Chapter 60 #2
At sunset, when the sky spilled fire over the peaks, Alora whispered his name.
The shadows teemed behind her, answering at once.
She kept her eyes on the horizon, letting the wind tousle her hair and fill the silence between them.
“Why did you make this place?” she murmured.
Rune was quiet for a breath, then softly, “At dawn, before the sun fully rises, for the briefest of moments, I can stand in the light.”
Her vision welled.
“Then you became that light,” he said, quieter still. “Until I lost you as well and that pain was more unbearable than the sun.” His voice wavered and he took a step closer. “When I met Sunneva… she too was a beam of light. Such is so for a goddess. She shone so bright I was nearly blind.”
Alora turned at last, finding remorse carved into his face. He stepped closer slowly, as though afraid she might vanish again. “And in my blindness, I imagined she was you… but in the end, I knew she never could be.”
The sunset had not fully descended, yet Rune still stepped out of the shade to be close to her. His skin smoked as the last of the light singed him.
Alora shook her head, standing to shield him from the sun. “Rune—”
He pulled her to his chest, buried his face in her hair, and exhaled like the world only continued spinning when she was in his sight. “I can endure the censure of the world and that of the Heavens, but not yours. Never yours.” Then he lowered to his knees. “I beg your forgiveness.”
Sighing softly, she cupped his cheek. “The King of the Netherworld would beg?”
“For you, my pride has no dominion, Alora. I would crawl to you and grovel while doing so if you demanded it.”
He sounded so pitiful, she fought back a smile. To see such a powerful being beseech her was already melting the hurt and anger.
“I would burn for you,” he reminded her quietly. “If not beneath the sun, then under Heaven’s divine punishment.”
“I know.” Her voice wavered as tears stung her eyes. “And I would rewrite fate for you.”
Rune looked at her, truly looked, and something tumbled quietly in his chest, his body shuddering. The markings on his flesh shone bright. He heard the truth in her words, the confession of what brought them here.
“You’re right you know,” she laughed faintly.
“There is power in a king’s kiss. I had been asleep for a hundred years in total silence.
I didn’t dream or feel anything until the day you pressed your lips to my cheek.
Then I heard your voice. You promised we would reunite again, if not in life then in death.
And after a hundred years… I opened my eyes. ”
Rune froze, staring. “You woke?”
Her fingers brushed his lips. “When I could stand again, I tried to find you. I saw the battle and your defeat. I was desperate to reach you…” Vines of light flickered along her arms as memory surged.
“And when the Heavens opened, and I heard your scream…” Her throat tightened.
“I was desperate to stop that moment. To go back to the past before everything went wrong. And we did.”
Rune stared at her, speechless.
Alora smiled through her tears as she lowered in front of him. “I don’t know how or what power it was. Perhaps it was simply fate giving us a second chance to fix our mistakes. Not only with each other but with Argyle and the future of the world.”
“You stopped the lightning bolt meant to take my life…” Rune stared at her with such wonder.
She nodded.
Shadows whisked them away, carrying them into his chambers. They reappeared at the center of the vast, darkened room. Rune’s hands curled at his sides, uncertain and hesitant, even now.
“I want to believe this is a second chance,” Rune murmured. “But I am the source of wickedness in the world. I am vile, evil, cruel, and committed far too many unspeakable acts to be spared any leniency by fate.”
Alora stood before him, barefoot and silent, the remnants of dawn still glowing on her skin. She reached up, brushing her fingers along the fading scorch marks on his cheek. “You are all those things,” she agreed. “But you are not evil.”
Rune laughed, quiet and broken. “That is only because you have not seen all the things I have done.”
“In my name,” she said.
“Do you forgive me?” he asked, voice rough with exhaustion and something rawer still.
And she knew he meant about that morning.
“Yes,” she said softly. “But I am still miffed. If you had been in my place, you most certainly would have rendered a past lover to ashes. Did you not threaten to remove Caelum’s head? And he had not even been a suitor.”
“Fair,” he rumbled and possessively pulled her closer.
“Then you understand my frustration.”
He chuckled against her throat, inhaling her scent. “Songbird, you are a trueborn goddess and something more, with a power that even rivals mine. You most certainly could turn Sunneva to ash if you wished.”
Alora smirked faintly. “Don’t tempt me. I dare not start another war between the gods.”
“I would war against the Heavens for you.”
Rune kissed her like an apology, it was slow at first, gentle and adoring, his mouth fitting to hers as if memory itself had weight.
Alora’s hands fisted in his shirt, the last of her anger melting into heat as his lips lingered, pressed, then deepened with a quiet hunger that said you are mine and I am still here.
His thumb traced her jaw, when she sighed into him, he followed the sound, kissing her until the past loosened its grip and the present burned bright and undeniable between them.
When they paused for air, Alora rested her head against his chest. “Please tell me you never kissed her like that.”
Rune hesitated. “Ah…”
The shadows lashed outward like a whip, the table splitting clean in half, chairs bursting into splinters.
Alora gasped, startled. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
But Rune’s laughter made her jump, the sound warm and surprised. “Don’t be. If I am being honest, a part of me enjoys your jealousy.”
She glowered. “I think I preferred it when you lied. Why do your shadows respond to me now?”
Rune’s smile softened. He reached up and brushed a strand of hair behind her ear, his touch tender as breath. “We are bonded, Alora. They accept you because you accept me.”
She couldn’t speak. Her heart bloomed into something too large for her chest, threatening to split her open. Tendrils of black mist curled around her, as if to whisper, Welcome, Queen of the Dark.
Yet still, she found herself asking, “Did they… accept Sunneva too?”
Rune cupped her face with both hands, his red gaze fierce with sincerity. “That right has only ever been yours. The past I shared with Sunneva was brief and it holds no meaning to either of us now, except perhaps a sliver of regard. She has found her mate, and I, at last, have mine.”
There was only pure truth in his words. So she took a breath and let all of her worry and jealousy go.
He was her mate.
Her husband.
Hers.
And she would reclaim that.
“Then…” Alora cleared her throat. “What else have you not shared with her?”
Understanding flickered in Rune’s eyes, and a slow, wicked smile curved his lips. “Well, I have only feasted on you, if that should please you.”
Heat rushed into her cheeks.
“It does,” she admitted, shy yet defiant. “What else?”
Rune’s glamor bled away. Horns rose like a wicked crown on his head, scales glimmering faintly in the dim light, his wings shadowed and vast.
“You are the only one who has ever seen my cursed form,” he said, the end of his tail slowly swaying on the floor.
Alora tilted her head, letting her gaze slowly admire him. The molten, jagged pathways on his chest vibrated beneath her fingers. In his truth, he was raw, unshackled, and terrifying to anyone else but her.
And here, now, he offered his most vulnerable self without disguise.
She slid her hand along the scales on his shoulders, up the curve of his jaw where flesh met horn. “Good,” she whispered. “This side of you is only for me.”
Rune’s chest rose with a shallow breath, his wings curving around her as if to cage her against him.
Alora’s fingers traced along the span of one wing, awe softening her touch. The membrane was warm beneath her palm, smooth as silk stretched between the strong lines of bone, while the edges were ridged and scaled, each plate overlapping like polished onyx. She stroked upward, curious, reverent.
The wing shuddered beneath her hand, muscles tightening as a low sound rumbled from Rune’s chest. As though she had brushed not flesh, but nerve.
“Careful,” he murmured, voice roughened. “They are… sensitive.”
Her lips curved, fingers lingering a heartbeat longer, and the shadows around them stirred in quiet response.
Where else was he sensitive?
Her gaze fell on his tail. It arced behind him, heavy and serpentine, the scales darker than midnight and edged in a metallic red sheen.
It flexed with quiet strength, every motion controlled, deliberate.
The tapered end gleamed like a wicked barb, capable of impalement or possession in equal measure.
Alora’s fingers traced down his back, curious and unhurried, brushing along the curve of his spine until they reached the base of his tail. The top was plated but beneath… that was velvet smooth. The instant she caressed there, a shudder tore through him.
Rune groaned, lashes lowering, breath catching hard in his chest. The shadows around him flared instinctively before collapsing inward, tight and trembling. His tail twitched once beneath her hand, then lashed out, wrapping around her waist tightly. The barbed end stroked her spine.
“Songbird…” he exhaled, voice rough, strained in a way she had never heard before. His heavy-lidded eyes softly flamed as they looked at her. “You are treading dangerous territory.”
Alora laughed softly.
“And here?” She let her hand slowly trail down his abdomen to the impressive lengths. They were rock hard, throbbing against her touch. “Who else has seen this part of you?”