After he’s gone.
Starling flicked her eyes between Nyte and Ember, and her smile stretched. “Of course.” She patted one of Nyte’s horns. “I shall see you tomorrow.”
And then she was gone, leaving behind only her fading stardust.
Nyte bent and whisked Ember off her feet, cradling her against his chest. She’d only had time to slip her arms around his neck when the world blinked out of existence for an instant. They reappeared on the roof of her house, shadows dissipating around them. The cold breeze blew over her.
He sat down, crossing his legs in front of him and settling her upon his lap, keeping his arms securely banded around her. His tail draped over her leg and hooked behind her knee. Then his wings stretched forward and turned inward, folding around her like a blanket.
Ember looked down at them. It was like staring into an endless, starry sky. She trailed her fingers over his wing, tracing paths between the stars. When Nyte was gone, how would she ever look at the night sky without thinking of him?
“There,” he said softly.
With her eyes stinging and the pressure in her chest growing more immense, she forced her attention up.
Despite Salem’s ambient nighttime glow, she saw the sliver of moon cresting the buildings on the horizon. Her fingers kept moving on his wings absently as, barely breathing, she watched the moon creep higher, its silver light intensifying as it emerged. The minutes that must’ve passed felt both like an eternity and an instant.
She was waiting, she realized. Waiting for that inevitable change. For that shift, for the magic binding her and Nyte together to break, waiting to feel the sudden disconnect, the sudden emptiness.
Ember stared at the full, round moon, which was bigger and brighter than seemed possible, and she didn’t feel any change inside her. All she felt was the beauty of that sight. The beauty of the night.
She looked at her nocturnus. The only beauty she was interested in was that ofherNyte.
He was staring up at the moon, but all she could look at was him.
Her heart thumped in her chest, marking the passing seconds, and that tightness inside her only strengthened. Surely she’d feel something. Their tether was broken now, wasn’t it? Was he just going to…to vanish without leaving some part of himself behind? Or would he depart, taking her heart with him, leaving an aching hollowness in his wake?
Unable to hold them back any longer, she let her tears fall.
The corner of his mouth quirked up, and his cosmic, violet-blue eyes lowered to meet hers. That smirk faltered. “Ember…”
Drawing her closer, he combed his claws through her hair, trailing their tips soothingly down her back. “There’s no need for all these tears. You’re not losing me.”
Ember’s brow furrowed, and she didn’t dare let herself hope. Hope was such a terrible thing. “What…do you mean?”
“I’ve seen so much in my existence. Watched so many events from afar, so many interactions, so many emotions. And for a long while, I didn’t understand them. For me, thought existed well before feeling. Feeling…it requireddoing. Partaking. I’ve learned joy and sorrow, I’ve felt anger and betrayal, I’ve clutched at hope and drowned in despair. I’ve known fondness and camaraderie, and I have been consumed by lust.
“But there was one emotion that always eluded me. One emotion beyond my understanding, seemingly beyond my ability to feel. Sometimes, I’ve wondered whether it was real at all. And then you summoned me into your bedroom, and I felt…something. Even that first night. The harder I fought it, the more I tried to suppress it, the more insistent that feeling became.”
Nyte lifted a hand to her cheek, sweeping back strands of her hair and tucking them behind her ear as he wiped away the fresh tears with his thumb. “And now I know that love is real. I know because I feel it so wholly, so deeply, that it has become a part of my very being. I learned that from you, Ember. Feel it for you.”
Ember’s eyes flared. Her heart quickened, beating as fast as a hummingbird’s wings, fluttering within her chest. “You…love me?”
He smiled wide, fangs gleaming in the night, and his eyes shone brighter. “I do. When I said I was keeping you, I meant it. And since it’s not exactly practical to drag you to another plane of existence with me…it seems I must remain here.”
Nyte’s words echoed again and again in her mind, and she wondered if she’d imagined them. But no, they were real. He’d spoken them.
He loves me. Helovesme.
Ember threw her arms around his neck and pressed her mouth to his. She kissed him even as tears spilled down her cheeks. But they were no longer tears of sadness and grief, they were tears of happiness. Because Nyte wasn’t leaving her.
Her fingers clutched at his hair as he slanted his mouth over hers, returning the kiss, deepening it. Their lips caressed, their tongues stroked and entwined. Nyte groaned and lowered his hands to her ass, gripping it and pulling her closer until she was completely flush against him, her knees on either side of his waist.
When she finally broke the kiss, breath ragged, she touched her forehead to his, unwilling to pull away. Ember stroked the tips of his pointed ears with her thumbs and she smiled. “I love you, too, Nyte.”
A growl rumbled in his chest, and he pulled his head away. There was a new intensity in his eyes, a new solemnity on his face, a hard set to his features that spoke equally of possessiveness and protectiveness. “Know that I will not watch you grow old, Ember. I refuse to lose you to mortality. Refuse to have a mere taste of a life with you.”
He leaned back and lifted a hand to his chest. His flesh darkened, becoming a whirling maelstrom of shadow, which he reached into effortlessly. Alarm blared through her.
