Echoes of Blood and Glory (Daylight's Crown Book 2) by Ripley Proserpina

Author:Ripley Proserpina [Proserpina, Ripley]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2020-03-26T16:00:00+00:00

19

Horus

He was changing. More than just this slow healing. More than the dread of the battle looming on the horizon. Something was happening to him—at a cellular level—that was changing him.

He blamed Rose, this magical girl in his arms who was human and vampire and curse and cure.

As her smooth hands wound their way around him, he recognized this was a defining moment. After taking her and making her his, he’d never ever be the same.

And he didn’t want to be.

He wanted to be hers. Horus was comfortable with the unexplainable. He was unexplainable—a creature who existed only in stories and myths—but the tie he had to Rose was beyond his comprehension.

Maybe this was what his father felt for his mother. Maybe this was the reason why it had taken ten men, brainwashed by religion and ignorance, to cut him apart in order to keep him from her.

If his father felt a tiny bit of what Horus felt for Rose, then his death—and his abandonment of Horus and his brothers—finally made sense.

He hadn’t realized it, but until her, he was waiting for his world to end. He loved his brothers, and wanted nothing more than their survival, but for him—the color was gone.

Rose brought back the wonder. The light.

“Selfish.” Rose’s voice echoed in his head. Her thoughts were swirling, building with anxiety and guilt. He drew back, plucking her lips once before dropping his forehead to hers and opening his eyes.

“You’re not selfish,” he said aloud.

“I am,” she argued, and then laughed, the sound a little off. “And I won’t stop myself. I want you, Horus. I want to keep you and protect you and love you, and even though I know that this,” she traced the scar on his chest and the one no longer visible on his throat, and he shivered, “is my fault. I don’t want to leave you.” Her dark eyes were sad, and she bit her lower lip. “There are things coming that are dangerous. I need to be pushing you away, but all I want to do is get closer.”

He smiled. They were similar, him and her. “Shouldn’t I be doing the same?”

Her desire suddenly flooded him, and he couldn’t not kiss her. He couldn’t leave. Couldn’t do it for her. Or for his brothers.

For the first time in his life, Horus actually felt like the monster the ancient world had called him.

Rose sucked in a breath and grabbed his face. Her hands slapped against his skin, palms on his cheeks as she dragged him to eye-level. “No.” Her voice was hard and her eyes glittered angrily. “You are not a monster. You are everything kind and good and honorable.”

Was that how she saw him?

He hadn’t meant for her to hear that, but she did. And so she showed him exactly how she saw him.

Through her eyes, Horus didn’t recognize himself. He’d always thought of himself as a wrecking ball. Or a battering ram.

Not to Rose.

To Rose, he was a towering wall and a soft place to land.

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