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Infinite galaxies of glittering stars swirl around me as if they’re sweeping me up, up, up and away from Death’s clutches. They burn as hot as the venom coursing through me, and they sparkle as bright as hope. They crack my soul wide open and fill in the gaps with crimson threads of immortality.

Then there’s only him.

Rise, love. It’s time for you to live.

Chapter 18

RORY

Recognition rattles through me as the stars drift away. All that’s left is a silky, seductive voice as words whisper throughout my mind, caressing my inner thoughts in a dangerously intimate manner.

All around me, a cold and hard compact tightness envelops me. I open my eyes and⁠—

Scream.

I’ve been buried alive.

There’s dirt all around me and on me. It scratches against my skin and pours into my mouth and eyes when I open them. I clamp my eyes shut and hold my breath. Only… I don’t have any breath to hold.

It’s an uncomfortable feeling, this emptiness beneath my ribs. All wrong.

I’m here, love. Rise.

I need to get to him. He’ll make everything right. I try to reach skyward, but I can barely move.

Nothing but dirt meets my fingertips. Panic seizes me. It’s endless. I’m buried so deep, I cannot haul myself out.

I’ve almost got you. Keep going.

His words coax forth something primal within me. As the dirt loosens above me, my hands take on a mind of their own, scraping and clawing and scooping, dragging myself closer to him inch-by-inch.

Finally, finally, warm air caresses my fingertips as they find solace in another’s grip.

One sharp tug rips me from the ground with enough force my shoulder should dislocate. But it doesn’t even hurt. I fall forward against a hard and sturdy chest and nearly weep in relief.

I spit dirt onto the ground as he brushes it from my hair, my eyes, my face. It’s cool and grainy and⁠—

Not dirt at all. It’s ashen sand. Blackened as if it drank in all the colors from the night sky.

Waves crash against the shore behind me, and I whip my head in their direction, disbelieving my own ears. But there! Mere feet away is a beautiful, sparkling ocean. Even the scent of salt is thick in the air, and I breathe it in until I am one with the sea breeze.

I made it to the ocean after all.

“Welcome to the Shore of the Damned,” Quill whispers. “I wish I could’ve brought you here under better circumstances.”

It’s hard to tear my gaze away from the ocean, from something I’ve only ever dreamed about, but when I do, it lands on the one male who rivals its beauty. Shadows pool beneath his indigo eyes as if he’s had a very long night, and I want to ask him how much time has passed since the rite, what happened to my family, why the shadows under his eyes remind me so much of defeat, and if there’s anything I can do to make things better.

He hands me a small cup of water, and I use it to rinse the sand from my mouth before spitting it out onto the ground beside us.

“How do you feel?” he asks, sitting up and pulling me across his lap so my knees press into the sand on either side of him.

Everything is heightened—sight, scent, strength.

Colors are brighter. Sounds are sharper. My very bones feel lined with steel.

It’s as if the world around me is brand new. Not because of my improved senses, but because nothing—not the sand bunched under my nails or the moonlit water mere feet away—is shrouded by Death. Her veil of darkness has been lifted, and all that’s left before me is a bright, wondrous, eternal life.

A laugh bubbles out of me. “I feel alive.”