Page 17 of Bite of Midnight
“Isn’t it?”
“Maybe,” he admits. “But impossible doesn’t mean wrong.”
My heart thuds painfully. “I don’t understand any of this. Why me? Why now?”
He exhales, slow and steady. “Because I stopped believing she existed. And then you walked into my house wearing sunlight.”
I can’t speak. I just stand there, shaking, half in awe and half in denial.
He steps closer, close enough that the heat of him cuts through the cold. “You don’t have to decide anything tonight,” he murmurs. “You can walk out that door right now, and I’ll letyou. But if you stay…” His gaze drops to my mouth, then back to my eyes. “Then you’ll know what it means to be mine.”
My breath catches. I want to say no. Ishouldsay no. But my body doesn’t listen. My pulse hammers so loud it’s all I can hear.
Maybe this is madness. Maybe it’s fate. Maybe it’s both.
All I know is that standing here in this room, with him, I’ve never felt more alive.
Chapter 6
DAMIEN
She’s right. It doesn’t seem like it could work. Every argument she just whispered into the air, human and immortal, mortal and damned, is one I’ve made to myself a hundred thousand times. She’s fragile, fleeting, burningly alive in a way I forgot life could be. And I am… not.
But what she doesn’t know, what I can’t tell her yet, is that there’s a way.
If we seal the bond, she’ll change. Not completely. Not like me. She’ll still be human, warm, breathing, full of light, but she’ll carry a thread of what I am inside her veins. My strength. My instincts. My life. A hybrid of sorts.
And she’d be able to carry my child.
The thought hits hard, sharp enough to steal my breath. The idea of it, the impossible, sacred thing I thought I’d never have, feels too dangerous to even dream about. A child born of both worlds. Of her light and my darkness.
I watch her from across the room, her eyes searching my face for answers I can’t give her yet. If I told her everything now, she’drun. Not because she’s weak, but because she’s smart. Because she’d see what I am and what it would cost her to stay.
So I hold my silence and let her think it’s impossible. It’s safer that way.
She’s standing by the fire, her arms wrapped around herself. The golden light catches in her hair, and something inside me aches at the sight. Every instinct screams to go to her, to pull her against me until she understands she’s already mine.
But I stay where I am.
I’ve waited too long to lose her to fear.
“I know this doesn’t make sense to you,” I say quietly. She startles, like she’d forgotten I was watching. “But nothing about fate ever does.”
Her lips part, but she doesn’t speak.
I take a slow step forward. “You asked how this could work. The truth is, it’s not as impossible as you think. My kind… we’re bound by blood, not time.”
Her pulse jumps. “What does that mean?”
“It means there are ways to bridge the divide between us.”
“Bridge?” she repeats, frowning. “You mean, turn me?”
The word stings. “No. Never that.”
She studies me, searching my expression. “Then what?”
I step closer until we’re only a breath apart. The air between us hums, alive. “It means if we bond, truly bond, you’d be changed in small ways. You’d still be human, but also something more.Stronger. Harder to hurt. You’d share a piece of my world without losing your own.”
