He didn’t hesitate after that.
Erebus brought his mouth to mine, tangling his fist in my hair and pulling me close. Pressed against him this tightly, and with nothing between us but the thin fabric of our robes, I could feel every smooth, hard plane of him. Every lean muscle. The power in his arms as he held me. The shifting of his thighs as he brought me closer still. We made it to the bed, somehow—he stumbled backward, sitting on the edge, and I moved to his lap, all too aware of how our robes had spilled open. His had slipped off a shoulder; mine had fallen open at the chest. He gently tugged my hair back, exposing my throat, and I felt both shadow and teeth graze my neck, tantalizingly slow, before he returned his attention to my mouth. I burned to do the same. To kiss him there, as he had done to me.
He groaned, completely unbound, the moment my lips met his neck.
I dragged my mouth leisurely down his skin, pausing at the curve of his shoulder and the hollow of his throat. When I next looked at him, his eyes were clear—bright and filled with wonder. And when we finally settled into his bed, curling into each other as if we could shield ourselves from the encroaching dark, we didn’t just feel anger, fear, or helplessness.
We felt, for perhaps the first time, a wild, reckless hope.
Eyes of molten silver, spinning slowly with shadows and starlight, met mine.
Erebus.
We woke in his bed at the castle, no longer at Citadel Evernight, but for a moment, we chose to ignore it. It was a mutually understood commitment to delaying the inevitable, but I didn’t mind. A minute longer, draped in velvet and silk as Erebus held me against his chest—thatwas what I craved. Even if our time was nearly out, I would burn this into my memory. I ran my fingertips down the side of his face, admiring his features that were no longer hidden by a helmet. His hair, no longer black but his usual moon white, curled over his brow and tapered just above his shoulders in a tantalizing sweep.
“Your white hair is back,” I whispered, brushing it from his temples. He shivered at the touch, leaning into my hand. “It suits you.”
“Most would say it makes me look like a ghost. Some bloodless, foul creature not meant to exist under the sun.” He lifted part of my hair from where it rested behind my shoulders, rolling it between his fingertips. “I’m not sure when the pigment faded from my hair and my skin. Maybe it happened the moment I stopped believing I might one day walk free.”
But while his hair had returned to what I knew it to be, his eyes seemed different. They were deeper, somehow, and absolutely radiant.
“And your eyes—”
“Are no longer the only ones with shadows in them,” he finished, releasing my hair before guiding my hand to his lips. “Look at yourself.”
A smooth, glass-like surface appeared in front of me, lifted by tendrils of his power, and I peered at my reflection. Sure enough, my eyes were now the same as his: silver and churning with shadows and stars. They would truly make us seem united in power and intent. If ever I encountered his enemies, they would discern my connection to him right away.
But I didn’t mind.
In fact, I very muchwantedto be associated with this haunted man made of shadows and stars. For so long, I’d sought nothing more than to run from the darkness—to escape Norhavellis and carve out a future for myself somewhere else. I’d dreamed of how wonderful it would be to live a life of normalcy and safety. Once, I’d even dreamed of killing this man who lay before me, pressing his mouth to the inside of my wrist.
But a life without hardships would never produce a girl able to fight Corruption.
An ordinary girl wouldn’t be able to traverse the Dream Realm, learn its disquieting secrets, and emerge stronger through it all.
I needed to fight. I needed to face my purpose with my chin held high, even if the future was uncertain. I needed to fight for Elliot, for my mother and father, and for Eden, too.
As soon as I shifted my attention back to Erebus, admiring his mouth and the way his hair fell over the hollows of his cheeks, the mirror retreated to somewhere else in the room. He held my stare, even as he uncurled my hand and interlaced our fingers, and by his next breath, our hands were covered past the wrist in matching black leather. They were a stark contrast underneath the delicate sleeves of our night robes.
I flexed my fingers, unused to the sensation of my hands being so thoroughly covered. “I’m assuming these are for protection to ‘remind us we aren’t in reality’?”
“You’re catching on,” he remarked, a brief smile lifting his expression and sending a warm, tingling sensation to my stomach. Then he murmured, almost as an afterthought, “But perhaps that is no longer the worst of fates.”
His chambers were eerily quiet; there were no demons screaming for their release, no Weavers waiting to interrogate us, no stars falling out of the sky. His castle was, for all it could be, still standing. It was just us, our spinning shadows, and a faint breeze drifting in from his balcony. But we couldn’t hide here forever, no matter how good it felt to be alone in the world, together.
“We aren’t in the Beyond, so let’s see if we can escape before the domain finishes shattering,” I said, beginning to sit up.Maker, this man was distracting. “I’m thinking we should try the main entrance—”
Shadows roped around my wrists, catching me off-balance and pulling me into a pile of velvet pillows. Erebus leaned over me, quickly replacing the shadows with his hands, and kissed me.
There was no softness or patience in his kiss.
It was all fire, teeth, and tongue—and the aching sense it might be our last.
“Not yet,” he murmured, covering my body with his. My robe hitched up at the movement, and one of his thighs pressed between mine, pinning me in place. “I say we remain as we are.”
My body responded to his heat, instinctively arching toward his hips as his mouth played possessively against mine. His attention drifted lower, trailing scorching kisses down my throat. When I was certain he was perfectly distracted at my neck, I threw the shadows back around him, yanking him out of bed by his shoulders.
“Stop kissing me like it’s our last,” I accused, standing to face him.
