Tattooed fingers wrapped around the steel. A lean upper body curled over knees, black jeans digging into the powder. The crown of their head rocked against the barred door, dark hair a flat curtain over their features.
The realization wrenched the air from my lungs. All feeling left my limbs.
Even my pulse was lost to the shock.
It was him.
“Ryder,” I whispered.
Chapter 24
His shoulders stiffened at the sound of my voice, the steel bars shaking in his pale, frozen hands.
A thin shaft of light shone through a vent in the ceiling—the only source of illumination, besides the torch in my grasp. It curved around him, casting shadows that stretched the broadness of his shoulders over the walls.
I lowered into a crouch just outside the slatted door. The hem of Flóki’s jacket soaked up the dampness from the floor as my hand hovered in the space between us.
I needed to touch him. To prove he was really there.
Desire surged under my collarbone in sharp, confusing waves. It was coated with bitterness and hatred, but it pulled me in just the same. At the last second, when we were a hair’s breadth apart, I snatched my hand away, thinking better of it.
Clearing my throat, I repeated his name, a touch above a whisper now. “Ryder.”
A ragged exhale clouded the air in front of his lips. He barely had enough strength to lift his chin. Icicles were crystalized along his eyes. Lashes frozen together, he strained to pull his eyelids open.
How long had he been down here? Why was he down here?
He brought his fists to his eyes, clearing the frost. Then he looked up at me.
Gasping, I flinched back, stumbling down to a knee.
The torch slipped out of my grasp, sputtering on the cobblestone.
His eyes were black.
There was no green, no life. Just two shadowed pits. The blood drained from my face. I shot to my feet.
This wasn’t Ryder, this was a ghost—a stranger.
But then again, he’d lied to me our entire relationship, so maybe this was worse.
Maybe this was the real him.
His empty stare fell to the floor, before slowly dragging up my legs, sliding up my body, the way my arms tucked under my ribs. They caught on the dip of my silk camisole, which suddenly felt paper-thin, lingering over the flush of my chest. A weak smirk pulled at his lips.
“Nice jacket, baby.” That wasn’t his voice, either. It was barely a grating rasp, like his vocal cords had been shredded. “Black always looked good on you.”
I pulled the bomber tighter around me, but I wasn’t sure who needed it more. Because a rush of that same want flared through me, burning brighter than the torch.
“What are you doing here?” I demanded. “Who told you where I was?”
Moving first up my neck, his gaze flickered over my face. I was certain he was assessing me, cataloguing all the new scars and bruises I carried.
A flash of anger twisted his features, as if he bore them himself.
“Your hair is up.” Crimson stained his teeth. “You never wear your hair up.”
A chill far colder than the icy air in this elven prison, trilled along my bare neck. I stumbled back, suddenly all too aware of the tension dragging us closer. “Stop it.”
