Total pages in book: 247
Estimated words: 242728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1214(@200wpm)___ 971(@250wpm)___ 809(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 242728 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 1214(@200wpm)___ 971(@250wpm)___ 809(@300wpm)
I threw myself into him.
I pressed my mouth to his.
I kissed death on his lips and silenced him with my tongue.
He froze for a single heartbeat.
And then...he broke.
His body crashed against mine. His hands flew up, grabbing my cheeks and holding me captive. His lips bruised, and with pure rage and molten despair, he gave me what I craved.
He kissed me.
Devoured me.
He marched me back until my spine shuddered against a tree and he pinned me in place with a snarl. Bark bit into my shoulders; leaves scattered in my hair. A wolf yip and lynx growl were silenced with the coldest whip of wind. A black wind. A monstrous wind. A wind that came from death himself who kissed me with such devotion.
My lungs were empty—he’d stolen my air.
My blood turned into sunshine, scorching me from the inside out, setting the night ablaze with blistering gold.
His tongue pierced my lips.
Quelis’s hiss tried to slink into my mind, the earth shuddered beneath our feet, and rain began to fall.
I ignored every element.
I blocked them out and opened wide.
He took full advantage.
He kissed me roughly, madly, our teeth clacked, our tongues warred, and I no longer survived on anything but him.
His taste.
His essence.
His raw, vicious power pouring dangerously down my throat.
His hips wedged against mine.
I moaned as he kissed me harder, feral and frantic.
His teeth caught my bottom lip.
Blood bloomed—
“Why?” he roared, shaking his fist at the thunderstorm and its lashing, licking lightning that’d just punished us for stealing a kiss. “Why can’t I have her? Why?”
The sky didn’t answer, and I hugged myself in the rain, my blood still fizzing from the power of being struck by light and power. It never killed us. It wouldn’t dare. But it hurt. So much. Its current blew through our blood, rang in our teeth, and made the marks on our thighs burn with fire.
“Darro...” I whispered around the pummelling raindrops. “Don’t.”
I didn’t know what I warned him about. Who he yelled at or why his anger scared me, but my heart quickened in fear.
He spun around, directing his fury at me. His stomach rippled with power and his arousal hung heavy and hard between his legs. “Since the beginning of time I’ve chased you. Across the skies and into the seas, I’ve wanted you.” His fingers slid through my hair, looping around my nape. “And now that I have you? In mortal form and here, in my arms, in kissing reach...I’m not going to let anything stop us.”
He kissed me.
Hard.
He lowered me to the ground to finish what we started.
Another crack of lightning.
A furious boom of thunder.
A crackling firebolt shattered through us.
We cried out, falling to our knees, gasping through twin agony.
Darro lost it.
His fury exploded, and with a roar, he drove both fists into the ground.
He punched the grass.
He dented the planet.
And something answered.
A deep moan as if the cosmos itself opened its eyes.
A tearing beneath our feet.
A cracking within the soil.
The storm ceased as suddenly as it’d appeared; a hush falling over the sky.
It appeared as a web at first.
A silver-threaded web feathering from his fists to the horizon.
A deeper moan.
A louder crack.
The web widened.
The very earth shook and tumbled.
Noise deafened us as the flat, unvaried plains of perfection broke apart.
The world smashed and splintered, collapsed and crumpled.
On and on it broke and reformed. Land ruptured and split. Islands formed in the seas birthed by my tears. Mountains screeched with stone, spiralling into the sky.
Canyons carved and hills emerged.
Valleys snaked like serpents and ranges rose like spines.
Until it was over.
Until the world went quiet, and in the distance, one of my rivers tumbled off a new cliff, forming a rainbow-frothing waterfall.
I stood on shaky feet, spinning in a slow circle, drinking in the new landscape. “You changed it.” I looked in awe at the crevices and crags. “You changed it all.”
Darro stayed on his knees, despair in his eyes as he looked upon the changes his temper had wrought. “I didn’t change it, Runa. I destroyed it.”
I sucked in an explosive breath.
My eyes opened.
“Runa...thank the stars.” Darro cradled me in his arms, wedging me against the tree as if he’d caught me mid-fall. “You passed out. I feared I’d killed—”
“You didn’t.” I coughed. “You wouldn’t. I’m even more sure of that now.” Catching his stare, I murmured, “I saw a memory. Of you. Of us.”
“What?” His gaze sharpened. “What did you see?”
I shivered in the cage of his strength. “I saw you transform the barrenness of this world into a place with caves and cliffs, summits and sand dunes.” My knees braced as I straightened against the tree where he trapped me. “Do you remember?”
He shook his head, his eyes swimming with history he couldn’t recall. “How is that possible? How could I do such a thing?”
My attention fell to his lips as a ray of absolute truth poured through me. “Because you’re not just death. You are so, so much more than what you fear.”