him.
It wasn’t hard, but enough to make him pause.
Rune’s sneer returned, slow and dark. “Strike me again and I may have to punish you for it.”
The menacing glow in his eyes made her shiver, and yet it didn’t sound like a threat. It sounded like a carnal promise.
Light flared from her silhouette. “Let. Go.”
The shadows around her wrists loosened, then Rune’s hands moved to brace themselves on the bed above her shoulders. “I can do anything but that.”
The quiet words were heavy with meaning and something inside of her chest ached.
Alora rolled out from under him. But she stilled when meeting her reflection in the mirror as she stood. Dressed as a queen of the damned with light swarming on her arms and neck like paths of fire. Whatever she was … was fighting to break through. And Alora felt she would never truly be free.
“A pretty bird in a pretty cage,” she echoed, turning to face him. “I have been caged my whole life. In my father’s abandonment. In my grief. In a deserted cottage tucked in the woods. Are you to be another lock on my door?”
Rune heaved a sigh as he sat on the edge of the bed, rubbing his face. “Alora, you are not a prisoner.”
“Hard to believe that when I woke to the lack of a door,” she snapped. “How dare you lock me in after you were the one to force this thing inside of me to explode!”
He stilled when the mountain rumbled, his mouth parting as he gazed upon her with fascination.
She glanced at the mirror again and inhaled a sharp breath. Her eyes… were glowing white.
“What you hold inside is old magic, Alora,” Rune said quietly. “Not made to be dormant or tamed. And after years of being contained, it was bound to unleash. Imagine if it had done so around Calla and the others? Or in Argyle surrounded by your friends and your people?
She trembled, picturing their bodies crumbling at her feet, burning.
He came to stand behind her. “Have you ever wondered why tremors pass through Karag D?r?”
Her next breath halted as she remembered each moment, thinking it was him or the mountain simply reacting.
“That was you,” Rune murmured. “It was your power shaking the foundation of the earth or the sudden gust of wind each moment you were feeling too much. Anger. Fear. Sadness. It needed to be freed. So, I took you to a secured place where you would harm no one to finally face your magic. Now you can begin to learn how to use it.”
She looked down at her glowing palms. They shook with his words and everything else inside of her. There were so many emotions coursing through her. The ground beneath her feet rumbled. Alora shut her eyes and took a deep breath, then more until her light faded.
“I kept you in your chambers to protect you,” Rune said when the mountain fell still. “And then…”
Alora smirked bitterly when he trailed off, and she faced him. “And it was to protect your court. Why? Fear I will turn it to ash? Perhaps I should.” She smiled sharply. “Then I will return to Argyle as the princess who slayed the dragon in the mountain.”
Rune’s jaw clenched, his expression darkening. “Regardless of what power you have, you don’t know how to use it. You walked into a pit of demons with hardly a plan. You are still mortal,” he growled. “You could have been killed.”
“It worked well enough, didn’t it?”
He shook his head. “Politics here are much different than Argyle, Alora. You defied me in front of my court to spare some mortal who by all rights should die for trespassing into my territory.”
“His name is Caelum,” she said tightly. “And he came to rescue me because he thought I was in danger!”
Rune’s jaw flexed, the temperature rising like a forge and he said tightly through his clenched fangs. “He came because he loves you.”
Alora froze.
Yes, she had suspected as much. There was a time when her heart would have swooned at the thought, when she would have dreamed of being Caelum’s wife, but that future was impossible now for many reasons.
Rune watched her expression carefully, his own dimming with realization. “You love him, too.”
She swallowed, looking away.
He chuckled darkly and strode away toward his table to pour himself some wine.
“You are in danger. Every time you breathe, the whole court wants to taste what lives in your veins like forbidden fruit. You think I locked you away out of cruelty?” He turned to face her, eyes flashing bright. Scales sprouted on his cheekbones, his fangs growing. “I did it for your protection.”
Alora stared at him, breathless.
“From them … or from you?” she whispered.
Rune’s gaze dropped to the bracelet on her wrist, and for a moment, she saw it. The flicker of doubt. Of fear.
His mask fell back into place. “I will never harm you. You are my queen.”
“I never wanted to be your queen!”
Something shifted across his face, but it vanished beneath his sneer. “You certainly used the title when it suited you. Well, what is it going to be? Wear the crown and all it entails, or give up the plaything waiting in your chambers?”
Alora scowled. Her gaze darted toward the table, spotting the bowl of ripe pomegranates gleaming like blood-red jewels. She stormed toward it.
“What are you—”
She hurled one at him. It struck his shoulder with a wet thud and juice splattered down his tunic.
Rune blinked, his eyes widening angrily. “You forget yourself—”
“That’s for being an infuriating, selfish, insufferable arrogant brute!” Alora shouted, throwing another. The second one hit him square in the chest. “That’s for kissing me!”
He dodged the next one, shadows flickering in irritation.
“This is for attempting to trick me into your stupid courtship traditions!” Alora hurled the final pomegranate at his face.
Rune caught it cleanly, the red juice running between his fingers. “Careful, songbird,” he drawled, his tone silken. “One might take this as an invitation.”
Oh, he truly kindled her wrath.
Alora flung the empty bowl next. He ducked, evading it by inches before the bowl crashed against the wall. Her fists shook, her chest heaving.
“That…” she murmured. “is for making me feel like something that should never have been born…”
Even if he didn’t look at her as her father did, she still felt like a monster.
The edges of Rune’s arrogance melted away. The shadows around him slowed, folding into stillness.
The moment hung, breathless, charged until he exhaled. “I’m sorry.”
She froze. The apology threw her completely off guard. Her anger faltered, flickering like a candle in the wind.
“That was never my intent.”
She scoffed faintly. “Then what was?”