Page 56 of Peacemaker

“He’s not a bad man,” Rhys said, ladling stew into his bowl. “But he’s human, love. He’s always going to be a little untrustworthy.”

I watched Rhys eating, trapped by his absolute dark perfection. He looked up and caught me staring at him, and deep in his midnight gaze a spark of bright green flashed. It was like a broken shard of an emerald had gotten stuck in his irises, and for a second, that spark blinded me. All I could see was a speck of vivid green in a sea of blackness.

My eyes widened and I clenched my fists. In that second of blindness, I felt my blood heat and my flesh blister, as though I were a vampire being flung into the sun.

But even in that instant of heat, there was a flash of pleasure so extreme it was nearly incomprehensible.

Then it was over and he was staring at me as I was staring at him, with eyes too wide, caught in the strangeness of the moment.

“That was very fucking bizarre,” I whispered, realizing only then that my nails were piercing my palms. When I glanced down, needing an excuse to look away from him, I saw the little half-moons filling with blood. There was no pain. I was numb.

Every man there seemed almost paralyzed, dazed and unsure, their faces pale. I hadn’t been the only one touched by that strange moment. The realization comforted me.

“What the fuck just happened?” Shane asked.

Rhys left his chair and walked to me, then knelt at my side. He took my abused hands in his and gently rubbed the little trickles of blood away. “She’s almost ready,” he said. “And I am almost free. That is what just happened.”

And then he broke down into sobs so heartrending, so lost, and so…exhausted, somehow, that we all froze in shock.

Clayton was the first one to reach us. Out of everyone there, Clayton would come closest to understanding what Rhys was feeling—because Clayton had been so horribly restrained for such a very, very long time.

He wrapped his arms around Rhys, and I slid from my chair to do the same, very nearly unable to handle the viciousness of Rhys’s agony.

If he’d asked me, I would have lain with him and let him ease his sorrow, even if it would have killed me. His distress was that vast. That terrible.

The other men came to us as well, each of us needing to end Rhys’s suffering—and our own. We wrapped Rhys up in our love, our devotion, our protection. We showed him that he was not alone.

That moment sealed our bond in ways nothing else could have. I felt it. I felt the difference, and I felt the magnitude. It weaved around us, through us, inside us, binding us together with invisible ribbons of truth.

I knew the other nonhumans in Bay Town were shivering with the slightest touch of that overflowing power, because I felt them, too.

Silverlight screamed within me, demanding release, giving me no choice in the matter. Before she could burst free and hurt my men, I scrambled backward, climbed to my feet, and let her come.

I was overwhelmed with Rhys, with emotion, with power, and it exploded from me as Silverlight—and her light hit us all.

Silver light surrounded us, entered us, and sealed us together. All of us but one. All of us but Amias. I wasn’t sure what that would mean for him or for the us of which he was part.

All I knew for certain was that the power of her light healed something broken in each of us, and we were stronger when she faded away. Not just because of her power, but because of our love.