Page 155 of The Stolen Throne
The flames of the candelabras around the room suddenly flicker, and then gloom consumes the room in a rush. Not total darkness but close.
“You’re here, love.” Reven’s deep-as-sin voice rumbles through me and around me.
“Reven?” I whisper as I stare at the shape of a man standing in the doorway.
As my eyes begin to adjust, I take in more details.
I catch a flash of eyes gone entirely black.
Not Reven…Shadow.
Damnation.
Beside me, Horus makes a sound in the back of his throat and tries to get between us. Immediately, Shadow’s face contorts in a spasm of anger, and tendrils of darkness lash out at me like whips, so fast I don’t have time to do more than yelp. Fear lashing through me, I’m dragged across the room, kicking and fighting the entire way, aware that more shadow is holding Horus and the others at bay.
I slam into Reven’s body. Shadow’s arms wrap tight around me, lifting me up so that my feet dangle above the ground.
A bubble of darkness snaps up around us, enveloping us in a private place. As fast as they came for me, the tendrils of shadow disappear inside him, and the darkness in the room all around us, obscuring us from view and holding back the others, changes. Softens. Warms.
And I don’t care because he digs one hand into my hair and his entire body convulses. On an indrawn breath he lifts his head…and it’s Reven.
No faces. No shaking. Eyes a glorious, smoldering turquoise.
Then his expression crumples with what I can only describe as violent relief, and his lips are on mine.
“You made it back to me,” he says against my mouth.
Part 5
Draw Death
66
Consumed by
Shadows
This is forbidden.
I fall into his kiss anyway, drown in it…only to drag myself right back to the surface. I’ve been trying to be good. Trying to make it easier on him. To accept that we can’t do this anymore.
I pull away. “We shouldn’t. I don’t want to make this harder on you.”
“No. Stay with me.” He gathers me closer. Faces flicker over his. “I’ve been lost since you left. You’re keeping me here.”
Oh.
The block of ice surrounding my heart thaws in a rush. Even if I don’t understand the whys and hows, or even, for that matter, trust them.
Stop thinking, Meren. Kiss the man.
Like he heard my chaotic thoughts, Reven lets go, threatening to toss me right back into a pile of confusion. But he doesn’t release me. Not entirely. He captures my wrists as though he’s going to hold me back. Everything about him stills, and my heart plummets at the thought that he’s going to take it all away again. Put those walls back up.
Only, he glances at Cain’s cuff before shifting his grip to lace our fingers, staring at his hand against mine.
“They’re so quiet.”
Eidolon’s Shadows?
