Page 101 of The Girl Who Fell Through Time
His voice catches, and Selene reacts with something deeper than instinct. She pulls him into her arms, holding him tightly, as if she can anchor him to the present, to her. He’s rigid at first, but then he exhales against her neck, and the tension bleeds out of him, his arms winding around her, gripping her as though she might disappear.
“We don’t have to talk about it,” she murmurs against his temple. “There are other things we can do together. I don’t need… I don’t need that.”
She wants it—gods, she wants him. She never knew it was possible to want someone like this, like every part of her body was reaching for him, calling for him.
But more than his body, she wantshim. Dorian Nightbloom in whatever way he will let her have him.
Tonight, she convinces herself that it’s enough.
Dorian is very quiet on the journey back.
Selene doesn’t know what to say—or even what she wants.
He has said nothing more about Luna or the child she carried, nothing about what happened to them. Selene could press, but the silence around the subject is thick, heavy with the weight of something too painful to voice. And perhaps she understands that better than she’d like. There are things she has never spoken of either—things that would shatter her if she did.
Soren, at least, must know something. But how much does he know? Did he know about the baby? About how she died?
The thoughtunsettles her.
More than that, though, she keeps returning to a single question.Why didn’t Dorian marry the woman carrying his child?
It doesn’t make sense. Dorian is honourable to a fault. She’s surprised enough to learn he’s had relations outside of the marriage bed, though she knows things are often different for men. But if he had a child on the way, he would have done the right thing.
Wouldn’t he?
She wants to ask.Gods, she wants to ask.But she won’t. Not yet. Not when his hands are gripping onto the end of the seat so tightly, knuckles pale, his eyes fixed on the world outside the window as if he might lose himself in it.
Instead, she stares out of the carriage window, letting the quiet settle between them like fresh snow.
She has always imagined herself as a mother. She thought she would have children—little hands in hers, a soft weight against her chest, a life spent nurturing and shaping and protecting. That dream was never something she questioned, never something she even had towant—it was simply a certainty, like the sun rising.
And, unlike every other expectation that has been placed on her over the years, this one is actually something that Selene wants for herself. She’d felt the bitter disappointment of her monthly cycles for almost a year in her marriage to the Duke. She’s imagined carrying a child inside her, feeling it grow, holding it in her arms. She can’t imagine thatnotbeing her future.
But the thing is… she also can’t imagine a future without Dorian in it.
She tells herself that he might change his mind. That, in time, he might want a child again. Or that she might change hers. That she might learn to be content with a life spent withhim, even if it means letting go of that dream.
Would he consider adoption? Would he be willing to raise a child without the fear that whatever happened to Luna might happen again?
And if not—if he never changes his mind—would she be able to live with that?
Would she consider a life without carnal love?
Her first night with the Duke, he kissed her briefly and lay her flat against the bed. He kissed her for a short while longer, then lifted her leg up to his shoulder. He asked, “are you all right?” in a way that she knew she had to answer yes, in a way that made her think, later, that he thought himself a good person for asking. She hardly knew if she was all right or not, and she didn’t know enough of what was coming to give a fair answer. There was no softness after that. He never asked her what she wanted, what she liked.
She can live withoutthat.But things with Dorian had been different. She doesn’t want to be without that experience, forever next to him but not fully with him, whatever she told him last night.
The thought leaves an ache in her chest. She had never understood the kind of wanting she feels for Dorian, had never known that hunger before him. And now that shehas—now that she knows what it is to crave someone down to her very bones—how can she give it up?
The carriage jolts over a bump in the road, shaking her from her thoughts. Dorian shifts in his seat, exhaling quietly.
And then, after a long silence, he murmurs, “Are you all right?”
Selene turns to him, startled by the question. “I should be asking you that.”
His mouth twists. “You looked deep in thought.”
She hesitates. If she tells him the truth, will it make him feel guilty? Will he withdraw further? She doesn’t want to go back to how they were before.
