Page 119 of Moonlit Nights & Northern Lights
And he smiled.
Not the warm, crooked smile I remembered. This was something else entirely—cold, wrong, hungry.
The world tilted sideways. My knees buckled. Behind me, I heard Maxwell say my name, but it sounded like it was coming from underwater.
Then Dev raised one hand and beckoned me outside.
17
Theodore
“Rory!”
The name tore from my throat, but he didn’t even flinch. Just stood there frozen at the window like he’d seen a ghost.
“Rory!” I tried again, louder this time.
Nothing. Not even a twitch.
When he failed to respond for the third time, I leapt out of bed, ignoring Freddy’s indignant hiss as I charged towards him. My foot caught on something—our discarded clothes—and I stumbled, nearly crashing into the wall.
“What’s wrong?” I demanded.
Fear clawed at my ribs. He looked completely vacant, like someone had switched off the lights behind his eyes. I wrapped my arm around his naked torso, pulling him against me.
Our skin touched, and his fear slammed into me like a tidal wave, so intense and absolute that my knees nearly buckled. It wasn’t just empathy or concern; I was experiencing his terror firsthand, as if it had bypassed my mind entirely and lodged directly in my soul. My heart rate shot up to match his, my breath catching in my lungs. For a long, disorienting moment, I couldn’t distinguish his panic from my own.
Images flashed through my mind that weren’t mine—blurred impressions of trees, movement—coming too fast to grasp. Then a scent—like the first rainfall after drought, when parched concrete exhales its relief—unusually strong, almost suffocating.
I pulled back slightly, staring at my arm across his chest in confusion. In my years as a telepath, I’d never experienced anything like this—thiswasn’t reading thoughts or emotion—this was something deeper, something else. Like our nervous systems had somehow merged.
“Rory, talk to me. What the fuck is going on?”
He lifted one trembling finger, pointing out the window into the darkness beyond.
I followed his gaze, pressing my face close to the glass. The Highland night stared back—pine trees swaying gently in the breeze, shadows that could have been anything or nothing at all.
“What? There’s nothing there.”
“Fuck! He’s gone!” Rory’s voice cracked like a whip.
“What? Who?”
Rory’s eyes were wide and wild, pupils dilated with shock or terror or both.
“Dev.”
I dropped my grip on him, shuffling away, just slightly. An odd sensation rushed through me—that stomach-dropping feeling of freefalling, the world tilting sideways beneath my feet. “What do you mean?” I asked quietly.
“Dev! I saw Dev out there. And he saw me!”
I stared at Rory, trying to process what he was saying. Was Rory… okay? Too tired from the day’s events? Had he hated what we’d just done so much that he’d manifested his ex--boyfriend to come save him?
“It was probably one of your family, Rory.”
“No, it was him. He smiled at me. Then he motioned for me to come outside!”
“Are you sure?” I reached out to touch his arm.
