The Sound Of Ruin のすべてのチャプター: チャプター 41 - チャプター 50

The pounding at the door reverberated through my skull like a war drum. I still felt her mouth at my throat, the pull of her drinking me down, the tremor of her body grinding helplessly against mine. It clung to me, unfinished, feral, a hunger left raw and ragged. I could still taste her in the wound, still hear the moan she had almost loosed before the world intruded.Another knock. Louder. Voices on the other side. Her mortals.I wanted to ignore them, to let them hammer themselves bloody against the wood until their bones gave out. But then one of them said it—threatened it. “If she doesn’t answer, I’m calling the police for a wellness check.”The word cracked through me like fire. Police. More mortals. Doors broken. Eyes prying where they had no right. I hissed, crouching to spring, already imagining their throats torn open, silence where their threats had been.Her hand, weak but steady, pressed to my chest. “No.” The word rasped out of her, torn but firm. Her lashes lifted, her

The mortals lingered. Hours, it felt like, their voices rising and falling in weary waves until one by one, their anger burned itself into ash. Marianne left first, stiff with grief, her eyes darting back to Nyssa as though she were leaving her behind in a burning house. Jamie followed, but not before fussing over the kitchen, leaving behind neat stacks of washed plates and muttering something about groceries as though mortal chores could anchor her back to their world. Only Lani stayed.I should have hated it. Another mortal curled so close to her, still clinging to what she thought she could salvage. And I did hate it—jealousy coiled sharp in my chest, every breath another vow that Nyssa was mine, not theirs. But I felt her ease with the girl, the way her heartbeat steadied under that familiar presence, and I leashed my fury. For her.I busied myself in the kitchen, the sound of water boiling, the bitter scent of steeping leaves filling the air. Leaf‑bitter water—warmth her mortal t

Her hand brushed my wrist and all the centuries I had taught myself patience turned traitor. The bond surged, fierce and bright, pulling me into her heat as surely as a tide drags wreckage back into the sea. Her mouth found mine, soft and trembling, and for one reckless moment I forgot the sun still stalked the windows, forgot the danger of day, forgot everything but her.She tasted of iron’s ghost and want. Every part of her pressed to me asked for more—her ribs shuddering, her pulse a drumbeat I could not ignore, her small, desperate sounds making my restraint quake.I kissed her until the promise of night threatened to break too soon. My fangs grazed her throat without piercing, drawing a gasp that nearly undid me. I whispered her name against her skin, reverent and hungry, the syllables older than stone and truer than vows. She arched into me, and I thought of the moment we lost—the knock, the interruption, the fury of being torn from her as she trembled on the edge of ruin. Now s

The sun still burned in my skin as I left her. Each step seared, the scent of scorched flesh clinging to me like a brand. I welcomed it. Better the fire of the day than the fire she had stoked with her doubt.She had looked at me as though I were a liar. Me. After I had bared myself, after I had sworn, after I had held nothing back from her. That disbelief cut deeper than the light ever could.The bond pulled, begging I open it again. I kept it shut, but the effort left my chest tight, my jaw aching from the restraint.She had never felt the bond go silent before, never been denied the constant thrum of me. To cut her out was cruelty, I knew, and it gutted me even as I did it. But I wanted her to feel it—the cold void where my fire had always been.I wanted her to know the wound she had carved into me. I would not soothe her guilt. Not yet. Not until the doubt was ash between us.So I walked into the streets with the sun gnawing at me, and I swore with every scorched breath that when

I wore a groove in the floor with my pacing. Hours had crawled past since he’d left me at the door, and still nothing. The silence of the bond was a blade at my throat, sharper with every minute. I had reached for him again and again, desperate, frantic, but he had shut me out, walled himself off so completely it was like he had never been there at all. The hollow of it gnawed at me until my chest felt empty, scraped raw.I tried to sit. Tried to breathe. Tried to tell myself he would come back. But every creak of the house made me jump, every flicker of shadow made my pulse trip. What if he wasn’t coming back? What if I had pushed too far, doubted too deep, and he had decided I wasn’t worth it after all? He had told me once what it would mean if he left me—that I would not survive it. And the terror was that he was right.My hands shook as I pressed them to my face, whispering apologies into the silence, words he could not hear. I would have begged if it would have made him open the