Page 19 of Thane's Demon
And that was the part I could not explain, not even to myself.
My handwriting grew uneven as I tried to describe the strange warmth that had settled in my chest the moment his eyes met mine. The odd feeling of safety in the presence of someone who had just crushed another man’s throat without hesitation. The inexplicable calm that washed through me as if his violence could not touch me.
I wrote until the words blurred.
The pen slipped from my fingers, eventually falling onto the comforter as I closed the diary gently. Pressing my hand over it as if to keep the secrets inside from escaping. Exhaustion weighed heavily against me, no doubt brought on by my emotions.
I lay back on the bed without meaning to, pulling my blankets up around my shoulders, feeling comforted by the warmth. I then let my eyes close and thought back to the mystery man once more.
Only this time it wasn’t the alley we were in, but some strange, dreamlike world washed in deep blue and purple hues. As if the city lights had melted into the air itself. He appeared at the far end of the street, walking slowly toward me, every movement powerful and controlled. His presence sent a ripple through the dream, making my breath catch. His eyes glowed faintly, not threatening, not angry, just watching me with an intensity that pulled me forward. I could feel warmth radiating from him, a strange glowing aura that made my heart ache with something I didn’t understand.
He stopped just a few feet from me, the air between us palpable with something unnamable. Something deep that made my skin prickle and my stomach twist. His voice, when it came, was a low rumble that seemed to vibrate through my bones. And just like in reality, he raised his hand to my face and caressed down my cheek, this time asking,
“Why are you not afraid?”
I didn’t have an answer for him, not understanding it myself. His touch lingered against my cheek, warm and steady, and something inside me loosened at the contact as if my skin had been waiting for that exact sensation without ever knowing it. His thumb brushed lower, tracing the line of my jaw in a slow, deliberate glide that sent a shiver down my spine. The dream thickened around us, the air growing warmer, sweeter, humming with a pulse I felt deep in my chest.
I didn’t pull away.
I couldn’t.
His body was only inches from mine now, close enough that I could feel the heat rolling from him in soft waves like he had just come from Hell itself. He was close enough that I could feel his breath against my lips every time he exhaled. A faint, smoky scent clung to him, one dark, warm and addictive. It curled through me with an ease that made my knees weaken.
His fingers slid from my jaw to the side of my neck, moving slowly, as if he were learning the shape of me by touch alone. The warmth of his palm settled at the base of my throat, not pressing, not restraining, but simply resting there like he could feel my heartbeat. Like he wanted to keep it steady beneath his hand.
My breath caught, and he not only heard it…But he felt it.
His eyes darkened, and his voice dropped to a deeper, velvet-soft murmur that brushed over my skin.
“Still not afraid?”
I swallowed, the movement sliding against his palm, and something low in his throat responded. A quiet, almost possessive hum trembled through his fingers. His other hand rose, brushing a stray curl from my face, the back of his knuckles drifting along my temple with a tenderness so gentle it made my chest ache.
The world around us pulsed.
He leaned in, slow enough that I felt every second of the distance closing between us. His nose brushed mine with the faintest of touches. A graze that stole the breath from my lungs. His lips hovered just above mine, close enough that the heat of them blurred thought and reason into a single, trembling ache.
But he didn’t kiss me. Instead, he waited as if he needed permission. As if he wanted me to choose.
His forehead touched mine before his voice came again. One lower this time, breathier, and carrying a softness that unsettled me more than anything else.
“Tell me…”he whispered, “Why do you look at me like that, when others hide in fear?” My pulse stuttered beneath his fingers as his thumb brushed the hollow of my throat. And in that dream-shaded world, wrapped in his warmth, surrounded by a closeness that felt impossible and inevitable all at once, I parted my lips to answer…
Before the dream wavered around us like dissolving mist.
I woke gasping.
The ceiling loomed above me, my room still dim, the faint hum of the city barely audible through the window. My hand was reaching out toward nothing, trembling slightly as the last echoes of the dream faded.
I pressed my palm to my forehead, confused, breathless, and flushed with a warmth that made no sense. I should have been terrified of him. I should have run last night. I should not be dreaming about him. Should not be thinking about him,writing about him.I had school, a life to figure out. Expectations I was failing to meet, a home that felt like a cage. I should not be letting a stranger, a violent one at that, take up space in my already messy mind.
But I couldn’t stop.
His name hovered just out of reach, unknown and yet strangely familiar, as if I had spoken it once in another life. Iswallowed, guilt creeping up my spine as I forced myself to sit up.
“You should forget about him,”I whispered to myself.
But as I sat there, fingers curling into my blanket, heart beating too fast, I knew in the deepest part of me that I would not. I could not. Something about him had already settled into the quietest corners of my mind, into the empty spaces of my heart, into the places no one else had ever touched.
