Reign Of Gods (Book #1 in 'Vampire God Trilogy') [COMPLETED]

Chapter 17

It plagued him, the idea of going back to his world. Of dying in this one. Of never seeing his home again. Of living in it the rest of his life without the woman who‟d given new meaning to it.

If there was a war to be fought with sword and lance, there was another
raging inside him, battering the heart he‟d never known could yearn for so
much.

He watched her from the tower window as she took pictures of Larkin
and Moira sparring, or posed them in less combative stances. Her injuries had healed enough that she no longer moved stiffly, or tired as quickly. But he would always remember how she‟d looked on the ground, bleeding.
Her manner of dress no longer seemed strange to him, but proper and so right for who she was. The way she moved in the dark pants and white shirt, her fiery hair pinned messily atop her head seemed the essence of grace to him.

In her face, he‟d found beauty and life. In her mind, intelligence and
curiosity. And in her heart both compassion and valor. In her, he realized, he‟d found everything he could want, without ever knowing he‟d been lacking. He had no right to her, of course. They had no right to each other beyond the time of the task. If they lived, if the worlds survived, he would go back to his while she remained in hers.

Even love couldn‟t span a thousand years. Love. His heart ached at the word so that he pressed his hand to it.
This was love then. The gnawing, the burning. The light and the dark.
Not just warm flesh and murmurs in the candlelight, but pain and
awareness in the light of day. In the depths of the night. To feel so much for one person, it eclipsed all else.
And it was terrifying.

He was no coward, Hoyt reminded himself. He was a sorcerer by birth,
a warrior by circumstance. He had held lightning in the palm of his hand and called the wind to launch it. He‟d killed demons, and twice had faced their queen. Surely, he could face love. Love couldn‟t maim him or kill him, or strip him of power. What level of cowardice was it then, for a man to shrink back from it?

He strode out of the room, down the stairs, moving with the rush of
impulse. He heard music as he passed his brother‟s door—something low and brooding. He knew it as the music of grief. And knew, too, if his brother was stirring, so might others of Cian‟s
kind be stirring. Sunset was close.
He moved quickly through the house, into the kitchen where something simmered on the stove, and out the back. Larkin was amusing himself, shimmering into a gold wolf while
Glenna called out her delight and moved around him with the little machine that took the pictures. The camera, he reminded himself.

He shaped back into a man, and hefting his sword assumed a haughty
pose.

“You look better as the wolf,” Moira told him.

He raised his sword in mock attack and chased after her. Their shouts
and laughter were so opposed to his brother‟s music, Hoyt could only stand in wonder.

There was still laughter in the world. Still time, and need, for play and fun. There was still light even as the darkness crept closer.

“Glenna.”

She turned, the humor still dancing in her eyes. “Oh, perfect! Stand right there. Just there, with the house behind you.”

“I want to—”

“Ssh. I‟m going to lose the light soon. Yes, yes, just like that. All aloof
and annoyed. It‟s wonderful! I wish there was time to go back in and get your cloak. You were made to wear one.”

She changed angles, crouched down, shot up at him. “No, don‟t look at
me. Look off, over my head, think deep thoughts. Look into the trees.”