Page 94 of Daughter of the Dark

Now she had a choice, and Reyes was begging her to choose him, to choose life. An unknown future stretching ahead of her like a distant, dangling hope.

Solana wanted it so bad it hurt. Dying was easy, but living was not. It required her to put aside everything she had held on to for so long—resentment and anger, purpose and pride. It required her to open her hands and finally, fully accept everything Reyes had to offer.

The coolness of life washed over her. Fingers of ice prodded to knit and mend. Her chest filled with breath and the darkness ebbed, and there it was, the gray of a storm, the glint of a sword, the promise of a future. His gift curled around her mind and soul and caressed the parts of her that were dark and unlovable. It whispered to her doubts and fears that they were valid, but they would not hold her back any longer.

The pain slowly disappeared as she absorbed his healing, as she believed in herself, as she yearned for more of his touch. It was Reyes’s love that led her back onto the shores of life.

With a gasp, she woke to him bowed over her, eyes red rimmed and sparkling like moonlight on the surface of an endless sea. In them, she saw the depths of his love. The lengths he would have gone to save her again and again. His lips stretched into a wide smile, the pulse at his neck fluttering madly as he laughed and pulled her into him, his fingers clawing at her clothes and skin as if he could fuse their bodies together, never to part.

Without saying anything, she rifted them to her home. The place that had held her and raised her and molded her. The landing was soft and controlled. Her well was full of the clearest water she had ever sipped, and in his arms, she was stronger than ever before.

She raised a hand to his cheek and opened her mouth to speak, but Reyes cut her off. “I swear to the gods, if you say I’m sorry one more time, I will never let you leave this bed.”

“That might not be as much of a punishment as you think,” she whispered into his mouth. The taste of him was like a spring after a long rain, fresh and bountiful. He tasted her back, his tongue tracing the curve of her mouth like it had been made solely for him and he had never had anything so fulfilling.

Solana didn’t apologize, but she did murmur against his ear, “I thought I wasn’t capable of love. Afraid that who I am would destroy you.”

Reyes’s hands cupped her face. His thumbs dug into her cheeks and held her so tight that the only thing she could see was him. “Destroy me, Solana. Tear me apart and put me back together with the pieces of me that have only ever known you, because who I am after you is the only person I want to be.”

The strength of his conviction was crushing, and she folded beneath him eagerly, willing to lay herself bare in the hopes that he would devour her, and understand her, and compliment her. There was little time to do all the things they wanted to do, but Solana made sure to trace each line of the stories inked onto his skin, imagined that it was her story, their story that would forever mark his heart. Regardless of how it ended.

For the truth of it was, Solana didn’t know if she would survive what was to come. There might be nothing left of her when this was over except this moment, this memory. While Reyes pressed a trail of kisses from her lips to her thighs, she whispered her secrets to him. The times that she felt unworthy and unloved. Lost and alone. The small things that gave her hope that she was too afraid to fully feel. The way that his very first words to her, I’ve been looking for you, imprinted themselves onto her heart and made her feel seen for the first time in so long.

Solana didn’t have to tell him what she wanted, because he already knew. He pressed into her achingly slow, holding her eyes as he filled her. Kissing her lips as he loved her in the way nobody else had before. She savored every thrust, every breath that brought him nearer to the edge, every touch that claimed her heart and soul.

They were the perfect culmination of all their mistakes and foolish ideas and wishful longings, and as Reyes grabbed her hips and pulled her closer, pushed deeper so that she wasn’t sure where he ended and she began, she chose to believe that each and every moment that she had fought through had brought her there, to this slice of time, to his arms.

CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

The peace Solana felt while in Reyes’s arms didn’t extend to her sleep. In it, she was a separate entity, a figment of her ancestors’ wildest dreams. They whispered to her. They called her Ñakapana Quispe. They ordered her to command, to love, to destroy.

They filled her with wrath and vengeance until the bountiful waters in her well were churning with reckless abandon. It was no longer content to sit idly by while Solana treaded the waters of uncertainty. It was desperate to be free. To set free.

Now is the time, it encouraged.

Choose your path, it demanded.

YOU MUST WAKE UP.

It was the screaming that woke her, but it wasn’t coming from her dream. It was coming from the streets beyond the walls of her home. She threw the covers and Reyes’s arm from her torso and ran to the door. It swung open, and the sight that met her made her want to fall to her knees. Bodies were in the streets. Buildings were on fire. Muki ran across the sides of walls, along the rooftops. They dropped onto anything that ran by. The smoke was so thick she could only see outlines, but it was enough to tell her that the war had come.

Their time was up. Reyes was behind her before she could call for him. They threw on their boots and gathered their weapons. Solana went to plunge into the melee without a plan, but Reyes grabbed her arm and yanked her to a stop before she could step outside.

“Together,” he pleaded, his eyes already filled with fear for her.

“Together.” She nodded. He pressed a quick kiss to her lips, and then they were running through the smoke, tearing at everything that came at them. Solana was filled with power and peace. Her soul was healed, and her heart was etched with scars of retribution. Not a dark stain but a tattoo. A story. A memory.

She would fight for her mother, for Sami and her father, for the ones who came before them who fought and lost and had everything taken from them.

Muki with dead eyes and sharp teeth lunged for her, but beneath the apathy, she felt their desperation still. She split their necks open with one swing. Sent them to a true death, one by one, with every arc. The weapons made with her blood were working despite Killian’s collars, releasing their souls from the curse and their bodies from his control. The king had sent his army expecting a city ripe for the picking, and they had found a formidable foe instead.

Rather than rift away, Solana slashed and dodged. She fought side to side and back-to-back with Reyes, attuned to his every movement, his every breath, the relief and grief and sorrow from each muki death filling her well with power and purpose.

They reached the tavern to find it empty. Solana fought the worry churning in her gut and stepped back onto the streets thick with smoke, pacing as she tried to organize her thoughts into action.

People rushed by with cloths covering their faces, heading toward lower ground and clearer air. “Reyes,” Solana said, pointing at the docks and the water in the distance. “I think we’re being herded. We have to stop—”

A muki lunged from a small side street and latched onto her back, its teeth sinking into her shoulder, hanging on for dear life. Another ran straight for Reyes. She hadn’t seen them coming, not with the smoke and the rush of people heading toward the lagoon. Solana threw herself against the wall of the tavern and winced as the muki tore free. It crashed to the ground, and she whirled around, ready to dodge its next attack.