Page 196 of The Stars are Dying

“Did I know you as Nightsdeath?”

“Yes and no. It has always lived within me, and you have seen the worst of it before. I canusethat side of me—have the strength and power and not let him win—though it takes immense focus and energy. But as for what happened in the throne room…I can’t tell you how sorry I am. I tried to fight it, but having just been freed from behind the veil and finally confronted by my father, I should have known he would find a way. The threat he made to your lifetwice, it took over faster than I could grasp control.”

“I understand,” I said, and it was the truth. “In fact, I’m glad I got to see you—all of you.”

My mind and heart fought with the vulnerability that spilled across his face. He looked so much younger, softer. My heart cried for him.

He raised my hand slowly to place it on his cheek. “What do you see, Starlight?” he all but whispered. “You didn’t know who I was, what I was, yet you reached for me as much as I did for you. What do yousee?”

The question pounded in my chest. I didn’t want to give him a wrong answer. Until I became so sure, so undeniably certain, it was the question that wasn’t right.

“When it was just you and me in that void, all you wanted was for the light to be gone. So did I,” I confessed. His gold irises held me with soft attention. “I might be made of light and you of dark, but I wanted to meet you there. You haven’t always been something I can see, but you’ve always been something I can feel. It’s safe and promising. Despite everything,seeingthreatens the truth of that. When I couldn’t be certain Nightsdeath wouldn’t kill me, I wanted to see a monster, and only when light winked out did I feelyouagain.”

Nyte’s eyes closed as if freedom had become him, his head bowed, and all I wanted was to raise him from his knees and set aside everything I still had to learn about him and the role he was to live out here now.

“I would meet you in the darkness. Every time you called,” he said quietly.

“Why does that sound like you’re running away?”

“That’s not what my leaving is. We tried. I’ve spent five centuries since I was dragged here as a child trying to figure out if I could make my place here, but it will always be at the cost of something too great.” His lips brushed my knuckles. “You.”

I shook my head. Denial was all I had. This couldn’t end before it had even begun. I wanted the time to forgive him, time to understand, and time to remember.

Nyte stood, and I couldn’t stop my impulse to copy him. My heart pounded like a war drum to my mind that battled with letting him go and begging him to stay. Gravity pulled us closer until our bodies touched. My hands met his chest, and in those molten eyes it was like I could see we stood on the same battlefield.

Until we both lay down our surrender and made our stars collide.

Nyte’s mouth on mine exploded through my body. I barely heard the clash of plates and silverware as one of his arms hooked around me and the other scattered everything on the table before lifting me onto it. Everywhere he touched I came alive with a searing heat. When my leg slipped free, he found it immediately, the groan from his mouth tightening my core.

“Anyone could come,” I panted when his lips traveled along my jaw.

“I can stop.” Every cadence of those three words vibrated over me to scatter any call for decency.

In answer my hands took his face to bring his lips back to mine. His tongue swept across my lips, and I opened for him. Being claimed by Nyte was more than I could ever imagine. Every time we kissed, we touched upon something new and tangled what was already there tighter and tighter. I didn’t think I would be capable of letting him go. My selfishness didn’t care to learn the true extent of what had made him so afraid to stay.

The stars were dying, and I didn’t want to become one of them if he left.

I wanted to fight it.

Fate. Death. Time.

I kissed Nyte as if we could stand against it all. My fingers fisted into his hair, his hand squeezed my thighs as they tightened around him, and with every movement against my core I didn’t care for the wildness of where we were.

“This isn’t fair,” he groaned against my lips, but he didn’t pull away.

“For you or me?”

“Both.”

We collided again, continuing to push things to the ground with a resounding clatter, and I almost wondered if he would climb atop the table with me. My skin blazed to desire it, butstars above,I couldn’t believe my own scandalous desire in such a public place. Where anyone could trespass—could even be lingering right now. And that thought only made my lust surge so much sinfully more.

“I didn’t plan to be here when you returned,” he said, his delightfully rugged breath casting down my chest. “But, fuck, the past three centuries of misery, despite all I became and all I am to you now, I would suffer all again for this.” He fixed his attention on my neck, a new palpable fury emanating from him as he traced his fingers over my scar. “Did he do this to you?” The question was strained with wrath.

I couldn’t be certain. I tried to revisit the flash of memory that had become a hazy frustration to decipher. Sometimes I thought I remembered another body, as though I was hoping to find some other narrative to explain Drystan’s being there.

“I don’t know.”

His teeth ground. “I’m going to fucking kill him.”

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