Page 81 of The Stars are Dying

“Please, you don’t realize what you’re doing. I’m going to help you—help everyone—”

He chuckled darkly, mocking her, as his hand curled around her nape. He studied. Her eyes, her neck, her exposed arms. “Our king said such a thing once too, yet he is just as spineless.”

“He is not a king,” she spat.

“Agreed. Yet he defeatedyou.”

“He didn’t, but he stole the glory of my death when the real coward never would have let it be known. My people would have turned on him.” She only admitted this to keep him distracted while she reached within herself. The magick she harbored was still somewhat dormant, and she’d already expended the small well she’d mustered while escaping the first awaiting evil.

“Interesting,” the vampire said, his voice softly seductive, but he didn’t release her. His fingers trailed down her neck, and she turned rigid with alarm.

“You won’t be able to stop,” she breathed in panic. “And if you kill me…”

“Yes, I know,” he said, but she knew the thirst in his eyes wouldn’t allow him to let her go. “They would be most disappointed in me if I let you die since your existence is what helps keep the celestials weak.”

That wasn’t wholly true, but it confirmed one thing that sparked a bout of determination within her, along with a squeeze of yearning in her heart. He was still alive. Still in this realm…

“I just want a taste.”

“No—!”

Her cry was choked by the immobilizing grip on her body when the vampire’s teeth sank into her neck. It was hard to recall how excruciating the pain was when she’d lived it before, long ago. Unlike a human, whose bite could ease off and become pleasurable, a vampire bite torched her blood like poison.

“He-he’ll come for you,” she rasped, blinking through the canopy to the stars as if it were their way to each other. “He’ll c-come…”

“My child.” A feminine voice echoed through her.

She almost whimpered.

“I told you not to return.”

“I had to,” the girl said, answering the sky through her mind.

“He will always be your downfall no matter how much you want to see it differently. Your heart can love another, if only you let him go.”

“I can’t.”

“This time, should you fall, it will be forever, and a reign of terror will rise. For only when falls Night shall the world drown in Starlight to usher back your Golden Era. Guard you heart, my child, for it has led you astray once and will attempt to do so again. You bargained with your memories for your return, so it may reset your way.”

“Wait—!” A scream left her throat at the vampire’s teeth tearing her collar as he was pulled away.

“Run north and don’t stop.”

She thought she recognized the male voice, but her urgency to escape had her rolling to her hands and knees without a glimpse, trying to get any distance she could from both of them. She didn’t get far as memories began to evaporate from her mind.

“Stop!” She cried hard. Her images of him were stolen one by one, turning to smoke in her mind that she couldn’t grasp to defy the cruel agreement. An agreement she had only made because she had been sure,determined, it wouldn’t matter; that she would find him, and she would get it all back.

Still, the agony she could be wrong terrified her now it was happening.

“Please!”

The Goddess would not listen.

His voice…it became no more than a distant whisper carried on the wind.

His name…now a collection of letters she could not arrange in the right order.

His face…

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