Page 27 of The Stars are Dying

“There’s trouble in the main room,” Zath said. I was glad when he didn’t enter to find us in this position.

Hektor growled low in annoyance. He took my face, planting one long kiss against my lips, and I wanted to turn to dust and escape. “We’re not done here,” he said, holding me with feral green eyes. “I’ll have him escort you back to your rooms. Do not leave them until I return.”

Hektor righted his clothing, and the moment he left…I crumbled.

Something that had been straining for far too long finally broke, and I fell to a pitiful state on the ground. I tried to release it fast enough that I could rally some composure before Zath came back.Ifhe came back. I couldn’t stop crying and thinking.

“There is no sight more tragic than this.”

Nyte’s voice stopped my sobs. It eased out like it was made of the darkness clinging to the corners of the room.

“Broken potential.”

“How did you get in here?” I sniffed. His commentary stung, though I was too exhausted and hollow to show it.

Featherlight fingers coaxed my chin up. I sat as a pitiful heap, my dress fanned out around me, and I could only imagine my hideous tear-stained face from his slow, disturbed assessment.

“What are you?” I tried. Perhaps he would save me from the failure of trying to escape. Perhaps he would prevent my vacant existence from wasting more breath in this world.

“It matters not what I am, but why I have come,” he said. “You want to escape, and I can help you.”

I contemplated, drowning in his flickering amber irises that began to entrance me. “Are you…death?”

That teased out a wicked amusement, and he dropped to a crouch. “To many. But that is not what I offer you.”

“I don’t want your help. I won’t trade one owner for another.”

“Starlight,” he drawled, his head tilting curiously, “there are two kinds of belonging. Possession…and alliance. One of single ownership, and one of mutual desire.” He looked over the sorry sight of me with a sigh.

“What could I do for you?” I whispered. Nyte had come to me at my most vulnerable, desperate point. As though he’d been there waiting all this time, longer than perhaps I knew, to present me this offering.

“That time will come.”

I shook my head. It was too much of a risk to owesomething when I couldn’t be certain what he desired.

“Then stay to find out that right now your cage has a door, and once it seals, this time it will not lock. It will simply cease to exist at all.”

He went to stand, but my impulse was to lash out. My hand curling around his wrist felt almost like holding a ghost that had been given only enough of a form to be present for a moment.

“I don’t want to remain here,” I whispered. My heart beat furiously.

“Is that your acceptance?”

One beat. Two. Three.

“What do you need me to do?”

His mouth grew in a slow curl, but it was his irises that flashed a liquid gold, wild and thrilled. Nyte’s palm slipped over my cheek, and before I knew what he was doing, his lips were pressed firmly to mine. The stars awoke behind my eyes as they slipped shut. One by one they expanded into flares, shooting across the sky we were suspended in for those few seconds.

“Think of me, and I will answer,”he spoke to my mind. Then he pulled away, lingering against my mouth to say aloud, “Long for me, and I am right here with you.”

The door burst open, and in a blink I drew back with fright…

Nyte was gone.

“What the fuck did he do to you?” The threat in Zathrian’s tone was unexpected, and I dragged my ghostly, bewildered look to him. He was shuffling out of his jacket, and my lip wobbled at the tender gesture when he kneeled beside me and its warmth embraced me.

This was safe. Zath was safe. And real.

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