Page 135 of The Stars are Dying

He was the darkness. The night. Right now, I was wholly consumed by him. It wrapped around me tighter, energy humming faster. Then his arm slipped around me, and I drew in a shallow breath when he brought our bodies flush.

“How do you find me so easily?” I asked, barely a whisper with my thundering heart.

His hand brushed my jaw, slipping over my neck. Every touch ignited new heights of pleasure in this beautiful darkness I wanted to bathe in for eternity with him. I didn’t need to see his desire, nor hear his affirmation. I felt everything with certainty and confidence now the light was gone.

“Because you are the brightest star,” he said, a murmur over my lips. “And the brightest star needs the darkest night.”

My chest exploded. I ran my hands up his black tailored jacket. “Kiss me. For real this time.”

In the manor it didn’t count, not when I’d considered it the first bind to our bargain.

“The trial is heightening your desire right now. It wants you to fail,” he said.

I shook my head, not wanting to hear what felt like a rejection. “You want this,” I told him.

He tipped my chin. “More than anything I’ve wanted in my long and torturous existence.”

It was too much. His words this close were sure to send me over the edge.

“Trust that this is straining every last damned tether of my control. I’m a selfish bastard for enjoying that this is what the trial has found to tempt your lust. That you’d want this if nothing else in the world mattered. But it is not the whole truth.”

I closed my eyes when his mouth hummed closer, thinking he would kiss me.

Then a breeze whipped around me like an acknowledgment I was standing alone.

This darkness felt hollow.

“It’s time to break out of it,” his voice echoed.

Snapping open my lids, my chest rose and fell deeply. My need raged, and frustration became entangled with it. Candlelight now spilled over my surroundings, and I yearned with a pitiful desperation to rewind the last moment.

Then I found him again. Sitting half-cloaked in shadow like the day our paths first crossed. I strolled up to him, and after a pause, a tight coil in my gut that he might deny me, I eased down onto his lap.

“Astraea, don’t.” Something darkly possessive rattled the air. He used the bond, but I strained to defy it. “It’s not me,” he said.

I ignored him as, contrary to his words, his hands traveled up my thighs. My head tipped back. I couldn’t stop—not when this was what we both wanted. When his arm encircling my waist pressed our bodies tighter together I could have whimpered. My hands tangled in his hair as my head straightened, needing to feel his lips on mine. I knew the detonation between us would be a devouring bliss and I’d become intoxicated by it. My mouth leaned closer. So close I almost moaned with my need for him.

“Astraea, stop. Now!”

The harsh command pulled me away sharply. For the bond it surged through, but more so for the threatening snarl of his voice in my mind. My eyes snapped open. It looked like him. But something wasn’t right.

The cunning smile wasn’t his, and the scent…

When I blinked, horror doused me all at once.

I pushed off his chest and stumbled back. Ice froze anything of lust and desire, replacing it with repulsion and incredulity that I’d been so thoroughly tricked as the intruder’s red hair now eased into the light.

Arwan stood with arrogance, brushing off his clothing as he straightened.

“How did you get in here?” I spluttered, blinking as though he too could be part of the illusion.

“I’ve been following you.”

“Clearly.”

“For longer than we’ve been in the Central.”

I backed up with every step he took toward me, trembling as those words settled.

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