Page 130 of The Stars are Dying

“You can’t rest here,” Nyte protested.

“Just for a few seconds.” All I needed was a moment to gather myself, then I could find somewhere warmer and hope my illness wouldn’t take me through the night.

“Astraea, you need to get up. Please.”

I didn’t think Nyte would plead for anything, but when I found the dawn he looked at me with, he seemed so at a loss for what to do that I couldn’t stand to be his burden.

“It’s okay,” I tried to say. I shivered with the snow melting over my face. I couldn’t feel my nose or cheeks or mouth. “I’ll be okay.”

“No, you won’t. Come—I can guide you somewhere you’ll have warmth and shelter at least.” Nyte reached for me, but he couldn’t really pull me up.

My head lolled against the building as his hand reached for my face. My lids fluttered closed. “I wish it were real,” I mumbled, nestling into his hollow palm anyway.

“You’re killing me.”

My lids lifted heavily. His beautiful face had become so sad, and I reached for it, but my hand didn’t make it before the weight became too much to bear.

Steps crunched beside me down the street. Nyte swore, shifting as though he could shield me with his body from the three forms—or were there four? Six? My vision kept tilting, so sometimes the figures doubled. Though it wasn’t the fact there were so many of them that brought doom to my inevitable fate.

It was their wings.

Nightcrawlers.

The only color to pierce the darkness was red. Near glowing sets of red eyes.

“Astraea.” One word of utter strained misery and desperation. “I can’t protect you here. You have to get up, love.”

His tender agony sliced through me. I had thought his main concern was to make sure I stayed alive to free him, but this…it was something more urgent and personal, and Ihadto try.

“You can’t fight them.Run.” The last word was a command striking through the bond.

I sobbed before my body reacted, turning and breaking into a stumbling jog.

It was helpless.

Tripping, my gloved hands slapped the snow-dusted ground. I breathed heavily, but I wasn’t afraid. Not of the creatures who stalked me. Lifting my eyes, I didn’t expect the only emotion to slither through my drowsiness and suffering would be for him. A gut-sinking sadness that I couldn’t make it out for Nyte.

I sat back on my knees, and Nyte crouched down with me.

“You’re so brave, Starlight,” he said, slipping a hand across my cheek.

I had never witnessed such a livid threat glow in his golden irises than when they flashed up.

“We found a prize,” one of the nightcrawlers said, so close behind me I turned to stone.

“We shouldn’t,” another interjected.

Nyte’s breaths were calculated. I studied his every flicker of rage to gauge the vultures who circled me, too cowardly to see them for myself.

“Just a taste wouldn’t hurt,” another said. This one was the closest as he eased around me. “We are granted a little playtime if they fail to make it back.”

“I’m going to kill them all,” Nyte said, so low and promising.

My hand rose to my cheek over his. The nightcrawlers couldn’t see him, but that didn’t matter.

Finally, I braved meeting the red eyes watching down over me behind Nyte. They weren’t just hungry…they werestarving. His wings had hooked talons at the top, and over the leathery texture were various tears that added a savage edge.

“You don’t look so good,” the creature mocked. “I rather like it when my meal has a littlefightin it.”

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