She simply breathed. Slow, unsteady at first, like her body was remembering how. Rune didn’t push her. He didn’t ask questions.
Alora feared if she moved, she may fall apart.
He simply pressed his lips to the top of her head. “Sleep,” he whispered, his fingers brushing lazy circles against her side. “I have you.”
And Seven help her, he did.
Not in the possessive, all-consuming way he usually carried her. But in this rare, stripped-down version of himself. The one that existed when the world wasn’t watching. The one that let his voice drop into velvet when she was too tired to lift her own.
His shadows reached over her like a second blanket cool, comforting, like dusk itself had come to cradle her.
And for the first time in days, Alora didn’t feel like a prisoner.
She felt…safe.
Ironic that she found it now in darkness.
Her body relaxed, drifting. Her lashes fluttered shut. His fingers brushed over her wrist, where her pulse beat weakly.
“You do not need to be made of light all the time, Alora,” Rune whispered. “You can find rest in the dark, too.”
With me.
Her lashes lifted enough to look at him. In the golden firelight, he looked like a dream she never dared want. A creature of darkness. A terror who made others shake in their beds.
Yet he was the warmth in hers.
He pressed a kiss to her temple. Another to her cheek. Then one more, softer than a breath, to the corner of her mouth. She closed her eyes.
Rune’s hand moved up, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear. “I’ll stay as long as you need.”
“Even if the stars fall?”
“Even if the sun forgets to rise.”
Alora gave the smallest smile, wondering if that meant he would stay with her eternally. And the thought didn’t scare her anymore. The shadows flickered in response, wrapping around them like blanket.
Just before she fell asleep, she heard his voice, low and certain.
Forever.
CHAPTER 48
Rune
Rune watched Alora sleep, the rise and fall of her chest syncing to the steady rhythm of his own. Alora lay curled against his chest, her body still trembling faintly from exhaustion, her breath a soft whisper against his throat.
Rune hadn’t moved a muscle, hadn’t dared to break the spell of this rare moment she didn’t fear him. His fingers curled possessively against her waist. Afraid if he let go, she might shatter completely.
Or perhaps he would, as if she were the only thing holding him to this plane. The one tether between him and the madness that clawed at the edges of his mind.
His hand rested on her neck, feeling each beat of her heart like a fragile drum. Proof she was still here.
Still alive.
Seven Hells, when they took her from him, Rune had been ready to split the world in half to find her. It had taken himseconds to locate where Eldrik had hidden her, then a few more to summon his Harbingers. The utter rage that took over him when those cursed light wards had kept him at bay. No matter how much the sun had burned him in the past, he had never cursed the light until that moment.
Nexus leaped up onto the bed, the size of a full-grown cat now, horns a little bigger. The creature fluttered its wings, blinking at Rune with lazy yellow eyes before curling by Alora’s feet.
