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A morbid laugh sprung from his lips, but there was no humor behind it. “Why would I need a first aid kit?”
Rukia stood stock still as the waves of his antagonism bled into her. “Take off your shirt, Isaiah. At least let me wash the blood from your shoulder.”
“No.”
The one-word response was a challenge, a petition that bristled abrasively against her senses. As hostility rolled off the Raeth in front of her, Rukia knew that this affront was only a façade that covered the crushing depths of sorrow that he believed he needed to hide from the world.
Rukia wasn’t going to let him.
“I’m not your lieutenants, Isaiah,” she began, her hands starting to tear his shirt. “I’m not your healer, I’m not your clan member, and I’m certainly not a Raeth. I have nothing to do with your way of living and I haven’t known you for more than a year of your exceptionally long life.”
Isaiah didn’t stop her, and she continued her diatribe. “We aren’t married. We aren’t lovers. We aren’t even friends.”
She paused to glare at him, the hard edge of her stare softened only by the courage of her convictions. “So, when I tell you to stop hiding from me, I mean it. I am perhaps the only person on this earth that youdon’thave to hide or shield your emotions from. You couldn’t even if you tried, Isaiah, sovereign of the Sylth. So. Stop. Trying.”
Rukia watched as a myriad of emotions crossed behind Isaiah’s eyes, the lethal point of his hostility diminishing. Eyes of deepest brown held hers as the rage gave way to sorrow, the depths of his grief subverting his well-worn mask.
Here, collapsing before her very eyes, was a man who’d built himself on antagonism and ire, on strength and hard-edged passion. And now, when everything had been stripped away, Rukia saw the naked vulnerability that lived within.
Unable to keep herself from him, Rukia threw her arms around him, dissolving into him as his arms gently enclosed her. Her fingers reached into the ebony silk of his hair; her other arm locked tight around his waist as his head dipped to rest against hers.
“Oh, Isaiah,” she soothed, stroking his hair. “You don’t always need to be strong around me. Sometimes, you can let go.”
Arms tightening against her body, he shuddered. Silent, she could only hold him as he’d done for her after Gideon’s death. He’d been her pillar of strength when she’d crumbled; now, she’d do the same for him.
In the hours that followed, neither spoke. Both remained locked together, their arms entwined around the other. Rukia never left his side, knowing he’d never left hers. And in these moments, these fleeting whispers of vulnerability from the Raeth who would never admit it, she found herself falling further and further in love with him.
She wasn’t sure when it’d happened. Perhaps when he’d carried her home the night after Gideon’s death. Or when he’d made her breakfast when she’d been livid enough to threaten him with bodily harm. Perhaps it was when they’d first kissed against the rockface in front of his home.
But all she knew was that she loved him, completely and unabashedly.
She’d fallen for a man who’d told her they could never be. A fleeting stab of pain lacerated her chest at the reminder of his words and the mind-numbing conviction in which he’d spoken them.
But the Isaiah in her arms, the one who’d fallen asleep against her breast with his arm wrapped possessively around her waist? He was hers.
***
Isaiah jolted into consciousness, immediately aware that his limbs were being pinned down under an immovable force. Panic ensued, his eyes snapping open as adrenaline surged through his veins.
Through the dark of his bed chambers, the hooded figures of five Raeths hovered menacingly above him, four restraining his limbs as the fifth’s fist barreled toward him in a flash of speed.
An obsidian blade gleamed violet in the waning moonlight, disappearing into the wall of his chest as the dagger impaled him without remorse. Pain blistered through him, the sudden shockwave all-encompassing and instantly robbing him of his breath.
Under the excruciating tide of torment, Isaiah lost control. The Reaper ability, lingering dormant under his skin, reared from its latency to find purchase in the tissues of those who had come to kill him.
Inescapable, unstoppable, it crawled into their bodies and ate away at them, piece by piece. Their terrorized screams reverberated in the darkness, echoing in Isaiah’s ears as blood flooded into his mouth and pain ratcheted through every cell of his body.
He lay there, unable to move or call for help, as death came knocking.
***
Tears drenched Rukia’s cheeks, her hands desperately shaking Isaiah as the nightmare continued to drown him. She’d woken when his body had stiffened against hers, when he’d started to writhe against whatever demons infected his dreams.
Palpable fear laced the air, her only desire to wake the man and free him from whatever fueled his nightmare. Despondent, she yelled his name once more into the darkness, one palm shoving desperately at his bare chest and one hand gently branding his cheek.
His eyes flew open only seconds later, but his terror didn’t end when the nightmare did. With the swiftness of a predator, the Raeth threw himself across the room and away from her, flattening himself against the opposite wall with an audible crack.
Pure panic widened his eyes, the deep brown gleaming with unvarnished horror. A fine layer of perspiration glistened on his olive skin as he dragged in lungfuls of air far too quickly. Even from here, Rukia could see the tremors that racked his body.
