She met me thrust for thrust in a way that felt primal. Animalistic. Like we were meant to collide, to claim one another. Like we were a force of nature that couldn’t be stopped, regardless of consequence or reason. Wave after wave rose from this collision, pushing us higher, closer, until finally, we reached the inevitable shattering point.
The cry that escaped her as she came ripped away what little remained of my own restraint. With one final thrust, I followed her into a place that was familiar by now, yet still impossible to properly put into words—an ecstasy that was somehow both light and dark, both a wild unraveling and a perfect becoming.
As we floated back down from our high, we both ended up lying on her wrinkled dress, bodies curved around one another.
At some point, I reluctantly blinked my eyes open. The relief coursing through my veins congealed into something heavier as I saw the bits of dark magic peeling from her skin.
After that initial display when I’d first kissed her, there had been no other erratic magic between us. She had been suppressing her shadows up until this point, I realized. An impressive display of control that had only slipped at that lastsecond, when her emotions crescendoed along with everything else.
Slowly, silently, we pulled apart.
She rose into a sitting position, calling her shadows back with easy, beckoning motions. My eyes followed her every movement, memorizing the way the darkness settled against her skin. Watching it disappear. I’d witnessed it a hundred times before; I don’t know why I couldn’t take my eyes off it now. Or why that dangerous itching was once more starting beneath my skin, claws of my magic trying to pull toward the surface. Toward her. A very different kind of desire than the one I’d given into earlier.
I pushed this desire down, and I turned away—even though I wanted nothing more than to just sit and stare at her, to study the flush still coloring her skin, the rise and fall of her breathing, the way she ran her fingers through her disheveled hair.
Getting to my feet, I started to dress. I could feel her watching me, the blissful fantasy around us continuing to unravel.
“Are you okay?”
I paused with my shirt in my hand, tilting my head toward her. “Yes. You just have a way of rendering me speechless, that’s all.”
It wasn’t a lie.
We both knew there was more to it than that, but we didn’t say so. Not just then. Instead, I sat back down beside her, and we both stared into the dying fire until we found the motivation to finish dressing, to make our way back to the palace and slip away to a proper bedroom.
I still had my doubts. It still felt like we were dancing on the edge of a precipice, testing our balance every time we got too close to one another. But I didn’t object when she asked me to stay. Couldn’t bring myself to.
“I sleep better when you’re here,” she said, turning down the layers of soft blankets and silk sheets. Her voice was so quiet I barely heard it. Like a confession, almost.
“Then I’ll stay,” I assured her, nodding toward the bed. I followed her into the covers after only a moment of hesitation.
Of course I’ll stay.
But I remained awake long after she’d fallen asleep, watching the clock tick away the hours and wondering how much longer we could keep our balance.
TWENTY-FOUR
Nova
Iwoke up alone, and for a moment I panicked, thinking of the last time Aleks had left me alone in the middle of the night, right before we’d clashed with the Void Order.
It proved to be unnecessary anxiety, this time; he stepped through the balcony door only a moment later, running a hand through his sleep-mussed hair. Despite the chilly morning, he wore only what he’d fallen asleep in: a pair of loose trousers slung low on his hips.
I allowed myself to exhale. Tried to let the tension drain from my shoulders. But my eyes were drawn to the scars on his chest, shining in the morning light. Scars that made me think of his early life in Elarith.
A life I now had to admit I knew entirely too little about.
I only knew he’d suffered as a child. That there were scars on his back, too—violent marks that always filled me with sorrow whenever I ran my fingers over them. What he’d actually endured, though, and for what real purpose…I couldn’t say.Which made it hard to outright deny the things Orin had told me.
But gods, Iwantedto deny them.
Judging by the dark circles under his eyes, Aleks hadn’t slept much, if at all. I offered him a sleepy smile. He didn’t return it. Instead, he stayed by the glass door, staring out at the pale dawn.
“…Is something wrong?”
He started to shake his head but then hesitated, picking up his discarded shirt from the nearby chair, turning his back to me. “Your brother stopped by earlier. He wanted to speak with you.”
“What about?”
