“Stay there,” Rune snapped when she tried to move closer. At the hurt on her face, his expression softened. “Please.”
He took a shaky breath, and she felt the pull of magic as his glamor fell back into place. Only then did he move out of the dark, but he wouldn’t meet her eyes.
She didn’t care about scales or fangs or shadows that kissed her like silk and sin. What broke her was the space between them.
“Why do you keep pulling away?” she whispered.
“If you could see me, you would not ask why.”
“I see you,” Alora whispered to him, his red eyes softly burning. “Perhaps a little too clearly.”
He was quiet for a moment, shadows quivering.
“Have you once considered that perhaps this hunger you feel would wane if you simply took what belonged to you?”
His heavy breath drifted to her. “We cannot meet like this again,” he murmured, wiping his mouth. “Don’t sing for me anymore.”
Alor wasn’t prepared for how much those words hurt.
She wrapped her arms around herself, fighting to hold herself together. “Do you mean to never see me again?”
There was a second of silence where neither of them breathed.
“It’s for the best,” he said, then headed for the balcony doors.
He was a selfish creature, arrogant, relentless, bound to no one but his own whims. But never with her. With her, Rune had always yielded. Always turned back. He had let her break his rules, test his patience, press her palm to the monster in him and call it something worthy.
So why now? Why hold her at arm’s length when she was already drowning in him? Alora’s mind spun, trying to understand. If he didn’t care, he would have taken what he wanted and left ruin in his wake. But he hadn’t. He’d protected her.
Even from himself.
Alora swallowed, her vision blurring with tears. “Rune… do you love me?”
He halted, his back to her. When his faint reply came, it dove deep between her ribs. “What do demons know about love?”
Alora’s fingers trembled at her sides. She’d seen his tenderness, the way he watched her like she was a prayer he wasn’t allowed to say. But if Rune truly believed he was incapable of love, then no amount of her wanting could save them. Her tears fell freely now, mourning something that had never been given a chance to be.
Rune’s fists shook at his sides as he turned around, his expression broken. “You must stay away from me, Alora. Or I will kill you… and I cannot endure that again.”
She faintly gasped.
The darkness swallowed him and he was gone. Only the shadows remained, curling around her ankles like smoke that didn’t want to let go. Until even they disappeared.
She bit back a sob and collapsed on her knees. He left her alone. Shivering from the absence of his warmth and shock. From the ache of his words.
Because it at last confirmed two things.
They had met before.
And it ended in her death.
CHAPTER 54
Alora
Alora’s raspy voice echoed faintly in the garden, but it hurt too much to sing. Her throat had not yet recovered after the night she spent crying. She brushed trembling fingers over her puffy eyes.
Don’t sing for me anymore.
