He scowled. “If you’ve come to meddle?—”
“No,” she said gently. “To warn.”
His eyes narrowed. “Then tell me what is wrong with my Gate.”
Sunnëva faced him, robes of celestial silk billowing in the wind. At his cold stare, she glanced at sky pointedly. “The Netherworld Gate cannot fully open until the rift is mended, Rune. You will have to choose between what you want and what the world needs.”
He clenched his teeth. “I don’t give a fuck about the world.”
Sunnëva’s eyes sparkled knowingly, glancing at the imprinted mark on his throat. “Oh, but you do… becauseshe’sin your bed right now.”
He snarled.
She laughed. “Took you long enough. Though it truly was entertaining to watch you foolishly lie and helplessly yearn. You could have had her sooner if you had simply stopped hiding. Yet you continue to hide her. The court needs their queen, Rune.”
Damn her.
Damn her for saying it aloud. For speaking the truth, he wouldn’t let himself admit.
At the beginning of his creation, he thought his purpose was to defend the Heavens. Then he fell and ruled the dark to recover some semblance of the power he’d lost. But in truth, none of those things had been his purpose.
He had none.
None other than the one he chose.
Alora.
And he was terribly protective about that.
Rune bared his fangs. “Enough of these word games, Sunnëva. Tell me what the point of this is.”
“And give you all the answers?” Her gaze darkened, teasing. “Where’s the fun in that?”
A savage growl rumbled in his throat.
“Have you forgotten what I told you? There is no other way to seal the rift.”
The statement rang through him like a wrong note in a sacred chord.
Rune snatched Sunnëva’s throat—not to hurt, but towarn.His grip was firm, and for a breath, the air between them crackled with the tension of old flames and severed bonds.
“I think it is you who has forgotten,” he said deathly quiet. “That I canhearlies.”
Sunnëva smiled at him, even with her breath cut short.
He pulled her close. “As if I couldn’t take what I needed from you, sweetling.”
Power coiled in his palm, cold and invasive, the old magic that could peel truth from bone if he wished.
White light flared from her skin.
Rune snarled in pain, flinching as a stark white burn scorched his hand. The flesh healed instantaneously, but his pride stung worse.
Sunnëva tilted her head with a sly sneer. “Your touch doesn’t have any effect on me anymore, Rune. It hasn’t for a long time.”
She looked past him and her smile sharpened with delight.
Rune turned.
