Fall (The Ragnarok Prophesies) by A.K. Morgen Read Free Book Online

of me.”
    “I didn’t lose anything because of you, Dace. None of this is your fault. Why can’t you see that?” I asked. He wasn’t supposed to drown in guilt over something he didn’t do, and the way he blamed himself killed me. It wasn’t fair to him.
    “Because you’re wrong,” he whispered. “Before my dad died, I used to wish for someone else like me. I knew it was wrong of me, but I wished anyway. I didn’t want to be the only person like me out there. I wanted… I didn’t want to be the abomination he thought I was, and I thought if there was someone else, he’d realize I wasn’t cursed. He’d accept that I was exactly like I was meant to be, and he’d stop looking for a way to cure me.” He swallowed convulsively. “And now you’re here, and he was right all along. I am cursed.” Sorrow and grief twisted through him.
    “Dace, no.” Tears sprang to my eyes, blurring my vision. “You aren’t cursed.”
    He brushed his thumbs beneath my eyes, wiping the tears away. “You died because of me. If you’d never met me, you wouldn’t be in this bed, scared to close your eyes again. You wouldn’t feel like you need a gun to protect yourself.”
    “Dace―”
    “You know the worst part in all of this?” he asked, cutting me off. “I brought this into your life, and I’m still too fucking selfish to let you go.” Self-loathing and defeat filled his choked laughter.
    “You love me. That’s not selfish.”
    “Isn’t it?” He looked at me, his lips twisted into a bitter, mocking smile. “It doesn’t matter, I suppose.”
    I tried to find words to tell him how wrong he was about himself, but they wouldn’t come. I froze, unable to speak through the weight of sorrow pressing down upon me. Even through the worst of the last month, I’d never seen him so lost before. He looked as if he’d simply given up even trying to fight the demons threatening to drag him under. He’d given up on himself.
    That scared me.
    He pressed his lips to my forehead before pulling away again. When he did, his gaze was hard and cold. The emotion flowing through him matched. “You won’t need a gun,” he whispered, his eyes blazing with promise. “I’ll keep you safe, Arionna. I swear to you, no matter what, I will keep you safe.” He reached out and ran his hand down my cheek again. “Get some sleep.”
    I closed my eyes obediently, hot tears dripping down the sides of my face.
    Dace’s expression hovered front and center in my mind, haunting me as surely as my dreams of Fenrir and Hati haunted me. I hated that there was no end in sight.
    We needed hope, Dace most of all.

flipped through the book lying across my lap, aimlessly shuffling through the pages instead of reading. Split-second views of the black and white etchings inside looked like an animated comic, one that got more disturbing the farther I flipped. Smiling gods and goddesses turned into grim-faced, weapon wielding threats. The pious masks on their worshippers’ faces slipped and twisted into something harder, crueler. Flesh rent and tore beneath wickedly sharp blades. Ragnarök, or one artist’s representation of it, unfolded before my eyes.
    How much worse would the end of the world look in living color, playing out all around me?
    My stomach threatened to rebel at the thought.
    I heaved a sigh and set the book aside.
    Ronan glanced over at me from his seat at my old writing desk and then back down to the book in his hands.
    Unlike me, he was actually reading, which was all kinds of strange. He didn’t seem like the reading type, and I never would have pegged him as intelligent, but he was. That irritated Dace to no end. I think he would have preferred if our raven was all muscle, no brain.
    I watched Ronan for a moment, but he didn’t look up from his book again.
    “Can I ask you a question?” I asked, tired of waiting for him to acknowledge me.
    “Yes.”
    “How did you and Dani meet?”
    Probably none of my business, but I