Page 121 of The Stars are Dying

A damningly familiar one that made me raise my hand to my chest.

Nyte said nothing, but his look was all-knowing. He reached behind himself, and the air around me grew humid as he unfolded himself from the torn shirt he wore. Every muscled contour of him came to moonlight-flooded glory before me, and I didn’t know what to hold my attention on. Every dip and angle of him was honed like a warrior, his strength reflected in the many scars he wore.

So. Many. Scars.

My eyes welled to map them. I wondered if they were memories of battle or if malicious hands had inflicted them. Then I found what he wanted me to see—what had always drawn my intrigue when I’d caught glimpses of it.

The constellation that spanned over his neck and chest in a metallic gold.

“Constellation Phoenix,” I breathed. It was what he wore—I was sure of it. And now I did too, in silver. “What does it mean?”

I was so swept away by the beauty of him that all caution toward the bargain now branded on our skin dissipated. He wore other gold markings over his arms in a different style from mine, but for the first time…I didn’t feel my existence was answerless.

“You’ll have to be more specific,” he said, so quiet andvulnerable.He hadn’t hesitated to show me this part of him, but his whole body tensed as though my eyes were stones of judgment.

“Nyte,” I whispered, but I didn’t know what words to follow up with that would be enough to make him believe he didn’t have to hide. “I’m not afraid.”

There was only a split second of deliberation—all I needed—before his defenses hardened. “You should be.”

I shook my head.

“Astraea…” He said it like a plea as his knees met the stone. “You have to go back now, but you are right to be wary of the prince.”

“Are you…a blood vampire like him?”

Nyte debated his answer before he said simply, “Not exactly.”

“Then what?”

“Does that really matter to you?”

“Yes.”

Nyte’s jaw shifted, reluctant to explain. “I have never been where I am supposed to be.”

“That doesn’t answer my question.”

“It does. You’re smarter than you know.”

My lips pursed, and I didn’t press. I was unable to stop my attention from dropping to his naked torso, wanting to memorize every mark on him, and that was a frightening desire.

“Are you cold?” I asked.

Nyte’s brow furrowed as though it was a question he’d never heard before. “Not like you think,” he said. “Nothing is the same behind the ward. I don’t need food nearly as often, and I don’t feel the winter as it thickens.”

My sadness still rose for him in his isolated stage, especially now I’d learned just how long he’d been there.

“I’ve known many centuries of torture,” he said, so quiet it touched me gently. “And yet the greatest agony is you.”

That stunned me. A thrilling but sorrowful tug, and I knew in that moment what I wanted.

I wanted him.

Just for a moment, if that was all I could get. With the only true memory I had being only half-conscious, it wasn’t nearly enough for me to know if what I’d felt was something I could taste and forget.

“I don’t spare your thoughts because I’ve gained some moral code; it’s because I don’tneedthem. One look in your eyes and you don’t even realize you tell me everything. Like right now, you have no idea the punishment you’re inflicting with that look, knowing should this veil not exist, one touch would make the stars collide, and neither of us would care if we collapsed the world with it.”

Part of me acknowledged the distant drum of alarm. The danger I had sworn a blood oath to. What drowned it was the impulsive, careless side to me creeping in as if it had been locked away for too long and I’d forgotten its addictive adrenaline.

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