Page 185 of The Stars are Dying

“I don’t want power,” I tried again, this circle we’d gone around in many times now. “Please, Nyte.”

“You’re doing great, Starlight.”

“Don’t call me that!” I ached in my heart to hear it, and I didn’t want to feel for him.

My head lifted only to slam back against the iron in my frustration. It vibrated through my skull, rippled my vision, but I did it again. And again. Until hands slipped around my head to prevent the harm to myself, and I broke. My sobs unleashed themselves, and I hadn’t realized how close they’d been to flooding me.

When Nyte pulled me to my knees I didn’t resist. I clutched him tightly, as if he were a lifeline, crying into his chest though every heave hurt so badly, so deeply, it tore my soul.

“Why did he do this to me?”

I wasdying.

All that kept me here was Nyte’s gentle strokes over my hair, his warmth holding me tight. I was too exhausted to put on a front that I didn’t want it. Because Ineededit.

“You have no idea, love,” he said, a crack in his voice slowing me from hyperventilating, “how I would tear my own heart from my chest if it could help you right now.”

I pressed my ear to his chest and floated back to the fast cadence of his heartbeat, pounding with what touched me like panic and guilt. “Why didyoudo this to me?” I croaked.

“I didn’t mean to.” Every time his voice was reduced to such an ache I couldn’t bear it. I wanted to believe he couldn’t feel such pain to make it easier to kill him. “I wish my father never brought me here. To save you, maybe I wish we’d never met.”

Coming from him, that notion silenced my world. It seemed unfathomable. Not now. I hadn’t meant what I’d said, but he’d confessed it with a clear, certain mind…

“You wish we’d never met?”

It was all I could take from it. His words pummeled into me worse than my withdrawal from the pills. I didn’t need them. No—the only thing I needed was him.

“I’m too much of a selfish bastard to truly wish that.”

I relaxed. These dark thoughts kept taunting me, and I couldn’t tell what was truly my feelings or those of someone depraved as the Matter left my system, twisting my mind to something murky and resentful.

“What happens when it’s all gone?” I asked with trickling trepidation. Did I want to know what had been lingering under my skin? What I could be capable of?

“Truthfully, I don’t know.”

“What if I hurt someone?”

“I won’t let that happen.”

The fact he didn’t rule it out made me shudder.

I shook my head. “It’s not worth the risk. Just let me take the medicine.”

“It is notmedicine,” he snarled.

I whimpered at his tone, at my desperation for the Matter still rising in me, trying to suppress the manipulation that would test all his emotions and spark something to get him to break for me.

Pushing away from him, I stood, my teeth bashing together. My slicked skin didn’t want the wrap of the blankets either.

“Let me help you again—”

“No!” My hand fisted around my dagger, but as I lunged for him my slice cut through dispersing shadow.

“Fucking coward,” I mumbled. With a spike of anger I threw the dagger across the cell. Then exhaustion took its toll, and I covered my face.

“What are you thinking right now?” he coaxed.

“That you were right,” I said. Defeat lowered me to the cot. I curled away from him, mapping the cracks in the sad gray wall. “I don’t like the monster I’ve denied for so long it’s taking over.”

---