Ruin (Until the End Trilogy #1)

Arik

Chapter One

Ifirst noticed the scent as noon approached. It brushed past me like a feather across skin—there for a moment, then gone—only to return minutes later, softer. Time and time again, as the hours wore on, it grew more maddening.

It dangled itself like meat before a starving beast.

Teasing. Mocking. Intentional.

Years spent writhing in pain from a hunger that no amount of feeding could satisfy. And here I was, finally chasing her proximity as the hunger clawed inside my chest.

The scent did not linger for long before disappearing into the nonexistent wind, making me wonder if I ever sensed her to begin with.

I questioned if I was losing my mind, my reality, my control.

As the sun settled just beyond the vine-covered hills, it got stronger, staying for longer and longer each time until it no longer ran from me.

A scent like no other. Not an artificial scent like perfume. No, this was the scent of a woman, something that could not be bottled or replicated.

Her scent. Her heat. Her skin, alive and shifting beneath the sun.

A whole life, folded into musk and motion.

The nape of her neck. The crook of her arm.

Her thighs sliding against one another, with hints of thick cotton warming between them.

I pictured her skin, subtly moist, glistening in the sunshine, reflecting the golden rays like a mirror.

A singular bead of sweat rolling down her back, caressing her curves like a winding road through forbidden terrain, too curved to see what awaits just beyond.

The lightest smell of musk, her musk, and underlying hints of lavender and soap.

It beckoned to me, consuming my every thought.

I was powerless as it stole my focus, making me chase it through the winery’s halls, around the garden, down rows of vines—my body silently circling, moving instantaneously in the shadows.

But it started to move with precision, mocking my feeble attempts to corner it. As soon as I thought I was closing in upon it, it would fade. I almost heard it whisper to me, laughter spun from air and water, hidden beneath the stale drip of the stone fountain’s endless breath.

She’s almost here.

And when she comes to me…she will not leave.