Sweet Ruin (55 page)

SEVENTY-TWO

R
une was in Perdishian. He thought. Perhaps he dreamed?

If so, this reverie was the most lifelike he’d ever experienced.

He stood at the glass wall, gazing out. He breathed in air that smelled like cold stone and metal. His ears twitched with each of the stronghold’s groans as it moved through space and time.

Orion joined his side. His eyes were obsidian, as obscure as usual, but Rune had never seen this visage before. The male stood only a few inches taller than Rune. His hair was as black as space. His face was pleasing with sharp cheekbones and even features.

Rune couldn’t determine which species Orion imitated today.

They watched worlds pass in silence. Finally, Rune said, “I need to speak with you.”

Without turning from the view, Orion intoned, “Speak.”

“I failed to assassinate the Valkyrie. And now I can never kill her.”

“Thousands have tried. None would have succeeded.”

Rune faced him. “Then why dispatch me?”

Orion kept his gaze ahead, as if scanning for something. “We fail; we learn. Unless we fail to learn.”

Should Rune tell him about Apparitia? Surely this was just a dream. Maybe his subconscious was rehearsing for this very conversation. In any case, Rune had trusted
and believed in Orion for ages. By suspecting the worst, Rune would not only be doubting his liege; he’d be doubting his own judgment.

Rune would choose to believe . . . in himself. “My mate hailed from Apparitia.”

Orion turned his head. “You want to know if I destroyed it. What do you think?”

“I think you didn’t.”

The black of Orion’s eyes glimmered a strange, wondrous color. A hint of the being’s satisfaction?

Good, then. Rune had been right, could feel the truth. Then he frowned. Was that color a clue to Orion’s ancestry?

No, no, that couldn’t be right.

“Ever loyal archer.” Orion gave the subtlest nod. “You could have taken the hybrids and run.”

“I trust in this. In you. In our mission.” To save the worlds.

“In time, your mate will look into my gaze and know the answer for herself.”

“But there’s more. I can’t harvest information as I have in the past—because I will never be untrue to her. Already threats arise that I can’t contain.” Nïx had said her warlocks were working to keep the Møriør out of Gaia. Warlocks were notorious for sacrificing nymphs to old gods. But Rune’s informant pool was now gone.

Orion faced the star-shaped table. “How many wolves sit among us?”

Rune frowned again. “One.”

“How many witches?”

“One.”

“Archers?”

One.

Orion had never called him anything but
archer,
even when Rune had possessed no skill. Rune had worked for millennia to become the best bowman in all the worlds—to be worthy of the name.

Yet even after he’d become the best, he still hadn’t become the archer.

Recognition overwhelmed Rune. “I sit at that table as the Møriør’s archer.” He
had
become worthy of the name; he’d just never realized it.

“Your arrows are far-reaching. Your arrows are silent. Archers fight from the front line and from the shadows, do they not?”

Assassin and front line.
Those are my strengths. Those are my skills.
Before, Rune had taken on tasks he’d
thought
should fall to him, the former whore.

Orion nodded as if Rune had spoken. “The archer’s undoing was how he saw himself.” Orion the Undoing saw weaknesses.

Rune had diminished himself, assigning his own skewed values.

He was about to ask if he was the primordial, then he realized it didn’t matter.

Orion’s lips curled. “Exactly.”

A stray thought:
He steers us as Nïx steers her army.
If Rune had been concerned about the Valkyrie’s savvy, he was no longer. Orion couldn’t be stopped—

Rune jerked awake. Had Josephine moaned? She was twisting in the sheets, her brow furrowed, her outline flickering.

Nightmare? He’d burdened her with so many memories of torture and pain. . . .

She started to grow intangible. Then to
rise
. Sleep-ghosting—she’d warned him about this!

“Wake, Josie!” He dove for her hand. To tether her. She grasped his in sleep.

He began to disembody with her. “Whoa, you need to wake up, love!” His voice sounded faint and ghostly.

His heart thundered when they began to levitate. “You have to rouse yourself!”

Her eyes were squeezed closed, her body limp. They ascended past the ceiling. Past the roof. Into the night.

“Josephine!” he bellowed. They were drifting through the rain into the storm clouds. Higher. Higher. She wasn’t going to wake!

Then so be it.
“Josephine, understand me—wherever we’re going . . . we’re going to be together.” He pulled her close and kissed her.

SEVENTY-THREE

J
o blinked open her eyes. Rune was kissing her? When she stiffened against him, he drew his head back.

“Dream?” she asked.

His brows were drawn, eyes wild. “Not quite.”

She frowned. She wasn’t in bed? No, he was outside with her. The air felt really thin. And cold. She peered up. The stars burned bright.

Too
bright.

She met his gaze—read their situation from the alarm in his expression. “I sleep-ghosted?”

“Yes, love.” He swallowed. “Up.”

She didn’t want to look. “Wh-where are we?”

He gave a curt nod. In other words,
Yes, it’s that bad.

“Why are you with me?”

He grated, “Because that’s where I bloody belong.”

She peered down. Sucked in a breath. Panicked.

She started to embody, her stomach lurching as they plummeted.

As soon as she’d solidified enough, Rune coiled his arms around her and traced them to her bed.

“Ah, gods, Josephine.” He tucked her into his lap, his lungs heaving.

“Wh-what happened?” Panting, she clung to him, savoring his heat and strength, inhaling his scent.

“We went for a trip.” His heart pounded at her ear.

“I took you with me?”

With his chin on her head, he nodded. “You turned intangible and began to rise. I tried to wake you, barely catching your grip in time.” He pressed his lips against her hair.

Catching her grip? “Why didn’t you let me go? I know how scared of heights you are.”

He drew back. “I will
never
let you go.” He cradled her face in his hands. “Wherever you were headed—I don’t give a fuck—that’s where I want to be as well.”

He’d been her anchor, refusing to release her. Just as she’d always wanted.

Then she remembered.

“I’ve missed you so much, Josie—”

She pushed at his chest until he eased his hold. “How did you know where I was?” She scrambled off the bed, standing to face him.

He stood as well. “I’ve known since that night at Val Hall.” He was unshaven, with dark circles under his eyes. He’d lost weight, his jeans hanging looser than usual.

“You’ve been spying on me!”

He nodded shamelessly. “I’ve lived in the carriage house for the last week.”

Then he’d overheard every conversation between her and Thad. “You need to go. Not doing this here. I’m not doing this with you.”

“Please. Give me five minutes.”

She glared, rubbing her arms. She was freezing in only a T-shirt—since it’d been chilly in the
stratosphere
.

“You’re cold.” He crossed to her, removing his coat. “Take my jacket.”

Ignoring him, she traced to her closet for clothes. “I can’t believe you’ve been right there all week,” she called as she yanked on jeans. “Why not show yourself?”

“An ally pointed out I shouldn’t barge in on your bonding with Thad. You’d waited more than half your life to reunite with him. I decided nothing should interrupt you two.”

She snatched on a hoodie, her anger seething. She’d been in a good place with hating him. Then he had to go and follow her into space and all. “You were spying on me—except for when you went out to score?” She returned to her room. “The demon in you needs to get off multiple times a day, right?”

He closed the distance between them with two strides of his long legs. Standing too close, he gazed down at her. “The demon in me is mated. As is the fey. Both are quite happy about this.”

Even now he could affect her. Luckily, all she had to do was recall . . . “That didn’t stop you with Meliai.”

“No, it didn’t.”

To hear it confirmed . . . Knife in gut. Her outline flickered.

“
I
stopped myself with Meliai.”

“What does that mean?”
Please mean what I think it means!

“I didn’t have sex with her.”

Wasn’t the word
sex
a qualifier in this sense? “You two got off another way? A little slap and tickle for the nymph? Hey, as long as she was satisfied, right?”

“I was determined to breach the wraiths that night; I was in bed, naked with her.”

Jo couldn’t stifle her wince.

“No one got off in any way, and I guarantee she was anything but satisfied. But I don’t really remember what I was doing—I get . . . detached. I go cold, and my mind grows hazy.”

Flashes of a dream arose. A new one. Before Jo had sleep-ghosted, she must’ve seen another memory of his. She experienced that night on Ayers Rock from his point of view. When she’d admitted her phobia to him, he’d thought,
She fears floating away; I fear extinguishing my emotions forever. . . . Maybe we could be each other’s anchors.

Her lips parted.
I go cold.
He’d grown so detached that he’d feared staying that way forever.

She’d seen how unemotional he was with others. On that last night, he’d told her, “I want you to experience what it’s like feeling utterly nothing.”

But she’d experienced his emotions for her.

“I remember replaying every word of our fight,” he said. “I was consumed with jealousy at the thought of you biting another.”

His comment snapped her from her thoughts. “So I’m not the only one with jealousy issues?”

He gave her a look that said
You have no idea.
“I decided I never wanted another to know your bite. That it was
our
private act, only between us, to bond us. I realized that’s how you view sex. And I realized I do too, with you. I abruptly stopped with Meliai, wanting only to get back to you.”

Jo turned from him, putting space between them. “Well, good for you, Rune, you didn’t sleep with her. You did assure me it wouldn’t happen
every
night.” In a fake cheery tone, she said, “Why, after the Accession, your cheating might taper off even more!”

He grimaced. “If I could take back those words—”

“I still won’t tolerate it, and you still have to do it for your work.”

“I resigned from that part of my job,” he rushed to say. “Actually, I’d consider my new circumstances more of a promotion. I’m an archer only from now on.”

She narrowed her eyes, refusing to get her hopes up. “Maybe there was some truth to the things you said. I don’t see how this can work between us when you think I’m immature and childish.”

“I believed you were trying to manipulate me because I never thought you’d choose to end this—even though you’d warned me.”

“You were so adamant that night. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around this turnaround.”

“One of the reasons I was holding on to that life was because I didn’t want to change again. Magh had forced me to so many times, and I think on some level, I equated change
with
her. So I resisted. Then I realized you were right—that transaction would have made me a whore. I recognized I’d never
stopped
being one.”

“I was angry when I said that.”

“You should’ve been. I was an ass. I’d continued to view myself as I’d been in the past. It didn’t matter how much I’d accomplished or how far I’d climbed, I couldn’t see my own worth.” He rubbed a hand over his tired face. “Orion told me I was my own undoing.”