“How can it be love?” Ciaran asked gently.
Sawyer nodded, tears spilling.
“I feel it too,” Ciaran admitted. “My hearts....”
That made Sawyer laugh, and he brought his hand back to his brow. “Hearts. Plural. I keep forgetting.”
Ciaran couldn’t help but smile. “Yes, plural. All three now beat for you.”
Sawyer’s smile became wobbly. “I only have one,” he said. “But it’s yours.”
Ciaran raised his hand to Sawyer’s face, brushing his hair back, tracing his thumb along his cheek to wipe a tear. “I know it feels surreal. It’s fast and overwhelming. But it is real.”
He nodded quickly, eyes wide and glassy. “Love?”
Ciaran kissed him softly, sweetly. “Yes. Love.”
Sawyer put his head on Ciaran’s chest, and they lay like that, dozing, Ciaran tracing circles on Sawyer’s skin, basking in the raw and pure emotion of it all.
How this man, this very human man, had walked into Ciaran’s town and changed his life. Had changed him.
“I love you,” Ciaran murmured, trying the words out loud for the first time. Needing to say them. Needing Sawyer to know. “I love you, Douglas Sawyer.”
Sawyer lifted his head, smiling without the tears now. “I love you, Ciaran Brenner.”
Ciaran’s whole chest swelled with warmth and jitters, his hearts hammering. “Douglas,” he murmured again. “Do you know the meaning of your name?”
“I think it was my great-grandfather’s name,” he said with a bit of a shrug.
“Douglas means dark water,” Ciaran said. “So maybe you were always meant to come to Tenebrae. Tenebrae also means darkness.”
Sawyer hummed happily, content. “What about your name? Does it mean anything? Like handsome or gorgeous. Fucking hot, perhaps.”
Ciaran chuckled but it ended with a sigh. “Ciaran means dark red.”
Sawyer looked up at him then. “Like you in freeform! A beautiful red.”
Ciaran smiled at that, but it faded slowly. “And Brenner means to burn.”
“Oh.” Sawyer’s eyes brightened. “Your superpower. So your name is very literal. That’s kinda cool. Does everyone’s name mean something?” Then he pulled back, alarmed. “Wait. Do you all have superpowers?”
Ciaran’s smile was immediate, and he thumbed Sawyer’s jawline. “A superpower? Hardly.”
“Ah, excuse me. You have an exceptional ability that exceeds human parameters. Pretty sure that’s the definition of a superpower.”
Ciaran chuckled. “Not all of us have them. It’s kind of the luck of the draw, I guess. Fray, he can shock. Like, electric pulses. You’ll feel it in your nerve endings for hours.”
Sawyer blinked. “No way. Like an electric eel?”
Ciaran laughed again. “Kinda.” Then he sobered up. “And Otis. Hard to explain, but he has strength and power in short bursts. Nothing can stop him. Not even me and Fray together.”
Something flashed in Sawyer’s eyes, like he remembered something. “Ah. Carpenter wrote in his farewell note not to piss Otis off because, and I quote, ‘holy fuck’.”
Ciaran nodded slowly. “Yeah. And he only saw the human Otis pissed off. And that was because Hendrix broke his gaming console.” Ciaran rolled his eyes, and Sawyer laughed.
“Anyone else?”
Ciaran sighed. He could hardly believe Sawyer was so accepting, so nonchalant about the nonhuman stuff. Being so accepted made his whole chest warm. “Aurin can do this thing—I don’t know if I’d call it a superpower—but he can glimmer. I don’t know if that’s the right word, just what we call it, but he can make himself translucent with gold flecks. It mesmerises a threat, giving him an opportunity to strike.”
