Page 180 of Tower of Ash and Darkness
CASPER
Laying here with Lailah in my arms feels like a dream… One I don’t want to wake from. Night has settled across the land, and as I glance at her, the soft glow of the moonlight touches her face. I notice every freckle on her perfect, beautiful nose. Though I joke about her being a princess, that's exactly how she looks—like she stepped out of a storybook.
Her blood red hair tumbles over her shoulder, and I pull the blanket up to cover her arm, noticing the goosebumps borne from the cool breeze of the evening. Her eyes, fixed on the sky, are filled with light, tonight reflecting a lighter shade of blue.
I shift closer, pulling her into a more comforting embrace. She nudges me with her nose and smiles, and my heart melts.
"So…" she purrs.
I close my eyes with a sigh, inhaling her scent, trying to commit this moment to memory forever.Frankincense and sin.Her in my arms, outside the cave, surrounded by nothing but the night and the stars above.
I shift closer, pulling her tighter against me. She laughs softly, and the sound rumbles through me like it belongs there. Her fingers traillazily over my shirt, brushing against my side, and when she tilts her head up, that familiar, thorny smirk arcs her lips.
“So,” she murmurs again, her voice rich with mischief, “is this how you kill your targets? Hold them close, wait until they get comfortable… then end it while they’re looking at the stars?”
I chuckle under my breath, shaking my head.
“Only the pretty ones.”
She clicks her tongue in mock disappointment.
“That’s a shame. I was just starting to feel safe.”
I glance down at her. “You are safe.”
She rests against me in silence for a long while, her breathing slow and steady, like she’s memorizing the sound of what safety feels like. But then her brow furrows, just slightly, and I feel the shift in her body—a question forming.
“Can I ask you something?” she murmurs.
I nod, my jaw tightening as unease curls low in my chest. Her voice comes soft, almost tentative
“Why does my father call you Ghost?”
The question catches me off guard, and I almost forget how to breathe. I draw in a slow, unsteady breath, deep enough that it tightens across my chest, but it doesn’t ease the ache within it. I stare past her, into the dark beyond the cave, where the stars scatter across the sky like things too distant to reach. I think about lying. About brushing it off. But something about the way she’s looking at me—open, trusting, unafraid—pulls the truth to the surface.
“I lost my way a long time ago,” I finally say, and the words feel heavier the longer they sit in my mouth. “I am dangerous, Lailah,” I say quietly, the words tasting like ash. “In ways you can’t begin to fathom.”
Her hand stills against my chest.
“There’s a darkness inside me… something cavernous and cold. And it’s not gone. It’snevergone.” I pause. “It’s what makes me the ghost of the man I should be.”
My throat tightens, but I force the rest out.
“The man I want to be… foryou.”
She doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak. Just listens.
“He calls me Ghost because that’s what I am. Not a weapon. Not a monster.” I finally meet her eyes. “Justnothing.”
Nothing. The word is unforgiving, but she’s still looking at me—really looking—and it isn’t fear I see in her eyes. It’s pain. And something far more perilous.
Love.
Gently, she cups my face, coaxing my gaze back to hers with a touch so tender it feels like it might break me.
“You are not nothing to me,” she whispers, full of conviction—so full, it hurts.
For a second, I can’t move. I just stare at her, held in place by the weight of her words, by the way she sees straight through everything I’ve built to keep people out. Then, without another breath, I lean down and kiss her. Softly, with no urgency, no fire. Only a quiet ache that sinks into my bones. Her lips part against mine like an unspoken vow, and in this moment, nothing else exists.
