Total pages in book: 126
Estimated words: 123065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 615(@200wpm)___ 492(@250wpm)___ 410(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 123065 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 615(@200wpm)___ 492(@250wpm)___ 410(@300wpm)
“My turn to play,” I whisper as I raise myself up and settle again over his weeping dick. Then I begin to gently move up and down.
His breathing hitches and his eyes flare brilliant white then darken again as he moans my name. Knowing that I’m doing this to him is the most powerful feeling in the world.
But time…still goes on.
Tick. Tock.
And as I ride him and lean over onto his chest, I see the flash of the sunrise as if an alarm is going off.
As he comes again.
I know.
It isn’t just the end.
It’s the end of us.
CHAPTER 38
CLEO
“Trust not him whose father, brother or other kin you have slain no matter how young he be, for often grows the wolf in the child.” – Volsunga Saga, ch.21
I’m exhausted. Between all the sex and emotional trauma, I don’t know how I’m even able to still stand.
The mood has already shifted. We went from celebrating…to the feeling of mourning.
Cyrus—Ra. Did not stay.
He left me.
I woke up just as he was leaving, as if he couldn’t bear to look at me last night after our last few moments together. His body was sated, his eyes nearly black. It seemed like the more we had sex the more he lost part of his light as if he was doing everything in his power to give it to me.
My eyes burned with tears. “You promise he’ll be safe?”
Cyrus laughed, but it was so fake, as if we weren’t connected anymore. He was doing it for me. Even though I knew he was detaching so it wouldn’t hurt me, it still did. After all, I am no immortal.
I’m only Cleo.
He swallowed, throat moving slowly. “Even now, you worry about him when you should be worried about yourself.” His stare was cold, distant, very purposeful in his way to make me want to hate him for taking parts of me when he knew in that moment I gave them willingly and would do it again and again even if it was him driving that knife through my heart in the end.
I would give.
For always…he’d be mine.
“Wait!” I called after him, then grabbed the parchment and the knife on the table. My hands shook so much that it was hard to even hold both items, I pricked my finger. Silver blood suddenly turned red and ran down my hand. Still shaking, I wrote my name across the final page in giant red letters.
Cleo Apet.
It was final in that moment. The blood. My sacrifice. The same one my mom made before the crash.
But I was saving Jake—and in a way, saving everyone and everything I could—everything Cyrus had worked for along with the immortals. Humans must always be protected and who else could do that? What better god than the sun?
When the blood immediately sank into the page like a tattoo I never wanted to get but had no choice except to power through.
My destiny was set.
And it was without Cyrus.
It was without Ra.
Without Jake.
My destiny—I guess all along, was supposed to be just me.
Me and the rain. The thunder. The lightning. Just me.
Alone.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
I nodded my head several times, then walked over to Ra and handed him the parchment. I no longer shook. I was resolute.
I have me. I have a purpose, a damning purpose, and I will not go down alone with more tears.
The end, after all, as most authors might say, is just one story. That doesn’t mean there can’t be more to follow.
I would love a fantastic epilogue.
A final kiss before my brush with death.
But a savior?
That’s not for me.
It is me, in some aspects.
I take a few deep breaths and blow them out as I hold the parchments out to him.
He stares down at them like he’s afraid to touch them. For a few brief seconds, I have Cyrus back. His haunted eyes flicker down, then slowly meet mine again.
“Your chaos…” He gazes deep into my eyes, and I hold the holy connection. “It rages.”
“Here.” I press the parchments harder against him. “It’s finished.”
We are as well.
I lift my chin, thinking at least I can be brave…and for at least a few minutes, I am brave in front of the only sun that’s ever shined down on my face. He was my beginning—he is my end.
He stares at me for a very long time, his presence looming. Another stupid tear falls from my cheek, he lifts his hand, then stares at it as if he’s trying to figure out how to proceed. He reaches for the parchments and slams them against the ground. They disintegrate into ash. He leaves the cave in silence.
Funny how I was so excited to come to the islands to find Jake and now…here I am.
I started on this journey to find my brother alone.
And now it’s going to end exactly the same way.