Of all the scenarios I pictured in my head, her already being dead was never one of them. Ryn’s words steal the wind from my retribution-taut sails, and I have no idea which direction to steer in now. Thoughts of killing Loa have been a driving force in how hard I’ve been training and working to master my runes and abilities. Yes, breaking the Vow and surviving a Gryphon war has been a factor too, but I had big plans for that bitch.
I mean, I just spent an hour perfecting my evil smile so that it would bejust rightfor when Loa and I met again.
Fuck!
Ryn pulls my pissed off and distraught ass into his lap, and I’m reeling too much to object.
“Falon, I can see that you are not happy, but I woke up and Treno was yelling. I looked over to see Raquel press the knife to your neck, and then I just reacted,” he tells me, his hand soothingly caressing my back while the other does the same against my thigh. “She didn’t see me coming until it was too late, but you were bleeding and pulling at my life force, and all I could do was rip her apart for hurting you, for betraying us.”
Ryn pauses like the pain is still fresh and lapping at him, and I hate that I can still feel the knife cut into my skin and smell Loa’s disdain like it’s still in the air. He brings a hand up and runs the pad of his thumb over the scar at my throat, and I close my eyes and breathe through the rush of feelings it stirs in me.
Pain, fear, sadness, and regret from the memory of what happened war with the warmth and adoration Ryn’s touch tries to entice out of me.
“Zeph broke in and scooped you up. He was nearby to help extract us and the others that were going to join the Hidden. But everything went wrong when I was on my way to get you, to tell you it was time to go. I didn’t know about Treno. I knew you grabbed his attention, but I’ve known him my whole life, and nothing has everkept it. I didn’t realize that you two had called to each other,” he tells me, his voice suddenly softer, a touch gruffer.
“Maybe I was too focused on trying to ignore my own reactions to my mate and our unfulfilled call to pay attention to what was happening. I’ll have to live with that.” Ryn’s thumb traces my scar again, and I realize that he blames himself for its existence. “After I killed Raquel, and Zeph had you, I grabbed Treno. He was suffering the most, we think because of your newly formed connection, and then we ran as fast as we could before we were too weak to move like you and Treno were.”
His accounting of what happened pulls me back into the moment that I’m sure will haunt me until the day that I die. The feel of the metal against my throat, the warm blood pouring out of me, knowing I would be the death of the others, it’s hard to sift through. I wanted to be Loa’s reckoning, but Ryn got there first, and technically he bears the bigger scars from her betrayal, even if his wounds are on the inside.
“I’m sorry you went through that,” I tell him, placing my hand over his on my chest as he traces my scar, his eyes filled with torment and despair. “I’m sorry she betrayed you.”
Ryn closes his eyes and leans his head against mine. Just like with Treno the other day, I’m hit by the realization of what Ryn has been suffering through.
A flash of what he looked like as Lazza slowly choked him to death, and the fear that I felt when I thought he had succeeded, strikes through my mind. And then I see him grasping at the threads of our mate bond as I try to sever it, and he tries to reattach the broken bonds to his chest.
No, this...Thiswill be what haunts me until the day that I die. I had my reasons, and I thought they were right at the time, but I will never get the image of his desperate tries to keep us connected out of my mind. We’ve all fucked up on such epic levels, and yet here I am in his lap, being comforted and trying to comfort in return.
Maybe it wasn’t all for nothing.
“I thought she was dead. I never suspected for a second that somehow she survived and chose Lazza over me. She liked him as an eyas, but...”
“She was a fucking psycho. I thought she loved you and that’s why she was oddly protective, but then she just watched as Lazza was killing you...I’m glad she’s dead. And I’m grateful to you for protecting me.”
“But I didn’t,” he argues.
“Yes, you did, you watched out for me in Kestrel City, made sure I was okay. I thought it was Treno, but Sice and Dri wereyourguards. You’re the one who made sure Lazza didn’t force the actual Vow on me.” I rub the back of my neck where his friend Saner put the dead mark. “You tried to get me out of there, you rescued Treno even though he was a threat to you. You stood up for me against Zeph—”
“Not soon enough,” he interrupts, as though that one thing trumps everything else.
“So you’ll get better. We know he’ll give you opportunities no matter what he says; asshole is in that guy’s blood.”
Ryn snorts and tightens his hold on me, and I breathe him in.
“And you’ll stay...please,” he asks me, and I lean back in shock at the foreign word whose purpose I once had to explain to him.
His knowing smile lights up his face because he knows he’s got me. This hard ass just said please, regardless of how foreign the concept is to him, and if I needed more proof that things are exactly as they’re supposed to be, that’s it. I shake my head and chuckle.
“Please,” he says again quietly, his eyes alight with mischief and heat as he leans in, closing the distance between us. “Please,” he adds again for good measure before he threads his fingers through my hair and kisses me.
The back of my neck tingles like it’s reminding me of just one of the things this male has done for me, and I waste no time in fervently kissing Ryn back. Heat flickers through me as I move from simply sitting in Ryn’s lap to straddling him, our kiss scorching my lips and his touch sending a blaze of need through me. He sucks on my bottom lip, eliciting a moan from me, and I grind down on his hardening length as an inferno of desire sweeps through my body.
I pull away from Ryn’s lips.
Fuck, why is it suddenly so hot in here?
Ryn looks confused for a moment when my features fill with distress, and then all of a sudden, it’s like someone is taking a hot poker to the back of my neck. I scream and hear a matching panicked yell from Ryn.
One second I’m in his lap, eager to reconnect and claim my place in his soul, and the next, cold wind whips my hair behind me as I look up from the purple-dirt-covered ground I just landed on, right into the aqua eyes of the enemy.
