Those lustrous eyes gaze up at me in anticipation, her lips parting, making my chest cave under the unbearable, torturous need for her. A rough groan escapes as I drag my thumb down the center of her mouth, knowing once I taste her, I won’t ever stop.
Like the ravenous void I’ve become, I’ll consume until there’s nothing left.
“But I did warn you, starling,” I whisper coarsely as I circle my fingers around her wrist and guide her arm toward the brass RA wheel, “that you should be fearful of celestial alignment.”
I flatten her wrist against the spoke and snap the cuff in place, locking her to the pier.
A flicker of confusion draws her features tight, twisting a sharp blade beneath my sternum.
“Orion, what—is this some game?” She yanks her wrist against the restraint. “We don’t have time for this. You’re going to miss your speech.”
I force myself to take a measured step backward. “I won’t leave you for long,” I assure her, retreating another painful step. “Just until it’s over.”
“Until what’s over?” she demands, testing the cuff again. “You can’t leave me like this. What are you talking about?”
“The eclipse.”
On reflex, she looks up at the sealed shutter. “I don’t understand?—”
“This is the only way I can keep you alive, Collins.”
Her gaze falls back to mine, real fear breaking across her beautiful face. “Orion, please,” she breathes, her blinks coming faster. “You’re scaring me.”
The drum of rain grows louder in the tense silence between us. Collins jerks her wrist against the right ascension wheel, the harshclanka strike against my bones. I fist my hands, tendons aflame as I fight the urges stretching my control.
“Whatever’s happening, you know I can help you. Just like the other night on the beach.” She licks her lips, desperation flaring behind her slate eyes. “But you have to talk to me. So we can figure out how?—”
“I’ve tried,” I say, throat raw, another weak thread of control fraying. “So many fucking times, in so many fucking ways. And, theoretically, I’m not sure this time will end any different.” A bitter, self-deprecating laugh cracks as I drag a hand down my face. “Fuck, Collins. You’ve consumed my every thought, become my every obsession. My research—something that’s been my sole fixation—no longer even matters.”
She stills, those intense eyes fused to mine, her chest rising and falling in rhythmic motion of the sea. “Your research,” she says slowly, unable to conceal the panic bleeding into her words.
“I swear,” I whisper harshly, “I’d destroy it all without hesitation if that would change anything, but—” I check my wristwatch, the creeping dials nearing position. “But when the celestial bodies align in syzygy, I can’t be anywhere near you.” I rake a hand through my hair, meeting her stricken gaze. “You just have to trust me.”
“Trust…that I won’t die.” The conflicted fear banked behind the turbulent swirl of gold and gray in her eyes doesn’t just devastate—it obliterates me. A crushing reminder of my limitations, of my failures. That the light I’ve been so utterly captivated by came from a star already gone, reaching me too late. Amemento moriof the cruelest kind.
Yet death takes many forms. Even if I manage to keep her breathing, I’ve already lost her.
A chord of anguish thrums through my constricted veins. Fury strains my muscles as I shove a hand into my pocket and swipe my gloved thumb over the worn brass of the astrolabe, unable to smother the licking flames of regret.
I’ve contaminated everything.
And standing here before her, confronted with that undeniable truth, I know there’s no coming back from this. But I can live with that. I can accept this consequence, so long as she’s breathing.
It’s not enough.
“It has to be enough,” I say through gritted teeth.
My jaw tightens, my thumb tracing the empty space on the star-taker, the missing piece like an open wound that won’t close.
I withdraw the instrument, gripping until the edges bite through leather. I let the snap of pain ground me as rage builds thick at the base of my throat. With a guttural roar, I hurl it across the observatory.
Chest heaving, I tap a compulsive count against my thigh in a desperate hunt for symmetry, for balance—for any goddamn pattern that will unlock another outcome.
“Orion.” The low utterance of my name slices through the battering tide, coaxing my tortured gaze back to hers. “Do you actually want to harm me?”
“No.” It leaves my mouth on a fractured breath.
A wave of relief breaks across her pretty features. “I know you don’t,” she says, and with a tight swallow, she reinforces her words. “I know you don’t, because you’ve never wanted to see me hurt. You stopped yourself from letting that happen right here in this dome.” Her gaze briefly flicks to the speaker cabinet in the far corner. “You fought that compulsion once. You can fight it again. You can stop this from happening?—”
