Page 152 of Shadowborne: Reckoning

I clapped a hand to my chest, suddenly all that pain and struggle in the flight here raising the worst possible questions.

Was the pain we’d suffered more than pure separation? More than the ache of the distant bond?

Had our mates been killed? Just too far away from us for the bond to learn the truth and die?

I swallowed hard as Carnage came to a staggering halt at the bottom of the launch hollow, and a wave of a dozen or more Furyknights rushed out of the stable and the surrounds.

“Is that Carnage?”

“Talon? Talon, is that you?’

“Ruin! Holy shit!”

“Hyla says it’s Carnage—that means Ruin made it out!”

I found myself frozen on the edge of the launch hollow, sucked back in time to the moment when I’d first stood in these woods, watching Ruin, knowing he was so strong, and so admirable. And I was… not. My ribcage tightened and my heart pounded even faster. I was there again…

“Go!” Ruin roared. His beautiful, full lips peeled back from his teeth and his hands balled to fists at his sides as he towered over me. My eyes widened as I looked at those fists, shaking. I knew under those leathers his forearms popped with veins, the lines I’d so admired as a testament to his strength—and my pleasure—now heralds of my death.

Ruin could snap me in two and leave me here and no one would be the wiser. I was too weak to stop him.

“I said, GO!”

I panicked, scrambling off the forest floor and pushing myself into a stumbling run as his voice echoed in the trees behind me.

If he took hold of me here in the dark, with the noise of the crowd and the dragons below…

If he chose, he could crush my body as easily as his contempt crushed my heart.

Those hands, so much larger than mine—big enough to hold my head like a fruit. Those arms and thighs, strengthened and trained by hours on dragonback, that had lifted and carried me against that broad chest—hot steel under warm, soft skin… But the steel that had once been my protection now turned against me as a weapon.

I ran faster.

“Get the hell out of here, and don’t come back!” he snarled, his feet pounding on the dirt behind me. “Nobody wants you here. Get the fuck out!”

I tripped on a tree root, arms pinwheeling, sobbing as my body screamed in pain, but I caught my weight on my fingertips and ran on.

“Keep running!” he snarled from behind me, his footsteps finally slowing. “Don’t ever show your face near me again. Do you hear me, Bren?” He fell further and further behind, his voice echoing in the trees around me, haunting me.

“I don’t want you, Bren. I don’t want you. I don’t love you. And I never—”

‘Bren… no!’ Akhane snapped in my head.

I blinked and the painful memory sucked away, leaving me trembling. Akhane turned her long neck to meet eyes with me and blow heavy breath on my face. ‘No, Bren. That is not who you are—and he will not win. Do not hand him a victory that he has not earned.’

I nodded, though my chest ached, then stared past her to the men below who pulled Ruin into hugs, and claps on the shoulder, as they cheered and swore and called for more of our brothers to come.

Ruin!

Ruin is back!

He made it!

But then, these naïve, oblivious men put that cunt on their shoulders and started carrying him towards the stable.

Something inside me snapped.

“No,” I hissed. “Absolutely not. No. Fucking. Way.”