Page 46 of Nyx
“Tell me what?”
“Why I did not want you to leave. How I wanted to beenoughlike you said I was.”
“Youareenough,” he whispers, and he covers my hand with his. Static crackles along my fingers and up my arm, but it doesn’t hurt.
It makes me feel alive.
It makes me feel the scariest thing of all.
Hope.
“You said there wasus,” I force myself to say. “At the rocks. In the before.”
He’s quiet for a moment, his fingers flexing against mine. “You said your life was in three worlds, and that nothing else was real until you were here with me. Maybe that’s true for both of us. My life starts now, too, you know. What I was doing before? That wasn’t living. That was barely surviving. Then I saw you, and I was alive again. I didn’t need a mark on my hand to know my place is beside you, Nyx.”
My heart swells, gorging itself on his words and keeping them safe. “You say this, but you don’t know me.”
“I havealwaysknown you,” he says, and that lightness that’s woven between my broken pieces flares, recognizing the truth in those words. “Stop trying to talk me out of this. You say I don’t know you, soletme know you. You don’t have to be alone. Not anymore.”
“I will try,” I whisper. “For you, I will try.”
He holds my hand until my breathing steadies, and after a long stretch of silence, he asks, “Can I ask you a question? About your past?” I nod, forcing myself to take another bite of my muffin as his thumb swipes over my knuckles.
His light finding mine.
“You had a mate?”
“Yes. I did, but it was…” I trail off, relishing the peculiar sensation of his hand on mine. Of a touch that isn’t harmful—one that isn’t hurtful or controlling. “It was not like this.”
“I didn’t know you could have… another.”
“Me neither,” I respond, letting my hand flex against his.
“Will you tell me about them?”
I nod as I rest my head against the wall, staring at the vines on my windows and the blue sky beyond them. “Some of it is fuzzy, but I will share what I remember. It was… a long time ago. Seventy, eighty years, maybe more. The guards changed often while the humans had me. They did not need many. I was the only one.” Reyes glances at me in question.
“The only prisoner. They had human servants to do their bidding, but they were not like me. They were not in a cage. Eventually they built me a cell, and new guards came to escort me. They were dressed in their fancy uniforms. Others were there. Important ones, watching me like it was an honor. It was a show… an act. They pretended I was the danger. Four of them moved me, surrounding me like a beast. I was so weak. So scared. I would have gone without a fight. There was no fight left.”
Reyes makes a quiet, pained sound in the back of his throat, and I squeeze his hand. “Do you want me to stop?”
“As long as you’re okay telling me, I’d like to hear.”
I nod and take another long swig of water. “Laurent was the guard who grabbed me. He led me by my arm to my cell, and I felt it. The energy. The mark came up later that day.”
“Was he… kind?” Reyes asks quietly, and I shake my head.
“He was excited for this mark, but not for the reasons you think. I did not have to speak their language tounderstand. No one knew what it was. Not even me. I had never heard this prophecy.Mates.The word meant nothing. But I hated that mark. I hated how it drew me to him. Laurent was… what is the word? He wanted power. To be important.”
“Ambitious?”
“Yes. He thought the mark made him special. Before, I was a pretty pet for the leaders to show off to their powerful friends. After? I was an offering. They studied me.”
“Laurent didn’t help you?”
My throat tightens again as I shake my head and take a sip of water to soothe it. “He was the one who held me down,” I whisper, and Reyes’s fingers flex as another of those quiet whines leaves his throat.
“What happened to him?”
