Riftborne (The Esprithean Trilogy)

by Bree Grenwich

Beauty could be deceptive, and it often was. Vipers, after all, distract with shimmering scales before going in for the kill.

He was striking in a cold-blooded kind of way, like his beauty was tinged with poison.

“Some things are just meant to run free. Some things cannot be tempered–forced into a box of someone else’s making.”

We were worlds apart, that was glaringly obvious. Expecting civility from someone who'd never known struggle, never understood isolation, was foolish. And dangerous. A predator. That’s what he really was. If I was going to survive this, that truth needed to sink into my bones so far that I never forgot it. Any other behavior from him was a lie, just another part of the glittering facade.

Whatever he was thinking was a mystery, but his eyes had a way of scanning me like he knew my greatest fears, like he knew how much I loathed being seen.

My head was spinning. I was going to crumble to the ground. His arms tightened around my waist as the song ended, almost as if he was hesitant to let go.

"You have no idea the absolute fucking wreck I've been since I met you, Fia."

yeah I have the zoomies

Before I could fumble for words, he was upon me. My mind went blank. His lips seared into mine, my body molding into his shape, completely succumbing to the onslaught of pent-up emotion that we both allowed to explode at once.

“I hope you were prepared for a sleepless night because I intend to recreate every dream that I’ve had of you thus far.”

“Unfortunately, I’ve found it just about unbearable to be separated from you.” He sighed, running his hand through his hair. “It’s quite an annoying situation I find myself in.”

You were a complete mystery to me, yet I believed with a desperate kind of longing, that you were what I had been searching for. You had to be."

I was his, utterly and irrevocably. His weapon. His lover. His salvation. And then I knew. I would cripple armies and break minds if that's what he desired.

The darkness had infected my blood and bones. In this instant between reality and the void, something wicked within me purred, as if an alignment had been made. A deal I had no part in. I wasn’t in a void. I was the void.

It was a warmth–an overwhelming sun, blazing through time and space, burning through the walls of this stifling room, straight into my soul. It was like something snapped, breaking the universe in two.